Landmarks ch 4 through glossary 4 coastlands

CH 4 the woods and the water pg 95

Roger Deakin wrote books about nature and exploring in forests and water what not. He's dead now, 2006. Before he died he swam in wild water all around the UK. Out author, Robert has always thought of water as an annoyance. Something to get around and avoid. But Roger inspired him to see it as something to be explored. So He's swimming all over the UK as well. On one such adventure he ran into this lady asking annoying questions and it turns out she was doing the same thing cause she was similarly inspired by Roger and had been listening to one of his audio books on her way to the loch.

Roger is also into forests. He built himself a log cabin. He calls trees rivers of sap, uniting his joy of water and trees. He's gone all around the world exploring different forests and seeing how different trees are in different places. Lots of details for different trees.

I wrote more stuff here and then the ap died, and I'm angry about it so I'm not gonna write it all over again. Also I ate some pizza and forgot to wash my hands and left a spot of grease on the book and I feel bad about that too. Anyway, Roger dies, leaves Robert as his literary guardian. Roger had TONS of stuff he had written or that was written to him.

glossary 3 waterlands pg 117

There's words from Welsch, Gaelic, Old English, Manx, East Anglia, abhain gaelic, welsh, Irish, Cumbria, Scots, North Sea coast, poetic, Essex, Yorkshire, Northhamptonshire, Galloway, Herefordshire, Kent, ecological, Shetland, Fenland, Lancashire, West Cornwall, geographical, Suffolk, Sussex, Cotswalds, Shropshire, Devon, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, meteorological, Doric, Exmoor, Shropshire, Cornwall, Nautical, Midlands and Glourcestershire

There's sections dedicated to moving water, pools, ponds and lakes, rain and storm, riverbed, riverbank, springs and wells, swimming and splashing, Water's surface and Wetlands.

chapter 5 hunting life page 139

This one's all about bird watching.  It sounds pretty baller.  I'm thinking maybe I should get into it.  Especially big hunting birds like hawks and falcons.  John Alec Baker wrote a book about falcons called peragrin cause they're the coolest ones I guess.  I remember as a kid there was some book they made us read that was about a boy in the woods with a peragrine falcon.

They talk about falcons dying in droves in the sixties due to the use of DDT and other such pesticides.  A musician that was a big fan of the the book Peragrin died of drugs at the ripe ole age of 23.  People reading books like this are inspired to do something about the problems.

Glossary 4 coastlands page 163

ocean boardering words from Manx, Gaelic, Galloway, Welsch, geographical, scots, east anglia, Shetland, nautical, SE England, SW England, Kent, Cornwall, Military, North Sea Coast, reventment conserveration, Hydrological, Lancashire, suffolk, Orkney, anglo-romani, poetic, sussex, geological, jersey norman, conservation and old english

different sections include Bays, Channels and Inlets / Cliffs, Headlands and Defenses / Currents, Waves and Tides / fishing and boats / lights, hazes, mists and fogs / the sea / shores and strands 

Landmarks ch 1 through glossary 2 Uplands

Ch 1 The Word Hoard pg 1

Words in the dictionary are changing. Specifically words related to nature are getting taken out and words related to computers and computer related things are being added. Words related to real things are going away and words about virtual things are getting created. But this isn't anything new. There are lots of old languages that had lots of very specific nature words. Specifically languages from the peoples that used to live in what's now the UK. Nobody speaks those languages anymore and probably long before they stopped speaking them people stopped using words like Amil from the Devon language to describe thin ice. But these things go back and forth. In the UK people might be removing those words but in other places they're creating new nature words. This book is all about places and their languages relationship with words describing the natural world

ch 2 A counter-desecration phrasebook pg 15

in which nothing is seen - short story about landing on a small island in rough seas

in which names are spoken - Peat and Moors. Mamba - Miles and miles of bugger all. Some Lewis Morland terms - a peat glossary. Words about peat and moors. Wisdom sits in places is a similar book about the Apache people of Western Arizona. Lots of use of the phrase placenames

in which language is lost - People don't speak much gaelic anymore. Toponymy- specific landscape words.

Enwhich enchantment is practised. Disenchantment - knowing that there are no mysteries. Idea: if we have specific words for parts of nature maybe we're less likely to mistreat it.

In which song lines are sung - AMEC wants to build a massive find farm on a moor. One argument in support of this plan in that the moor is a wasteland. The idea of the locals is to describe the detail of the moor with a counter -desecration phrase book. The moor was saved.

In which a baroque fantasia is imagined - this idea that natural vocabulary can be very precise. Then that idea can be taken too far. Can each leaf old a tree have its own name? Not practically. But there are details of nature that are so precise and we are not being nearly as precise in our language describing it.

Glossary 1 flatlands pg 38

Lots of words. Words about flatpands from Gaelic, Sussex, Yorkshire, Exmoor, Fenland, Shetland, Suffolk, poetic, Northamptonshire, east Anglia, north Yorkshire, Irish, Devon, Scots, Dorset, somerset, Herefordshire, Kent, Cornwall, legal, Cumbria, Orkney, anglo-romani, middle English, Welsh, Manx, Essex, agricultural, botanical, Galloway, Cornwall, ecological, Doric, jerriais, Cotswolds and west country.

