Saturday, May 27, 2023

Hyperion prologue and section 1

 Prologue

The bad guys are attacking the main place of the space good guys and we gotta get outa dodge

Section 1

They are out of dodge, specially the hegemony council is out of dodge.  He left on a giant tree space ship. They are going to the distant planet of Hyperion. He's a little surprised when they tell him only 6 people are on the ship.  It usually transports thousands of people.  He has a ship ready for him to leave after he meets with the others.

They have dinner and discuss that the shrike (this cult that appearantly has a god on hyperion that grants wishes.) Wanted these seven random people to come do this thing, I'm guessing in an effort to beat the bad guys.  So they're going to tell their stories.

First up, the priest pg 25

He tells a story that isn't even his story.  It's about some other priest that went to hyperion and found a long lost tribe of people that due to advanced alien technology were immortal.  The punchline is that they found these people and blew them up with a nuke.


Monday, May 15, 2023

The Black Prism ch 1 - 35

 Ch 1 pg 1 kip

Kip is our main character.  He's basically going grave robbing.  It just so happens that this is a HUGE mass grave that was the site of a ginormous battle.  He's worried about wolves, but what he finds is much worse.  At first there's a soldier.  Then that soldier is dead and there's a man with broken green eyes.  Appearantly this is a thing that happens and it is know to Kip that these types have magic powers and they go mad.  This guy promises he's not mad.  He also tells Kip his village is about to be attacked and its basically because Kip is the chosen one.

Ch 2 pg 11 gavin

Loving the chapter length so far.

Gavin is the white prism.  Assuming that means he can do ALL the color magic.  He's apparently Kip's dad, but he doesn't have any children as far as he knows.  Also guessing Kip is the black prism, which make him even more powerful than Gavin.  But that doesn't actually make sense if you know your light combos. 

Gavin seems to be the head of the evil empire that's about to destroy Kip's village. In case the village destroying isn't enough to make you think the evil empire is evil, they make a point to tell you that Gavin's clothes were layed out by a slave.  I think slavery is bad.  In case that needed clarification. 

Ch 3 pg 17 gavin's brother

In case you forgot, Gavin is the head of the evil empire and he's had his brother in a jail cell for 20 years.  What an asshole.  I hope his brother escapes and he and Kip kill Gavin.

Ch 4 pg 19 kip

Kip goes to the town dyer and tells him about the army that's gonna attack the village.  The Dyer tells him that his friends are fishing on the bridge into town.  He's gotta get them and get the he'll out of dodge.

Ch 5 pg 22 Gavin

I guess maybe he's not the worst.  He doesn't seem to be actively evil.  I'm not even sure the governmental body he's part of is evil.  They describe it as preserving balance.  Largely it seems to mostly be focused on stopping people from using red magic as that's the best magic for war and killing so people tend to overuse it.  Also he as an individual appears to have authority over two things, Jack and shit.  He's more of a tool they use for the rebalancing. 

Ch 6 pg 29 kip

Kip gets to the bridge and his "friends" are there.  Ram and the beautiful Isabella and Swanson.  Kip tells them they gotta go, but Ram wants to do sex on Isabella and solders show up and the two of them are spotted and shot to death with arrows.  Kip uses blue magic powers to try to stop some arrows, but it didn't help.  He and Swanson are doing their best to not be seen.  The hbic tells the army men they're here to kill all these people and burn the village to the ground.

Ch 7 pg 35 Gavin 

He's talking to some government chick that read his mail about his son.  Oh yeah, he is a piece of shit cause he's got his own brother imprisoned.  The government chick is an old lady called the white.  I guess she's really the one in charge.  Gavin realizes he had some dalliance in the famed whore houses of Tyrea Sixteen years ago.  That might be where this son of his came into being.  He realizes he was betrothed to a lady named Karris at the time and when she hears of this (Gavin is pretty sure the white is going to tell her) she will be very angry.

