u/Indifferent_Jackdaw

I have access to a co-op garden centre and lidl in my local area. Just wondering if there is any advice or words of caution about buying a big bag of daffodil/crocus/snowdrop bulbs from that kind of source. Are there more ethical and wildlife friendly options out there?

I'm also looking at sourcing some foncy tulips. The types with multiple colours and petal shapes. Should I just go straight to Dutch nurseries or are their good Irish options for buying those.

I still enjoyed the book overall. If you are a fan of the other books defo read this one. I really enjoyed the mystery and the overall exploration of the early history of the Empire. There are no spoilers in this discussion, but it won't make a lot of sense if you haven't read the book.

The issue which I had is there is a strong sub-theme around animal husbandry that I found poorly constructed. I actually completely agree with his larger theme in the postscript that the agri-food industry likes to hide behind the image of Mom and Pop farmers while being up to all sorts of nefariousness. I just think he weakens his point considerably because the worldbuilding in the book is so janky.

We open in bean fields that are somehow harvested by a cat like creature. Now immediately the mind jumps to civet cats (not a cat) who go to plantations of coffee shrubs in Sumatra, eat the coffee berries and excrete the coffee seeds which are commonly known as beans. It is a cash crop that is not used for large animal feed. However beans can also mean legumes, which are vines which develop beanpods. There is no clarity in the book which beans RBJ is talking about, I got the impression he used the civet cats as inspiration and then kept picturing coffee shrubs as he went. But berries or beanpods, both require a lot of manual dexterity and basket management in human harvesters. It is very difficult to imagine cats managing this with their paws even with fungus magic. The fact that RBJ refers to this as an easy task is frankly insulting to human harvesters. However that is all moot, because if the purpose of growing the beans is for large animal feed, which we are explicitly told it is, then it can't be a shrub, it must be a vine and you don't harvest the pods at all, you just cut the whole plant off above the roots, chop it up and mix it with hay or silage. No cats needed at all, either a few lads with scythes or a horse drawn harvester.

Now let's talk about what a drover is. Someone who drives cattle from pasture to pasture and then crucially to the population centre or transport hub where they will be slaughtered. This is why Chicago exists, ranchers from all over the prairie would walk their cattle to Chicago where they could be slaughtered the meat put on ships and sent through the Great Lakes to the sea and the East Coast. Then trains came and the transport hubs got nearer to the ranches and the stockyards grew up around the train stations. But you only slaughtered cattle for personal use on the ranch. It makes zero sense to have the slaughterhouses on the ranches in this world, the meat would spoil in the heat and the transport cost to population centres would be prohibitive.

RBJ also seems to trying to make an argument that working in a slaughterhouse will turn you into a psycho. I would argue that some Urban people are unable to think of animals in any other context than as pets. I think people involved in animal husbandry usually have a deep respect for the responsibility of caring for their animals. But we don't view farm animals as pets and slaughtering them doesn't erode our empathy. I would argue that some Urban people lack pragmatism. I once saw PETA protesting outside a ZARA and discovered that they were protesting boots with furry rabbit pom-poms on them. Except the rabbit fur had come from Australia where rabbits are an invasive species which ideally would be eradicated. I would agree that at the industrial level the feeling of responsibility is diluted and that is where issues of animal cruelty can really ramp up.

Overall in the book there is very little sense of this being a pastoral society. It doesn't feel semi-nomadic, not enough small children with sticks or nippy little cattle dogs herding animals 20x their weight, no chuck wagons, no drovers wives with a dairy sideline. I'm from a temperate zone so I don't know exactly how seasonality would work in a tropical zone, but there would be a time for calving, a time for mating, a time for flies, a time for mud. A time for being in near pastures and a time for being in far pastures and there is no sense of that in the book. And I know part of his point is that animal husbandry is not the traditional lifestyle it used to be, well in that case, why aren't there are bunch of unemployed drovers around the place. I don't care if you are a lawyer in Ulaanbaatar, three generations out of the yurt, a Mongolian is still going to be highly influenced by pastoralism, it doesn't disappear overnight. There are ways to create a pastoral society undergoing an industrial revolution but this isn't it.

RBJ had an agenda coming into this book, it is one that I partially agree with. I do think meat is an important part of human nutrition but I know we are doing awful things to planet to produce it. There was certainly a way to weave these ideas into this world that I love. But instead he cut into it, and wedged the ideas in there in a way that seems lazy to me. Not going to lie, lost a bit of respect for him.