Chapter three the living mountain pg 55

Mountains you, more specifically the mountains of northern Scotland. Ancient mountains. They used to be taller than the alps. But they've been eroded down over the las billion years. Nan Shepherd wrote a novel called the living mountain back in the 40s. Shepherd is a life long northern scotlandar. She spent a lifetime in those mountains and it shows in her writing. Lots of complicated ever changing Land in those mountains. There's also this idea that you don't just perceive that.mountain with your mind. You experience the mountains with your whole body.

Glossary 2 uplands

Mountain words from mountaineering, Gaelic, welsh, Cornish, Irish, Scots, Northamptonshire, Shetland, Irish, old English, Cotswolds, Kent, official, Sussex, Kent, Cumbria, Anglia, Exmoor, Dorset, Hampshire, hydrological, meteorological, poetic, Fenland, jersey Norman, geographical, Staffordshire and Galloway.

There's a separate section just for ice and snow. Another for slopes and inclines. Valleys and passes have a section.

Ciabola burn ch 40 - 56

 Chapter Forty: Havelock pg 402

They've got seventeen days till the ship goes down.  The colony ship only has four.  They have seen Basia welding on their ship and the Roci is threatening to blow them up if they don't release Naomi.  Murtry calls and says they have to protect the ship by any.means necessary.  The militia of engineers that were gonna try to board the Roci are.psy Ch ed to get real guns and kill the invaders.  Naomi says that's dumb and Havelock should just let her go.  Havelock agrees and unlocks her cell.

Chapter Forty-One: Elvi pg 411

What's the Fityani hypothesis?  

Elvi is running all these computer things to look into the little green things that are making them go blind.  The moon people are doing all sorts of computer stuff to figure it out.  It's all about Holden.  How's he different.  Genetically speaking he's got random genes than most due to the 5 dad's and 8 moms combining their DNA together to create the one baby.  Medically speaking it's the nonstop cancer because of the radiation he was exposed to in Eros.  Then it hits Elvi, he's taking massive amounts of anticancer meds.  That medication treats cancer by preventing cells from multiplying too fast.  Maybe that's why the little green things don't grow in his eyes, cause the cancer meds are preventing them.  

she calls Murtry to see if they can get more cancer meds, he doesn't answer, she calls Havelock and he blows her off because he's dealing with the current life and death situation with the Roci and his militia likely to kill each other in a minute.  So she calls Holden and Lucia (the doctor) to come talk.  She asks if they can use Holden's cancer meds to try to cure some.of.The folks that can still see a bit and see if it helps.  Holden is all for it.  If other people can see and do.some work he can take a nap.

Chapter Forty-Two: Havelock pg 422

Havelock puts on some armor and grabs Naomi and off they go.  He takes down some militia folks on the way with tasers and his beanbag shotgun.  They have all lost their shit so they're not hard to take down by a trained individual like Havelock.  They make it.to Basia and they're gonna get out.  Naomi asks Havelock if he wants to come with.

Chapter Forty-Three: Basia pg 433

He sees Naomi and Havelock and they all hide in the bathroom while the militia team shoots at them.  They go out towards the airlock with Naomi sandwiched between them since she doesn't have armor.  They make it without Naomi getting shot.  They get shot, but they're in armor so nbd.  The problem now is that there are guys outside shooting at the airlock hatch.  they call Alex to come get them and he asks if he should solve the problem of the gun guys.  Havelock says please dont.  They're idiots, but they don't deserve to die.  Alex points out that they're currently trying.to.kill him, so Havelock gets in the radio with the militia and tells them to stop shooting or Alex will turn them into red.mist.  They oblige.  Basia and Naomi and Havelock make it back to the Roci.  Havelock takes his helmet off and Basia immediately dislikes him more because he is handsome.

Chapter Forty-Four: Holden pg 442

Holden calls Alex to find out how the rescue operation is going.  Alex doesn't really know.  Basia isn't really communicating.  For some reason he switched channels without telling Alex what it was.  At this Holden goes over to Murtry, pushes him down and takes his radio and demands to be told what's going on.  He gets hung up on. He goes back to talk to Elvi.  The cancer meds are working.  Elvi can see shapes now.  Holden passes out.  Miller wakes him up.  He takes him through some hidden doors down below what we think of as the floor level of the alien ruins.  He's lead to basically single person sized pod, gets inside and falls asleep.

Interlude: The Investigator 452

Exciting things are afoot.  The investigator, who has taken Miller's form is good at reaching out until it finds things and then reached out to Holden to have him do stuff and then he can keep reaching out.  But he (it is more accurate, I call it he because Miller was a he) has found THE murder weapon.  He is gonna get to the bottom of this thing.

Chapter Forty-Five: Havelock pg 455

they have attached the colony ship to the Roci to try to tow it into a high enough orbit so everyone won't die.  It works until it doesn't.  The Dipshits at RCE have sent their shuttle to interfere. They blow it up but since they are towing the colony ship they can't dodge the debris that used to be the shuttle.  It impacts and Havelock is injured.  They don't know how bad the damage is.  They seem to still be towing the colony ship.  Basia is gonna go back down there to reattach a cable footing that broke loose.

