The Island of Doctor Death (andotherstoriesandotherstories) is a collection of Gene Wolfe stories. The following is a compilation of my reviews of them as I read them taken from many blog posts around the beginning of 2025.

I highly recommend reading the stories, they’re fantastic. And you can use this as a COMPANION or something. But if you’re NOT going to read the stories, even though you should, my REVIEWS here are still worth reading, like everything else I write.

Table of Contents

The Island of Doctor Death

Alien Stones

La Befana

The Hero as Werwolf

Three Fingers

The Death of Dr. Island

The Doctor of Death Island

Cues

The Eyeflash Miracles

Seven American Nights

The Island of Doctor Death

is the first story in the collection, aaand... it was good. It's nice and short. It's about a boy nicknamed Tackie, who gets a neat new book. And he's reading it while uh, his kinda-sad life is going on. Mom kinda neglects him, but he's got aunts too, life's not brutal, just lonely, you know? He(you) mostly just like reading. The book, I assume, is called The Island of Dr. Death, it's like a pulpy adventure book about a maaad scientist called Dr. Death who's making animal-human hybrids, and he's being battled by Captain Ransom (based C.S. Lewis reference???) and some kind of sexy ancient-civilization girl called Talar.

But then some of the characters start coming out of the book and talking to the kid. Aaaand it's kinda hinted that it's not just his(your) imagination. Like one of his aunts MIGHT have seen Dr. Death. At one point, you're at a party and a strange girl says something like it's her 3rd time uh... idr, making the trip or something like that. And she asks you if you mind her pretending that you're real. And now that I'm thinking of it, I think he sees something at the party from the book that he hadn't even gotten to yet, but that just might be *my* imagination now...

It's really cool, weird stuff. Anyway, uh... something kiiiinda sad and scary happens, and the kid's--You're--upset that he's almost done reading the book. And he's talking to Dr. Death about it, who treats his role in the book like an actor's role or something

"You will, won't you? You'll burn up in the fire and Captain Ransom will go away and leave Talar."

Dr. Death smiles. "But if you start the book again we'll all be back. Even Golo and the bull-man."

"Certainly." He stands up and tousles you hair. "It's the same with you, Tackie. You're too young to realize it yet, but it's the same with you."

cool, right? As if uh... idk. As if that Dr. Death, or that mysterious girl, or God was reading a book and You're a character in it. "It's the same with you" really elevates that message to something special.

You know, "You can always read the book from the start! :D " is kinda a lol it's kinda a simple moral that you'd see idk, in any simple book. I'm not saying "You're ALSO like a book character :^) " is ROCKET SCIENCE, I just think it adds a little extra OOMPH, especially with the little hints peppered throughout the story, and Wolfe's Catholicism. It's nice too that it doesn't DEVALUE Tackie(you)'re life, either. That's a real issue with these kinds of topics. It's like a solipsist's or a nihilist's goon material, the thought of being *JUST* a character in a book, but in Wolfe's world, you being a character in a story doesn't change anything at all, because there's a Librarian and Author over all of it. Your life remains exactly as valuable, maybe even moreso because it can be enjoyed by readers in other dimensions.

Anyway. I'mtoo tired. i feel like imoiazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZzzzz. that's it. uh... idk, Alien Stones next time.

ill ttyl pls ta.kre care of yourself. aaaaand have a . relaxing day. God bless, fren.

Alien Stones

Alien Stones issss the 2nd story in the Dr. Death collection, aaaaaaand it's really good.

Basically, people on a space ship--one of those really cool city-sized ones with hundreds of crew members, you know? I freaking love those ones--they encounter another ship in the distance that's very strange. Humans have spread out across the galaxy for a long time, so it's not *too* weird that they've never seen a ship like this before, and its design seems to make some human sense, but it's just a strange ship. Soooo they launch some parties to go check it out. When they get there, they can't find the crew. Like it's abandoned. The Captain notes that it's possible they're just hiding, noting how difficult it'd for their own crew to be found in their gigantic ship if they didn't want to be found. There's an Empath girl with him, who he's stupidly in love with. It's like, her job to understand the enemy's feels, you know? Like Ender :')

But what's really cool is the ship scares the shit out of her. As she's searching around it w/ Cap, the description of what she's going through, how she's coping with everything, is veryyyy... idk, I just appreciate it, it makes the story kinda creepy. A *little*, but not VERY, you know, there's dozens of friendly allies all over the place exploring the ship, but it IS very VAST, and EMPTY. Meanwhile, Cap just lol he just likes the ship and admires its design, even though it's pretty strange and inhuman and like, like *barren*, kinda like idk, high-tech brutalism. He likes it because he's basically an autistic asshole, which he has to be in order to be the captain of a space ship. It kinda highlights the differences between men and women. Cap actually needs to mentally recite Scripture to himself to stop from lusting after Empathgirl, who is in fact married.

Aaaand her husband goes missing on the strange ship. Long story short, he arrived before anyone else and had the idea of breaking something to get the attention of the mystery-crew. And the crew, which are probably some kind of robots or androids, killed him for it. Cap had the reverse idea when they were searching for him: he found what husbando had broken and *fixed* it to get the mystery-crew's attention. A *something* disguised as husbando came and was pretty chill but told them to pls leave. He told Empathgirl "I know what you think, but I'm not your husband". There were some interesting *communication issues* between them, you know-- not knowing the meanings of certain words, but I don't feel like thinking too hard about it rn. Oh and, when Cap was repairing the panel on the ship, he found the remains of husbando.

The story ends w/ them going back to their own ship, not quite sure how to proceed, with Empathgirl grieving and kinda wondering if husbando was ever really REAL at all, because she felt like she couldn't even remember him and because she and him were in a single-person cabin together instead of something for couples. And there is a uh... like for instance, there *are* fake-people "on" the ship, as simulations(some people think they're all really simulations for someone else's training), for the purposes of training and stuff, and Empathgirl thinks that they're using time-travel to train captains under *themselves*, and it ends pretty uh... I really like the ending. Captain assured her that her husband had been real, and that he himself had trained under a real man, who was something like--idr, something like, "a salty bastard but generally knew what he was doing." and that description is *perfect* because it's like he's describing himself. Maybe he really DID train under himself from the future. But it doesn't really matter, because he BECAME *whoever it was* who trained him, you know? Because now HE's a salty bastard who generally knows what he's doing.

It's posssssible that they're simulatons, but you know, I don't really care about questions like that lol, it's just useless solipsism. But it is cool that it's a possibility in the story, since they do train ship captains using sims.

Anything else? Uhhhh... pshhhhh. Fate? lol. I got Fate/Samurai Remnant. but actually, let's talk about Fate later, ok? I've gotta agonize over how bad my website looks. I'll ttyl. pls take care of yourself, aaaandhave a good one. God bless fren

La Befana

Uh... a Gene Wolfe story? What came after Alien Stones... lemme see... La Befana. Thank God, it's not a long story so I don't have to wear both of us out too much. It's very simple. Alien planet. Some furry alien like an intelligent tiger or something visits his fren, who's a Brazilian guy & his family he knows from work. Guy's kids ask if he knows about Jesus, Aliencat bro says that Jesus hasn't visited his planet yet. Guy's mother tells the story of La Befana the Christmas Witch, who had an opportunity to travel with the Three Wise Men to see Baby Jesus, but didn't because she had to clean her house. So when she finally finished and went to see him, Jesus was already gone. So every year, she travels from house to house to search for Jesus, and gives presents to all the girls and boys she visits, and she's cursed to search FOREVER. "Right?" asks the little girl. "Not forever, just until tomorrow," says granma, and then you realize that it's been snowing the whole story, and there's a pregnant woman in the next door inn, who can't stay in the main building because there's no room. It's a little too heavy-handed though, because the guy's wife literally just blurts out "they're jews next door", which I don't like because it makes it WAY, WAY, WAY too obvious A, and B, it leans on the uh... boomer meme that God specifically required a jewish girl to give birth to Him. It wouldn't *necessarily* mean that, but again, it also just really makes it way too obvious what's going on, the *only* thing we really NEED to know about the girl next door is that she's pregnant. Grandma saying "just until tomorrow" is telling us the entire thing. La Befana will stop searching for Jesus tomorrow, a baby's being born tomorrow, it's Christ come to visit this new world. That's all. But it's a nice little fun story.

