«The white crystalline substance was grainy, and it grew out of the human’s ears and mouth. I had to edge forward at an angle and then lower my head down to get a view of the human’s face. The skin had blue-white blotchy patches standing out against the light tan. That might be decay, and it might be the same process that had changed the Targets’ skin color and texture. I saw the eyes were blue.
And they were looking at me.»
I won't be lying, this moment from the book scared me big time and stuck ever since. I'm a big horror fan.
I've seen that fandom decided that alien remnants are fungi, though i've always pictured it as, well, crystals! But why not both :)
I had a lot of fun drawing all the nasty bits, so here's a full view:
My copy of the Murderbot novel finally arrived, and I breezed through the whole thing in just one day. I have so many feels.
Beware spoilers below cut.
So the entire thing with Thiago v. the Mensah-Murderbot relationship is very well done. I, too, went wait, what is the apparent problem? It’s nice to have a viewpoint character who is just as confused about why everyone is obsessed with relationships and sex. Friendly reminder that the best relationships are the ones where your friend is absolutely willing to hostage and entire planet via missile-armed, orbital based survey drones just to get you back so you can continue to exchange snarky commentary over serial media entertainments.
Which brings me to Peri/ART. I remember liking it before (especially given Murderbot’s assertion that astroid-prevention lasers = heavy, heavy firepower), and it was obvious that Murderbot liked it, given the continued presence of the comm-implant, but the breakdown over ART’s deletion (up to, and including, the attempts to not have a break) just sort of punches you. I mean, it’s written in the middle of a combat sequence (which is why Murderbot is justifying not breaking down, in addition to the general ineptness with emotions), but it’s like, oh honey. It’s okay to cry.
And the way neither of them really get emotions--Murderbot understands that they are happening, but is so allergic to really talking about them, and ART can’t really not bring them up, but is having to get advice from Amena just to deal with emotions that neither of them are really willing to deal with...
Though that last bit at the end really rips away any subtlety/questions Murderbot could have about that relationship. Plan A01 Rain Destruction “How vital is the body of water to your agricultural system?” indeed. And of course, the best part isn’t that Peri’s crew don’t believe it won’t do that just to get [it’s] SecUnit back (and that’s a whole thing on it’s own, that Peri’s crew knows enough about Murderbot to declare they are perfectly willing to trust Peri’s SecUnit offhand means that it probably talked about Murderbot more than a little), it’s more that they don’t think Perihelion’s weapons systems are strong enough to make that kind of statement. And then when ART informs them that it is aware of that, and that’s why its been attaching missiles to its orbital surveying drones, they’re not dismissive of the goal, or the emotions fueling the plan, just the, well, plan (to orbitally bombard a colony until Peri gets its friend back).
Can you tell I have too many feels?
And then, of course, there’s the hint that the two may end up being platonic life-partners going forwards? Or at least acknowledge as much of the squishy neural-based emotions that they have towards each other as they can each stand to admit?
Also, the idea of Murderbot going on to help with the whole legalling away the corporate power to keep other people from being things now that Murderbot is no longer a thing has got so much potential, you know? Plus the inherent squishy-feels of a future where Murderbot and ART get to keep watching serialized media and snarking at each other.
From inside the fishbowl of this transformation - a civilizational acceleration hurtling us toward a future that feels very different and very potent - it’s difficult to understand how much we have changed. In our behaviors and expectations, we are already very different than we were just half a billion seconds (15 years) ago. In another half a billion seconds we will be almost unrecognizable. What we are becoming will be incomprehensible to the people we once were. The language of sharing and connectivity we employ today simply did not exist half a generation ago; the way we both depend upon and conform to a world of continuous connection tells us that there is no going back. Even if all the devices vanished tomorrow, they have left a permanent mark on our collective psyche. Once connected, we are not easily broken apart.
THE NEXT BILLION SECONDS
From the first two chapters/posts of a book by my friend the tech thinker Rob Tercek and Mark Pesce. They promise to do two posts a week until Dec. 20 on the impacts of our "hypernetworked" world and how those dense connections manifest in dizzyingly varied ways across the world. A very interesting start.