Chapter Forty-Six: Elvi pg 465

Murtry asks what Holden said to get the last time they talked.  He is heading north at two hundred miles an hour.  Murtry takes a car and gpes.after Holden.  Elvi goes to ask Amos the same questions.  Amos doesn't have any more info than Elvi.  Well, he knows about Miller, but that doesn't give him more specific information as to what Holden is doing right now.  The last thing Holden told Amos was to keep an eye on Murtry.  Make sure he didn't hurt anyo ne.  Holden counts as part of that so Amos needs to follow Murtry.  But he can't find a working battery to power the car.  Elvi says she can get him a working battery 🔋if he lets her come along.  She does some chemistry and off they go.  Also Fayez hops on.  Good, I like that guy.  Amos isn't thrilled about it, but I hope he gets to know Fayez and comes to appreciate him the way I do.

Chapter Forty-Seven: Basia pg 475

Basia is welding some of the holes made by the enemy shuttle  shrapnel.  He goes back to the mechanics shop and it's a real tight fit between the inner and outer walls welding all the.little holes shut.  He asks what is there between the walls that made what should be an ample space so small.  They say it's a railgun.  The colony ship only has nineteen hours left til it drops into the atmosphere.  the Roci doesn't have the battery 🔋power left to lift the colony ship to a stabl e orbit anymore.  Basia has an idea.  What if we use the battery power from the railgun to power the ship's thrusters?  Naomi runs some numbers and realizes that won't work because they lose too much power transferring power between the batteries.  BUT, they could use the railgun as a mechanism for thrust.  That might get the job done.  But they have a new problem.  Guys in space suits are headed their way from the RCE ship.  The best theory is that they are going to try to kill them.

Chapter Forty-Eight: Holden pg 485

Holden hasn't slept for a week and he kinda slept on the weird alien train.  But now he's made it to the end of the road and he realizes that this wasn't planned out very well as he doesn't have any food or water.  Miller has taken over a protomolecule monster and he can use it to make light and speak.  This time s the first time Holden is heading Miller's voice outside of his own head since the end of book one.  This is huge.  If they can get back to camp or the ship or wherever Miller can talk to people other than Holden.  Holden rides on the protomolecule monster that's controlled by Miller to the dead spot.  It's a HUGE open underground space.  You could fit a battle ship down here.  Miller explains this planet was built to be a power plant.  Somehow they generate power here and then beam it to other planets.  

Miller is real worried about what they're gonna find as they go.  This isn't a random target.  This was the heart ❤ of this planet and it is currently dead.  Whatever killed this planet knew what it was doing.

Chapter Forty-Nine: Havelock pg 495

The RCE folks are heading their way.  Havelock is trying to talk them out of whatever they're planning.  All the while as they approach the Roci is firing the railgun for thrust and then thrusters to keep them going up away from the planet and not spinning out of control.  The RCE folks fire some improvised torpedos.  Havelock is able to shoot most of them off course and away from their intended target.  But one of them hits the Roci and Havelock is blasted away from the ship.  Basia comes out and saves him.  They get back to the Roci and more missles head their way.  They are again able to shoot down most of them.  But one hits the colony ship and the tethers between the two ships are damaged.  Basia is going to the colony ship and try to weld them back on.  Havelock is hurt real bad, but he'll cover Basia as he goes.  Havelock has had enough.  He tells the RCE folks that anyone that doesn't turn around is going to get shot in ten seconds.

Chapter Fifty: Elvi pg 505

They are following Mei and Murtry.  They get to the giant heart of the planet.  From the outside its a dome with tubes coming and going in every direction.  Elvi thinks of the tubes as arteries.  They find Murtry and Mei's car broken down.  They can follow their foot tracks.  Mei is out front Murtry has given her orders to stop anyone else from coming in.  Amos says either they go in or he shoots her.  She says there's worse ways to go than following orders in the line of duty.  He shoots her.  Murtry has been hiding out waiting for this and shoots Amos in the back.  Fayez punches Murtry in the face.  Elvi runs away.

Chapter Fifty-One: Basia pg 514

He's being shot at by the idiot RCE militia.  Havelock starts shooting RCE GUYS.  Basia and Naomi are trying to see if they can reattach the cables to tow the colony ship.  They cant.  They have the idea that they could save everyone on the colony ship with  escape pods.  Not much of a life being in an escape pod in space attached to the Roci, but better than being dead in a few hours when the ship plumets into the atmosphere.  The problem is the colony ship used all their escape pods.  Capitain Marwick gets on the radio and says the Israel has plenty and He d be happy to help.  The dipshit in charge of the militia tells the captain there will be help to pay if he gives the colony ship anything.  Alex shoots  him with the rail gun.  They get everyone off of the colony ship into the Israel.  Basia loses his shit and gets back on the Roci.

Chapter Fifty-Two: Elvi pg 524

Elvi is basically just running away from Murtry.  Every now and then her hand terminal detects his and she knows how far away he is.  But then she gets a connection refused from another terminal.  It's Holden's.  She kinda waits til her terminal pings Murtry's again and is able to hack it so she can triangulate Holden's location.  It works and she finds Holden with Miller as a protomolecule monster.  She screams as she's pretty sure she and Holden are about to get killed by the monster.  Holden says hi and introduces her to Miller.  Miller says hi.  Elvi catches up Holden on all the shooting and death.  Holden says Murtry being dead is more important to him than saving the planet.  So he goes to kill him and Elvi goes with Miller to save the planet.  They get to the middle and find what killed the protomolecule aliens.  Greg said to call them Romans and the aliens that killed them as Gauls to limit having to say protomolecule aliens and whatever killed the protomolecule aliens.  The thing left behind by the Gauls looks like “The eye of an angry God?” Elvi said.