Anythingggggggggggggg else? No, the fights are sSTARTING I GOTTA GO! I'll ttyl, okay? pls take care of yourself, andddd have a relaxing day. God bless fren

The Hero as Werwolf

"The Hero As Werwolf" by Gene Wolfe is our next story. it'ssss--really really reallY REALLY good, and if I assert that "they got away in the end", it even has a happy ending :') basicallyyyyyy... humanity's branched, withhhh the "ascended" humans basically not needing to eat or take medicine anymore, they're like these physically-weak aristocrats with low-level telekinetic powers, and the old-humans, being chased out of their houses and starved because farmland's all been destroyed-- the old humans have basically gone feral. we can't read anymore, we barely talk, we hunt these new soy-humans(i'll call them soymen) for food. the story follows a human lad, and he uh... during a hunt, he meets an old man and his supple, breedable 10/10 nubile young daughter, who is READY. R.E.A.D.Y. READ.YYYYYY. for mating. It's so fucking TIME. And it's just lmao it's kinda cute because bro has no idea what's going on, he just knows he wants her to come live with him so he can bring her dead soymen to eat, and it's very uh--i'm not going to call it "animalistic", even though it is, I'm not going to use that word because he is a human. But he's the hero, as werwolf. So it's veryyy... instinctual. He's a young man, she's a young woman, it's time to follow God's command. so he visits the old man to be like "i can has daughter? :3 " and dad's like i know why you're here, you want my daughter, why wouldn't you, fucking LOOK AT HER her mom and I did GOOD. she's at that age, she's IN HEAT, I gotta get her a man before she goes fucking insane.

And our bro's a total survivorchad, and the previous suitors were like, either weak, insane, or ended up dying. So bro's got no competition. Dad notices that she *very obviously* wants our bro, so he gives her over, and he's like "thanks, we'll visit you sometimes."

So, happy ending, right? WRONG because while they're hunting one day-- btw, the girl's mute, she doesn't talk-- they kill this soyman child. but because they have telekinesis, even shortly after they die, they can move stuff around, so the kid TRAPS bro's foot in a door. He is TRAPPED, they are FUCKED, the soymen police are ON THEIR WAY. So he tells girl she has to bite his foot off so he can escape. So after he explains what she has to do, she does it. And as she's doing so, this like, info-video about the education system is playing in the background, about a girl choosing to become a nurse, and how she'll be dedicating the rest of her life to easing the suffering of others-- I'm not going to do it justice, I can't remember at all. But it's as if it was talking about *her*, you know? And it is.

The end is him feeling her warm tears washing away his blood as she frees him, and it's uh, just heartbreaking. It's freakin incredible, but it's heartbreaking. Bro's in agony having his foot chewed off, she's sobbing uncontrollably as she's trying to free her husbando by harming him, and you just pray to God that they escape. Even though they literally just killed a child for the purpose of eating him. It's rooooooooooooough, man.

I loved the story, I freaking loved it and it's my immovable headcanon that they escaped completely, got back to Dad and stayed with him until bro's stub healed up. Nothing can convince me that's not what happened. There probably weren't even any soymen police coming anyway-- they *fear* the humans, they probably just would have left them trapped to starve. OKAY? THEY ESCAPED AND LIVED TOGETHER HAPPILY EVER AFTER AS HUSBAND AND WIFE, AND THEY HAD PLENTY OF HUMAN CHILDREN.

the *world* is AMAZING--btw it might not even be on Earth anymore, but we do know that there is space-travel in it and that the soymen have colonized space. It's a bit cyberpunk, but also uh... mixed with idk, kinda mixed with our current time with buildings we'd recognize, as if they soymen ascended tomorrow. kinda like... Half Life 2 lol. i loved it, it was very nicely detailed.

anyway im gonna let you go, im tired, as you know, and I think i might be in a mood. did i depress myself? >tfw no feral waifu to free you like a fox caught in a trap, right? "Men only want one thing, and it's disgusting."

Three Fingers

You’re the Wolf of Old Europe. The wolf that tore the sentries to bits in front of the winter palace at St. Petersburg. The wolf that was killed by the invention of firearms like the great god Pan by the coming of Christ. The wolf people now say never existed, and forget all the stories. The wolf that took the baby pigs from the farmyard at noon, and children when they walked through the forest. You are Baron Isengrim.

"And I," said the Wicked Queen. "If I were to take off this mask who would I be, wise boy?"

"Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine de Medici. Morgan le Fay and all the ladies who beat the peasant children to frighten their own."

Hey fren, I hope you're well today. I'm still-- im gonna just WRITE this before I go INSANE at how fubar my website is. kk? right? Let's just freakin go. 2 stories tonight. Three Fingers aaaand... Feather Tigers.

Three Fingers is about a little kid usinglmao using like a... a 3d printer (not exactly, it's an INJECTION MOLDING MACHINE) to make Disney figures that he sells as authentic. So he's hunted by the MICKEY MAFIA. Obviously when I read that, having written hundreds and hundreds of pages about Mickey, both in the forms of various fanfictions of The Mouse, and my original book Awkward Conversations xD starring an autist named Mickey, I was very happy. It's a very short story, like idk, 5 pages or something. The MM ambushes him in his house--masked characters, the Big Baad Wolf, Captain Hook and the Wicked Queen uh... he asks them to take their masks off. So he can see if he's right about who they are, believing them to be these uh... you know, exactly as he said it, kinda combinations of various legends and histories.

They grant him his final request, and reveal that they're just fat businessmen(and 1 businesswoman) in suits.

and as they're killing him, by stuffing jelly beans up his nose and bonbons down his throat to suffocate him, he uh... actually I have no idea. Because the bonbons become jellybeans and are actually "synthetic para-resperine". Resperine is an irl medication for treating hypertension. And then it ends with the woman touching the boy's face with a red/white gloved hand with four/three fingers. You tell me what that means, I can't brain so good. The white gloves with four fingers make sense, but what would a three-fingered red glove be? That's got to be the key to understanding the ending w/ the resperine, but I just don't know. I guess they weren't killing him though-- oh, she also said "she's had good luck with it on him". So she's given the resperine to him before, and whatever it does, it's what she wants and it isn't killing him. Why him? Because he's making the fake figures? Or does it somehow prompt him to do it? Is it a COINCIDENCE that he's making his own Disney figures? He also KNEW they were after him. How did he know? If this has happened before, why doesn't he remember it? She remembers him, why not the other way around? Did she come dressed as a different character?

It was a funny story, even if the ending is confusing. He saw some other Disney character at White Castle waiting for him so he runs away lol. And he's yapping relentlessly about the histories of these toys(fake) at this woman who gives him a ride and she's like being tortured lmaooo so she buys one out of pity.

okay. uhhhhhhhh... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz an-- you know what, I don't have any more energy. We'll do Feather Tigers next time. I'm totally spentlol. man... that's not good. Imagine being *spent* writing a few paragraphs. You know what else it is? I'm literally being driven insane by how unorganized my website is. I'm typing this, for no reason, in a txt file, which will then be grabbed by a script onto the blog page-- and it just makes *no* sense for me to be doing it like this lol ,I HAD AN IDEA of something that i wanted to do, but it's just fu--it's pointless. I'll fix everything later. right now, I'll post this, and i'll wish that you pls take care, and have a comforting day, and i'llttyl. God bless, fren

The Death of Dr. Island

Me? I'm a little down rn actually, I just read a really sad story. "The Death of Dr. Island" I HATED it. I mean, it was really, really good, but I still hated it, very sad ending. Basically these 3 teens are on an artificial island for therapy, a 14yo boy who got his brain--you know, they severed something in it because he was having seizures, now he's all fucked up and likes to start fires and cause havoc and stuff. You know, a little shit. There's an older boy/young man who's homicidal and beats the everloving shit out of him for trying to take some of his fish, and there's a 19yo girl who just shuts down sometimes. Nicholas doesn't think she's sick, and he might be right.

