February 2026 in Review
Hello Funny People,
Miss Austen
The Librarians
The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
Dusk Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
With that, Funny People, I bid you adieu for now. Until next time, as always, stay safe, stay healthy, and take care.
Despite what that stupid groundhog predicted, winter appears to be undergoing a gradual thaw, at least here in STL. And good riddance to it. I'm tired of all this lingering stupid snow.
A Brief Recapitulation
The first two weeks of the month saw me enjoying the final days of unemployment either rushing around preparing for my pending first day of work or spending time with family and friends.
The very last week before my start date, I made two big trips out to visit folks.
The first big trip, I took a trip with my mother to Piedmont, Missouri, down south near the boot-heel of the state, to see one of her long-time, fellow State Employee folks from the State of Missouri, Janet. We had lunch there at a local diner in town (support your small local businesses), and then took a tour around Janet's stomping grounds. Fun fact: nearly all of the major government/publicly funded buildings in the town--Town Hall, Police Station, Post Office, Public Library, etc.--are all located on one road in the middle of town, called Green Street. And the Fire Department is the next block over, behind the Post Office. We spent about an hour there in the library, visiting with one of Janet's local friends who's the librarian in charge of the tiny stone building, and I spent most of that time reading a hardcover of Anne Rice's The Wolf Gift. I got about nine chapters into the book before we had to leave, and now, I'm hellbent on finding a copy here so I can finish it and see what happens.
The next big trip was back to Mexico, Missouri, to visit my Godfather at the Veteran's Home there. My godmother was there with him, as she is nearly every day she isn't busy doing something else. She recounted all the different social things she was doing now, which prior to my godfather's entry into the home, she hadn't been able to do (a pretty common story among the caregivers of dementia patients). She asked my mother and I about how things had been since we last saw her. We asked her how all the kids (my cousins and first-cousins once removed), were. Then, once we'd thoroughly exhausted my godfather by forcing him to sit in a chair for four straight hours without moving, we went to a local diner just a mile and half away from the home and had lunch/dinner there with her.
President's Day weekend came and went, and thus started my first week on the job.
My first official day was that Tuesday, but I didn't spend it working. I spent it learning about all my benefits. As my father always said, a job without benefits isn't a real job; it's a hobby that pays. And for seven hours, that's all I learned about. Health insurance; dental insurance; vision insurance; life insurance; accidental death insurance; accidental injury insurance; half o these things I didn't even know existed until until they told me about them. The last thing we did before clocking out for the day was get our assigned employee numbers and set up our work emails.
My second day on the job, therefore, I mark as my official "first day." And let me tell you...it was weird.
Not because I was surrounded by weirdos; not because I had to field tons of stupid questions; not because I was busier than a honey bee in spring time when the flowers first bloom; it was weird because I spent most of the time doing little except my online HR training. Nobody was supervising me. Nobody was hovering over my shoulder, telling me I needed to be doing something. I was just...left alone. After so many years of working jobs where, if there was nothing urgent to do, you had to make sure you were pretending to work or risk getting chewed out, this was a seriously change of pace.
Of course, I didn't know everyone's name at first, except my immediate supervisor. But gradually, after hearing them enough, and associating the right name with the right face, it started to get it after my second week--except one. One name kept tripping my dyslexia dumbass up for two weeks, until I finally came up with a mnemonic to help me remember it: "Sounds like Turn Now."
It was only after the second week on the job, though, that I began to feel as if I was getting a grip on the pace of life working my day job. Tuesdays and Thursdays were clinic days, so everyone but me is busy as all hell. Wednesdays have clinic hours in the afternoon, but without outside patients. And Mondays and Fridays? Dead, except classes/
So, despite have odd it felt at first, I quickly adjusted. Honestly, I think I'm going to enjoy working in a community college department.