Chapter Fifty-Three: Holden pg 534

Holden finds Murtry and they talk alot.  Eventually Holden shoots him.  He doesn't kill him though.  He's gonna drag him back to face justice.  Then protomolecule things start happening.  they both know it's because of whatever Elvi did.

Chapter Fifty-Four: Elvi pg 541

Miller is gonna call everything that's listening to him and then everything is going into the angry God eye/black hole that we think is the remaining footprint of the Gauls stomping on the Roman heart.  He mentions that there may be some resistance from the rest of the Roman collective.  They don't really think like he does.  They just survive and reach out.  The possibility of this going badly might result in the rest of the Roman collective Rey by to stop them.  

Boy howdy is he right.  Roman monsters start attacking him.  Elvi does a great job keeping monsters distracted and pushing them into the black hole.  Miller is incapacitated and Everything is covered in oil.  He tells Elvi to pull out he central processor and throw it into the black hole.  It's much too heavy for that.

“It’s like ninety kilos.”

So she has to walk into the thing carrying it.  She has the sensation of being pulled apart at the molecular level and being reassembled on the other end.  Holden is there and asks if they won.  She says they did.

Interlude: The Investigator pg 549

Miller is driving the Roman ship and as Elvi takes his core through the Gaul black hole he feels the connection to the rest of the world.  Power generation at the bottom of the ocean, giant underground cities.  He's connected to it all now.  The.other Roman bits are scared, but he says it's gonna be ok so they chillax.  And it's connected so it stops reaching out.

Chapter Fifty-Five: Haveloc 551

Havelock is down on the planet with the blue sky.  He's at the beach It reminds him of California, but without all the obnoxious people and advertising and what not.  Flash back to three weeks before.  He's in the Roci and his body is being repaired by the med bay.  Holden calls and tells Alex to try turning on the reactor and it totally works.  He checks some emails now that they've got power to spare.  He's being sued for wrongful death by the family of one of the RCE guys he shot.  He gets an email from the captain with a link to an earth article calling him a hero for the way they saved the colonists.  He calls captain Marwick and they talk about the whole deal.  Will this new planet work out?  Will everyone get killed by poison slugs in a month?  Will the RCE and colony go back to being combative and kill each other?  Will the supplies being sent from the other side of the ring get there before they starve to death?  Marwick doesn't care, he just wants to go back to Earth where he can have tacos one day and Thai food the next.

Chapter Fifty-Six: Holden 561

They're done in Ilus.  They don't have any more shuttles so the Roci has been doing shuttle duty bringi mg supplies from the Is real down to the planet. Naomi's knees are killing her, this is the only time she's ever been on a planet and even with a fancy robot suit, the toll it's taking on her body is emense.  Amos looks like a cyborg pirate.  They get out of the planet's gravity.  They let Basia go back to his family.  They have Murtry as a prisoner and Holden tells him he's gonna end up in a deep dark hole just like Jules Pierre Mao.  It's gonna take them two years to get back to Earth 🌎.  And at some.point during that two years they're all gonna heal up and Amos is gonna beat Murtry's ass.

Epilogue: Avasarala pg 573

Avasarala is on Mars meeting with a top notch Martian.  When they're done she talks to Fred Johnson.  Then she has dinner with Bobbie and things get real.  Mars is over.  No one is going to stay on Mars when they can go to a planet with breathable air and lots of wide open space.  Big problem is when Mars crumbles, what's going to happen to the fleet?  Where are all those nuclear weapons going to end up when the government that controls them collapses.  Avasarala needs Bobbie to come work for her.

stranger than fiction ch 15 160- ch 23 pg 233

Ch 15 Bodhisattvas pg 160

This chapter is about Michelle Keating covering 1998's hurricane Mitch. She and her dog Yogi are gonna sniff through the rubble to find the dead. Shes in the city of Tegucigalpa, where a large amount of the ten thousand  that died in the country are.  They find a family in a chineese resturant.  So many buildings have collapsed.  They find bodies under fallen walls and mattresses. They talk about her first search up in Keslo Washington.  This lady had been goin' all around and they found her body in a barn.  Her dog peed outside the barn.

Sometimes she gets involved in big searches.  Lots of people looking for a body.  This is not idea when you're searching with a dog because there's so much people scent around.  Also dogs don't go straight to a scent.  They naturally go in a Z pattern.  

In total they were only in Honduras for 8 days.  But it must have been a long 8 days.

ch 16 Human Error pg 171

This is about Brian walker from bend.  He shot himself into space In a home made rocket.  A rocket made of fiberglass powered by hydrogen peroxide.  

He's a toy inventor with ADHD and a bit of a backwards attitude about a lot of things if you ask me.

He married a Russian mail order bride and it didn't work out.

The Smithsonian says they'll put his rocket there if he pulls it off.

CH 17 dear Mr. Levin pg 185

This one is about IRA Levin who wrote Rosemary's baby and sliver and the stwpfors wives.  He presents horrible things INA relatively charming way.

Rosemary's baby is about abortion but je couldn't say that so its all metaphor.  That's how it was as a writer in the fifties and sixties if you wanted to write about progressive issues you couldn't just do that or you lose your conservative audience.  So you disguise everything.

