Books and Coffee

Books I’m reading now:

• The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin (audiobook): a futuristic tale of how cities become their own life forms, but must be defended against ancient eldritch creatures who prey upon young cities. Humans act as the City champions. There is a sequel, which I already have on paper.
• Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil: non-fiction about how algorithms are both poorly designed, intentionally opaque, and then misused to deny people good things, like jobs and healthcare.

I have some promising sci-fi recommendations, but some of those are also a series, and I’m considering waiting until that is complete before I start.

Also: I’m very eagerly waiting for the third book in William Gibson’s Jackpot Trilogy. The line between eager and impatient is written in smearing graphite for me: I’ll be so excited when it is released! (Also: more of The Summer Hikaru Died, which you are getting the blow-by-blow of here because I can’t contain myself.)

I’m also still reading entirely too many manhwa, including new seasons of those I endorsed earlier, plus many that I’ve started (described below) but may not finish. The two most likely to keep my attention are in bold.

• A Savage Proposal (Webtoon), in which the young princess of a defeated kingdom agrees to marry the infamous warlord who defeated her armies, sacrificing her happiness to prevent the wholesale slaughter of her subjects, only to discover that he is… young, really hot, and more respectful to her than the creepy men of her own kingdom.
• I Will Become the Villain’s Poison Taster (Tappytoon), an isekai story in which a modern girl winds up in the body of a villain, decides the villains might be her only safe allies if she wants to survive, and begins to suspect that the heroes are up to no-good. (Silly dialogue, naive heroine.)
• Frost will Always Fall (Tappytoon – age restricted), in which a directionless modern girl with a shamanic family has flashbacks to her past lives, where she is torn between two men, at least one of whom she has hot sex with in both the past and present. One of the men has killed her (past) and/or will kill her again (future), though she isn’t sure which.
• The Villainess Empress’ Attendant (Tappytoon), in which a knight runs away from her kingdom and royal boss, and winds up a servant to the empress of her adoptive homeland – and swears to use her powers to protect the lovely-but-gaslit empress against some unexpectedly close and evil foes with terrifying powers. (The crown prince is pretty. This always helps.) This is wholesome.
• The Young Emperor Is Obsessed With Me (Tappytoon), in which a mage who prevented the destruction of the world by sealing an interdimensional gate used by evil invaders is adored by a sociopathic boy, who grows up to be a sociopathic emperor; he burns down her house & enchanted forest to force her to live with him (oh-oh); she may be the key to defeating a returning threat to the world, if she can overcome the traumas of all she lost.
• To My Husband’s Mistress (Tappytoon), in which an innocent young woman falls for a love scammer who kills her father and then has his girlfriend kill her; she takes on a new identity for a multi-year plan to bring her killers and their accomplices to ruin while drinking too heavily, loathing herself, and being bankrolled by a frequently shirtless prince with his own revenge plans.
• You Can’t Kill Me: The Secret Bride of the Black Wolf (Webtoon), a woman abused by a powerful husband in the afterlife dies (?) there horribly, but relives her earth death and has a new chance at her underworld afterlife (?) by marrying a different, random underworld nobleman; her new husband is patient about her PTSD, but doesn’t know her true situation, nor that he is interacting with her past-afterlife-abuser.

The overarching theme is: women in unusually bad situations having a do-over in some form. Let’s not wonder why I am drawn to these stories, or if we must, emphasize that most of them will likely have a happy-ish ending.