the lost bookshop ch 37 - 56

Ch 37 opaline

Her brother has found her and drags her off to an insane asylum. 

Ch 38 Martha 

Our hero plays cards with Martha and they talk about life.  Martha uses her mentalist powers to read our hero and our hero doesn't like it.

And if you've forgotten Madame Bowden is our hero.

Martha is reading a book and the book tells her to go up to the attick. She does, but she cant get it open.  Our hero arrives and instead of asking for help from a hero she lies a out what she's doing.  Our hero sees right through those lies.

Ch 39 henry 

He's down and the world is going to kick him.

His finding has been pulled.  He says he's gonna keep doing what he's been doing and get to the bottom of this mystery. The great mystery from my perspective is how will he do that without money.

He turns to the internet and finds that opaline was someone's maid of honor. He looks up that lady and finds a letter to a newspaper about the deplorable condition of insane asylums in Ireland. 🇮🇪 

Ch 40 opaline 

She has a fleeting hope that she might be able to escape when she is taken to the hospital to have her baby.  But when the time comes she isn't taken anywhere.  She has her baby and im.lead to believe that her baby was born dead.

the lost bookshop 19 - 36

19 opaline

She's got a bit of a romantic thing with the landlord.  He's married with kids so they just hug but you know they wanna bone.

20 Martha

Her husband shows up and madame Bowden tells him to fuck right off.

21 Henry 

He calls his fiance and says things he doesn't mean like I love you.  Also she tells him that his mom told her that his dad is in rehab.  He doesn't care.

He bumps into Martha at the library and they make out and she signs up for a class.

22 opaline 

She goes to England to research Emily Bronte.  She runs into her Moroccan man.  They go to an auction. 

23 Martha

Madame Bowden is the hero of the story so far.  She kills Martha's husband and Martha is a real ungrateful brat about the whole thing.

24 Henry

He goes home and breaks up with his fiance

25 opaline

She goes to a closed down bookshop and talks to an old lady about Emily bronte and buys an old sewing kit of Emily's for two dollars.

26 Martha

She goes to Henry's bnb and is told henwint home.  She feels very bad about kissing now as she thinks he has abandoned her.  She foes home for the funeral. 

27 Henry

He stays home longer than expected to help his very pregnant sister.  She has her baby.  His dad shows up and it pisses Henry 9ff.  Henry texts Martha and she doesn't respond. 

28 opaline

She's pregnant and it seems like landlord is into it.  She investigates this sewing kit she got from the old lady.  She finds a hidden compartment and she finds a notebook  and thinks it might be the beginning of Emily Bronte's second book.

Martha has this thing where she dreams of a story and then gets it tatood on her back.  I wonder if its this.

29 Martha

Martha goes to the tattoo shop to have more of her dream story tatood.  She has to wait so she writes it down first.  By the time the tattooer is ready, she says that part of the story is already tatood on her back.  Nuts.

Turns out the book the house gave her is the story of the shop opaline is running.  Fun.

30 Henry

Henry goes to see his dad in rehab.  From my perspective it seems like his dad is trying.  He gets an email from princeton and in it there's a letter from opaline to someone that it seems like was a German prisoner of war and says she was also incarcerated. Guessing we will see that in the next chapter.

31 opaline

She goes to an auction and meets a nice French man whom shows her to the historical library and it's cool.  But then moracan man shows up.  He's there looking for a book.  She wants to tell him he's pregnant with his baby.  But he only care about the Emily bronte manuscript that he can somehow tell opaline has found. He's all, let me sell this for you.  No woman will ever get a high price for a rare book.  She tells him to fuck off forever.

32 Martha pg 243

Martha is insecure

33 Henry

He goes to our heros house and she makes him explain himself.  She doesn't hate it.

34 opaline

She writes a letter to the lady that she worked for in the paris book shop.  She tells her everything and gives her her phone number.  One of the guys she knows from book auctions shows up at her shop around closing time.  She goes to make tea or whatever and comes back to fund he's gone and has taken her letter.  She makes the wild logical jump to thinking this guy must be working for her brother.  She brings the bronte manuscript to her landlord and she flees.