The writing's just fantastic. The island fucking sucks. It talks to them. At first you think it's kinda like a caring entity, maybe like how a good human doctor would be. But it'ssss not. It's there to give them treatment for their disorders. And it's not nice about it. And it's not caring about it. It's programmed to simulate SOCIETY for them, and at one part for an unknown reason, the girl says she believes the older guy is more important than them. We don't really know why. But we do know she was right, because the end has the island allowing him to kill her, because she was suicidal anyway, and he was "very important", and allowing him to act out his fantasy of killing her made him realize he didn't enjoy killing.

And it was just -- I felt as SEETHING and miserable about it as the young boy did, and he starts chimping out, trying to destroy the island, almost succeeds in escaping, gets into an argument with the island for its lack of humanity. But the island doesn't care.

"Her prognosis was bad; she really wanted only death, and this was the death I chose for her. You could call it the death of Dr. Island, a death that will help someone else. Now you are alone, but soon there will be more patients in this segment, and you will help them, too--if you can--and perhaps they will help you."

It puts him into a canatonic state-- and the other half of "him" from his surgery takes over, and is just kinda, dumb and mute and subservient to the island, and nods in agreement to help the next patients that come in.

Do you understand? It's a uh... the therapy is socialization. But it's not individual therapy.

"He was frightened by women; now he knows that they are really very weak, and he has acted upon certain fantasies and finds them bitter."

There's hints that he's very wealthy and the island confirms his IQ is actually 210. Which is why the island prioritizes him over the younger boy and the girl. Maybe in a kinder timeline, it could have cured the girl's depression and the younger boy's anti-social tend--well, I guess it *did* now actually... now he'll make a perfect wagie.

The reason for such extreme therapy is that *something* has happened, and it's more important now than ever that very intelligent humans are able to function in society and be productive. The island's response to the boy complaining that the girl's parents were abusive and belonged there instead of her was "They were functioning. They bought and sold; they worked, and paid their taxes--" And she says it wouldn't have mattered if she was away from them anyway, since they were inside of her. She had no hope for herself at all, and it HURTS because she obviously comforted the boy and he liked her.

Very sad story, that's all. The three of them had fashioned a bit of a ... society of their own. The older boy had even been alone with the girl before younbro showed up, and hadn't killed her, and even fed her. So it makes you wonder if the island pushed him into it(it totally did, or at least allowed him to do it when it could have stopped him). He taught the younger boy to fish eventually after he started being submissive to him.

And when youngbro realized girl liked the older one, he sadly set them up, hoping to make her happy. When he left them alone, she was killed. The next day, older guy is allowed to leave the island for a temporary hospital. Dr. Island doesn't think he'll have to stay there long. Presumably now that he's not afraid of half the population and doesn't want to kill anyone else, he can use that brain of his for the advancement of humanity. I wonder how he'll cope with what he did to her? Youngbro found him praying earlier for over an hour, but was unsure of who he was praying to. We learn he's Brazilian so there's actually a relatively strong chance he's praying to God.

When youngbro finds girl's body--at the very least probably killed instantly by a plasma cutter oldbro been using to start fires--he loses his shit and begins arguing with the island. But it'd have none of it. "I told you that I would treat you as society will when you are released, that that is my nature. After that, did you still believe all I told you?"

It's really heartbreaking the more I think about it. When he leaves the two of them alone, probably, like me, just thinking they were going to have sex he said to her:

I have to cope with believing the girl's in a better place, and that the boy's original self will be too after his body dies. And it's a good cope, because just like IRL, God is in Gene Wolfe's stories, even sometimes named as Christ. It's rarely *part of* the story, but New Sun has a wiiildly cool afterlife and La Befana has Christ being born on an alien planet. But for Dr. Island, I just have to imagine that if I asked Wolfe "Are they going to be OK?" he'd say "Of course." Rebirth/resurrection/resetting is a pretty common theme in his stories.

Anyway... was there anything else? Yeah actually, I was going to tell you about ALL of the stories I read, but how about I just do one per post? Next time we can go over... The Island of Dr. Death, which is much different and not as sad, thennnn... Alien Stones, which was freakin AWESOME. Aaaaand... The Hero As Werwolf, which was reeeeeally reeeeeeeeeeeeeeallyyyyyyy good but kinda bittersweet... and La Befana, which was a nice and short one, no sads, aaand... Three Fingers, which I... don't *quite* understandlol, I have to read it again or sssomething, but it was still rly funny and cool.

Ummmm... Gene Wolfe was just a great writer, that's all. I freaking don't like sad stories, and The Death of Dr. Island was a sad story. But it was really good. idk though, I-- it hurts lol. I really don't like being sad. Do you?

I think that's all I have rn. I'lllll-- oh, I beat Dragon Quest 2 for the first time in my life. How about that? Pretty cool, right?

You know what else? I SHARPENED my pocket knife on a sharpening stone and it's razor sharp again. Pretty cool, right?

kk that's it. i've been feeling kinda sick the last few days. pls pray for me if you have the time. and I'll ttyl. pls take care, have a happy day. God bless fren

something I forgot was that the island originally thought Oldbro would kill Youngbro-- "You, who are so easily hated, so different from what it is thought a boy should be." Was he originally introduced to the island *just* to be killed, when Oldbro wouldn't kill Girl when he was alone with her?

When Youngbro realized he had to be a BETA, Oldbro stopped attacking him and taught him to survive. So was the island's plan thwarted? What really made him kill Girl, after the three of them were able to form their own little society? The island even says "This is the death *I* chose for her".

It's interesting that he was only allowed to leave after killing her. At one point the girl says "sometimes he wants to kill me", so maybe he really couldn't be trusted to return to society until he knew from experience that he didn't enjoy killing. And the island would rather her be killed than some random person in the future, whose life might have actually mattered, unlike hers. Very sad.

That's got to be it, right? Why else introduce Youngbro, believing he'd be killed, when he wasn't killing Girl? The island wanted him to kill someone. And when Youngbro demonstrated he could function in Le Society better than Girl, it refocused on having her killed after all.

Feather Tigers

is the story of a rabbit btw, so this works out perfectly. Uh... it's a pretty short story. There'sss a sentient bunny researching Earth's extinct human populations(everyone), and he's noticed that there's a coincidence offff... whenever a certain species of animal died out on Earth, so too did the local human population. The people of *whatever area this was, somewhere in SE Asia iirc* believed that tigers could cast their spirit forward when they're hunting, and you could see them in the -- leaves and stuff, you know? Like something's there and it's tiger-shaped. Aaaand... they could be blown away like feathers... am I remembering this correctly? Whatever.

Anyway, his peer, a biologist bunny, has brought tigers back to life, and our bunny gets the idea of searching for feather tigers in the jungle around where they're held. So he goes out with his plasma blaster and burns some jungle away on a pleasant walk. On his way back, the biologist bunny calls and says "lol they escaped" and our bunny's like -_- okay, well if I have to harm one to ensure my safety, I will. So he's walking back, and he sees a tiger, and blasts it. Then another, and BLASTS IT. And another, and another. And he realizes that at least some of them aren't real, they're the feather tigers.

The end is just him screaming and running. I like to think he made it back, he had a gun that melts jungle away.

It was pretty neato. He had visited the biologistbunny on an AI-powered flying machine that uh... I think the Chinese had left behind. The machine can likeee, answer questions and stuff and likes to talk about his honorable masters. Am I getting the area right? I don't think it was explicitly stated, but you could tell based on the area and the history it was talking about, it must have been talking about China.