It being school holidays where I am from, I've had some of my niblings around. And God help us all, they are all addicted to those Roblox/Minecraft videos on YouTube. They trigger every noise sensitivity I have, but also I do not trust YouTube to not autoplay something completely inappropriate.

Anyway I was desperately trying to find something else they would watch and clicked on the Puppy Place thumbnail. Thankfully, they loved it. A wholesome family who foster puppies and dogs until they can be adopted. Every episode is a different dog, with different needs and incorporates some kind of minor personal issue for the children of the family to work through. There is nothing here for an adult audience, but the kids 5, 7 and 9 absolutely loved it and I had peace of mind.

This Auntie is very grateful and I highly recommend it to any other Parents or Caregivers trying to find appropriate entertainment for kids this summer. (And before you come for me we were mainly going to the beach and playgrounds, but you do need that hour or two of tv time over the course of the day if you are to get anything done.)

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This book is getting is getting a lot of well deserved love at the moment. I think it is because it has the rare quality of very high quality craftsmanship while also being incredibly fun. The world-building is very good, the plot is very well executed, the characters are lively and engaging. Loved how being female was treated in this world. Loved the deeper themes of class struggle.

I feel the less you know about the plot the better. But basically there is a competition to choose an new Emperor and shock the candidates are real adults in their late 20's and early 30's rather than 16 years olds. I think of all of us who read and loved the Hunger Games twenty years ago will love this adult version. I also think The Lies of Locke Lamora is a good comp, where terrible things happen, but also lots of funny and warm things.

I have zero negative criticism. My only frustration is book 2 isn't out until October.

Was pretty blocked on SF and Fantasy for about a year. But my mood has turned around recently so looking for new books I might have missed in the interim. These are some of my recent reads so more in that vein would be welcome.

Demon Queen - Martha Wells - 4 Stars

Radiant Star - Ann Leckie - 4 Stars

The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgkins - 5 Stars

I've found myself stumbling recently and identified it is often when the POV shifts. I read widely and enjoy many genres, Lit Fic, Satire, SF, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery. I don't really enjoy near future SF, I very rarely enjoy Romance, and when I do it is usually when it has a social satire aspect to it. I'm wary of Horror because I'm a total fraidy cat but Shirley Jackson is one of my favourite authors. I do not enjoy gore for gores sake, like the Saw movie franchise type gore.

Some favourites.

The Dutch House - Anne Pratchett

The Goblin Emperor - Kate Addison

Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

Actress - Anne Enright

The Twyford Code - Janice Hallett (There is a change in POV at the end but the vast majority is the MC)

I who have never known men - Jacqueline Harpman

Listen for the Lie - Amy Tintera

Translation State - Anne Leckie (Multi-pov but there is always an exception to the rule)

No spoiler discussion of Platform Decay the latest novella in the Murderbot Diaries.

I love this world, I love Murderbot, I read this novella over the course of an afternoon and I felt like I do after a spa day. I felt soothed, I felt nourished, I felt relaxed.

Then I put my on my critical brain and my hindsight glasses. There are issues, the foremost being that it is a rethread of old ideas. Murderbot rescues some vulnerable people from a Corporation Rim facility. A bit of Rogue Protocol a bit of Exit Strategy. Except Rogue Protocol works because this is the Novella where Murderbot discovers who he is. Exit Strategy works because it's the old gang back together Murderbot discovers he has a family. There is no dimension like that to Platform Decay, we are not invested in the rescuees to the same extent, Murderbot isn't learning important lessons about itself, it's just a rescue.

Which would be less of a problem if it wasn't following System Collapse. Which I think we can all agree is probably the weakest installment of the series. Platform Decay is certainly a more focused and coherent story than its predecessor. But I forgave System Collapse a lot because I thought Wells was executing a realignment of the series. There were no new avenues to explore with Preservation. So she was setting it up for Murderbot and ART to become a team working for the University of New Tideland, kicking Corporation ass, with plenty of cameos from old friends. So to have this just be a side-quest rather than moving forward into a new dimension makes me extremely worried that Wells is running out of ideas for the series.

I really enjoyed myself in the moment while reading Platform Decay, the world building is great, there were some emotional moments. I had fun. But it is not at the same level as the first four novellas and I worry for the future of this series.