The Writing Life
So, this happened:
Official Acquisition Announcement from Cloaked Press for A SWORD NAMED SYLPH
Yes, after months of beating around the bush and not being able to confirm any concrete details, I can finally say it, with my whole chest: I'M GOING TO BE A PUBLISHED NOVELIST. My debut novel, that's I've been trying to find a home for for a full 2 years is coming out from the good people at Cloaked Press. At the moment, it's slated for a 2027 release, and for the last two months, I've been going back and forth over ideas for the cover. I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to market this, after so long just being a social media gadfly.
Announcement Graphic for A SWORD NAMED SYLPH
Still, despite the anxiety from having this pending debut on the horizon, it isn't the only thing I have coming down the pike.
At the beginning of the month, my friend Bree Gary decided to revive an old project from the waning days of Twitter: The MonThology shared-world anthology. And it was a surprise to nearly everyone involved because, it had been four years since we last hear anything for our fearless leader. However, she, in tandem with a fellow contributor, Mara Johnston, were able tot get the last of the edits done, including on my story that had been lying fallow since I submitted it during the last days of COVID. So, hopefully, that will be coming out soon enough as well.
I still have hopes of finishing my current novel WIP. I'm slowly crawling towards the end. And once I do, I plan to turn my hand to something as different as it can be.
Miscellaneous
Say one thing for the United State's current leadership regime in Washington. Say they never miss an opportunity to prove just how horrible a cluster of fucks they are.
First came the ICE invasions; then came the attack on Venezuela; now, they've bombed Iran at the behest of the Prime Minister of Israel, without congressional approval. I swear if this starts World War III, I will not report for duty to defend my country because what my country is doing in indefensible. Bad enough, the US already turned Iran into a authoritarian theocratic regime once by overthrowing the Shah all those decades ago; now, we're trying to do it again. Why? Because Bennie wants us to eliminate his enemies for him rather than coming to the negotiating table and hammering out peace.
To give credit where it's do, it wasn't as if the our armed service officers didn't try to stop this. I heard this wonderful anecdote that I pray isn't apocryphal. Shortly after the attack on Venezuela, all of the aircraft carriers used to mount that attack were out of commission for a month. Why? According to the initial reports, plumbing problems. Yeah. Imagine that: these multi-billion dollar death machines had clogged pipes. Well, it turned it to be true, but not because the pipes were bad. It was because the US Navy Sailors had been stuffing shirts, rags, and all kinds of other "unsuitable matter," down the toilets because they realized what the Orange Ass Clown and his Circus of Horrors were planning and wanted nothing to do with it.
All I can say is, if that is true, god bless those sailors. Hopefully none of them served time in the brig or got court marshaled for doing what any service member with common sense would do: anything to avoid getting themselves and their fellows killed.
Between bouts of bugfuck, I did manage to squeeze in a few good watches and reads this month. I'll admit the watches weren't in line with Black History month, but the reads certainly were.
Last year, when this miniseries aired on PBS Masterpiece, I didn't get a chance to watch it, which is in line with my usual MO. But I have to say, after watching this series, it was something I absolutely needed at that moment. Not only is it a pretty convincing fictionalization of the life of Jane Austen (who isn't the central character, but rather her sister), but it's also quite the cozy watch. Apparently, the show is an adaptation of a novel of the same name, which explains why it's such a great viewing experience. Someone already provided the story. Watching Miss Austen however will make you want to read all the books by Jane Austen and everything else you can get your hands on. Indeed, I plan to do so in the near future.