Ch 8 pg 38 kip

Kip has green magic powers and he uses them to kill some soldiers and the rest of the soldiers run away cause they don't wanna get killed by a guy with magic powers.  Kip stumbles toward the orange 🍊 Grove hoping to avoid the soldiers.

Ch 9 pg 41 Gavin 

Karris is a member of the black guard that is sworn to obey the white.  She has red and geeen magic powers.  Gavin says they're gonna do a mission in Tyrea and also take care of a blue Wright that's been causing trouble and they're gonna do it fast cause he's gonna use is magical powers to get them there.  Karris is amenable to this because otherwise she gonna have to spend two weeks on a boat getting to Tyrea.

Ch 10 pg 46 kip

Kip wakes up and hears soldiers.  He makes his way across a streM and into a cave to get away from the soldiers and their dogs.

Ch 11 pg 52 kip

Kip gets to a cave where his mom and Sanson.  His mom is dying from a hole in her head.  She makes him promise he'll use his magic to avenge her.  Sanson has an 

Ch 12 pg 57 kip

Kip and sanson keep drifting down the river and they witness a number of horrors but nothing horrible happens to them.

Ch 13 pg  Gavin 

Gavin uses his magic to make a boat fly.  Fun detail in the midst of that is that prisms only get ro live so long.  He mentions that he came up with the idea for the flying boat when he had seven years left.  So he's got less than seven years left.

Ch 14 pg 72 kip

Kip and Swanson are spotted by a bad guy wizard.  When he catches them, he tells them the plan was to take him alive.  But kip killed too many guys for that and now he's gotta die.

Ch 15 pg 79 Gavin 

They fly in their boat and fate takes them ro kip and Sanson.  But it's too late.  They can't save them.

Ch 16 pg 87 kip

Kip tells sanson to run thinking he can save him with magic.  It doesn't work out.  Sanson dies.  But kip causes enough of a distraction that Gavin and Karris kill a ton of bad guys.  Some guy shouts "what's the meaning of this?" All high and mighty and then he recognizes Gavin.  He's gotta be shitting his pants now 

Ch 17 pg 92 gavin

The king is not shitting his pants.  He is very full of himself. He thinks he'll kill Gavin and it'll be all good.  Gavin explains how big of a mistake that would be.  The king is all, ok then, give me the boy and we will go.out separate ways. Gavin tells him the boy is his bastard and will be coming with him.

Ch 18 pg 102

Karris reads the letter from the white and is exactly as angry as expected.  But even that angry, she doesn't murder anyone.  I mean, anyone new beyond the guys she already murdered.

Ch 19 pg 107

Kip comes to and Gavin tells him he's his son and karris is sick of Gavin and leaves.

Ch 20 pg 111

Kip and Gavin are escaping on the boat that they make go fast with their magic.  It goes well for a while, but eventually kip realizes he's super tired and in his exhausted state he flips the boat.  Gavin takes it in stride.


Ch 21 pg 124 Dazen

Who's Dazen you might say.  He's Gavin's brother. You know Gavin,  he's the one that just saved Kip.   So here I am thinking once again maybe Gavin isn't the worst and I'm reminded that he is cause he's got his own brother in a secret prison.


Ch 23 pg 127

Gavin slaps kip around a bit to show him his place.


ch 24 pg 130 Karris

She's walking through the town and seeing the devastation.  She finds she's angry at Gavin, not the king.  Which reminds her of a time she was so angry at Gavin she thought about going over to Dazen's side.  He must have been the fake prism.  So maybe everyone else thinks Dazen is dead and they'd be super pissed if they found out Gavin kept him alive.  She falls through the burnt out floor of a church.

Ch 25 pg 136 gavin/kip

Gavin talks at kip a lot.  But the punchline is that kip can go to magic school 🏫 or he can go with Gavin as he makes war.  Seems like Kip is leaning toward staying with Gavin.

