All Systems Red Review

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells are based on the concept that part-human, part-machine constructs will probably be just as self-aware as we full humans are. They’ll have their own wants and desires, and they probably won’t enjoy being ordered around by idiots any more than we do. Yet they are essentially a slave class, designated as property and without rights in most jurisdictions. If fitted with a functional governor module, the androids in this series only have limited free will and must follow most commands.

In All Systems Red, we meet an android that secretly refers to itself as Murderbot. Murderbot is a security-purposed construct, aka a SecUnit. All of the SecUnits in this story are property of the Company, a business that sells security and insurance packages, and which will, like most insurance companies, cut almost any corner to keep from spending money. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)

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Death Engine Protocol Review

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Death Engine Protocol by Margret A. Treiber is dystopian science fiction with a liberal sprinkling of body horror. Captain Eris, aka the Death Engine, is a tweak, a human genetically modified to have superpowers. Her superpower is 1) that she’s unable to stay dead, and 2) when she comes back and her body regenerates, she gains temporary powers that protect her from whatever killed her. Gunshot wounds equal diamond-plated skin, drowning equals being able to breathe water. You get the idea.

As a remnant of a US superweapon project, Eris has been through a lot. She’s sarcastic, angry, and completely done with it all. I can’t really blame her. At the start of the book she’s enjoying retirement and hoping for a peaceful (and permanent) death of old age when a mercenary tweak bludgeons her to death, regenerating her to her former youthful self and giving her cyborg-frying electrical powers.

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A Shadow Of Devastation

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Something has gotten into the habitat. The spaceport had always had its strange inhabitants, but this was a new, more aggressive form of invasion.

A Shadow of Devastation follows Bradley Radco, a not-so-ordinary cargo handler,  and shows a less Baron Cargo-centric (and less human-centric) side of KEL Port. It is the forth installment of the Shadow sub-series, following A Shadow Among Shadows, A Shadow of a Rumor, and A Shadow of a Presence.

The whispers were beginning to get to him. Radco paced the confines of his tiny living space: four steps to the far wall. Turn. Five steps back if he cut the last one short. He wanted to go for a walk, but KEL Port and its collection of habitats were under a lockdown order.

The whispers had started out as a sibilant rustling in the walls, a murmur in the heating ducts. Shadows moved in dim corners in ways that defied the laws of gravity. At first they had been few and far between; now they were a common sight. They were not in his living quarters yet, but he thought they would be soon.

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2024 Year In Review

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

2024 was a big year. In some ways it was a tremendously groundbreaking and exciting year for me, and in other ways (particularly on the national scale,) it was a pretty dark year. Here I’m going to focus on the stuff that’s closer to home.

Moving Forward

One of the things I accomplished in 2024 that I’m most excited about: getting over my burnout and starting to write again. It felt great to get back into the swing of things. The stories and creativity that I thought I’d lost turned out to still be there, and that was a massive relief. I have a ton of story ideas waiting to be written, but right now I’m focusing on cleaning up and finishing those that were already in progress. Needless to say, I’d be writing a lot more if I wasn’t also working a traditional job– but that’s the society we live in today.

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An Open Letter To A Coworker

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

This is a letter they’ll probably never read. But in light of national events earlier this month, there are a lot of people who need to hear this.

In the wake of November 5th, I have been checking in with friends and coworkers I know or suspect will be affected. Just a quick, “Hey, how are you holding up? I’m here if you need anything.”

These are people who shared their hopes and dreams, fears and concerns with me. They’re people who’re in groups who will be most heavily impacted.

This letter is not for them.

This letter is for the longtime work friend who, after I asked how she was holding up, expressed confusion about what that had to do with the election. “It won’t affect me,” she said. “It was going to be bad either way.”

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Part II – How Do You Fix Burnout?

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

If you’re struggling with the kind of burnout I experienced, or think you might be headed there, this post may help. Here are a couple of things you’re probably going to have to come to terms with, and some helpful tips to avoid winding up where I did and to help heal the damage if you’re already there.

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Burnout Part I

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Shortly after publishing Necrotic City, I returned to traditional employment to rebuild my savings. At the same time, I continued creating content for this blog and working on longer stories. It was sometimes a struggle to find time for all of it, but I still had a dream of fully supporting myself by writing, and I didn’t want to lose the progress I’d made.

Fast forward a year, and it had become apparent that the new job wasn’t much better than the last one. It was a miserable (and miserably unsafe) place to work, and I wanted out– the sooner the better. To that end, I gave Patreon a shot. I hoped that by increasing my workload for a time, I could build up enough of a following to replace the day job– or least get close enough to stage an escape.

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Review: The Loneliness of the Deep Space Cargoist

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Reading the back-cover copy for Loneliness, it’s not hard to see why I was intrigued.

A collision with space debris has left a gigantic hole in Inez Stanton’s ship, nearly crippling it. Inez is a cargoist, that rare breed of adventurer who takes to deep space solo, ferrying valuable cargo for the Tenth Great and Glorious Browns Company. Now she’s in a race against her own rig’s spaceworthiness, and that might not be the worst part.

The totalitarian Free Earth government has also lost a ship on this lane, and is intent on finding out why. The Company wants their cargo delivered and can make Inez’s life very difficult if she doesn’t succeed. With the nearest waystation three days away, death in the cold vacuum of space is a distinct possibility as well.

The clock is ticking for her to deliver her cargo. But will she want to when she finds out what she’s actually carrying?

Loneliness was a tough book to review. It has all the ingredients for a great story: a tough, capable heroine faced with high stakes and the vast, unforgiving emptiness of deep space. With her rough background and dark sense of humor, Inez is a highly relatable character.

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Review: The Fly on the Wall

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Recently I’ve been rereading Tony Hillerman’s mysteries. These were books I really enjoyed when I was younger but I haven’t picked up since, and I was curious if the writing would hold up. After all, some books I thought were incredible when I was younger are actually pretty bad in the cold light of today.

I’m pleased to say that Hillerman’s stories aren’t of that category. In fact, given a better understanding of the amount of work that goes into spinning a good yarn, I can confidently state that they’re excellent examples of mystery writing done right.

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The USPS Is Drowning

Posted on by Leland Lydecker

Your local post office is in trouble.

Problem 1: Volume

The volume of mail (letters, magazines, catalogs, and especially packages) that the United States Postal Service delivers in some areas has doubled or even tripled since 2015.

Officially, First Class Mail and package volume have generally been declining. (Source: Postal Facts: A Decade of Facts & Figures.) This doesn’t account for the fact that in rural areas and places with a high cost of living, shoppers have turned to online retailers like Amazon to buy household goods that used to be purchased locally.

According to Postal Facts, the volume of First Class Mail (things with stamps, like letters and bills) has fallen almost 50% since 2013. Meanwhile, package volume has nearly doubled from 3.7 billion pieces to 7.2 billion pieces.

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