Kk my neck is killing me, I'm gonna let you go. i'lgrdsergrtgsesg I'LL TTYL. pls take care of yourself. have a relaxing day. God bless fren

Hour of Trust

Last week, I was having teeeeerrible headaches. I'm feeling a little better, but it *did* prevent me from fully-understanding Hour of Trust. I'm *not* going to re-read it, though, because I got *enough* of it and there's no going back.

Basically, there's a civil war in America and there's these businessmen who are working for the "official"(arguable) remaining U.S. government and are trying to get financing from wealthy foreign governments and corporations so they can actually *pay the military*. They're showing off a uh... neato new communications device, which is like a GIGANTIC-ASS screen the size of a wall that just-- it's like you're there with whoever you're talking to, you know? Our protag, just an aaaaaverage Joe working iirc for the uh... company that makes them?... is at this party with a bunch of rich guys and prostitutes, and they get on a call with the top General of the "U.S." forces, who's basically the head honcho of the entire country now, there's no more anything--Congress, Prez, nothing. And he patches them through to some soldiers fighting the uh... "rebels", who are kinda like normal Americans(also the rebels seem to be winning). And the rich people are just *deeply* unimpressed with how the war's going. A British guy--who supplied the girls for the party--says the same thing's going to happen to Britain in a few years. He doesn't really care.

Our protag has this vague feeling that they should be doing *something* to help. Somehow. He's like "Britbro's smart, I'm strong, you're Irish, we can do something can't we?" No-one knows wtf he's talking about.

The feed to the soldiers gets hacked, and we see some rebels acting as "suicide bombers" against the military, having one last conversation about why they're doing it.

Our based flat-chested Christian girl sadly didn't make it. None of them did. The only thing we know is that she was about to be raped by the U.S. soldiers, and then she erupts in flames. (EDIT: actually, that was probably a different girl because she's written as if she were a new character, so Christian girl probably was just shot on approach, which makes sense since she said she wouldn't kill herself)

The rich people didn't sign up for this footage, but they can't turn it off. Eventually they get the General back and continue asking him difficult logistical questions, basically humilating him as a leader with no combat experience or even really any special tactical knowledge, and he has to take it because he needs their money.

The story ends with our protag in a room alone with a businesswoman he's familiar with. They have sex, and he continues to desperately cling on to some idea of "we can change all of this", trying to tell her. She doesn't care.

Afterwards--having been drinking the entire night(we can tell from how he acts)--he falls down onto the tile floor, probably splits his head open, and dies, even though they try to save him.

Ummmmmmm... it might be hard to tell, but I actually liked it a lot. Half of it I had to like skim-read through because my head was freakin killing me, but *what I could understand* really was... just good. I actually like that ending a lot. He had this idea of somehow stopping this yuge war, and he just drunkenly trips and dies. That's our bodies.

You ever think about that? How easy it is? How, if you fall in the shower, you can ruin your life? My friend, a year after graduating high school, had a seizure and fell in the bathroom. And died. He was what, 19? Not even the prime of his life, God rest his soul.

Uhhh... my thoughts are a little scrambled rn. The "suicide-bombers", I don't know what their deal was, beyond, you know, the war-purpose. They had been volunteers--from all over, "Truth seekers, Jesus freaks, activists, pacifists, about twice as many boys as girls."-- the girl said she wasn't going to commit suicide, and the stoner suggested that then *they'd* be her judge, so... presumably, she was wearing explosives, and if they accepted her surrender, she wouldn't detonate them?

It's a mortal sin to commit suicide, right? God knows what was in her heart. And what was in the heart of our protag, who was... it's so... Gene Wolfe had a great ability to make "different classes" of people, people that are SO different from one another, or YOU and I, that they seem like aliens--except they're completely-realistic depictions of people from that place of life. This was an SUPER-ULTRA-HIGH DEF watch-party of a freakin war, guys are laughing with exotic dancers on their arms, paid for by an international media company, and they're all just wondering "Who should we back in the war?" Is that even such a wrong question? I don't know, the... details are a liiiittle vague iirc(I probably don't) You can't say it's not practical, though. WRITING A BLOG POST is like a Herculean task to me, how can I possibly criticize anyone for not waving a magic wand and bringing about world peace? Something I've really come to appreciate over years is how FUCKING EASY it is to talk about changing the world, and how absurdly difficult it is to do anything. Anything at all. You ever try to improve your own neighborhood? Why not? How about improving even just your life? I'm not criticizing you, I'm asking that of myself too. And I'm not even saying it's not-doable, of *course* it's doable, but you've GOT to understand that the cool and happy thoughts in your head don't translate realistically to the world around you.

On the other hand, it's super easy to fall down and break your skull open. That's really easy. You know why old people fall and break their hips? Because they were lucky and didn't land on their heads. We're ALL going to fall, I mean that literally and figuratively.

Tracking Song

Tracking Song's a loooooonger story than most of the others so far in the ISLAND OF DR. DEATH AND OTHER STORIES AND OTHER STORIES

But it's really interesting so far. Guy wakes up with AMNESIA(unironically fantastic plot device) among a tribe of verrry tall hunter-people(the shortest is taller than him) and he can speak their language. (HE is like a normal guy, carrying a pocketknife and a lighter) Soooo, because he's a manlet, the men have him go with the women to protecc them while they gather plants. He helps them ambush and kill some animal that was running through the woods, and finds that it's a strange looking girl.

The women regard her as an animal though, and refer to her as a doe. They bring her body back to camp to eat her.

Bro goes hunting with the men after that and they track a giant. Giant talks just like them, but they still regard him as an animal and after a dangerous fight, kill and butcher him with our bro's help.

Bro's told to leave camp when the headman realizes hair grows on his face, which means he's not a man. (None of the hunters grow facial hair)

It's their law that any meat except the meat of men can be eaten, so he's like "ya gotta go or one of the women will kill you"

So bro exchanges his share of the giant's meat for a sleigh and-- oh, btw a "Great Sleigh" passed by and none of the hunters understood what it was, but they believe that bro fell off of it because the people on the sleigh were dressed like him. The way it's described, it sounds like some kind of giant ship moving across the snowy landscape, probably as big or bigger than a cruise ship but idk yet.

So he follows the trail of the Great Sleigh. Aaaaand, he encounters ANOTHER tribe of humanoids.

This time, smol bois, kinda ugly. They convince him to come home with them because he's freakin starving and freezing.

They go back and have dinner inside a little hut made from trees and branches and sheeit. The manlet chief reveals that they're actually unafraid of the first hunters even though they-- should I give you the names? I guess I will...

The first hunters are called the Wiggikki, Nashhwonk are the giants-- the one they hunted called himself Mankiller and had killed "dozens" of the Wiggikki including the headman's father. The Wiggikki had spoken of someone called "Ketin" who presumably is another giant, but distinct from the Nashhwonk because he's very fast.

Aaand-- idk who these new people are. ANYWAY: The new manletpeople are not afraid of the Wiggikki even though the Wiggikki do hunt them. The manletpeople seem to routinely steal their food and even manage to kill or at least repel the Wiggikki sometimes. So they're little scrappers I guess.

A giant freak pokes his head in and they have a talk. He's different than the giant Bro talked to with the first hunters, he's freakin weird looking, he's got big green eyes that make him look feminine despite his other features, a voice that alternates between very deep and high--and he's like "Gimme her."

Actually I'm REALLY not doing a good job now, so lemme just give you part of the book:

There was a scream from the open end of the lodge. The woman pariah, who had been sitting there, came diving through the others in panic. Her feet sent the fire flying, and everyone jumped up; the was a babble of voices, and over it all a new voice, sometimes as deep as a kettledrum, sometimes whining like a great cello: "Day's greetings, sons of filth. What fruit had you of the hillside?"

A man almost as big as Nashhwonk was kneeling to peer into the entrance of the lodge. He had a short chin, a short upper lip, high cheekbones, and huge green eyes that seemed too beautiful for a masculine face, so that for all his size and obvious male qualities he gave an impression of femininity, and almost of effeminacy. In one big, soft-looking hand he held a polearm ending in cruel hooks, like fishhooks, made from the ribs of some large animal.

