Obstacle_allusion

Ooh I don’t know. I’ve read them over the past few years, but don’t recall all the story lines as individual, separate stories. As for story arcs, I like the interactions with other bots the best and think that’s where the storytelling is most inventive. The friendship with Art and mentoring of Three bring a lightness but also unique elements that are different from other sci fi. I would rather have more books about Murderbot and Art‘s adventures than about the Preservation family.

Recently read this one and enjoyed it. The torus setting and world building was done well and created both a new type of space habitat while creating obstacles and story conflicts.

I thought the bits about the emotional status checks could have been explained better. If I recall correctly, Murderbot is more cyborg than robot, and has some vestigial human traits. And so the emotional status checks are to deal with those human impulses, rather than the old trope of all robots really just want to be a ”real boy”. And this book doesn’t go over that, unless I skimmed that part haha.

Overall, I found it fun and a quick read.

Service Model is one of my all time favorite books. He takes the concepts to their logical conclusion around how a society filled with robots and cold computer logic would evolve. As bleak as it was, he made it funny. And like other posters said about his work, the ending was hopeful.

I also read One Day All This Will Be Yours . It was a really good story with time travel. One of the concepts was time travelers kept fiddling with the past, resulting in a present that existed without the things that happened in the past leading to the present. This book was also funny :)

Is there something different about this shut down? I’m retired Army and active duty service members got paid during previous shutdowns. I got paid in 2013 and then the one in maybe 2020 or 2021? Active duty military pay was separate and protected during other shut downs.

The article doesn’t specifically say that active duty forces won’t get paid, but implies that all military is facing no pay.

The article does specify reservists not receiving pay. But I think they also don’t train during the shut downs. So yeah, missing out on $200-800 for the month can be a hardship, but they are also not working. They would “make up” any missed drills once the shut down was over and get paid once duty was performed. Reserves are functionally a part time job.

I don’t want to poo-poo on drill pay, but unless I’m missing something, the active duty troops (the ones who live off it) will receive their paycheck.