I finished Accelerated Growth Environment a couple of days ago. I enjoyed it. It is a good length–sometimes a too-long story can result in a DNF for me–but the first ~third is pretty slow paced and then the rest is fast, to the point I saw the progress indicator and wondered how it was going to wrap up (what I actually thought was “This book must have almost no falling action,” which is basically true). It also didn’t wrap in any particularly clever way, which isn’t a fault, just something I’ve come to expect. (On the other hand, I’ve been accused of leaving my plots unfinished, leaving it up to the reader to imagine their own ending.) But the plot involves a religious cult, which, having been in one, always stimulates my interest.
More times than I can count, I’ve returned to fiction and realized I needed to make sure I didn’t lose the habit. I scanned my digital libraries for a new fiction book to pick up (why is that not a filter option in either of them?!), and my book collecting is heavily weighted non-fiction1, so it takes a lot of scrolling. I haven’t picked one yet. I opened Gravity and Grace first instead, which has been on my mind to get through. It turned out to be so impactful just in the introduction that I was compelled to post a big chunk of it. This morning it feels too heavy to dive back into.
But yesterday morning these delightful pieces of short fiction crossed my desk:
📃 A beautiful day on Colony 12
The author of the last two, Ben Werdmuller (who I have read on the internet longer than I can remember), is hosting this month’s IndieWeb Fiction Carnival. I have an idea, but haven’t figured out how to start it, so I’m posting this instead.
After posting this I realized I had purchased another Shiraki book, Wine for Roses and just not uploaded it to my e-reader yet. This is probably my move.
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Because said collecting is very aspirational; but then, I find non-fiction harder to finish. ↩