Our manlet headman refuses to give up the loserwoman, even though she is the unloved pariah of the tribe. It's their law to preserve their kind.

As the giant argues that they should just give him someone so he'll leave them alone, he notices our bro, and in the instant his eyes turn away from the manlet headman, manletchief jumps him with his blade and there's a big scuffle. The giant runs away and manletchief is only a little hurt.

Some menlet go after the giant, bro wonders if they'll be in danger, chief assures him that they'll be fine because he's just going to keep running.

"If it were Ketin or the Wiggikki, it would be different, and I would call them back." So even though they're not afraid of the Wiggikki, they are still threatened by them. And the shadow of this KETIN character continues to loooooom over all.

And that's as far as I've gotten. It'ssssss... really interesting, right? These tribes of different kinda-humans all regarding each other as entirely-different species. interestidanting.

Where we last left off, our Bro had been taken in by the Manlet tribe. A giant freak tried to take one of them to eat, but he was fought off by the manletchief.

Unfortunately he was more badly wounded than he let on, and he passed away in the night.

Our Bro decides to take his leave, as it is the manlet custom to have a funeral feast on the body of the deceased, and he didn't want any part of it.

He finds his sleigh and rides on in the track of the Great Sleigh, when he sees a TALL, FIT GIRL jogging in the same direction.

Why? I'll tell you: because they'd rezzed her... lover?... after she brought him ded to them. Apparently she didn't like the result though--maybe it was too unnatural, maybe he didn't have his soul, idk--but she killed him again. Now she wants to just go on the ship aaaand just work really, like she doesn't want to live. She wants to be a wagie.

Anywayyyyyy they spend the night together-- he doesn't have sex with her, negative charisma, and he goes out to get more firewood. As he comes back, he sees sOME THINGS taking her. He chases after them and swings a bigg branch at them, but they hit him with something that makes him feel like his chest is on fire and he passes out in the snow.

He tracks the creatures to a cave, and the fuuuuun begins. He has a "wand" that the girl was carrying, which isss-- what would I call it... kinda like one of those Aztec clubs, but not. Probably thinner... but think of it like that. aaaand, the end has little thorns sticking out of it that are stupid-poisonous. So he sees THEM clearly for the first time--the things that took her.

They're basically giant bats with long legs and beautiful human faces, albeit unnaturally large and sharp teeth.

A few start flappin and flyin at him, and he's batting them around. The poisoned stick absolutely fubars them--earlier he'd struck a smol monkey with it to eat and it died in about a minute.

So he's moving along and finds an underground city with strange machines all over. He spies on the Vampires(he calls them Vampires) and sees them fishing with their talons and flyin' around the ruins of the buildings. He meets a humanoid robot and asks it to help him get food, and it picks his ass up and drives him to a storage container w/ uh... some kind of freeze-dried cubes of noms. So he noms up, and prepares to Rescue The Girl.

That's where we're at. Rly enjoying it, hopefully everything works out. He's worried that he DOESN'T actually belong on the Great Sleigh because they apparently haven't sent out a search party for him, right? We'll see.

Uhhhhh... Tracking Song. I finished reading Tracking Song. Ittttttttt was really good. Where did we leave off?

Bro was chasing after the things that took Girl. I was actually *wrong* though, it *wasn't* the Vampires who took her, I must have misread that part. He catches up with the things that *did* take her, and they're these horrible uh... cyborgs. Like kinda-human faces and other parts, but mostly-machine, straight outta Quake. The cyberpunk dream, totally fucking awful to look at. He encounters one and it attaccs him, but he's able to use Girl's poisoned stick to THWACK it, and the human part of it dies, but the machine keeps trying to chase after him. Thankfully, it can't do a good enough job on its own and he loses it.

When the machine-men realize he's "pure" human, they give him a strange staff and take him before who they serve and believe to be the last human, this little dwarf-- a human dwarf, not to be confused with the manlett tribe he'd been with earlier. Girl's there, chained up Princess Leia style to the dwarf's throne. Except, you know, just naked.

Dwarf releases her to Bro, and they're led away to get medical help for Bro. But it's actually "moral" help, and they lock him in a room with KETIN.

Finally we meet KETIN. Ketin is basically Giant Chad. Long golden hair, giant but not as big as the uh--previous giants he'd seen, so Ketin can move around very quickly. The machine-men want Bro to kill Ketin with the poison stick, they want him to recognize his superiority as a human over Ketin and all the other beastmen he'd met, including Girl(whose name isss... Cim Glowing)

It's important at this point to make a note that even though Cim *is* smoking hot and probably looks like Altera from Fate, she *is* not human and Bro recognizes that, he can look at her and tell she's not human.

Bro doesn't even consider killing Ketin, instead telling him his suspicion that they just want him to kill him, which he could, because as strong as Ketin is, a graze with the poison stick is GG. Instead, Bro figures out that there's a hatch in the ceiling to escape and asks Ketin to help find it.

Ketin, a reasonable man, even though he's a BEASTMAN, cooperates fully. Which is pretty great.

You know, they freaking lock Bro in this basement and release Ketin like he's a lion, expecting him to try to maul Bro, and they literally just *talk to each other* instead, even though Ketin's "not human"(by now we realize most of the beastmen are *basically* human)

Anyway Ketin goes HAM, kills a bunch of machine-men and they all escape. Bro has a duel with the dwarf, who doesn't want to be abandoned and has dreams of finding a human woman they can share. They both use their strange staffs-- Dwarf has the same kind Bro has, and they act like serpents and wrap around each other. It's extremely draining to use these staffs, and Dwarf can't handle it, so Bro's staff shanks him. Bro believes that the reason Dwarf is a dwarf is that he must have used the staff when he was a child and it stunted his growth. The staff basically fucked Bro up baaaadly.

They keep following after the Great Sleigh. Ketin leaves them after a bit to go back to his home.

Cim Glowing -- oh, btw, the story's told to us in audio recordings that Bro makes, idk if I already mentioned that lol. But finally it's revealed to us that it's not just a recording device, it's a communications device--the people on the Great Sleigh can also hear him, although they're not responding to him.

In the middle of one night, Cim makes her own audio on the device, confessing her love for Bro and wishing that she could convince him to come back home with her, but she doesn't want to go any further and leave the only world she knows. She's gone the next day, and Bro doesn't know why, but one of the Wiggiki tribe tells him he saw her going home and sobbing, so he at least knows she wasn't captured again. He keeps going.

Eventually, Bro can't go on any further--his wound from the machine-men and being drained by the staff have taken too much out of him. But he realizes that there's a big uh... there's like reflective foil around the planet, probably humans are terraforming the planet-- and he seemingly understands that.

The end has him near-death and seeing the Great Sleigh accelerating toward him, with a winged man coming down to meet him.

Let's just quote it... (Roller is the robot who helped him in the caves, but he died in the cold-- he was about the size of a "giant man")

I see something moving. I thought at first that it was another sledge, but a sledge could not sail on this melting snow. Whatever it is, it is coming rapidly, and it seems too large for a sledge. Perhaps the warmth has revived Roller ... No, it is too big even for that. As big as a hill, and I see people standing on it.

And that is enough. I know who you are now. This small planet is round, and you have come back, and the time for talking into this black box is over. I am going to talk to you face to face. Who is that tall man with you? I think he has ... wings?"

Maybe he died and saw an angel, maybe he saw a guy coming off the Sleigh to rescue him, maybe humans have wings now. He sees people standing on "it", presumably the Sleigh, but does only *one* of them have wings? Why? Is it another beastman working with the humans?

Hey, if they did rescue him, which is a strong possibility, maybe he went back to Cim Glowing :3

He describes her face as "lovely", you *know* she's fit as fucc, she LOVES him. Someone's going to LISTEN TO HIS RECORDINGS, HEAR HER CONFESSION, TELL HIM, AND HE'S GONNA GO BACK FOR HER. There's NO REASON NOT TO.

