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Smoke Eaters by Sean Grigsby

Impressions

Not quite reviews, I talk about books I read and enjoyed.

It’s obvious from the tiny details in Sean Grigsby’s book Smoke Eaters that he is a professional firefighter (a fact that his bio confirm) and he puts that knowledge to good use in this fast-paced romp through a future US where dragons have emerged from the earth and destroyed all but a few city-states.

It’s a breath of fresh air to see firefighters fighting dragons instead of knights (with both laser swords and lances, no less!). And it’s also a breath of fresh air to have a protagonist old enough to be my father leading the pack.

If you liked Flex by Ferrett Steinmetz, the pacing of the writing and the stubbornness of the protagonist will feel familiar… but not a big surprise since they’re both published by Angry Robot.

All in all a romp of a read.

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Day 238: Zzzzzz

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 238:

Long day. Tired. No interesting monster attacks. No interesting clay. Squids in my way all the time.

Going to eat some mushroom stew and go to bed.

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Day 237: More clay

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 237:

I think I mentioned before that I was finding some nice deposits of clay occasionally, especially near the water. It’s great for making dishes, fires well, doesn’t seem to have a lot of air in it… so I’m mostly making bricks out of it.

I haven’t decided why yet.

But I am considering setting down some roads between the various places I’ve opened up.

It would get me fired. We’re not supposed to leave any trace of our existence on the rocks we mine.

I’m not sure I care. Dragging tree logs and things like that from place to place in the mud is definitely not fun, and I’ve already altered the environment enough that I can probably be spotted from space just by the heat signatures of my furnaces, especially when I have all eight fired up to melt sand, like I do now.

So maybe roads. Because a brick house seems too fairy tale and a brick road might somehow lead me out of this place.

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Day 236: A poem

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 236:

Ah, morning! When a woman can sit on her porch
and watch the skeletons flaming in the distance.

Ah midday! When a woman can float in the lagoon
with teeming squid intent on getting in her way.

Ah, evening! When a woman can walk through the forest
clearing giraffe-corgis and giant spiders with her bow.

Ah, night! When a woman finally sleeps
to the restless pounding of zombies at her door.

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Day 235: Still sand

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 235:

Feels like I’ve been harvesting sand for years. The only thing that keeps me going at it is the fact that once I get as much out of this area as possible I won’t have to do it again for a long long time.

The weather here is always late spring. Never so cold that you need a heavy coat, but never warm enough to say that it’s hot. That’s nice if one’s looking for a way to relax with a beer after a long day. But when you’re working in it, you’ve got to be careful… too much hard lifting and heat exhaustion sneaks up on you because the air’s colder than your body temperature. Too much time in the water and you can go hypothermic from the body heat loss.

Still, I’ve been here for months upon months and the flowers bloom every day, so it’s got that going for it. Certainly worse ways to spend your impending death by violent monster.