Short Stories I Read In May

It’s the twenty-ninth of June. So it’s time to talk about the short stories, miscellaneous posts, and podcast episodes I read or listened to in May.

All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty-Two)

I only got around to reading two stories from Uncanny Magazine in May, and the first was All Theses Ghosts Are Playing to Win by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles. This story, at its base, is about grief and regret and forgetting. And it does those things very well. It’s told from the perspective of Theo, a ghost, who is in a casino where memories are the currency. This was an interesting approach to this kind of story: by linking high-stake bets with the function of a sort of limbo where you go up (as a big winner) or to the “DARK.” Supposedly, but is everything really that simple? You’d have to read to find out. There was also ample time devoted to Theo’s reminiscing, but I liked those moments just as much as the other aspects, themes, and overall conclusion. So while the general tone had an air of melancholy, All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win was haunting but in a good way. And I enjoyed reading it.

A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse by K.S. Walker (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Ffty-Two)

The second one was this very short piece called A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse. I read this one for the writing, which was evocative and instantly drew me in with descriptions of a lonely night at a shore combined with a slight feeling of the fantastic and uncanny. And I liked it exactly for those reasons. All-in-all, this was another good one.

From around the web…

• Print Run Podcast Episode 162: Turning Over the Same Leaf
• Place and Tome: On Two Kinds of Unforgettable Reading Experiences [Molly Templeton; Tor.com; May 25, 2023]

The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell

Title: The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion 
Series: n/a
Author: Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell
Source/Format: Purchased; Paperback
More Details: Nonfiction
Publisher/Publication Date: Crown; July 20, 2021

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble

Synopsis from Goodreads...

The definitive inside story of WeWork, its audacious founder, and what the company's epic unraveling exposes about Silicon Valley's delusions and the financial system's desperate hunger to cash in--from the Wall Street Journal reporters whose scoops hastened the company's downfall.

In 2001, Adam Neumann arrived in New York after five years as a conscript in the Israeli navy. Just over fifteen years later, he had transformed himself into the charismatic CEO of a company worth $47 billion--at least on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the 6-foot-five Neumann, who grew up in part on a kibbutz, looked the part of a messianic Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The vision he offered was mesmerizing: a radical reimagining of work space for a new generation, with its fluid jobs and lax office culture. He called it WeWork. Though the company was merely subleasing amenity-filled office space to freelancers and small startups, Neumann marketed it like a revolutionary product--and investors swooned. 

As billions of funding dollars poured in, Neumann's ambitions grew limitless. WeWork wasn't just an office space provider, he boasted. It would build schools, create WeWork cities, even colonize Mars. Could he, Neumann wondered from the ice bath he'd installed in his office, become the first trillionaire or a world leader? In pursuit of its founder's grandiose vision, the company spent money faster than it could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, the CEO scoured the globe for more capital. In late 2019, just weeks before WeWork's highly publicized IPO, a Hail Mary effort to raise cash, everything fell apart. Neumann was ousted from his company--but still was poised to walk away a billionaire. 

Calling to mind the recent demise of Theranos and the hubris of the dotcom era bust, WeWork's extraordinary rise and staggering implosion were fueled by disparate characters in a financial system blind to its risks, from a Japanese billionaire with designs on becoming the Warren Buffet of tech, to leaders at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs who seemed intoxicated by a Silicon Valley culture where sensible business models lost out to youthful CEOs who promised disruption. Why did some of the biggest names in banking and venture capital buy the hype? And what does the future hold for Silicon Valley unicorns? Wall Street Journal reporters Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell explore these questions in this definitive account of WeWork's unraveling.

I remember the promotion for a company called We Work—which sublets office spaces—and, at one point, it seemed like it was everywhere. Building off of trendy marketing and a purported core purpose of being an interconnected space—a “community”—to appeal to those looking for a different office experience. However, with the pandemic, I forgot about them. So when I recently heard about a book called The Cult of We by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell I was, to say the least, intrigued, because I somehow missed the majority of the news as it was happening—and what I did hear about I didn’t delve too deeply past the surface.

The Cult of We does exactly as the synopsis promises, by delivering an in-depth look at the rise and fall of WeWork. Mapping out the company’s earliest days (and prior iteration)—as well as the founder’s life and the turning point when greed, a convoluted purpose, and false representations—warped what was promising on paper into a colossal mess with far reaching consequences. And the further I read, the more the first two sentences of the author’s note stuck in my mind, as what it had already succinctly explained was bolstered by a detailed recounting.

“The implosion of WeWork in September 2019 was an astounding moment in business. Nearly $40 billion in value on paper vanished, virtually overnight, as the investment world woke up to the reality that America’s most valuable startup wasn’t a tech company but simply a real estate company—one that was losing more than $1.6 billion a year.”—from the Author’s note

This book read like one long news report. Parts of it could be a little dry and, given the subject of the book, it was filled with financial jargon. However, I never felt lost when reading it, and by the midway point I was thoroughly engrossed.

So if you’ve wanted to know more about WeWork’s situation, then I’d recommend The Cult of We.