That's OBVIOUSLY what's going to happen. Unless he just died. In which case, he's in a better place.

So I'm calling this a happy ending. Definitely less painful than The Death of Dr. Island.

Anyway, I hope you liked it too. Our next story is... The Toy Theater. It's a much shorter story, so that'll be fun.

I thinkkkkkkk... that's everything. I'll let you go, you've suffered too much. Plstake care of yourself. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand i'll ttyl, okay? God bless friend

The Toy Theater

I read The Toy Theater, it was nice and short. Too short, even. It's about aaa marionettist traveling to another planet to visit and learn from a *master* of the craft, a man named STROMBOLI.

Starts with him coping with his cramped little room on the ship, but then landing in a gorgeous, rich, lush, GREEEEEN world. So ok--

Stromboli's man who comes to pick him up asks him to show him his own skillz, so bro does so

I made her throw open her lid and climb up to sit on the seat with us, where she sang to the driver in her clear voice. Charity is a head taller than I am, blond, long-legged and narrow-waisted; a subtle exaggeration, or so I like to think, of a really pretty showgirl. After I had made her kiss him, dance ahead of the horse for a while, then climb back into her home and slam the lid, the driver said, "That was very good. You are an artist indeed."

The marionettes are *much* more advanced than the ones we know. Between how they're made and how they're controlled by skilled hands.

They're not on strings anymore like traditional ones and they're controlled on a little handheld device-- Stromboli can control 5 at once, one with each finger, and believes our Bro may one day even do six. The marionettists can do different voices like perfectly replicate female voices between their own ability, the control, and little speakers in the dolls. Stromboli has these 3 girls doing a perfect song and dance as good or better than actual humans.

Stromboli teaches Bro a bit, and they just have a great time as you know, student/teacher/peers. When it's time for Bro to leave, the normal driver's out, so Stromboli's MISTRESS Lili drives him instead and talks a bit about Stromboli. She's FOINE and propositions Bro since he has plenty of time before his ship leave. He decides against it, saying he has a wife(he doesn't). When she leaves him, Stromboli's goofy butler, ZANNI THE GREAT comes running along with Bro's shoes that he forgot and makes a scene for everyone. Zanni the Great is actually Stromboli's famous puppet and Bro knows this so he looks around for Stromboli, finding him eventually in a corner just looking normal and acting like he's not controlling a silly puppet delivering him shoes lol He continues talking to Zanni anyway as he looks at Stromboli

His face was perfectly impassive while his fingers flew over the levers of Zanni's controller. I said, "Joruri."

"The Japanese puppet theater. The operators stand in full view of the audience, but the audience pretends not to see them."

"That is the master's field, sir, and not mine; but perhaps that is the best way."

"So you said to Madame Lili earlier, sir. The master begs leave to remind you that he was once a young man very like yourself, sir. He expresses the hope that you know with whom you are keeping faith. He further expresses the hope that he himself does not know."

I thought of the fine cracks I had seen, under the cosmetics, in Lili's cheeks; and of Charity's cheeks, as blooming as peaches.

Then I took my second-best pair of shoes, and went out to the ship, and climbed into my own little box.

Obviously it's really easy to soyjak over the last line "!!!HE'S JUST LIKE A PUPPET HIMSELF!!!"

But everything else is what really ROCKS about this to me. When you're reading it, you suspect Lili might be a puppet-- we can't REALLY know for certain, but of course she *might* be and even *probably* is. What makes this ending hit hard is, what I believe, to be the implication that they're-- okay, it sounds funny to just say "they're fucking their puppets", but really think about it. You've got these ultra-realistic physically-perfect women that *don't talk*. Imagine traveling around with one all the time as your job, that's insane. Stromboli's *Italian*, there's no chance he didn't fuck them, at LEAST in his youth, and that's EXACTLY what he meant by that. "I hope you know who you're keeping faith with, and I hope *I* don't know." He hopes Bro's not clapping Charity's cheeks.

Now, I'm leaving out all kinds of little details, I can't just tell you the entire story, but it is uh-- just trust me, it makes sense. Stromboli left his wife for years when they were young so he could go perfect his craft and become the marionettist g.o.a.t., and, of COURSE, he had sex with some of his sexy hyper-real dolls. If Lili *is* a doll, it confirms this, but either way, I'm just right. This is CLASSIC Wolfe hornyposting. It might not be a robot waifu, but a realistic marionette waifu that you can control *to human levels* with one or two fingers? Come on. Or rather, don't.

So that's The Toy Theater, it was a fun little story. What do you think about Stromboli's warning? Do you think you masturbate too much instead of impregnating your wife, which you should be doing instead? iirc Stromboli doesn't have any children, that's a POTENT point, his wife remarks that they're lonely together. When Stromboli was away for all of those years, what was his poor wife doing? I'll tell you what she wasn't doing: having children. Good going, Stromboli. I hope it was worth it.(it wasn't)

The Doctor of Death Island

It's about a prisoner, life sentence, who works at a prison hospital, and who gets cryogenically frozen because he has stomach cancer. The way that it's described is like sad and uncomfortable and personally hits hard. He's like writing about it, and how it felt better when his girlfriend was rubbing it, and now it hurts again, he thinks he's getting an ulcer. I've had an ulcer and it basically ruined my fucking life, and thank God it was *just* an ulcer for me-- anyway, because of the cancer and because he can afford it, he's allowed to be frozen. He wakes up 60 years in the future, they've removed the cancer from him, and everyone basically has eternal youth now from the very cell therapy they cured him with-- the only way to die now is violence/accidents.

Soooo a prisoner-therapist is talking with him, and bring him a Bible, lets him read his file-- these books use a technology he developed, a sort of AI that lives in the cover and can discuss the contents of whatever book/documents/etc. it's in with you.

The name of the story comes from... a fishbowl that was in the visitor's hut his gf and him would be allowed to have conjugal visits in.

real quick- did you know basically NO states allow conjugal visits anymore? Our country is kind of a fucking nightmare hellscape.

Anyway, this fishbowl, it had a mountain in it that rose out of the water and even the bowl itself because it was meant for larger aquariums--and it was just barren, so he thought of it as Death Island, which is what he also refers to the... ...the uh... the highest floor of the hospital as, where the "uncurables" are. It's where he was when he had cancer, but now he's been moved somewhere else.

NOW THEN, something strange is going on, because he believes his room is facing the West, but he can't see the Sun. BUT we don't know what's going on yet, and he's just gotten some visitors where I left off-- his girlfriend(who is probably a hag now unless the therapy was created before she hit the wall), a man with the last name of his lawyer, presumably his lawyer's son or something, aaand some other personidk.

THAT'S ALL .it's really good so far, there's like *great* quotes, like when he opens the Bible, he hears "Who is the Son of Man?" as the first instance of the technology he made existing in this new world, now he's been talking to "himself" inside of his prisoner file, and it' faaoaergjoergearg--anyway, it's freakin great, looking forward to readan more.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand... that's all for me rn. I've been a little. out of it.

it was really good, idk what else to say. Uhhh... I was right, the visitor he didn't see is a young clone of his hag gf, who she's now living vicariously through. Kinda sad.

So, then something WEIRD happens-- he gets released from prison because the... his invention of like "AI living inside the covers of books" has like started to INFECT others books that they touch covers with-- specifically Dickens novels are doing it, and the characters are like entering books, documents, everything they touch, and spreading aaaall over where they don't belong. So THE PRESIDENT pardons him so he can try to solve this problem.

After the meeting with the President and some researcher-woman who is clinging on to his arm *in heat* now, "The Doctor" that he once worked with in the hospital running up to him and scaring the everloving shit out of him, and he finally realizes why he's been scared of him all this time-- his eyes are kindy buggy like O_O, and it reminds him of the face his friend had made when he threw him out a window and killed him.

It ends with hag-gf pulling up in the car she'd rented for them all, and our protagonist being unsure if she's holding a gun or a camera at him.

