Finished reading: SFSX Safe Sex Volume 1: Protection

(Content warning: This write-up, and the comic, deals with sexual torture, rape, “conversion therapy” and its impacts, and other themes in that general vicinity.)

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Currently reading: SFSX Safe Sex Volume 1: Protection

This is the inaugural read for our writers’ guild’s new comics book club, so we did a group order from the Friendly Local Comics Store (because support your locals, folx).

I had to go pick said order up in town, and I happened to have a hair appointment booked on the same day. “No worries,” thinks I, the fool. “That will give me something to read for the next four hours in the chair.”

Friends, let me tell you. This is not a good choice of casual hair salon read, even in the edgy queer goth salon. Like I don’t think I saw a single clothed person in the whole first ten pages. Just, y’know. Warning anyone thinking of re-creating my mistake.

All the same, keen to find out how to fight the power of the Christofascist nation-state with the power of kinky queer sex in some other, more appropriate venue.

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Currently reading: Foucault’s Pendulum

“If a pedestrian bumps into you in the street, or even insults you, you humbly apologize and move on, even though you’re God and with a snap of your fingers you can turn the world to ashes. But, infinitely powerful as you are, you can afford to be long-suffering.”

Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum (p. 69 . . . nice)

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A Sense of Doubt blog post 4013 - Books Read in 2025 - Writing Wednesday for 2602.11. https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-4013-books.html #Books #Reading #BooksRead #yearinreview #writingwednesday

Finished reading: Shattered Nation

So. Confession: A while back I had scanned a PDF copy of this book that I, um. “Borrowed” to see if it was worth buying the hardcover, and it hadn’t really clicked with me. All the same, I did pick up the physical copy recently because, let’s be real, I am a slut for W:tA and wanted to send price signals to Renegade so they release more of it, regardless of whether I’m super into any one specific book. Actually sitting down to read this cover-to-cover and . . . I Get It, now. Not just this book, but 5th […]

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Finished reading: Rokea

I never really “got” the Rokea as a kid — they were big and ugly and weird — but as an adult the whole premise of “what if Jaws had autism and was immortal?” is suddenly incredibly appealing. I too would like to walk into the sea and never return, thanks. This is vintage old World of Darkness, so expect a bunch of weird race and sex stuff (including some way-too-casual references to rape). The example chronicle is also set in Australia and is nonetheless extremely, hilariously (white) American, right down to the fact that, while the majority of it […]

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Currently reading: Rokea

(touches the dirt)

Something . . . American happened here.

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Finished reading: Malleus Monstrorum Slipcase Set

As someone who loves both the Mythos and a bestiary, these books unfortunately kinda show the limitations when both are combined. Mythos entities encountered alone are horrific and gross and cool. Combined they run together in a kind of protean slurry of gore and tentacles and “unpronounceable” names, and the seams where multiple authors over the century have stitched in their own additions result in something that is somehow both too samey and too thematically incoherent.

Also, just . . . times have kinda moved on? Hence the quote marks around “unpronounceable,” since combinations of syllables that seemed “foreign” and “strange” in 1926 are significantly less so in an age where your average English speaker has encountered half a dozen loanwords before breakfast. (Or possibly at breakfast; the fact that “Shak’shu-ka” could be a Mythos god being kinda illustrative of the point.) Not to mention some of the monster designs feel a bit uninspired in a world of Bloodborne and Silent Hill, though Loïc Muzy’s illustrations punch above their weight as usual.

All that being said, none of that is the fault of these books specifically, which are a great resource for what they are, with all the relevant crunch and fluff and cool illustrations. Also, props to the writers for updating some of the more, y’know. Cat-named (if you get my drift) elements, particularly the distancing of Mythos entities from any one ethnic group or set of religious/spiritual beliefs (Ithaqua, looking at you, buddy).

Anyway. I don’t regret buying these, and they did sate my lust for tomes of tentacled bad bois. And I guess that’s the important part.

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Currently reading: Vulture Capitalism

Today’s other adventure was going into the library to get my card reactivated. Then picking this up randomly to read while waiting in the queue. Then trying to borrow it and getting denied because it was on reserve. Then the nice librarian who liked my Cure shirt borrowing it for me anyway, because “we can’t have you denied on your first borrow.” So, uh. Sorry to whomever’s reserve I just queue-jumped, I guess.

Anyway. Book!

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Finished reading: Earthlings

The best way I can sum this up is probably Oyasumi, Punpun for chick-lit readers, noting that manga itself is kind of “No Longer Human for manga readers.” So basically I guess what I’m getting at is that if you have any kind of familiarity with the whole genre of “Japanese works about not fitting in to Japanese society,” in any medium, nothing here will be particularly novel or shocking to you.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy this (I did), or that it isn’t a worthwhile read (it is), only that it’s a kind of Baby’s First Outsider Literature novel and, well. Everyone starts somewhere.

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