Ch 26 pg 143

Kip and Gavin are on the boat and kip explains a lot of things about color magic.

 CH 27 148

Kip and Gavin make it to the place where all the magic people live. I will be calling this place Hogwarts.  There are magical black men there and kip will be know as gavin's nephew. 

Ch 29 pg 158

Kip and the magical black men do a bit of a play for the other guards and pretend kip floated in on a log and his master drowned.  Th magical black man named irefist broke his best blue specs in the process.

Ch 30 pg 162 liv danavis

Liv is from rekton. I wonder if she knows kip.  Probably not. She was part of the false prisms war and I presume came to hogwarts long before that.  Kip would have been a baby back then I think.

Liv's life sucks cause she and her dad were on the wrong side of the prism war.  She knows Kip's mom.  Oh, she does know kip. Maybe the prism war wasn't that long ago.

Liv serves a lady named Aglaia.  She's part of a group called the Ruskin.  They know about kip and they want Liv to spy on the prism.

Ch 31 pg 173 Gavin 

Gavin kills a blue man.  As part of the killing the blue man calls himself part of the unchained and says the bad king is involved. But then he declares that Gavin's brother is the one truly in charge.  Also there was a thing where they were talking and Gavin was saying there was no God because if there were they wouldn't have allowed there to be two prisms .  People have referred to gavins brother as the false prism cause he was on the losing side.  But it feels like a big reveal here that they were both true prisms. 

Ch 32 pg 181 kip

Kip and iron fist take a boat to the big island.  Kip is all "what now?" And iron fist is all "I'll come get you in the morning " and kip is a little uppity and iron fist is all "trust me, tomorrow you'll be happy you got the rest.

Ch 33 pg 188

Karris is talking to the guy that was gavin's brother General in the prism war.  They talk about her trying to infiltrate the king's army.  He points out that she's super famous.  She's not gonna infiltrate shit.  She comes to the conclusion that the white has betrayed her.

Ch 34 pg 195

Gavin tries to get back into his room at hogwarts in a secret fashion.  This is an exhausting process.  He gets to his room and his slave bathes him.  Her name Is Marissa and she's been his slave for a long time they have a sexual "relationship" and he wants to do her now but he's gotta go see his brother asap.  He goes through tunnels and stuff and the big reveal is that the prison room is constantly moving and he has to wait for it to get to where he is.  Awesome.

Ch 35 pg 204 kip

After spending the night in hogsmead iron fist takes kip to hogwarts.  There are many wonders to behold and kip has a million questions and likes to tell jokes. Iron fist doesn't answer questions and doesnt have a sense of humor. So it's not a very good conversation. 

Thursday, May 11, 2023

Recersion book 3 and 4

 Greg says this part sucks.  So we'll see how it goes.

Barry 11/6/18 pg 162

Slade used his dead memories to build the machine without Helena. 

I another timeline Barry went through the proper channels and raided Slade's office.  But someone else got their hands on the machine and started going back in time cause more FMS started happening.

The plan now is for the two of them to take out Slade and destroy the machine thoroughly so nobody else will ever know about it.

Helena 11/7/18 pg 169

Nice

They want to get up to the 24th floor cause that's where Slade is.  They get spooked walking up the stairs and go in on the 8th floor and they a woman and they tie her up in her hotel room.  Helena cuts herself.

Barry 11/7/18 pg 177

She used the memory of cutting herself to jump back from 15 minutes in the future.  Slade was waiting for them on the 24th floor and he killed Barry and Helena barely made it to the machine to come back.  This time they hit the lab first.  It doesn't go much better.

Helena 11/7/18 pg 185

She's got a shotgun on Slade and they're talking about the good Ole days.  Then a lot of philosophy talk about whether the machine is good or bad.  Then Slade says you won't understand until you travel like I've traveled. Then the lights go out.