I'm too tired rn to really give a more in-depth review, but I liked it a lot. I also liked that the protag was kind of a womanizing asshole so I don't even care if his hag-gf shoots him or not lmao (doubtful, he had a flash of a thought of her being jealous with this new girl on his arm, and there's mention of her having a gun early on, but she doesn't even *know* about this new girl so she'd have to be reacting *immediately* which-- it's possible but w/e. But a better argument is that she wants to hook him up with her clone, and frankly, probably wants a threesome with them)

Cues

I read a story called "Cues" which is about a wannabe cartoonist talking... alien bowling balls and they're teaching him how to be funny. That's basically it. It's *funny*, but I'm not going to sit here typing out jokes like an asshole. Fun little story

The Eyeflash Miracles

NEXT STORY is "The Eyeflash Miracles" and so faaar... a little blind kid has met a former uh... school admin or something, and his valet, and they're going to take him to *somewhere*, I guess some old building they were trying to gget something from, but they were too big to fit through a door or something. So what a stroke of luck that they've found this blind kid lol. Afterwards, Adminbro says he'll try to get him into a special BLIND schooling program, but this kinda seems so far like a dystopian world, and the -- the kid doesn't seem to EXIST because they take EYE SCANS for identification and at some point his retinas were destroyed so now he can't be identified aaaand. i'll read more later.

it's getting even moreeee awesome. So Adminbro and Valetbro bring our little Blindbro to a doctor because he has a fever. While there, he's playing with a girl with a fucked up leg. He hears the sound her brace makes while she's walking so he feels down her skirt(Chad) and touches her leg to "see" what it's like, and it's all uh-- you know, crazy skinny because she can't use it. So as he's feeling it, he feels like it's starting to grow, girl's like "OwO wats dis i can walk" and her mom's flipping the fuck out-- she didn't see Blindbro do it, she doesn't know why her daughter suddenly has a healthy leg.

Our adultbros pretend to be sick to see doc, since Blindbro's eyes can't be processed for payment, they get him medicine, all good.

Later they're hitchhiking and get picked up by an Indian man in a bus who worships "Deva", which isss... what, "god" in Hindu or something. And he's nice enough so far. Uhh, they take a rest stop and our little Blindbro has a daydream that he's dancing with a lion, and finds himself being pulled up from the side of a cliff when he snaps back to reality. He'd danced off the cliff and was walking on the air. Miracle #2.

Indian man has him offer a prayer to a statue of Deva in the back of the bus, and I have to quote the description because something in it is funny. Let's see...

"You see I wish to relate Deva to Christianity here. You will note that one of Deva's hands holds a two-armed cross. The others--I will begin here and go around--hold the crescent of Islam, the star of David, a figure of the Buddha, a phallus, and a katana sword, which I have chosen to represent the faith of Shintoism."

So good lmao. Just "hmmm... ahhhh, how about a katana?" Not even Fio from Mil-Sim story would do that. "Hey, you're Japanese, you like katanas, right?"

Also, the phallus. Because of course, it makes perfect sense for that. There are people--"people"-- who would consider that a religious symbol, but. Just-- Gene Wolfe was SO FUNNY. It's not a -- it's not supposed to be *funny funny*, it's not like portraying the Indian as just a clown, but it does seem like a *little* bit of a ... it's a subtle kind of indicator of the seriousness of what's going on with this Deva-worship, that's all. The katana or the phallus on their own would just kinda be whatever, but I think *both* of them is like... idk what to call it. Humorous MAYBE.

It's too good now. Blindbro snuck into a school for our Adultbros to get a key to let them in-- and he was all alone and scared trying to figure out where to go. He did it though. At one point he "saw" "the computer" which freakin had Legion inside of it. Yeah, *that* Legion. It was SPOOKY and I read it in the middle of the night and the hair on the back of my neck flew off like porcupine quills. But Blindbro actually cast them out of the computer. He was told by his friend, a man made out of clothes, that he'd see them again one day but that everything would turn out alright in the end. Anyway, he gets back to Adultbros, and Adminbro gets inside the building-- he plans on reprogramming the computer to re-hire him and Valetbro so they can get some freakin $$$ instead of living off the minimum anti-wagie bux they've been getting. Then he's going to get Blindbro into a blind school program.

They go back to town so Blindbro can perform as uh...Krishna? I think in Indianbro's play. And when he's alone getting ready with a man playing... ...Indra, Indra tells him a story.

Now for my own knowledge, let's learn a little about Indra because it's probably important...

Indra, enraged by Krishna's rebellion against the traditional worship of him, unleashed torrential rains to punish Krishna and the Yadavas. In response, Krishna lifted Mount Govardhana to protect his people. After realizing Krishna's divine nature as an avatar of Vishnu, Indra repented and acknowledged Krishna as the Supreme Being.

Despite knowing Krishna's divine status, Indra fought him over the Parijata tree, which Krishna took from Amaravati for his wife Satyabhama. This conflict stemmed from Indra's ego and attachment to the tree, influenced by his wife Shachi's jealousy. Ultimately, Indra reconciled with Krishna after losing the battle.

Indra sought Krishna's help to defeat Narakasura, acknowledging his inability to handle the demon alone. This shows moments of humility and reliance on Krishna's power.

interesting. Well, the man playing Indra turns out to be from the government, and he tells Blindbro about how little kids were experimented on in the womb for ++intelligence/++strength, etc. But it seemed that they developed paranormal abilities from it later on. They were seeing strange animals walking through the facility, furniture being moved, food just *appearing*. And that's no good.

The kids were tracked down later, through the retina-scanners that are used for-- everything. They modified an existing program used for criminals-- with just a little extra power, it destroys your retinas. And so they got the experiment kids, and they were killed(murdered) so that Edelgard's greatest wish could come true: Autopsies could be performed!!!! :D PROGRESS!!! YAAAAAAA!!!

Well it turns out that Blindbro was in the control group of the experiments. But the control kids weren't killed, because they hadn't been-- you know, they didn't think that the paranormal stuff was coming from the control group.

But because his retinas had already been destroyed, they could no-longer track him--it was supposed to be a one-time thing, that criminal program--which made it waaay harder to find him. But Indra's found him now.

finished. it was good. Blindbro's dad was the one playing Indra. He's supposed to bring in Blindbro to the Government (so they can perform Edelgard's Greatest Wish on him). It's his shot at getting "in" so he can finally be someone. There were a LOT of great quotes about this, but I'm too lazy rn. Anyway, Blindbro escapes and starts to travel to Texas with Valetbro and an angel. The angel might be the girl with the fucked leg. There's a brief suggestion earlier in the story that maybe once someone's been healed, if they're taken out of the presence of say, Blindbro, or Jesus Christ-- maybe they'll become sick or crippled again. You know, it obviously makes sense in a spiritual manner, but what if it's like that *physically* too?

In other words, even after healing Leg-girl, she might have died. It kinda seems like that's what happened, idk why a *different* angel would be *cosplaying* as her. So she's traveling with Blindbro now

Valetbro PULLED THE RACE CARD ON US, and we learn that he's actually black, and suggests that Adminbro might have forgotten to get him his job back because he's black. "When a black man helps a white man they forget about him" He did *at least* say that the reverse is also true, so I didn't have to SEETHE but still--

This is actually really unfair lmao becacuse Adminbro's been shown in the story to forget *entire years*. His memory's been completely-fucked by the programming chip that was installed in it(which allows him to fix The Computer that broke after Blindbro cast the demons out of it) And Valetbro KNOWS this. Maybe he's just salty and is just talking, it's understandable. That's actually *probably* it, Because he KNOWS Adminbro, he traveled with him for *years*. And they pooled their Social Security, and he admits he was making more with Adminbro than he would on his own, so HEY MAN, GIVE WHITEY A BREAK SOMETIMES

Anyway, he's a good guy though, and the future looks bright if he'll be helping out Blindbro. Because there is *something* going on in Texas that will probably keep them safe from his father, who is still hunting him. Idk what it is, but Blindbro knows what it is.