  

The Book of Gems by Fran Wilde

Title: The Book of Gems

Series: Gemworld #3
Author: Fran Wilde
Source/Format: NetGalley; eARC
More Details: Fantasy; Novella
Publisher/Publication Date: Tor.com; June 20, 2023

Goodreads    Amazon     Barnes & Noble

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Some truths are shatterproof...

It’s been centuries since the Jeweled Valley and its magical gems were destroyed. In the republics that rose from its ashes, scientists craft synthetic jewels to heat homes, power gadgetry, and wage war. Dr. Devina Brunai is one of these scientists. She also is the only person who believes true gems still exist. The recent unearthing of the Palace of Gems gives her the perfect opportunity to find them and prove her naysayers wrong. Her chance is snatched away at the last moment when her mentor steals her research and wins the trip for himself. Soon, his messages from the field transform into bizarre ramblings about a book, a Prince, and an enemy borne of the dark. Now Dev must enter the Valley, find her mentor, and save her research before they, like gems, become relics of a time long forgotten.

I’m not familiar with the other two books in this series, but I was instantly intrigued by the premise of Fran Wilde’s The Book of Gems.

The Book of Gems was a story about greed, theft, and academic rivalry intertwined with the active history of the “Jeweled Valley.” This was a solid adventure story with plenty of cool world building to keep me interested from the first page to the last. I liked how the gem-based magic system was approached as a science and an avenue of study (a source of relics), particularly from the perspective of Devina (Dev) Brunai. She was a character who reminded me of Emily Wilde from Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, in that Dev was an academic who struggled to have her skill and work recognized. Like Emily, there was an overall pervading feeling of being stifled. And I liked the way the author portrayed Dev’s frustration as well as her conflicted feelings: wanting to find her mentor but also wanting retribution and to reclaim her stolen research.

There was much more to the story than that, and I enjoyed how the different clues came together in a way that offered a satisfying conclusion.

Overall, The Book of Gems was a quick read, but I had a lot of fun with this novella.

About the author....

Fran Wilde writes award-winning speculative fiction and fantasy. She can also tie a number of sailing knots, set gemstones, and program digital minions. She reads too much and is a friend of the Oxford comma. Her short stories appear in Asimov's, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Uncanny, and Tor.com. Fran's debut novel, Updraft, was nominated for a 2015 Nebula Award, won the 2015 Andre Norton Award for Best Young Adult SFF and the 2016 Compton Crook award for Best First Novel, and was nominated for a 2016 Dragon Award for Best Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy.

Goodreads     Website     Twitter     Instagram

Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by the publisher (Tor.com) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you! 

Music Monday (245): Sarah Kinsley, Keyshia Cole

Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: Over the weekend, I was back on Spotify. It recommended an indie pop playlist to me, and one of the songs that I liked was Sarah Kinsley's Black Horse.

  

Andrea: Hi all! This week I'm listening to Heaven Sent by Keyshia Cole. I hope everyone has an amazing week!

What are you listening to this week?

The Friday 56 (236) & Book Beginnings: The Cult of We by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

The definitive inside story of WeWork, its audacious founder, and what the company's epic unraveling exposes about Silicon Valley's delusions and the financial system's desperate hunger to cash in--from the Wall Street Journal reporters whose scoops hastened the company's downfall.

In 2001, Adam Neumann arrived in New York after five years as a conscript in the Israeli navy. Just over fifteen years later, he had transformed himself into the charismatic CEO of a company worth $47 billion--at least on paper. With his long hair and feel-good mantras, the 6-foot-five Neumann, who grew up in part on a kibbutz, looked the part of a messianic Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The vision he offered was mesmerizing: a radical reimagining of work space for a new generation, with its fluid jobs and lax office culture. He called it WeWork. Though the company was merely subleasing amenity-filled office space to freelancers and small startups, Neumann marketed it like a revolutionary product--and investors swooned. 

As billions of funding dollars poured in, Neumann's ambitions grew limitless. WeWork wasn't just an office space provider, he boasted. It would build schools, create WeWork cities, even colonize Mars. Could he, Neumann wondered from the ice bath he'd installed in his office, become the first trillionaire or a world leader? In pursuit of its founder's grandiose vision, the company spent money faster than it could bring it in. From his private jet, sometimes clouded with marijuana smoke, the CEO scoured the globe for more capital. In late 2019, just weeks before WeWork's highly publicized IPO, a Hail Mary effort to raise cash, everything fell apart. Neumann was ousted from his company--but still was poised to walk away a billionaire. 

Calling to mind the recent demise of Theranos and the hubris of the dotcom era bust, WeWork's extraordinary rise and staggering implosion were fueled by disparate characters in a financial system blind to its risks, from a Japanese billionaire with designs on becoming the Warren Buffet of tech, to leaders at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs who seemed intoxicated by a Silicon Valley culture where sensible business models lost out to youthful CEOs who promised disruption. Why did some of the biggest names in banking and venture capital buy the hype? And what does the future hold for Silicon Valley unicorns? Wall Street Journal reporters Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell explore these questions in this definitive account of WeWork's unraveling.

Beginning: "The crowd filling the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles buzzed with anticipation. Technicians in the control room readied cameras and then unleashed a kaleidoscopic array of spotlights that lit up the theater--the same one used for the Emmys."