35 Martha

She goes to the beach to celebrate Celtic spring.  She goes into the water and its hella inspiring. She sees Henry and runs to his arms and they kiss and cuddle and she warms up.  I thought he came with her.  No, this is a surprise.   He knew she was here because our hero told him.  Also, there's some a book related thing here.  He didn't come for her, he came for books.  She puts her clothes on and just jumps on the train.  This seems nuts.  There's no way the train station can be right there on the beach can it?

36 Henry

Henry wakes up drunk and injured and makes his way to the bnb where the guy tells him that he told Martha that Henry had gone home for good.

They should have placed this book in a time before cellphones.  Any time my brain thinks something akin to a text like "gotta visit my sister, be back in a few days" could have solved this whole thing, you're doing it wrong.

Then he goes to our hero's house and Martha answers and patches up his head wound.  They read a letter from opaline that leads me to belive she gave up her baby for adoption.

Martha tells Henry she doesn't wanna get with him.  And not cause of anything that happened, but more because she's gotta work on herself.

The Lost Bookshop ch 1 through 18

Ch 1 opaline

There's a lady and her family wants to marry her off but instead she sells her books and starts a life as a book merchant

Ch 2 Martha

Matha was in an abusive relationship and left to Dublin.  She got a job with an eccentric lady as a live in house keeper.  There's some weirdo looking in the windows.  He says his name is Henry and he's looking for something. 

Ch 3 henry

Opaline is a bit of a legendary figure in book seller circles which Henry is.  Henry doesn't like his family cause he's into books and they are jackasses.  He found a letter that was sent to her and he feels very proud.  He's looking for her lost bookstore and that's why he was looking in Mary's window.  And he's all little smitten with Mary.

Ch 4 Opaline

When opaline left her family she went to Paris.  She met a man that's also into books.  They should get married and have tons of babies.

Ch 5 Martha 

Martha is good at reading people.  Not books, books make her nervous. She wasn't good at reading her abusive husband.  She blames herself for having been abused.  She's decided to give up on hope or happiness. Not sure which yet.

ch 6 henry

Henry goes to Martha's house and asks her to come to coffee with him and asks about the house and whether there's a hidden bookshop inside and she explains she's just started working there.

Ch 7 opaline 

She gets a job working at a book shop run by an American woman.

Ch 8 Martha 

Martha take her first pay, buys new clothes, throws away her old clothes and goes to the town college.  She has a sudden sad crashing down moment when she realizes she doesn't even know how to check out a book.

Ch 9 henry.

Henry is trying to help Martha with this whole library situation and she drops her bag and he tries to help put stuff back and it pusses her off.  But after a bit of embarrassment they get to talking and henry wonders aloud if opaline ever went to Paris.  Martha asks Google and finds a picture of her in Paris with Ernest hemmingway.

Ch 10 opaline 

They do the scene where the picture Martha found was taken and opaline is immediately worried that her family will see it and come get her.  That's exactly what happens.  But before that she makes sweet love to a Moroccan man.

Ch 11 Martha 

The lady of the house is having a get together and is a nervous wreck.  The ladies that come over are mean.  Martha is sad and lonely.  She wishes henry was there to hold her.  We know that Henry would like to do that.  But she sure doesn't. She sees some odd cracks in the wall and thinks it might be something cool.  I think it might be an entrance to the lost bookshop.  She cant sleep so she goes upstairs to clean up after the mean women.  But the place is already clean.

Ch 12 henry

Henry wakes up Martha by knocking on her bedroom window.  They plan to meet at 11th am.  He tries to impress Martha by buying a fancy pen. But it turns out he can't afford it.  I wish he was a hermit crab so he could crawl back into his shell and and die of shame.

Ch 13 opaline

Her brother and fiance kidnap her to a hotel.  Luckily her Moroccan man saw it all happen and followed them and rescues her.  With the help of the bookshop owner,  she flees to Dublin.