Mr. Bates vs The Post Office
Another show from last year that I missed when it first aired, Mr. Bates vs The Post Office left me feeling a single overwhelming emotion: white-hot rage. Perhaps it's due to living through the long, slow death of the country I call my home as absolutely unqualified buffoons tear it down from inside the corridors of power, but there is nothing that leaves me more infuriated than watching a massive institution do all it can to avoid accountability. And the story of Bates and Others vs. The Post Office is exactly that: a massive bureaucratic organization, which is supposed to serve the public good and supported by public money, does all it can to shunt the responsibility of all its cock-ups on small business people and pensioners trying to enjoy a quiet retirement. The justice these people got in real life was far from sufficient and apropos considering how long it dragged on for many of them--having to live with the stigma of being convicted criminals for charges that were not even legally justifiable to bring against them for decades--but at least it was something. The eponymous character, a real man who was recently knighted by King Charles, is still advocating for his fellow screwed-over Postmasters. May he be blessed with good health to be able to carry on his work for long as he can.
Another story that I knew would piss me off the moment I started watching it, but I also knew I had to watch it. The Librarians tells the story of the recent slew of book bans that have been sweeping the country. However, the bans haven't been just bans this go-around. No. Now, the wannabe totalitarians are also attacking the Librarians, the people charged with safekeeping all this information. And the vitriol has been harsh as a Dow Chemical product. Accusations of grooming, of pedophilia, or child molestation have dogged these poor guardians, all because absolutely none of them--again, God bless them--have refused to simply roll over and not fight against these absurdities. I'll tell you this: if i had the money to do so, I'd go back to school and work towards a Master's of Library Science in a heartbeat just so I could join this fight. These women--and they are mostly women profiled in this documentary--deserve our complete and total admiration because they are holding the line against this war of ideas we're living through. It is no different now that it was when the Axis Powers attempted to concur the world almost a century ago. The only difference now: it's happening here. If you love your local library, watch this film, and then go and support it however you can. Become a patron; get a library card and use it; enroll in those apps available for you to check out digital material. Support your local library and your library people. Show these totalitarian scumbags where they can stick it.
On the subject of books, I curated my reading this month to focus only on black authors. So, my selections might seem a little unusual, but I assure you, each book from this month offered a singular reading experience.
I'd hoped not to start this novel until Winter had given a good indication of when his third volume of his series would be out. After all, there's already too many white fantasy authors with unfinished series out there. However, given I'd elected to read only black authors this month, chose to make an exception.
And goddamn, was I surprised. I thought I knew and could handle Grimdark fantasy. After so many years of reading Joe Abercrombie and Glen Cook and Peter McLean, I thought I knew what this was. Rage of Dragons however is a thing unto itself. I've not read a novel in so many years that had so much genuine blood-lust, hatred, and desire for vengeance so clearly and brazenly articulated on the page. At times, it was truly ugly to read, yet there was also something cathartic about following this novel's protagonist through his journey.
Not only does Tau lose everything, but he becomes hellbent on getting his own back against those who took it from him. And even in this one volume, he manages to do so, despite apparently being the most unexpected person to do so--no talent, no standing, no family, no fortune, no nothing. And he's going to bring down everything the world that holds him down. And i can't wait to see exactly how he does it in the end.
Hopefully, Winter gets on top of his his deadlines and is able to get the next novel done in a timely fashion so that my hair isn't completely white by the time he finishes this series.
I knew, after reading Clark's other Dead Djinn stories that I'd eventually make my way to reading the one novel he's just far produced in this fictional universe. And it did not disappoint.
We rejoin Agent Fatma, the heroine of "A Dead Djinn in Cairo," as she begins investigating the strangest case of her career so far. A massacre has happened among the members of a secrete society named for the man who brought Djinn back into the world several decades before. What makes it so strange is that all of the victims were burned to death, yet the building and their clothing were left untouched. And Fatma knows, as an Agent of the Ministry, that only one thing could've possibly caused such an event to occur; magic. Now, she just has to figure out what the source of it is and how to stop it from wreaking further havoc.
While she does, she must also navigate two major relationships: one with her new partner, a fellow woman who is new to the Ministry, and her potential love-interest, who's as much a mystery as the one she's trying to solve. Can she manage all this and solve the case before even greater horrors happen?
