Tak! commented on The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
There are creatures in the water of Con Dao. To the locals, they're monsters. To …
The #SFFBookClub pick for December 2025
#sffbookclub
See tagged statuses in the local Wyrmsign.org community
Tak! reviewed Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo
What does it mean to "be-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s …
Feed Them Silence
4 stars
Content warning Feed Them Silence review with spoilers, because I can't figure out how to do it without
This was a hard read.
I identified quite a bit with Riya from the beginning, particularly including the criticism that the researchers were literally objectifying an animal for their own purposes, which did not happen to include helping the animal.
I'm glad that the brain pattern anomalies turned out to be from brain damage instead of something like a two-way connection - it's much more fitting from scientific, literary, and justice perspectives.
I'm missing a sense of finality in the end, feeling a little like Sean's own frustration - Sean didn't grow or change, the corporation keeps on corporating, the research doesn't go anywhere, the wolf pack is going to agonizingly peter out. We just get a snapshot of a bleak slide along an unchanging trajectory from not great to less great, just like real life.
For what it's worth, I'm glad they didn't go all in on the wolf sex.
Tak! commented on Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo
What does it mean to "be-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s …
Content warning Feed Them Silence chapter 1
It would be pretty hard to be married to somebody that I felt like their whole career was unethical
Tak! quoted Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo
What does it mean to "be-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s …
The portable surgery unit hulked at the edge of a tract field, ringed by four-byfours and a lone Jeep.
Tak! commented on Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo
What does it mean to "be-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s …
The #SFFBookClub selection for November 2025
Tak! commented on Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
Ok, I think I'm putting this down now - it has become a slog. I took a little break, thinking maybe I just needed a change of pace, but I'm just not into it.
I'm reminded a bit of when, having loved The Historian, I picked up The Shadow Land, also by Elizabeth Kostova. I spent much of the novel anticipating how the surreal elements were going to be introduced, only to eventually realize that it was just a "normal" mystery story (coincidentally also set in / revolving around Bulgaria).
Some of the concepts are intriguing, but they don't seem to be going anywhere (so far).
Ok, I think I'm putting this down now - it has become a slog. I took a little break, thinking maybe I just needed a change of pace, but I'm just not into it.
I'm reminded a bit of when, having loved The Historian, I picked up The Shadow Land, also by Elizabeth Kostova. I spent much of the novel anticipating how the surreal elements were going to be introduced, only to eventually realize that it was just a "normal" mystery story (coincidentally also set in / revolving around Bulgaria).
Some of the concepts are intriguing, but they don't seem to be going anywhere (so far).
Tak! quoted Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
Dying has gotten to be quite expensive.
Tak! quoted Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
So tell me, he started in . . . is Denmark still a prison?
Tak! quoted Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
Death, you’ll say, yes, of course, death is his brother, but old age is the monster.
Tak! quoted Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
Without being able to formulate it clearly, he senses that if no one remembers, then everything is permissible.
this is a statement about the current geopolitical landscape
Tak! quoted Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
There is no time machine except the human being.
Tak! quoted Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
Boredom is the emblem of this city. Here Canetti, Joyce, Dürrenmatt, Frisch, and even Thomas Mann have been bored.
savage
Tak! quoted Time Shelter by Angela Rodel
A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …
At one point they tried to calculate when time began, when exactly the earth had been created.
Tak! reviewed A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather
A Season of Monstrous Conceptions
3 stars
An interesting mix of victorian(?) midwifery and eldritch mysticism. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as groundbreaking as Our Lady of Endless Worlds.
An interesting mix of victorian(?) midwifery and eldritch mysticism. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as groundbreaking as Our Lady of Endless Worlds.
Tak! quoted A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather
Content warning infant death
the proprietor's wife brewed a mediocre ale, but roasted very good hog on her spit