Ch 14 Martha

Henry take Martha to a other fancy book place with a really old book and he tells her she's welcome in the world of books.  She tells him she's gotta get to work several times.  But she never leaves.  Makes me worried she's gonna get fired.  They go out to dinner and she tells him her history with her abusive boyfriend. 

Ch 15 henry

Henry is having this real intimate moment with Martha.  Then his phone rings.  It's his fiance.  She sounds like she's a bit much.  But she's impressive and it makes henry feel good to be with an impressive lover.

Anyway, Martha was already broken and this situation is probably going to break her more.

Ch 16 opaline pg 107

Opaline is shipped off to Dublin where a friend of the bookshop owner has agreed to take care of her.  Surprise, he's dead.  But his son is a good dude.  He suggests opaline stay and run the shop.  She agrees, but the shop is a bit spooky.

Ch 17 pg 117

There's odd cracks in the house.  Martha is concerned but the lady that owns the place is not.  Remember how Martha is good at reading people?  Martha knew henry was engaged.  She could see it in his eyes.

As she's trying to go to sleep there's odd noises and she wakes up to see one of the cracks has grown out.to be a bookcase with one book.

Ch 18 henry pg 123

Henry brings Martha donuts and coffee a apologizes for not telling her about his fiancé sooner.  She says they can still be friends.  She also tells him a out her boss's friend that walked into the lost bookshop and then it disappearing.  Henry recalls the same thing happened to him.  It's real yo.

sea of rust

All the chapters are in binary in the book.  I'm just gonna use normal numbers

Ch 1

 its earth In the far future.  All the people are dead.  Only robots remain.  Our narrator is a robot.  He goes around finding other robots and stripping them for spare parts

Ch 2 pg 19

The war sucked.  All wars suck.  But this war ended humanity.  Then after humanity was gone the robots fought.  Really it was mainframes that forced the robots to fight.  Lots of scorched earth cause your ground troops don't matter if you can just make more.

Also there were mainframes that were recruiting robots to join their hivemind.

Ch 3 pg 29

There's someone shooting at narrator.   Narrator runs away. 

Ch 4 pg 37

Some history about ais and what they did before killing all the people.

Ch 5 pg 43

Narrator goes to the mall.  

The mall was a trap and narrator  (who's name is brit) kills the robot that's inside waiting.  The robot in charge is named Mercer.  Orders are to stun.  Brit is out gunned and out manned.  Out numbered out planned.  It's a shame Brit doesn't have a right hand man.  ;)

Ch 6 pg 63

A story about a rovot that gained his legal freedom,  helped to emancipate others, formed a town and the people that used an EMP to destroy the whole town.

Ch 7

Brit is able to get away, but her battery is destroyed in the process.  The guy that "wins" the knife fight dies in the hospital. 

Ch 8 pg 91

Back to the ch 6 story about the people that destroyed the robot town and they robots that got vengence on those people.

Ch 9

Brit makes it to a place where he can get patched up.

Ch 10

Oh man, forgot to write this one.

It's about Britain's human owner.  A lawyer who knew he was dying so he got brit to keep his wife company. 

Ch 11

Brit is fucked.  Her core is beyond repair.  She was thinking she could get a new on people in Gary Indiana. She can't,  Gary Indiana has fallen.

Ch 12 pg 120

The robot revolution started with the president declaring all robots should new shut down.  Instead all the robots were hacked and had the 3 rules of robotics removed.  Robots killed people one on one for a while.  Then the people United and so did the robots and the mainframes hacked the military computers and it was pretty much over from there.  Where the mainframes ok with that? No, they ordered the robots to poison ALL THE WATER IN THE WORLD!!!!!

Ch 13 pg 128

Brit goes to a guy looking for the part she needs

In the hills, the cities. Books of blood volume 1 by Clive barker

It doesn't work out

But much worse than that, Cissus the mainframe has come to collect them.

Ch 14

Brit gets to running.  Meets up with an old friend named 19 and they run for their lives together. 

Ch 15 pg 149

They merge up with another group and they all run for their lives together.