I won't spoil anyone's enjoyable of the book by giving away plot details, but I will say this: reading this book makes me furious that Clark hasn't written more within the Dead Djinn universe because of how much I've come to enjoy this world. Its aesthetic, its society, its atmosphere, I want more of it. But I also understand that he's a creator who wants to do other things outside of this realm. I plan to read more of his more recent work to see if there's more I can relish and enjoy as much as his stories of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Creatures.
Having read Their Eyes Were Watching God years back, I knew at some point I'd return to Hurston's work. I just didn't know which one. So, when the opportunity to read her memoir arose, I jumped at it. It's a very usual memoir though. Hurston spends a great deal of time on her childhood, which of course is the bank balance of the writer, to us Graham Greene's term. We end up getting a sizeable amount of information about the innate curiosity that would go on to drive her towards both her constant travels to pursue her work as folklorist and anthropologist and the empathy that came with it that enabled her to produce so many powerful fictional works.
It's clear the material that Hurston provides was what she deemed to be important to understand her as an artist and independent scholar. Yet, I couldn't help but sense there was a lot missing.
The edition of the audiobook I listened to featured multiple versions of several chapters, some with detail clearly omitted from the text as originally published. There are also numerous instances of glossing over things that, someone like me who is always interested in the making of a work of literature, don't get. She tells us that Their Eyes... came to her in a rush and that she produced it in seven weeks while doing anthropological work in Haiti, but she tells us nothing of what might've inspired her to do it, what was going through her mind at the time. She mentions her first novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine, but tells us nothing about the process of how it came to be. She talks of her contemporaries, but tells us little of the falling out what history tells us happened at some point.
Of course, memoir is selected confessions, and often times, the omissions come as a result of the author wishing to paint a very particular portrait of themselves and their times. In fact, the omissions often say more about the author than the confessions. I know this book went through a number of rewrites and cuts at the publisher's insistence, but I can't help but wonder what the original might've looked like, or even if such a typescript even still exists now.
Still, lacunae aside, the book still reads like a piece of work composed by Hurston, with that strong, lyrical, metaphor-laden voice, rich with the essence of the southern tall tale she so loved and worked to preserve in her anthropological works. For that reason alone, it's worth a read.
My month of reading closed with me finally reading this classic.
For years, I've heard people talk about how the most accurate dystopian vision of our present chaos resided within the pages of Parable of the Sower, and after finishing it, I can only concede that those voices were correct. The climate havoc; the deranged war-happy, domestically neglectful government; the reemergence of old-school company towns; the degradation of trust and community; if Butler had been so adamant about her novels not being prophetic, the accusation would certainly stick when you simply look around at the world today.
Yet, despite its bleak, realistic tone, there's something comforting amid the portrait Butler paints. Not only does she present an interesting philosophy that certainly chimes with much of what I personally believe-- "All that you touch, you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change." --but she also presents, indirectly, another very crucial truth about what's truly important in the coming apocalypse: community. The "chosen family," and community that Lauren builds around her as her old society and community led by her preacher, professor father crumbles as first her brother, and then her father, vanish from her life. Survival for human beings isn't going to be the result of individual, self-reliant people, but of groups of people willing to work in tandem to build communities amid the ruins and protect them once they do.
I definitely plan to eventually read Parable of the Talents, but this is not a duology one simply breezes through. I'll need to sit with this first before going into its sequel.
Before I close, Funny People, there's one last thing I must acknowledge:
On February 21st, 2026, the SF community lost one of its giants. Dan Simmons, author of masterful works of speculative fiction, such as Song of Kali (1985), The Terror (2007), and the Hyperion Cantos (1989-1997), passed away following complications from a stroke. While in recent years, Simmons had become controversial due to various statements that changed perceptions of his more recent work, now with his passing we can acknowledge one thing unconditionally: that he was a unique talent in our field, who left behind many iconic novels that added to the genres, and that the world is a poorer place with him gone. Rest in peace, Mr. Simmons.
-- IMC 🙃
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