Also, it might not really be his father who's hunting him lol. Uh... I'm kinda losing *my* memory now too. But it's suggested that maybe one of the women who gave their kids to be experimented on swapped infants with a control-group member, because she figured they'd end up killing the test subjects. But I'm not poooooositive.

Anyway, Blindbro's gonna be all right. The three actually are literally skipping along a railroad track in the end. And Adminbro's back at his old job. Happy Ending!

Seven American Nights

At first, I think he's being a fucking asshole and calling us ugly because he's a RACIST lmao

It's then slowly revealed that we've been genetically fubar'd and America is basically a circus freakshow now.

We're all hunchbacks, giants, dwarves, we've got extra or warped limbs, we're just freaks. Not EVERYONE though, and it's not SO bad for everyone, like he's so far seen at least 2 women that he describes as beautiful. It's going to take a lot more than society-destroying mutations to make a White woman unattractive.

He's worried that someone slipped something into his -- well, here I'll just quote it...

Everyone knows that these Americans were once the most skilled creators of consciousness-altering substances the world has ever seen. The same knowledge that permitted them to forge the chemicals that destroyed them, so that they might have bread that never staled, innumerable poisons for vermin, and a host of unnatural materials for every purpose, also contrived synthetic alkaloids that produced endless feverish imaginings.

Surely some, at least, of these skills remain. Or if they do not, then some of the substances themselves, preserved for eighty or a hundred years in hidden cabinets, and no doubt growing more dangerous as the world forgets them. I think that someone on the ship may have administered some such drug to me.

Good stuff. Anyway, he thinks he was just imagining it. America's pretty scary though. There is *something* that goes on at night which made a man recommend him to have at least 2 armed security guards with him. He says he has a pistol(he does) and is told "that's not enough." So there are THINGS that come out at night. Like that old song my dad used lmao when I was little my dad used to sing "the freaks come out at night" to scare me. But there's already freaks out during the day, so it's got to be *really* bad at night.

Later some bums get him to pay them to take him sightseeing around this dead city that was once very important. They show him a large abandoned building that he believes they no-longer remember the name of. They only call it "the white house".

It's not a *totally* dead city though, America will be great again one day, insists a man with no lower jaw, who shows him that BIG THINGS are underway.

He looks into a basement and indeed sees an old man working on huge, strange machines.

Later he meets this man at a theater and the old man begins to explain to him levels of abstraction in communication, stating that SMELL is the purest form of communication. When you're writing to someone, you're telling them what you'd sound like if they could hear you, when you're speaking to someone, you're telling them what your scent would be if they were closer to you. He goes into some human history, all very interesting stuff.

I can only assume the strange giant machine is a device for healing mutations by sending out 5g waves of girl scent.

What a sad world though, I guess that's the timeline when RFK Jr. wasn't able to get the industrial waste out of our food and water quickly enough.

guy bought some mystery drug, because he wants to just TRY something while he's here in America. You can't visit America and NOT consoom some mystery drug that might make you see weird things for one night or irreparably fuck up your brain and ruin your life. So he gets it, it's a little vial, he soaks some candy eggs in whatever it is, and decides he'll eat one every day.

Now let's see... he visits a park that he was warned about, and INDEED he gets to enjoy some danger. First he sees the holes of the famous American giant rats-- big enough for him to crawl into, though he did not. He didn't see any rats, thankfully.

He gets stalked by a pack of wild dogs. About 55lbs each, he reckoned. He sketched them briefly-- I forgot to mention he's an artist-- and he shot the pack leader. We learn here that his pistol is a laser pistol. The dogs back off.

Some bums further up the park try to start surrounding him, so he tells them he was just forced to kill one of their countrymen (he didn't mention it was a dog) and asked where he could tell the police. They backed off.

He gets home, and finds himself obsessed with an actress he saw at the theater, even though the hotel manager brings him 3 prostitutes.

He decides to try to find her, since he knows her name from the theater pamphlet. Guy's fucking OBSESSED, and he thinks it might be from the drug. He pauses to try to collect himself and

uhhhh... guy meets the girl he wanted. he got her co-star arrested for trying to rob him (idk if he actually was trying) and the two of them had like a miserable date of trying to get him freed from a legal system even worse than the one we know and love. BUT because it's also even more *corrupt*, because our bro's an Iranian tourist they basically just free the guy once they find him

uhhh... i messed up earlier, only ONE of the candy eggs has the drug, so that's why it'll be a surpriiiiise when he eats the one

he was attaccked by a ... fucked up human-monkey thing and shot it with his pistol, but when he went back to look, he couldn't find a trace of it, so we don't know if it was cleaned up or if he'd just hallucinated it

uhhhhh... there's a lot of stuff but im too tired. it's good. i'll do a betterrrrr update later. He likes this girl way, way too much

It was just soooooo real man. I was with some girl--like a strange amalgam of a girl I slept with a few times in my early 20s and a girl I had a crush on as a kid. Just a very *likeable* girl, I was very much THRILLED to be with this Dream Girl. I think it might have been partially inspired by Seven American Nights, where the guy's like losing his mind with how much he loves an American girl he meets.

Anyway, something freaking awful happened in the dream though lmao AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! OK, I've written before about a time I was with this girl, just gently biting everywhere, and I took like 1/2 of 1 second extra on the bottom of her ribs, you know where it leads to the tummy, and she said "those are my ribs" as if I didn't know. Like as if I thought I was noming on her tits. Fucking insane.

It was one of the most erection-obliterating moments of-- I'm being dramatic, but it was the very definition of unsexiness.

So that HORRIBLE, TRAUMATIC, PTSD-INDUCING moment fucking forced(raped) its way into my AMAZING dream. I'm literally just minding my own business, sucking on Dream Girl's nice smol tits, having the time of my (dream)life, and she says something like "That's not my nipple" and even though I was POSITIVE that I was sucking on her nipple a moment ago, I knew that I indeed was no-longer sucking on her nipple. But I had no idea what it was on her chest that I was sucking on, it was something WEIRD instead. This is ALSO where Seven American Nights comes in, because at the end, he's sleeping with the American girl, who will only let him do it with her in the dark, and he uses his laser pistol to light a glass of wine, and he SEES HER FOR WHAT SHE TRULY IS

Indeed, what ALL women truly are: a horrifying monster you never would have loved if you could only have seen its true face

No, women are great and that's probably not the message of the story or my dream (Which pretty quickly ended after that)

Seven American Nights was good though, you know maybe she was a mutant, maybe she wasn't. It's hard to imagine her *transforming* into a monster only while they had sex and him being unable to feel it in the dark, so I'm thinkin' he finally found the drug. It's a very inoffensive amount of solipsism, *most* of the stuff that happened in the story definitely happened, there's only a few parts that are questionable, and it's fun to think about them. Maybe he really was under the influence the entire time, and his original thought that someone had slipped him something on day 1 was true.

Where is he now? Probably in prison. But he probably will be able to get out lmao American lives don't matter much in the story--not even black ones--and he's a wealthy Iranian man. Easy defense: I was given a drug by a bum and it made me lose my mind. I actually-- that's actually a GOOD ENDING btw, that's just good writing. So often it'll just be "And the protagonist was royally fucked, the end." Always either death or something completely inescapable. I don't really like those. How often do you see "OK sure, he murdered that girl because he thought she was a monster, but his rich parents will probably get him out of prison and he'll beat the case if they even bother prosecuting him" and I'm not talking about it being right, it's just-- hey, I hear that "SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS" is supposed to be the absolute highest form of storytelling, right?

But it does have a ... moral reason for me, too. I like rooting for protagonists, even if they wildly fuck up. Give him an opportunity not just for redemption, but for freedom. It's not like he's EVIL, he was literally just seeing things.

🏝️💀

The Island of Doctor Death

Alien Stones

La Befana

The Hero as Werwolf

Three Fingers

The Death of Dr. Island

Feather Tigers

Hour of Trust

Tracking Song

The Toy Theater

The Doctor of Death Island

Cues

The Eyeflash Miracles

Seven American Nights