Sarah Connell > Recent Status Updates

“Outside, the night was cool and clear…The tents were faint shapes, difficult to discern; their black star-shadows seemed to hold more substance than they themselves did. Rowan passed in and out of those shadows, half expecting to feel their edges on her skin, like the touch of the water's surface on a rising swimmer's face. The fire pit was cold, with the ancient, deserted smell of dead ashes.”

“She sat in the gloom. A shaft of sunlight slanted in through the entrance, carving from the shadows a single canted block of illumination, lying across the bright-patterned carpet. Colors glowed, brilliant: sharp planes, intricate cross-lines. There seemed to be two carpets: a shadowy one covering the entire tent-floor, and another, smaller one lying before her, constructed purely of colored light.”

“Light slowly grew, the flat pastel of predawn. People and objects seemed to wear the pale colors like paint on their surfaces and skins. The only tones that held any depth were the sea gray of Averryl's eyes; the rich earth brown of Bel's; and the fragmenting, shifting blue of the jewels on Bel's belt, glittering as she moved, testing the shapes of the signals she learned.”

“The world was a swirl of red and brown, shifting and shuddering, and the air was awash with sound: an endless hissing and a patternless pattering chatter that filled her ears completely and overflowed, taking up residence in her buzzing skull. …
She came to a stop like a ship at sea and turned into the wind, sails luffing. She rocked against nonexistent swells.”

“…hills ranged, broken by two staggered ridges, then falling faintly lower as they reached out toward the horizon. A far lake sparkled silver in the distance, edged with looming dark shapes…
The air held a scent, like cinnamon and sour milk, over the freshness of departed rain. The tent beside Rowan wafted up a miasma of must and goat. Somewhere someone was roasting meat.”

And the plot thickens…..

Deeply unsettling thus far.

How did this become my comfort read??

Appreciating all this recap

Sloooow goooing …. If I hear ‘we can’t scare the survivors’ or ‘that’s not what my father would have done’ one more time …. There’s some great pieces in here in-between! But it needs a haircut.

“Cold water droplets covered their skin and hair, tingling like a kiss in the dark.”

“…a cozy lie. Computer glitches didn’t sound like ppl screaming.”

“It had been too long since she’d gotten to fire ship weapons…most of her life had been bombs, hacking and knives in the dark…”

“How long had he been doing what was necessary instead of what was right?”

Another round of Libby holds!

Why not bring everything we hate about corporate america in the 1950’s and put it on each planet you colonize?

“She had thought to refuse the bath bc she sensed and resented that its purpose was to prettify her. But standing in a place of fields and flowers made her want to be clean.”

One of the truest visions of women in warrior roles with all that comes with it. Not women in men’s positions. But as realistic warriors working with other women instead of against each other.

“The love I give you, you take and use it against me…I miss my friend.”

“Her temper flared out. She caught at the ends of it and hauled it back in.”

“The enormous head lowered for a moment, and for one absurd second she thought Y’Ruen was just having a drink, and then the terrible jaws opened and a gout of blood-coloured flame exploded forth.”

“What man could use hate or love well when he was drugged?”

Ohhh….it’s that kind of book.

“In addition to fleeing like a chicken from a woman’s skirts, she’d left unarmed.”

“She was used to hatred. But it always made her tired.”

“My life is lived as an apology to my father’s life.”

“I never want you to do a thing without understanding it first.”