But its still scary and charming and good.

CH 17 escort pg 195

Chuck goes on a date with a hospice patient.  It was a homework assignment from a churches giving tree.

His date lost his leg to a heating element.  His mom came on the date to all the wonderful places in driving distance.  She talks about him in the past tense.

Chuck does this sort of thing quite a bit.  Taking people dying of aids to Mt Hood, people with cancer to.the ocean.  Give them some good experiences with the time they have left.

He still has a box full of afghans that terminal peoples mothers or grandothers sent him as a thank you for being there at the end.

CH 18 almost California pg 200

Chuck has an infected cut on his head.  This is happening as he's in California working on the fight club screenplay. 

Don't use depilatory cream with a razor.

Chuck is really worried that if he tries to look good he'll still be ugly.  So instead he's making it obvious that he isn't trying to look good.  So he shaves himself badly and gives himself a skin infection.  

What a wonderful stranger than fiction way to ruin what should be the highlight of your career.

CH 19 the lip enhancer pg 206

Brad Pitt has great lips and chuck wishes he had lips like Brad.  Brad has a lip care regimen.  The only part of it we are told is that he licks his lips a lot. So he bought this lip enhancer that is a couple tubes that you put on your lips and pull apart and they suck your lips to make them plump.  This lasts about six hours.  But it didn't really work for Chuck.  At least he didn't look like Brad when it was done.  We're all trying to do something to look better, it's just a lot more obvious with actors like Brad Pitt that are paid to look good.

CH 20 monkey think, monkey do 212

Thus chapter is about people that have told chuck they've done things they saw in fight club.  It's also about people that make creative works and are worried that the bad things they put into their TV shows or movies might be copied.  Chuck's point seems to be that bad people are gonna do bad things and we shouldn't let that interfere with creative indeavors.  But then he sorta loses me as he's also critical of safety measures in general with the nihilistic idea that we can't possibly protect ourselves from everything so we shouldn't bother trying at all.

CH 21 brinkmanship 216

I'm not sure what the point of this story is.  Maybe the point is that it's pointless and random cause Chuck has a deadline to meet.

He talks about a super gross Portland strip.club he used to go to.  The story he already talked about already where a friend of his in med school let him sit in on a dissection.  What he adds is that this was her fourth shot at med school cause she already failed out three times.  But her dad was a doctor so she just kept trying regardless of how old she was or how much it cost.

The last time he saw his dad alive was at his brother in laws funeral.  The funeral home screwed up and brought the wrong body.  

Then how when he used to go to that gross strip club, one of the other regulars was a doctor and that was the closest thing to a doctor he had.  He tells a story about one time he had a bad kidney stone and said doctor told him if he didn't pass the stone soon, he'd lose the kidney.  He oassed it in his bathtub.  That bathtub still had a red ring around it from the experience.

CH 22 now I remember 221

Chuck has sent what he thinks are receipts for business expenses to his accountant.  Valentines candy and robotic singing birds.  His accountant asks why these are business expenses.  He has no idea.  It reminds him of the movie Memento.  He knows of people that kind of live their lives like that recording everything they do so they remember it.  Not just now, but way forward in the future.  He's surprised that the movie Memento didn't cause a bit of a Zeitgeist of recognition that eventually you're going to forget the things you know now and inspire a whole generation of people to meticulously record everything they do so in the future they will have a record of the things they can't remember.

Chuck has a wall full of filing cabinets he bought from freightliner for five bucks a piece when he left.  He's got TONS of receipts and story ideas and what not in those cabinets.  He can't really remember much of it if he's asked about it.  But if he goes to the filing cabinets and pulls it.out and looks at it, he can remember it.  This receipts were for a GQ photo shoot.

Ch 23 consolation prises. 227

This one's about chucks dad.  He spent a lot of time signing up his friends and family for sweepstakes entries.  Chuck will get these random things in the mail and know it was his dad's doing.  His dad died in 1999 and when Chuck was writing this in 2003, he still gets these sweepstakes prises in the mail.  His dad was killed by an ex husband of a lady he was dating.  She put out a personal ad saying her ex had been threatening to kill her and anyone she dated.  So Chuck's dad knew this was a bit of a dangerous situation. This happened in the Idaho panhandle.  Beautiful land full of some real backwards people.  The killer was also a white sepremecist.  Lots of white sepremecists in Idaho.  Chucks sister also gets these sweepstakes prises in the mail and she always cries cause it's another sad reminder of their dad's unfortunate passing.  She's the first one the police called.  She then called chuck and said their dad had been murdered by a white supremecist and she was gonna go in undercover to take them down and she needed Chuck to come back her up.

That didn't happen, they left the cops alone to do their job.  The guy got convicted and has been scentenced to death.  He's appealing.

