15 Hours, by Mitchel Scanlon. Ahh, beer and pretzel science fiction. It occurs to me that I should perhaps assign a particular beer to the book; alas, I'm drawing a blank at the moment, for this one. For the future, then. Anyhoo, compared to the likes of authors that normally write within the 40k shared setting, such as Dan Abnett, this novel isn't that great. It's not bad, it's certainly very short at any rate, so...it's okay. Okay is a good word for it.

A few things did pique my interest about it. One, it seemed a uniquely 'American' 40k story; I couldn't tell you why, perhaps something with starting in a kind of Midwest farm analogue, but I had forgotten how, well, 'British' most 40k stories are. Two, the chapter headers, which were quite funny in a very dry way. And three, the narration dips into these introspective moments, which form an interesting progression of the main character coming to terms with his situation, and as such (however sacrilegious this may sound to 40k fans) took on a yogic bent. And that, if I'm right about it, would be deeply ironic, and a credit to the author for slipping it in there.

Creepy fish - we'll go with another triad of comments: one, I would not want sashimi made of such, though I do very much like sashimi. Two, I find it cool that there is an "Underwater Times." Three, I am a bit disappointed they do not have a Page 3 Mermaids section. Sadness.

Random Unexpectedly Freudian Quote of the Day: "...our ego-feeling is only a shrunken residue of a much more inclusive, indeed an all-embracing, feeling which corresponded to a more intimate bond between the ego and the world around it." As that could just as easily come out of a meditation text, I long for the days back in lit. theory where we had someone fluent in German to check the standard 1950's WASPy translations.