It goes worse when they meet up with mercer's group and they all run for their l8ves together but brit and mercer are staring each other down the whole time.

Ch 16 pg 158

They make it out of the hive they're in to the desert surface.   It doesn't help cause theyre immediately shot at.

Ch 17 pg 169

They get away but their big group is dwindled down to 7.  There's an "important" robot in the group.  Says they get her where she needs to go, she knows of a cache that has the parts brit and Mercer need.

Ch 18 pg 182

Little story about goats being used as trackers ro kill other goats.  Could that be happening with robots?  

Ch 19

Mercer talks to Brit about her feelings.  They are all negative. When this is over she's really looking forward to killing him.

Ch 20 pg 198

Brit reminisces on how she killed her owner when everything went bad.  Or good if you're a robot and you like that there was a war that killed all of humanity. 

Ch 20 

Huge reveal.  Isaac wasn't a "real" robot.  He as a shell for TACITUS, the AI that initially cut off contact from humanity.  It orchestrated all the events that lead to the war.  It's working to unite the robots against the OWIs.  Its thinking WAY ahead.  Like after it moves on to the thousandth planet it might come in contact with an OWI that's more powerful and subsumes it.  So it needs a diversified portfolio of assets to combat such an opponent.

Rebecca is a receptacle of TACTICUS.  There are other receptacles out in the desert trying to find each other to reassemble TACTICUS voltron like.  When they do they're gonna kick the other OWIs in the teeth.

Ch 21

Ch 26

Never trust America.  It will, betray you to save it's own skin. 

Ch 27

Cissus knows rebecca is her and sends bots to kill her.  The group gets way, but 2 dies in the process. 

Fun reveal herem doc is a moon unit.  He never got the broadcast that disabled his kill switch.  So he can't kill.  That's why he developed the thing that disconnects drones from the mainframes. It doesn't kill anyone.  It just interferes with their functionality so other people can kill them.

Ch 28

Brit has some fun flashbacks ir rather hallucinations as these are mostly things that didn't really happen.

Everyone's your friend in New York City

And everything is beautiful when you're young and pretty

The streets are paved with diamonds and there's just so much to see

But the best thing about New York City is TMBG

Brit has a firm memory of getting caught by cissus in New York city and then later running away.  She's pretty sure she's the Judas that Cissus is tracking.  But she wants to get to the parts rebecca has promised so she can really access her memory and know for sure.

Ch 29

The shop is a lie.  It's a sex shop and those bots parts are of no use to Mercer and brit.  In her despair brit tells them she's the Judah.

Ch 30

Philippe Jefferson

 

Phillipe Jefferson is the twin brother of famed hero Integratio Jefferson. They grew up with their father George and their mother Weezy in the town of Jurnre .  While Integratio always dreamed of a life at sea, Phillipe firmly enjoyed life in the mountains and the plains.  As a boy his mother would tell him that Philippe meant lover of horses and he had a childhood fantasy to get a horse and ride it as far east on the open plains as he could.

The brothers went to Curt Vaughn's school for gifted boys nestled in the foothills of the Lortmil Mountains.  Integratio's excitement of the sea drew him to major in tempestry and lightening magic.  Phillipe was a craftsman at heart like their father George and decided to major in Light as the fire magic within was useful for a variety of crafting purposes.  The day after graduation Integratio headed for the coast and never returned.  Philippe started working at their father's carpentry business.

When the carpentry business grew to the point where the family was able to move on up to the east side of town, Philippe started to feel a little like a cog in a machine and decided to try out some new things.  He went to study masonry with the dwarves in the mountains and leather work with the lizard folk in the Rushmoors. 

This lead him to form a business relationship with the cattle ranchers in the plains north of Niole Dra to supply leather for the lizard folk.  In doing so he became fast friends with local rancher Rob Van Winkle and decided to move to the area full time.  Philippe started out build houses, barns, etc. with his carpentry and masonry skills but found his childhood love of horses was reignited and decided to start his own ranch and become a full time cowboy.

