I saw a lot of recommendations for that series and ordered the first book, but I wasn't able to get through it. There's something about it that makes it very boring to read rather than enjoyable.
I am only on book three, but part of my issue is how much seemingly deus ex machina occurs. The world is alien, deep, and unknowable. At any moment, some previously unidentified entity can twist events on their head.
Big baddie about to destroy town? When all hope is lost, a powerful, benevolent force sprouts from the ground to end the threat.
Science fiction gets “one thing”. People are the same, but now you can backup your conscience onto a chip. How does humanity adapt?
Erickson gets 1000 things that will be revealed the moment you think you know where the plot is headed.
All that being said, it is interesting, layered, and a wild ride.
deus ex machina was a complaint of mine as well, but as you get further into the story you realize how it's actual gods/ascendants/people causing the things that happened. some of those things were put in place thousands of years in the past. he does have several magic systems in the series, but they all have rules and they're followed.
I totally get where you're coming from here. I adore Erikson, and I enjoy Williams but I sometimes need to force myself to keep reading his works (and then really enjoy them when I do).
However, Bobby Dollar (his shorter trilogy) is exceptionally fun. It's much tighter and funnier, well worth reading maybe especially if you've bounced off his other works.
Can I message you about your brain injury experience? Your description of what your life/experience matches my own, and I had several concussions as a child. I never considered the possibility my "unique" way of remembering things and speech patterns was linked to brain trauma.
I stayed at a hotel that had bed bugs, the hotel was uninterested in refunding us or giving us a new room (I had only been in the room shortly before discovering them). I went back to Booking.com and they said I had to be refunded via the hotel and they would only act as arbiters. After showing proof the hotel wouldn't refund me, they continued to not refund.
To really add insult to injury I wrote a review of the hotel explaining the situation and it was removed!
They instantly flagged and deleted my review claiming I only stayed one night (I did – in a sleeping bag no less) instead of four. This claim from them actually helped in the chargeback.
I made the mistake of telling the apart-hotel owner in Turkey I work in IT, so he would knock on my door at 2am and Whatsapp me over and over to help him solve router problems.
"It's urgent"
"Can I talk to you?"
"Can you please come downstairs? Just 2 minutes." (it's 2am)
"There is a big problem" (with me not being willing to pay a network tech to deal with my IT problems instead of badgering my guests)
No thanks. I had booked a month and left after a week.
My brother went through the job corp program in the mid aughts outside of Portland, Oregon.
It was a great experience for him. He struggled throughout school[0], so at the beginning of his high school "career" he dropped out in favor of job corps. As a double-whammy, he's autistic. The structure of expectations and responsibilities that each individual had to handle every day worked great for him.
Ultimately he didn't enter the career field he chose for job corps, but it did set him up for success later. Inevitably he ends up in leadership positions at places he works.
He also got his high school diploma through the program.
[0] Generally because he didn't fit in socially, and teachers treated him differently. He's very smart, but historically had a difficult time applying himself.
My middle sister sounds a lot like your brother and did the same! She was in the corps from ‘05 to ‘08. Got a HS diploma and she reflects back on her time very very fondly.
I bet they met each other at some point! That was when he was there. Springdale Job Corps, then?
He also looks back on it fondly, and fairly commonly throws out new experiences he got while he was there. Recently he revealed he used to volunteer at the Troutdale Library because there was a van that could take them from Springdale over there!
> Facebook was all-in on cryptocurrencies. The project is fully gone.
For what it's worth, their cryptocurrency project is absolutely NOT gone. It's gone in the Facebook-ownership sense (in that it was barred from continuing the project by the SEC (?)), but the code and teams are absolutely still iterating on what began at Facebook. Aptos, Sui, and 0L are all projects that have launched to fanfare within the last year.
I'm up for lambasting Facebook as much as the next guy, but I don't think government blocking their projects existence counts as failing.
Getting blocked by the government was hardly a black swan event; it was a major risk factor. Facebook absolutely has the lobbyists and political connections to have a good understanding of the risk, as well as have some influence on it.
They got it wrong in this case. It happens, but Facebook doesn't deserve a complete pass for chasing a high profile project that ended up being a dead end for them.
I had the same experience. The beeline that Progressive's snapshot device did actively encouraged worse driving behavior in a city.
I could see it being more beneficial in rural communities where there's less erratic driver behavior, but in a major US city it was doing me no favors.
There are many considerations you need to make if Act 60 is what you're referencing. To name a few considerations:
1. Cost of living in Puerto Rico is quite high. Expect to pay roughly double for the same foods you would anywhere else in the US, in terms of eating out OR the grocery store.
2. Applying for Tax Act 60 is a fairly lengthy process - depending on what service you go with, it can cost upwards of $20,000. This is just for the application, not for the other requirements it has such as becoming a "bona fide" resident.
3. This one is fairly minor, but worth noting. Puerto Rico moves at a difference pace than the rest of the US. Many online services we take for granted just don't really exist here. Schedule a doctor apt online? Buy car/medical insurance? Bank services? All of those either happen on the phone or in person. If you don't know spanish, this can be difficult to navigate.
I don't say this to dissuade you, just to recognize there are unexpected considerations to make that might not be immediately obvious/expected.
>1. Cost of living in Puerto Rico is quite high. Expect to pay roughly double for the same foods you would anywhere else in the US, in terms of eating out OR the grocery store.
This includes online shopping. UPS and FedEx's rates for delivery to PR are much higher than on the mainland, so almost all sellers that use those carriers won't ship to the island even if the item is small enough for USPS (which does not charge more). Same with Amazon, although there is a chance a third-party Amazon seller will.
Amazon will ship 95% of the items that you'd get on the mainland.
The exceptions are very large items or sometimes items with batteries.
It's a bit of a pain but you can deal with the freight forwarder for large items, or reshipper for smaller if you really want something that's not available elsewhere. I've had success asking sellers to ship something via USPS even if they don't do it normally.
I'd add the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erickson to that list, if you like a grittier dark fantasy.