The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from The Dreaming Stars by Tim Pratt, the sequel to The Wrong Stars that I read earlier this year. Both books are sci-fi with fantastic minority representation. The following is an exchange between the ship’s AI and the ship’s captain:

“This is a spaceship, not a sailboat. Squishy organic brains can’t be trusted in such circumstances.”

“Squishy organic bodies have more fun, though.”

“Pfft,” Shall said. “Have fun crudely manipulating your nervous system and brain chemistry through tactile physical inputs. If you’re lucky you might vaguely approximate the kind of transcendent pleasure I can experience at will just by altering my own sensorium.”

“Oh, Shall. There’s nothing wrong with masturbation, but I’ve always had more fun collaborating.”

“You have no idea what goes on in the machine-intelligence-only parts of the Tangle, do you?”

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from The Weight of Feathers by Anna-Marie McLemore. The character here has been caught out in some kind of acid rain.

But she couldn’t even move enough to crawl. All she could do was pull herself under the nearest tree, gritting her teeth against the feeling that her dress was soaked and heavy with poison. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to keep out what was falling from the sky. If she blinked enough of it in, it might leave her blind.

The rain burned into her. She curled up tighter, cheek against her sleeve. She shut her eyes tight enough to see comet trails of light. She tried to keep out the feeling that the rain was a million lit matches. And the strange smell in the air that was a little like apple cider if apple cider was the venom of some night creature, the rain and stars its teeth.

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from The Good Demon, by Jimmy Cajoleas.

A white wooden vanity stood on the back wall, with a giant cabaret mirror hanging above it, big white bulbs and all, just like in the movies. A feather boa was draped over one corner, and little snapshots were tucked into the sides of the mirror; yellowing photos of a handsome man in a sailor’s uniform and a beautiful woman with long black hair, her dress whipping in the wind.

I guessed the man was Uncle Mike and the lady was his wife. It was hard to imagine. They looked so gorgeous back then, a Hollywood couple, exotic and untouchable. I was suddenly afraid of aging, of growing frail and dotty, of wasting way on my feet, alone. If the years did all that to Uncle Mike, what would they one day do to me? The next picture showed Uncle Mike holding a little black-haired girl’s hands while she tried to walk. I guessed that was his daughter, Cléa. Another one with all three of them posing in front of a lighthouse, the girl no more than five or so. They seemed so happy, the kind of family you always wished you had. And one more photo tucked into the vanity mirror, one that would burn itself in my brain, one I would never forget. It was Cléa – older now, maybe my age – walking on some kind of cliff’s edge, the ocean smashing underneath her. It must have been taken shortly before she disappeared. She smiles mysteriously, lovely and aloof, like there was some secret she was hiding. I liked that about her.

The writing in this book is gorgeous, and I can’t wait to post my full review!

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from Wintersong, by S. Jae-Jones. It’s a re-imagining of Labyrinth. With the Goblin King and all!

Was Josef afraid he was damned? God, the Devil, and the Goblin King were larger figures in my brother’s life than I had realized. More than either Käthe or me, Josef had been sensitive to the moods and emotions around him. It was what made him a superb and sublime interpreter of music. Perhaps this was why he played with such exquisite clarity, agony, frenzy, ecstasy, and longing. It was fear. Fear and inspiration and divine providence all in one.

The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from Don’t Call Me Princess: Essays on Girls, Women, Sex, and Life by Peggy Orenstein.

Page 56 lands in the essay “Caitlin Moran: They Don’t Make Feminists This Outrageous Anymore.”

There is, for instance, the upkeep of that new presumed depilation (“I can’t believe we’ve got to a point where it’s basically costing us money to have a vagina”); the tyranny of stratospheric heels (“The minimum I ask for my footwear: to be able to dance in it and that it not get me murdered”); ever-teenier underpants (“How can 52 percent of the population expect to win the war on terror if they can’t even sit down without wincing?”).