Cibola burn ch 20 through 39

Th 20 Elvi

Elvi's in the bar. Shes making nice with Lucia. But all the while she's thinking that Lucia's husband is a terrorist that tried to kill her.  Lucia leaves and Elvi expresses herself to another RCE science guy.  This guy makes it clear to Elvi that she doesn't have any actual knowledge of what Basia did or didn't do.  There's a lot of opinion and not a lot of fact at the moment.  Elvi tells Amos taht she wants to talk to Holden about the protomolecule but they saw in the desert that one of the RCE jackbooted thugs shot.  It's not that she's just coming up with an excuse to be near him.  Cause it's not like she's totally 100 percent in love with him.  Or maybe it is.  Holden's lovable.

ch 21 Basia

The Rocinate shows up and takes Basia away.  Back up in orbit they basically treat Basia like he's part of the crew.  Talking about the shuttle that the RCE looks to be trying to turn into a weapon of some sort.  Either a bomb they can drop on the colony or a drop ship they can attack the Rocinate with.  Either way Naomi hates it.  She's gonna disable the thing

ch 22 havlock

Havelock is looking through the news from back home.  He watches some football highlights.  News from back home about the violence escalating on New Terra.  It says RCE killed between 7 to 16 people in the house they burned down.  talk that the OPA might start a ring blockade.  

They're gonna practice doing a breach.  They're outside in space suits with magboots trying to get tot he spot where they'll be trying to open up the ship to get inside.  paint balls and what not.  They turn off thier lights trying to stay dim.  But someone shoots themselves trying to also block out their battery light.  

They see someone welding on the shuttle.  I'm assuming that's Naomi.  They see they've been spotted.  The welding stops and they run away.  Havelock's happy he's not being shot at.  Now everyone is shooting at the welder.  Havelock sees her.  It's Naomi.  

interlude, the investigator

113 times a second it's trying to communicate with the creators of the protomolecule.  My thought is it's the protomolecule on the Rocinante that's communicating with the protomolecule on New Terra and that's why we're getting a lot more activity now.  This whole situation of constant attempt and failure is driving the part of it that's Miller is driving him nuts.    But it's learning stuff even though it's all failure.  It's making a map of what it can't communicate with.

Ch 23 Holden pg 230

RCE has naomi, Amos had the head RCE guy at gunpoint.  Holden says let him go.  Holden's gonna have to negotiate her release.  Miller shows up and tells Holden he needs him to go somewhere.  He's got pretty much the while planet mapped out.  Except for.this.one spot.  The hopeful idea is there's something broken ther there Miller can fix.  Not so.hopeful is the idea that whatever is there is fubar.  The scary idea is whatever killed the protomolecule aliens destroyed whatever used to be there and they might be there still.  Lurking in the shadows like a creepy creep.  Holden's going to bed so he can stay up worrying all night and tomorrow morning he negotiates Naomi 's release and give as to explore Miller's spot.  Amos has a super clever response to this “Nothing in the afternoon, then.”

Chapter Twenty-Four: Elvi pg 240

Elvi is having a weird dream where she's trying to turn in paper work but is stuck in line behind the governer who's waiting for his death certificate.  Fayez, this other scientist who is super cool and deserves to be named in this book report, is knocking on her door and she wakes sup.  One of the moons is melting.  Elvi goes to visit holden.  She finds Basia's son hanging out outside looking up to no good.  She talks him into going inside to talk to Holden to see if the kid can talk to his dad.  Holden says sure,bring over your handterminal and we'll get it hooked up to the ships network.  Amos tells Holden the kid was packing. Elvi starts talking to Holden about hibernation. That's basically what the protomolecule has been doing for a billion years.  But everything that's waking up is waking up broken.   Statistically that's o of the charts weird.what that likely means is that lots of protomolecule is waking up properly and it's going unnoticed because that's what it's supposed to do.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Basia pg 250

Basia's son calls him and they talk about stuff.  Alex and Basia talk about how easy it would be for Alex to blow this the RCE SHIP.  Alex tells.Basia his sad.life story.  Basically, he's a pilot and even when he should be retired and able to spend all his time with his wife, he just couldn't and so he signed up to be a long haul water pilot.  All this time we thought the destruction of the caturbery and the ensuing BS was the thing that killed his marriage.  Turns out he killed it long before that.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Havelock pg 261

Havelock gets Alex's message about blowing them up if they mistreat Naomi.  The captain wants them to return her so he's guaranteed to have his ship stay in one piece.  Havelock seems inclined to do so.  Havelock calls down to the planet to talk to Murtry about it.  Hurry says keep.her in the brig.  They have free reign to do whatever they want.  Havelock tries to convince Naomi they're good people and to tell Alex to back off.  In doing so he tells her that he was Miller's partner.  Small universe.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Elvi pg 271

Elvi is wat Ch ing butterflies.  She finds a dead one to inspect.She thinks it's not an a animal but a small protomolecule machine.  She talks to Fayez about it.  He's kinda losing his shit.  There's so many currently unexplainable things on this planet.  Like this gigantic volcano on a planet that doesn't have tectonic plates.  Kinda hard to do real science when your brain is interpreting everything as magic.

Elvi goes to visit the doctor.  She has a boy with Ann eye infection of alien origin.  he is losing his sight.  This is why Elvi was freaked out that the biodome didn't get set up.  This world has been infecting the people that landed here from day one.this is just the first time it's been really bad.  The current theory is that it's something in the rain.  Everyone needs to stay out of the rain.

Elvi goes to tell Holden.  Holden is busy listening to a message from Avasarala.  So she starts to tell all this to Amos.  The longer she talks the more emotional she gets.  By the time Holden comes over she's sobbing uncontrollably.  That seems like the right thing to do.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Basia pg 281

True to their word, the crew of the Roci has put Basia to work.  He's outside welding one of the arms on one of the middle bays.  They are keeping their eye on the RCE ship .  They can also see the colony ship.  Basia's daughter is on that ship.  Alex gives them a call so she and Basia can chat.  Super sad thing she says she will never see him again.

