Pluviôse couldn't be more apt for the last few weeks.

This is terrible news. Des was always so kind whenever we met. He'll be really missed.

Oh no. That's terrible news. Des was always so kind and positive. A really lovely person.

preparing for the next life and watching what happens there, but if that was meant to be a criticism of religion promising rewards after death to the neglect of this life, the book could have finished several hundred pages earlier!

Likewise, I expected it to go in a very different direction. Dodge finds himself in a new world that he could have shaped to be anything, but it ends up replicating established western worldviews, which I found deeply frustrating. I liked the idea that people end up spending more and more time

Same. I really enjoyed the beginning of Fall: Or Dodge in Hell, didn't like the middle and loathed the last third, so it felt like it went on forever.

Gift link for the obituary of an absolute hero, put him in history textbooks and a middle grade biography, everyone should know his name and story.
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/w...

Dogs all come from wolves which are canids (dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, etc). Stoats are mustelids (weasels, polecats, badgers, otters, martens...). Some dogs have been selected to mimic mustelids that go into burrows to hunt, but have different origins. Ferrets are the domesticated mustelid.