BLACKOUT open thread!

Both Blackout and Deadline arrived from Amazon Friday afternoon, a day earlier than tracking had estimated.

Saturday brought on another round of what I refer to as "stupid gastrointestinal tricks", so I spent most of the day in bed, buried under rather more layers of blankets than one normally uses on a 90 degree day. :/

On the upside, those portions of the day where I wasn't a shivery/sweaty hibernating lump of bedding? I was tearing through both books. :D

Exceedingly excellent books regardless of my state of health. I plot a second/third/fourth/godonlyknowshowmany re-reading later this week to glean bits I may have missed and chortle over the best bits again. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

SEANAN: What references do you think people are least likely to get?
MIRA: There’s a nod to The Care Bear Movie in Blackout. Nobody’s going to find it, but it’s there.


I am SO DAMN CURIOUS!

Evil, Seanan. Very evil. I need to re-watch The Care Bear Movie a few times, then re-read. XD

I got a serious Manson family vibe from the Brainpan--I think I missed a reference?

Yes, I read slowly.

I feel really, really stupid, because I made absolutely no connection that S&G were in the same Seattle CDC until they literally bumped into each other. :: facepalm ::

Love the Agora (I instantly thought of agoraphilia), love the Brainpan, ABSOLUTELY love The Fox. She's just demented!

Was really pissed at Cat for endangering our group.

Didn't think a thing about Shaun using George's name after sleeping with Becks. (Again, I need to pay better attention.) The revelation that S&G were lovers doesn't sit well with me -- but I suppose it works for the story.

Overall, I enjoyed the trilogy immensely, and can't wait to read the non-novel material.

I'm a tiny bit sad that the Masons aren't speaking to you anymore, but life goes on.

Just read all three of these books in the last several days on the rec of several friends. They are fantastic! My work life has been crazy, and it's been ramping up in particular in the last week, so having such an absorbing distraction has helped me keep my sanity, even if I did stay up too late a few nights reading. :D Thank you!

Got the book in the mail yesterday. Kept eyeing it and not opening it until the kids were in bed, because I didn't want to totally block them out of my consciousness—that's when they get into trouble. (Four and two, yikes.)

Finished slightly after midnight. Very nice. I was doing a lot of preemptive giggling when I could see where the story was going (Oh, she's in Seattle, where Mahir and Maggie are going, oh they're sending Sean into the local CDC, heh) and when I knew the location (my brother used to live a couple of miles away from the Microsoft campus, and so on.) Emotionally satisfying.

I think I'm going to skip Countdown for now, though. I'd noticed with the kids that there are certain things that are very triggery right now, and they all have to do with danger to the small ones. (Children of Earth was an excellent miniseries from Torchwood and I won't be watching it again until the kids are out of college. That... hurt a lot more than it would have five years ago.)

OMG I FINISHED IT. Then I really needed a hug.

So, I finished Blackout a little before WorldCon (cuz Mythopoeic Season and then Hugo Season and then GenCon) (and I am sad that the titles of books 2 and 3 had to be swapped, because they were so appropriate where they were, which means I keep calling things by the wrong names, except that they're really the right names). mneme finished Deadline about the time I finished Blackout, so of course he started reading Blackout.

Monday evening -- well, technically, Tuesday, by then -- he was about a hundred or so pages from the end when we were at the last running WorldCon party. We were smofing and finding that we had more common ground with a fan named Joe (turns out he wanted to save the Semiprozine, and his objection to something we supported was based on a very understandable misunderstanding). He spotted Blackout.

Joe: Is this yours?

Us: Yep.

Joe: Oh, so -- Hey, squirrel! (makes pretend grab for book after this Cunning Distraction)

Just call me late to the party....

*lol*

Just finished Blackout yesterday. Geeze.... Becks! ;_; Great scene.

I DO think that this is actually the weakest of the three books, honestly. It's good, but not great, and the villains of the piece are holding the idiot ball WAY too often. Tho I suppose if you;ve been running a conspiracy for 20 odd years you get cocky. Still, I liked it, and will now be eagerly waiting for the ebooks to get a print edition. Or may bite the bullet and actually go ebook myself. *sigh*

I mean the novellas, yeah. Sorry for any confusion. *lol*

One of my friends kept insisting that I read this series, even though I felt that I was kind of over the whole zombie thing. But I trust her taste.

And yep, totally right. I couldn't put them down. I finished Blackout in a day. I love your worldbuilding and your characters and your dialogue and your shout-outs. Just completely awesome.

P.S. Thanks for not killing Mahir; he's my favourite.