Remember that volcano Fayez was freaking out about?  It erupts us with the power of an atomic blast.  That part of the planet starts to concave.  Giant waves are going out in all directions.  They look like they are not going to slow down on their way around Ilus to wipe out all the people in the surface.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Holden pg 290

Alex calls and tells Holden what they're in for.  They get everyone on the doomed.planet together to talk options.  A lot of people want to evacuate.  They don't have that kind of time.  They estimate six hours.  They might be able to get everyone loaded on the shuttles by then, but taking off in the midst of a cataclysmic event has a very low chance of success.  So they're gonna wait it.out.  I'm the caves?  He'll no!!!  It's gonna flood and they'd all drown to death.  They can't stay in the huts.  Amos can kick down all of them in ten minutes.  The coming storm is gonna destroy all that in a second.  

So where can they whether the storm?  The alien ruins.  They have stood for a billion years.  They should be able to handle a storm.  Elvi has a table that makes water.  But we've got a family missing.  Nothing to do about it now.  The storm is here and all they can do at this point is hunker down and hope for the best.

Chapter Thirty: Elvi pg 301

They are hunkering down in the alien ruins.  Elvi is thinking it's just a matter of time before the storm destroys the ruins.  Then everyone is going to die.  The ruins hold through the worst part of the storm that lasts about fifteen hours.  Everything is covered with n mud.

Now that it's just a normal really bad storm Amos is going out with Wei (remember her? She shot the protomolecule monster when Holden specifically told her not to.) Fayez is also going even though Elvi doesn't want him to.  Everything is a blur of activity as Elvi tries to stay busy so as to keep her panic at bay.  Not sure when she tried to sleep,  but she wakes up leaning on Fayez.  They didn't find anything.  All that remains is mud.  There's no remaining evidence that people were ever there.

Chapter Thirty-One: Holden pg 311

Everything is horrible.  The whole planet is just thick mud now.  Kind of amazing it isn't too thick for people to walk in.  Holden saw a tornado when he was a kid.  Gave him nightmares for years.  This is soooo much worse.  There's little slugs popping out of the mud all over the place.

pPg 313 has a misprint, had terminal, lol

They go back to the alien ruins.  Things are worse.  The slugs are poisonous.  You touch them with your bare hands and you die.  Holden has decided we're all getting off this planet.  There's a bit of a tense moment when he delivers the news to the RCE dick.  But he agrees to help get everyone evacuated.

There's still three hundred pages left in this book, so I'm guessing this won't go smoothly.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Havelock pg 321

Havelock and Naomi are chitchatting about how to best handle this nightmare they're in.  Praying is the top vote getter at the moment.  One of the engineers in the militia team wants to talk to Havelock.  Lots of B.S. conspiracy theories.  When people get too scared to see things for how they are, they make up a lot of stuff to distract themselves from it.  Naomi and Havelock chitchat more about that.  Havelock takes a call from that dick Murtry.  He's immediately telling Havelock how the plan is to act like they are going along with the evacuation plan when really it's a chance for RCE to get their people in charge of the planet.  What a dick.

They load up a shuttle to send down with supplies.  The shuttle gets blown up in the way down.  From Havelock 's perspective it.looks like one of the moons shot it down.  He gets a call from the captain.  Things are really bad.  Havelock thinks maybe the moon shot them too.  Not that bad, but they're working on battery power.  The reactor has shut down, they can't get it running again and they don't know why.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Basia pg 332

all the ships reactors.are offline.  Nobody has any idea why.  It's just a matter of time until they crash into the planet.  But that time.is very different between the three.of.them.  The Roci has enough battery power to keep them up for years.  The RCE ship can go for weeks but it's gonna be hard because they have a lot of people on that ship so they will burn a lot of.juice keeping everyone alive.  The settlers ship is in really bad shape.  They have a few days.  This is driving Basia nuts.  He keeps demanding that they go save his daughter cause she's on that ship.  Alex says if he doesn't chilax he'll be locked in his quarters.  Holden calls and they tell him how screwed they are.  Holden's idea is they need.to convince the RCE folks to let Naomi go so she can help fix the problem.  Alex calls Havelock and suggests the idea.  Havelock doesn't seem that receptive to the idea.  But fur real I think he thinks it's a good idea.  He likes Naomi and would probably prefer to have her as a co-worker than a prisoner.

Interlude: The Investigator pg 340

The big reveal here is that the protomolecule is still vaguely aware of all the people it killed in Eros.  Also that it has killed Miller a lot as Miller has repeatedly gone outside the bounds the protomolecule set for him.  But unlike all the other voices in the protomolecule 's head, Miller still has a good idea of his identity.  Hat, lips and the desire for a beer.  But he doesn't really feel.feelings.like we hoped he might.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Holden pg 342

things are not very, things are very not ok.  The primary problem is the poison slugs.  They're digging a trench around what they are hoping will be a spot for a shelter.  They got a lot of people with no place to sleep at the moment.  Holden goes behind the alien ruins alone to see if he can have a chat with Miller.  Miller shows up with a get and as per usual Holden rudely cuts him off with a we need to talk.  They talk about how Miller is not in control of any of this.  But they can use the lessons from the ring.  No high energy, low speed and you're less likely to be seen as a threat.  Holden says he can work with that.  He tells Murtry that maybe they can parachute down supplies from the RCE SHIP.  Murtry is down, he's gonna get people to start working on it.  HOLDEN wants to call this guy an asshole.  He seems disappointed that Murtry isn't gonna argue with him.  Murtry is real focused on his goal of RCE taking over the planet.  He would be fine with killing all the settlers to make that happen.  But he's also ok with them.leaving alive.  