Barry 11/7/18 pg 188

Slade runs for it and they're all in the dark and it's not great.  Barry runs after and finds slades dead body.  Thers tons of cops.  Gwen (remember her?) Is one of them.  Barry is all, tell your men to stand down Nd she's all, they're not my men.  Then some guy is all step out and talk to us.  Gives me teal Mr Anderson from the matrix vibes.  Barry tells Helena to run and he gets shot to death.


Helena 11/15/18 - 4/16 pg 195

I miss the expanse and its consistent chapter sizes.

The government has the machine.  Well, a very small DARPA group run by a man named Shaw who likes cinnamon altoids amd not respecting other people's personal space.  Helena is a prisoner, but they let her attend meetings. They start doing little things. Max 5 days in the past.  Stop a school shooting here, end a serial killer there.  Then hire ups find out and start giving them military assignments. This all seems pretty well contained until on day Helena gets a call from Shaw saying he's been ordered to send someone back a year to do an assassination.  

Then the tunnel she's in gets exploded.  Then she's fine.  Then a bridge gets blown up, then it's fine.  This happens over and over again.  Turns out someone hacked Slade's computers a year ago.  They sold the schematics to lots of people.   Every major government now has a time machine and a bunch of terrorist groups too.  That's what's causing this disaster loop.  Terrorists are going back in time to do terror and then governments are going back in time to undo the terror.  But wait, it gets worse.  It's on wiki leaks.  Anyone with the resources can create a time machine now.

Helena is sick of this.  She puts herself in the machine and goes back to her 16th birthday when her parents gave her a truck and she drove it to the convenience store. The description of this happening is spectacular.   Its like shes killing her 16 year old self.  So good.

Helena 10/15/1986 pg 237

Helena is happy to be back with the young healthy versions of her parents.  She's worried she might forget why she's here.  She writes herself a note in her journal that she's got 32 years to stop the climate.

Book 5

Barry 4/16/19 Pg 245

Barry and Helena live several lifetimes together and they never really get any better.  Lifetime after lifetime they try to do something different but it always ends the same way.  Nuclear holocaust. 

This changes a little when one lifetime Helena doesn't find him at a bar in Portland Oregon to start their life together.  

They talked about Portland earlier in the book, but i assumed it was Portland Maine because in the next sentence they mentioned his grandparents in New Hampshire.  

Instead he does what he did in his first life,  move to New York and live his whole cop life with a dead daughter and everything.  But when he gets his memories back he calls Jee Woon, who confirms a theory of Barry's that at some point, Slade figured out how to go back without everyone else getting dead memories. But he doesnt know how.

a few lifetimes later helena gets the idea to kidnap Slade.  In that life they're near San Francisco and Slade and Barry watch San Francisco get all blown up.  In that moment Slade tells Barry the secret.  You have to jump back into a dead memory.  Also to stop all this they have to go back to the beginning. Back to when Slade first used the chair.


Barry Antarctica pg 298

Barry is in a research station.  His memories start to come back and he recognizes Helena on a TV screen.  She tells him to wait till AL his memories come back before he watches the next part of the video.  She tells him she's dead.

Barry is planning to commit suicide and gets a good start at it after he sees the news that nuclear Armageddon is happening. 

But then he remembered what Slade said.  Go back to the beginning. He used the chair on November 5th 2018.  Barry has to go back and stop him.


Barry pg 311 November 4th 2018

He's back at the brunch at the beginning of the book with his ex wife as they celebrate his dead daughter. 

Lots of real emotional stuff at that brunch. 

Barry November 5th 2018 pg 322

I guess he flew from New York to San Francisco last night.  He goes to Slades apartment. He tells him the short story of what happened.  Slade tries to shoot him with a gun.  Barry snuck in earlier and replaced the bullets with empty shells.  I guess he kills him.  Hes got plenty of real bullets. That scene just sorta cuts off.

He goes to a bar where Helena is.  He sits next to her.  That scene also cuts off and that's the end of the book.  


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