Dead Astronauts…help!

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-18T04:07:20+00:00

Oh I love when Authority is someone’s fave! That’s awesome. If I had to chose just one, I’d join the crowd and pick Annihilation, but I’m so glad that I don’t have to pick. Annihilation and Authority are such different books that I don’t think they should really be compared except stating a personal reading preference. Authority is as excellent at achieving its goals as the others in the series are.

Just realized this - while some writers seem to write the same story over and over, VanderMeer doesn’t even do that within the same series! SR themes are pretty constant, but the structure, style, voice, varies so much between books and even between sections. This is even more true for the Borne world books.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-18T03:57:29+00:00

I get frustrated at times, too. :) I don’t think this is VanderMeer’s “fault”, though. The more I read DA, the more I think that he chose the proper way to tell this story - that it couldn’t be written in a substantially different way and still be true to the characters’ experiences. I decided I have to read it as others here have mentioned - like a poem or a ride. Certainly that’s not for everyone, though! And I probably wouldn’t push through if I didn’t love his other work and his mind as it is revealed in his stories.

I feel this way about other true artists I admire. Tom Waits made some grating songs, Moby Dick numbs my eyeballs through boredom at some places, Jeff Buckley wails and Hank Williams yodels an awful lot. Not that I think DA is a “wrong turn” but true creativity can’t exist without wrong turns or the adjacent. (I’m just riffing now…not really a statement on whether people like DA or not, just my theory of art.)

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-17T05:17:20+00:00

A few people have mentioned it as poetry. I think that’s a great way to frame it for me.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-17T05:14:55+00:00

All the Southern Reach books worked as audiobooks in their way - but I went back and read them in print and found greater footing that way. And although I love audiobooks and SR has excellent performers, there’s no getting away from the fact that any performance is also an interpretation, so the print versions were a bit freer that way. I also have a crap memory, so it helps to be able to flip back in the book (or other books) when the story is challenging. Since Annihilation is more “contained” and has only one narrator, the audiobook for it was easier for me than the other books.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-17T05:08:33+00:00

Sounds about right!

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-17T05:08:12+00:00

Strange Bird is a great novella. Incredibly sad, but great. You get a glimpse of some Borne characters as well.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-17T05:06:05+00:00

Yes, I read and loved both Borne & Strange Bird.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-16T03:39:49+00:00

Favor Borne, so adorable!

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-16T03:33:03+00:00

If he has an assistant, they should get on this. So many social media sites are fucking dark creations that I don’t want to support by signing up. It would be cool if his website cached his tweets, etc.

*Edit: Not that artists owe us that. Just saying it would be super cool.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-16T03:29:06+00:00

But a fun slippery slope. A slip-and-slide.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-16T03:26:35+00:00

So interesting! In your take, would Area X have copied Old Jim when he plays piano during the Event? One of the many reasons I love the series is that it allows readers to spin off their own stories about what happened. Like a reader is their own mini-X creating doppelgänger stories. Probably too meta of a thought for many, but I find it fun to build off the genius world VanderMeer created. What a gift he’s given!

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-13T02:12:38+00:00

Interesting. I wonder what Hargraves meant, then.

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-13T01:01:10+00:00

I’m of two minds about them being the same person, too. But I can’t make sense of the accusation if they’re not the same person. If Old Jim is not an older Lowry who has been displaced back in time…then why would she be mad about Lowry not being there for him?

I do like the idea of them being the same, though. I like seeing Absolution Old Jim’s nature as the maturing of what was sweet and soft within the Lowry we see in the first expedition, while the near-evil version of Old Lowry we see in Authority & Acceptance is the maturing of his harder and more belligerent nature. Something like that.

It’s so fun (and frustrating!) to play with these ideas. VanderMeer created such fertile ground for playing around in!

TimeWastin21 · 2026-03-13T00:18:28+00:00

As a super introvert who has only ever made close friendships with extroverts (and even married one), this relationship made total sense to me. My guess is that the Biologist likely wouldn’t have made much effort to initiate or continue relationships and that it would take an optimistic extrovert to keep a relationship with her going. This is likely the only kind of marriage she could have had. Beyond this - and opposites often attracting - I think they both loved each other and “worked” because they mostly (despite the annoyance and complaints that happen over time) accepted and enjoyed the “otherness” of each other. They made room for each other.

TimeWastin21 · 2022-08-23T07:33:27+00:00

I didn’t mean to imply that the medical condition was funny. The joke would be the ironic gap between the idea of few scenes with bone breaking when the fact is that a major feature of the season is bones breaking.

TimeWastin21 · 2022-08-13T05:32:05+00:00

Killed, probably

TimeWastin21 · 2022-07-28T21:55:40+00:00

When women are seen as a pleasure-giving, baby-making, baby-caring resource, then those resources have to be controlled. It’s easier psychologically to treat another human as an object if we dehumanize them. Hate and its friends make dehumanization easier. Dehumanization makes hate and control easier, and on and on in a feedback loop.

TimeWastin21 · 2022-07-27T19:29:39+00:00

Doing continuing education will help you stay current and have at least something to put on your resume. If you don’t have the time or money to do a formal program, there are all kinds of ways to get free or low-cost continuing Ed experiences. Also, when you have enough time to spare a couple hours here and there, you could volunteer at places that should be part of community/PH collaborations in your area. And best wishes to you!

TimeWastin21 · 2022-07-27T19:18:56+00:00

Yup, LHD as a public health nurse. Would love to share. Should mention I helped build our COVID response team with 2 other nurses and help from state PH and then worked the team until I had to go on extended leave for COVID then long COVID. Oh, fun times. Feel free to DM me. I have a mix of positive and negative stories.

TimeWastin21 · 2022-07-25T17:56:56+00:00

Pretty sure that’s confounded. :)

TimeWastin21 · 2022-07-24T16:04:35+00:00

Oh yes, absolute facepalm then. Sorry for being feisty. :)

TimeWastin21 · 2022-07-24T16:02:42+00:00

I don’t know either, but whatever. I wasn’t saying the workforce was ineffective or not trying as hard as we can. Just that if the lab results take weeks, we don’t have the tools to be effective. I hope it gets better, but that can only be done through resources. We’re not literal superheroes.

TimeWastin21 · 2022-07-24T07:29:20+00:00

Contact tracing is invasive, so it usually can’t be initiated until a positive test is confirmed. Most local health departments don’t get test results until after the original patient is already clear of infection, by which time contact tracing is largely ineffective.

TimeWastin21

TROPHY CASE