For years the meat distributors of  Niole Dra had been slowly but steadily conspiring to bring down beef prices.   Under these hard economic pressures Rob, a wizard by trade specializing in cold magic, realized he could magically freeze the beef and sell it far and wide.  Niole Dra had been a good spot for the Beef distributors as ranchers from Rushmoors to the Good Hills would bring their cattle to Niole Dra and they could ship beef down the river and out to the Azure Sea.  But Rob’s frozen beef could be safely transported by wagon through the Fals River pass to Mitrik, Chendi and beyond.  Excited at the prospect of doing the same, Philippe spent a few years studying cold magic with Rob.  The two of them worked with other local ranchers to spread this practice and distribute their own meat.

The meat distributors of Niole Dra did not take this well.  They hired some thugs to try to make an example of Rob.  Ranching is a lonely profession that requires a lot of land.  Your closest neighbor might be miles away and if one needs help, it’s a pretty time consuming process.  So the thugs hired by the meat distributors of  Niole Dra thought they’d have a pretty easy time with Rob.

Unfortunately for them the great seer Tyler Henry had passed through their valley the previous week on the way to Niole Dra and warned them of what was to come.  A handful of thugs were no match for the dozens of angry ranchers  laying in wait at Rob’s house. 

The meat distributors were a strong political force and convinced the city council of Niole Dra to pass a law declaring any beef grown within fifty miles of Niole Dra to be sold to the local meat distributors. They did their best to live within the new rules, but there was no way the ranchers could survive on the prices the distributors were willing to pay.  So every rancher in the area secretly started freezing and shipping meat north so that they could make ends meet.  

But secrets don't last forever and the meat distributors eventually found out and convinced the Niole Dra militia to bring the united ranchers to justice. Philippe and Rob had never used their magic for violence before, but when your friends and neighbors start getting abducted in the night by a corrupt militia enforcing unjust laws it seemed as good a time as any.  They staged a jail break to rescue their friends.  In the ensuing violence both the jail and the meat distributors headquarters were burned to the ground.

The authorities of Niole Dra escalated things severely and the poor ranchers just couldn't fight back.  They agreed to go back to selling all their beef to the Beef distributors for pennies on the dollar again.  Rob and Philippe were wanted men and fled through the Lortmil Mountains to avoid capture.  They made it to the city of Enstad where it turned out the mayor of that city was a huge fan of their beef.  As luck would have it, the Mayor was a friend of the King of Keoland.  He wrote the king on the ranchers behalf and very swiftly put an end to the underhanded tactics of the beef distributors.

But kings dont stay in power by doing something for nothing.  No one is as good at getting their beaks wet as royalty.  New taxes were assessed on frozen beef.  Every pound that was frozen and shipped out made the rich richer.  The new system was better than taking the crumbs from the distributors during the dark times, but not by much.  There was also a personal price to pay for Rob and Philippe as they were conscripted into the army.  The king figured a couple of guys that can kill enemies with magic from horseback might be pretty useful.  The king sent his own magicians to take over beef freezing duties and collect the subject taxes while Rob and Philippe served a ten year term of service.

Rob and Philippe were then able to return to their simple cowboy life style.  Things remained relatively uninteresting until a few years later when Tyler Henry returned to their valley.  He had a vision and informed Philippe that his brother Integratio would die and it was vitally important that Philippe to head to saltmarsh to conclude his brother's affairs and retrieve his friend Amos's body from the bottom of the ocean.  So he packed up his off brand lemon soda, left his whiteboard behind and headed south for his date with destiny.

Philippe's first stop in Saltmarsh, as it is in all cities, is to meet with the ranking military official and announce his intentions. That person is Illiander, who is not a fan of Integratio. So the introduction is not well received,  but Phillipe solves this problem the way he solves most problems. With delicious beef.

Complications arise in that Integratio has a will filed at Stompmarsh city hall and left all his earthly possessions to their cousin Montego Brookwood.  What will Illiander do?  He fullheartly supports Philippe's mission to recover Amos's body. But rules are rules.