56: "The herd followed suit, and worshipping at the altar of the founder quickly became Silicon Valley's new religion. Some called it the cult of the founder."

Comments: One of the nonfiction books on my radar this year was a release that came out in 2021 called The Cult of We. This book was very informative and was a fascinating look at the rise and fall of WeWork. What are you reading this week? 

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Title: Hell Bent
Series: Alex Stern #2
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Source/Format: Purchased; Paperback
More Details: Fantasy; Mystery
Publisher/Publication Date: Flatiron Books; January 10, 2023

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell in #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

The one sequel this year that I didn’t realize I should be anticipating was Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo. I happened to read Ninth House in April to get out of a bad reading slump, and I loved it so much that I purchased a copy of Hell Bent. And I loved this sequel as much as the first.

I was so glad to be back with Alex, Dawes, Turner, and the other characters as a daring, dangerous, and reckless plan was hatched to rescue Darlington.

One of the highlights of this series continues to be the characters. There were familiar faces, like Tripp Helmuth. With every heist there is a team, and Alex’s allies (and the way they tackled the needs for their quest) was fantastic. Dawes is just Dawes: studious, shy, and incredibly reliable. Her friendship and understanding with Alex wasn’t without some hurdles, but it was one of my favorite platonic relationships in Hell Bent. There’s Turner too, who could sometimes be more reluctant, but I liked how much more background was revealed about him.

In general, there’s something so dark and realistic (and horrifying) about these books, but the grit suited the overall atmosphere and the contents of the story. A literal heist that involved burglarizing hell, and I don’t mean that metaphorically either.

Less time was spent on describing Yale, but the locations didn’t deviate much from the last book. Basically, much of the world building was done in Ninth House, and its sequel just built on the ground rules that were already established. A lot of the book was devoted to the main quest-type plotline, but there were plenty of other mysteries—about the magic, the secret societies, and the characters as well as new cryptic deaths—that made every moment interesting.

Overall, Hell Bent was an excellent sequel.

Music Monday (244): Wednesday Campanella, Spelding's Jazz Orchestra, Adani & Wolf

Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: My pick this week is a song by Wednesday Campanella, a musical group. The song is called The Bamboo Princess, and I love it. It's from some of their older music, before the previous singer, KOM_I, left the group in 2021. I like the newer music, but I also enjoy the singing style of their backlist too.

Adri: I'm listening to The Oxford Hustle by Adani & Wolf. I'm also listening to Vegas by the Spelding's Jazz Orchestra, which is the theme song of the TV show, Vega$. Some time ago, I noticed certain points were a little bit similar. Honestly, it contributed to my love of both songs. 

What are you listening to this week?

The Friday 56 (235) & Book Beginnings: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell in #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

Beginning: "Alex approached Black Elm as if she were sidling up to a wild animal, cautious in her walk up the long, curving driveway, careful not to show her fear."

56: "Dawes kept her eyes on the window. There wasn't much to see--the ally, the side of a neatly upkept Victorian."

Comments: I had so much fun with Ninth House's sequel, Hell Bent. What are you reading this week?

Upcoming Music I'm Waiting For

It’s June. A whole six months are already gone, but since we’re finally entering the second half of 2023, it was high time that I put together another list of the upcoming music I’m looking forward to.

 

• Feed the Beast by Kim Petras (June 23): I’ve been following Kim Petras’s music for a while now, so I’m ecstatic about this new album.

• Weedkiller by Ashnikko (August 25): I listen to Ashnikko on occasion. After her Coachella performance, I’ve had a renewed interest. So, Weedkiller is definitely on the top of my list for upcoming albums.

• Tension by Kylie Minogue (September 22): Minogue is one of my favorite artists, and my most anticipated album for the second half of 2023 is this one. There have been two singles released—10 Out of 10, and the more recent Padam Padam—and, so far, I’m liking the vibe.

Unconfirmed

• Second studio album by Lil Nas X: I really liked Lil Nas X’s first studio album, Montero. So I’m looking forward to his next one. The date is unconfirmed for this one, so who knows if it’ll be released sometime in 2023 or next year.

• Fourth Studio album by Doja Cat: The date is also unconfirmed as of the time I wrote this post, so there aren’t any singles that I know of yet. But, I’ve done some reading up about this album, and it seems like it could be a lot different from what I’ve come to expect from Doja Cat. However, I’m looking forward to that.

So, that’s everything I’m looking forward to at the moment. As always, this list isn’t comprehensive and depends on my taste in music. What music are you waiting for? If you have any good recommendations, just leave them in the comments below.

Music Monday (243): Lexie Liu, Earth Wind & Fire, Kylie Minogue

Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: Recently, I've been listening to a lot of music by Lexie Liu. I stumbled onto her stuff a few months back thanks to a recommendation from Spotify, and, since then, I've been into her album called The Happy Star. One of my favorite songs so far is MIRA.

Adri: I'm listening to Padam Padam by Kylie Minogue. I love the sound and can't wait for the new album.

Andrea: Hi all! This week I'm listening to Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind & Fire. Have a great week!

What are you listening to this week?