Holden goes off by himself to talk to Miller.  Miller continues to explain how useless he is right now.  He wants Holden to go north to the blind spot. The response is so good I had to copy and paste it.  “Miller,” he said, rounding on him suddenly. “I am so far from giving a shit about your needs I can’t even see it from here.”  But Miller is like, if we fix the dead spot, maybe I can help more.  Maybe get your reactors back online.  Holden is like, if you're lying to me, I'm gonna find that glob of protomolecule that's keeping you connected to us and take a flame thrower to it.

Elvi has been looking for Holden, more bad news.  Everyone is gonna go blind real soon.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Elvi pg 351

The green organisms that live in the clouds are a significantly bigger problem now that it's raining nonstop.  she tells all this to Holden and he's all like, whatever you need, we'll make it.happen.  Elvi touched his arm and he.put his hand on her hand. It gets her all hot and bothered.  she goes back to the RCE camp and talks to Fayez about her feelings for Holden.  She feel like she needs to go to him and tell him cause that's the right thing to do.  Also cause she can't think of anything other than Holden and it's really interfering with her work and lives are on the line. Fayez says that's silly.  The problem is that she's been celibate for the full two years of this mission.  Everyone else has been coupling off and boning and decoupling and funding someone else to bone.  Why doesn't she bang one out with him and see if it helps.  

when did they get buildings built so the have the privacy to have sex?  Well, they do it and it totally works.  When she wakes up she goes to her.microscopes and computers and is able to focus on the work without thinking about Holden at all.

Chapter Thirty-Six: Havelock 360

Lots of people back on earth are asking for co!me t on what is going on there.  Havelock has a canned response that's  basically, i. Busy ask RCE corporate for a comment.  He takes Naomi to the gym.  It's all lots of attitude.  Some against Naomi cause she's the enemy and some from belters against Havelock cause he has a better in.prison.  RCE Security a hole calls to ask about the drop.  It's on schedule lots of food and stuff to make water.  A hole says the next drop needs to be a permanent shelter that they can build without having to see it.  Naomi tells Havelock that a hole wants to build a nice tomb stone for the next a hole to come see when they're all dead.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Elvi pg 370

The problem with everyone going blind is getting really bad.  But there's a glimmer of hope.  Holden hasn't been affected.  Elvi tells him he's special and he thinks she's talking about her romantic feelings for him and he shuts that down.  She explains that it's not that, but that was a problem before but not now.  Now it's that he's the only one not infected by the green things and she needs all sorts of samples from him.  He immediately agrees to give her whatever she needs.  She's been working for ten hours without a break for food so Fayez brings her food.  He also brings her his feelings.  She says let's talk about pur feelings when we aren't all going blind.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Holden pg 381

Everyone is going blind and it makes it hard to look out for the poisonous sligs.  One guy had his pants covered in slugs so H Holden pushed him down and took off his pants to save his life.  The wind is causing the supply drops to land all over the place and they're running out of people that can see well enough to go get them.  So Amos is working on boo idling Holden a car to go get the drops when he's the only one left that can see.  Holden is telling Amos to go back in the ancient ruins (oh ,yeah, they are all still staying in the ruins.  Nobody has built any structures.) So he'll be safe from the slugs.  Amos says he can't take the whining sadness of all these people starving to death and going bl ind.  At least out here he won't punch anyone who annoys him with their whining.

Elvi calls and tells Holden to get back to the lab ASAP.  Murtry sees Holden and they talk about picking up the supply drops.  Murtry says Amos is a good mechanic and maybe he can build that car and solve that particular problem.  Bigger thing is the structure coming down in the next drop.  Murtry wants Holden's help convincing people to.help.him build said structure.  Holden is noncommittal on that.

Holden goes to the lab.  He's the only one that can see well enough to read the computer.  It takes a few hours fpr.them to get it all reported out.  They sent know if the data helps or not.  We’re looking for a needle in a complex organism.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Basia pg 392

Basia is using the time they've got left to talk to his family before the other twp.ships crash to their doo. And everyone on the surface starves to death.  Basia's talking to his son about all the horrors.  As horrible as it all is, the rain and lightening on Ilus is a wonderful thing to a kid that spent their whole life in asteroid tunnels, moon bubbles and space ships.

Basia talks to his daughter.  ShE tries to keep.it light and fun mostly stuff she's learning on the ship.  But he can tell she's scared.  Also the Roci did some.more math and figured out that ship has only got battery to keep them in penis for five more days.  They call Holden to talk about it.  He asks if they could try to tow it into higher orbit.  Alex isn't sure, maybe with Naomi's help they could figure.o it a way to do it.  So Alex and Basia come.up with a plan to get Naomi back.  Alex is.gonna launch Basia over there in an armored suit with a blow torch and a gun.  Here he comes.