Author: Eric Mesa

  • Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 107, April 2019

    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 107, April 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars SCIENCE FICTIONThe Archronology of Love (Caroline M. Yoachim) – This short story involves an interesting idea where an alien race has created a VR history, but to make an analogy with archeology, when you view part of the history,…

  • Review: Come Tumbling Down

    Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book has a more straight-forward narrative style rather than the more poetic one of the last few stories. Chronologically, it takes place after the events of Beneath the Sugar Sky. Books 4 and 4.5 are prequel novellas. In addition to completing (maybe?)…

  • Review: Juice Like Wounds

    Juice Like Wounds by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a short story that was posted to Tor.com that fills in a key story that was briefly mentioned in In an Absent Dream. Even though it was a key plot point in that book, it makes a lot of sense to…

  • Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 106, March 2019

    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 106, March 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars SCIENCE FICTION The Synapse Will Free Us from Ourselves (Violet Allen) – a story that seems (however horrifying) even more likely now than it did when this issue was first printed. I don’t want to give anything away so…

  • Review: In an Absent Dream

    In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars Another prequel entry in the Wayward Children series. I read this almost entirely in one sitting because I was transfixed. I love logic fantasy worlds and I loved the idea of this one where the world enforces a sense of balance and…

  • Review: Beneath the Sugar Sky

    Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book continues the story from book 1, not book 2. (Which makes sense since Down Among the Sticks and Bones was a prequel) We’re introduced to some new characters and get a little more background on some of the others. I…

  • Review:  Down Among the Sticks and Bones

    Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book serves as a prequel to Every Heart a Doorway but should definitely be read after that book in order not to spoil any plot points. The book elicits an incredible amount of emotion and I believe this is…

  • Dunedin Rotary Triathlon (May 2023)

    Dunedin Rotary Triathlon (May 2023)

    Back in December, before I was having any issues that made me think I was going to have to quit running, I signed up for the Dunedin Rotary Club Triathlon. It would be my first ever Triathlon. (It may end up being my only Triathlon) I set up a Garmin 12-week training plan and, when…

  • Review: The Burning God

    The Burning God by R.F. Kuang My rating: 4 of 5 stars R.F. Kuang brought this story to a conclusion in exactly the right way, given the story they were telling. This final entry didn’t begin as depressingly as part 2 (thank goodness!), but Kuang writes realistic fantastical fiction. Both this trilogy and Babel: An…

  • Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 105, February 2019

    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 105, February 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars Here are my reviews per story: SCIENCE FICTIONLife Sentence (Matthew Baker) – This story’s a real doozy. It’s about a potentially different way to handle criminal punishment. Because this is a well-written story, it’s not simple to decide which…

  • Columbia Gateway Duathlon April 2023

    Columbia Gateway Duathlon April 2023

    Last year when I was looking at potential competitions to participate in, it saw that RipIt Events had a Duathlon pretty close to the house. I figured it’d be neat to try out a Run-Cycle-Run event. This would end up being my first competitive cycling event. However, it was scheduled for about ¾ of the…

  • Excited about KDE Plasma 6

    Excited about KDE Plasma 6

    If you’ve been following my blog long enough, you know that the KDE 3 -> KDE 4 transition was a mess, but somewhere around Oct 2010 (2-3 years after the 4.0 release), it really started to get stable and become my daily runner. By Feb 2011, I was loving the fact that KDE Plasma 4…

  • Review: Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 104, January 2019

    Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 104, January 2019 by John Joseph Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars I think the only story here that didn’t really click with me was “With Teeth Unmake the Sun”. It was beautiful and I appreciated that, but it wasn’t my fave. “Midway” hit me very hard at this age. Endor…

  • Review: The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

    The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was part of the kickstarter that funded this book I did not immediately jump into this book (Sanderson’s Secret Project #2) because it was not a Cosmere book. (The Cosmere being the equivalent of the MCU for…

  • Going to Walt Disney World in 2023

    Going to Walt Disney World in 2023

    It’s been a while since we last went to Disney; five years, in fact. We were originally supposed to go in 2020, but then, a week before our trip, Disney closed for COVID-19. Finally it was time to go back and boy have things changed. Back when we just had Scarlett, I wrote a blog…