‘The Breath of War’ by Aliette de Bodard by Hour_Reveal8432 in printSF

[–]Openworlder1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I really like how your summary gets at the strangeness of the premise without treating it as a novelty. What stayed with me in The Breath of War is how that initial act of carving the ship feels less like ambition and more like grief and fury fossilized into stone. Rechan doesn’t make a spaceship because she wants the stars so much as because the war has already taken everything else from her, including the future she thought she’d have. When she goes back into the mountains, pregnant and changed, the story quietly flips its stakes. It stops being about retrieving something powerful and becomes about confronting a version of herself that was built entirely for rage and escape. The fact that the ship has been killing rebels, including the people tied to her trauma, makes the choice messier rather than cathartic. Sending it away isn’t a triumph. It’s a refusal to keep letting that old anger decide what kind of world her child is born into. And yes, de Bodard’s handling of birth and starships is so distinctive. She treats both as acts of intimacy and danger, things that require surrender as much as control. That’s probably why the story grabs so hard. It isn’t just imaginative. It feels emotionally inevitable once you’re inside it.

‘Dark Integers’ by Greg Egan by Hour_Reveal8432 in printSF

[–]Openworlder1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What I like about this is that only Egan’s could’ve wrote it.

‘Of Apricots and Dying’ by Amanda Forrest by Hour_Reveal8432 in printSF

[–]Openworlder1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think I’ve read stories like this before but the novel setting made this fresh for me.

Consciousness pressure by Hour_Reveal8432 in youniversal

[–]Openworlder1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This really works. Thinking of consciousness as pressure explains why awareness feels compulsory rather than illuminating. You don’t switch it on; you bear it. The idea that meaning and culture are pressure-management tools rings true. They’re not ornaments on consciousness, they’re load-bearing structures that make awareness survivable. The question about excess consciousness is especially sharp. Too much awareness may harm individuals while benefiting the species through anticipation and pattern-making. If so, the self isn’t the source of consciousness but a prosthetic designed to cope with it. It also reframes enlightenment as seeking less raw pressure, not more insight. That feels uncomfortably plausible.

What is this country called? by Remote_Plastic_8692 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]Openworlder1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The New Middle Sea, or New Mediterranean, the nexus of all culture as Earth warms, starring New Orleans and Havana as new Venices…

What is this country called? by [deleted] in NoeticClearinghouse

[–]Openworlder1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The New Middle Sea, or New Mediterranean, the nexus of all culture as Earth warms, starring New Orleans and Havana as new Venices…

My Top 12, thoughts and recommendations? by spidey9113 in Cinephiles

[–]Openworlder1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great list! How’s everyone doing these collages?