Grrl Power #911 - The luxurious backhand

Sean Murphy

If I recall correctly, I read the first Miles Vorkosigan short story in Isaac Asimov Presents *after* I saw Star Wars, which was after it had been in theatres for a very long time.

DavidJ

Too tired/lazy to bother looking it up, but I wonder which came first, Vorkosigan Saga or Star Wars? Aaand, how does Sydney know that help has arrived? "Cause I see no clue anybody has joined the party, until "vvvp!"

Stan

Can't wait for the coming "Splat"...

Nechochwen

Depending on the situation they could be taken as interchangeable, however "bind to" generally carries the implication of an external force acting on the subjects (save for uses like "I bind to you" if you want to be archaic) whereas "bond with" more often implies voluntary behavior on the part of the subjects (where the subjects are capable of personal agency at least).

I'm hoping Sydney uses her secret power from the space battle to find Cocretia's body and bust her out of there!

Jeffrey Nonken

...Mind you, I don't DISAGREE with that recommendation. Personally, if I'm recommending the series, I'd say if you're not a big completionist, you're fine starting with Shards. As far as the Vorkosigan Saga goes, Falling Free doesn't really count as much more than some mildly interesting backstory for the Quaddies. Side note: Shards of Honor and Barrayar have been offered as a single book the last few years called Cordelia's Honor. In case you're buying the books. ... I'm sure all this has already been covered in the comments and I'm just too lazy to read them all first.

Jeffrey Nonken

"Start with Shards of Honor." Depends on how much of a completionist you are. https://www.howtoread.me/the-vorkosigan-saga-books-in-order-lois-mcmaster-bujold/

Foradain

hmmm, 1) orbs found off Florida Keys... 2) evidence of a possible link between Chicxulub impact and the K-Pg extinction... 3) proximal ejecta found all over the Gulf of Mexico... The only problem I have with this theory is that we have (as yet) no evidence that the orbs could have acted independently to stay out of rocks forming over 66.043±0.011million years. OTOH, we have no evidence that they can't...

Knolden

Aaand that guy is probably not using that arm again. Play stupid games? Win stupid prizes!

Stan

It'd be kind of scary if the orbs came to earth about 65 million years ago and the "bonded" was killed arriving and it was that energy discharge that kill off the dinosaurs .

Jeremy

Dave: If you click "Add to Library" (Under the play button on the Audible website) it will add the book to your library and it will then be available on your player to download. That click may be a desktop-view of the audible page thing. I just did this for "Falling Free." Thanks for the tip!

Some Ed

Well, she's on talky drugs. You can't expect her to take a deeply reasoned approach to responding to that.

StLOrca

Anyone who wants to kill Sydney has never considered the idea of an omega-level super like Maxima getting very, very angry. Now imagine Dabbler also being very, very angry. There would literally be nowhere you could hide on this planet (and probably any other).

Krahazik

Well I think the big worry for the higher ups is that if the orbs react badly to the non-natural death of the host, IE, massive uncontrolled energy release followed by the orbs loosing themselves someplace again.

Marc Vun Kannon

Now that someone mentioned it, could the 'she' in question be Sciona? Who else would such a 'small' amount of blood?

Mark Temple

is there a way to search for free audiobooks on audible? i have an account (1 credit a month) but i go through books way too fast even doing audiobooks.

Lex of Excel

Dabbler's gonna use that for the ARCHON All-Male Burlesque Review.

Justaguy

The orbs are running Windows ME.

Justaguy

Or worse, dabbler? Dabbler with tentahooks and farvision?

Justaguy

I don't think she appreciated those gloves as much as she said

Bharda Sullivan

“Those of you in the first few rows, will. Get. Wet.”

This guy gives me the vibe of somebody who would use a USP 40 instead of a decent, respectable caliber like a 9 or a .45.

William Elliott

I love how Sydney's reaction to getting backhand is to talk smack to the delivering jackass, giving him the expanded version of "You hit like a bitch"

Reigys

lol. I wonder if her orbs actually do have an ai. To be honest if they represent a spaceship then they reasonably should so hmm.

Eric Loken

And now... you die badly.

Tim

Also, all you would have to say to discourage anybody from trying to kill Sydney to get the orbs would be "What if they bond to Maxima?"

Tim

Is it "bind to" or "bond with", or are they interchangeable?

Eric

Angry Sydney is great. That face is EXCELLENT

Jack Ponder

Wow. Stupid and violent and sexist. That dude is the Blackjack of awful human traits.

Jared Juetten

I like the MURDER in Sydney's eyes at the end. :D

Richard Riley

The chunky salsa rule applies to explosions in confined spaces. This isn't the latter, and I don't recommend the former.

Anton Schleef

I suspect either Cora, Dabbler, or a member of the Consortium. The remaining members of ARCSWAT might carry guns, and even be fairly good with them, but they tend to favor using their powers. Also, I think only Cora knows of the "special" properties of Sydney's new glasses, which makes her and Dabbler much more likely.

Aclys

Lets hope!

Aclys

on the other hand this world has superpowers and aliens... Though it doesnt stop Sydney-grade psychological warfare from working as a counter

Michael Altarriba

Nobody. Backhands. Sydney. Show him the full meaning of "fury."

Andrew Diseker

Will it be any worse than all the "blood magic" pages from before?

Nimrod009

One suspects that the invocation of the Chunky Salsa Rule is imminent and it couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow, just try and keep the other guy intact and able to speak, gonna need something to interrogate.

Wyrmhand

No that I would remembered.

Rens

The thing about most "truth serums" is that there's actually no such thing. You can't reliably chemically compel the truth from someone. Instead, what they do is render someone pliable and suggestible and diminish their reasoning capability (lying takes more mental effort for most people than telling the truth, because you need to make a lie up on the spot) and make them more likely to just blurt out what's on their mind, then have the "interviewer" direct the topic to whatever facts you want to know. Once you look at it like that it's suddenly very obvious why this backfires with Sidney...

Nicholas Grey

There's a whole lotta wall of text in these last couple of comic, but did anyone notice her saying "Vermilion"?

Andrew

It was a Ruse! Sydney’s reaction to the backhand reminds me just a little of Pam. Well also with a smidge of the whole cocaine thing of course.

Joseph

I am twelve kinds of ok with watching Cora and Xuriel turn this guy into a fine red mist, really. Don’t hold back or nothin’.

Robin

looking forward to the gore already, don't hold back on my account (don't exaggerate on my account either)!

Marc Vun Kannon

So who is 'she', and how much does she like Sydney? That defines the magnitude of the little skosh to come. Who am I kidding, everybody loves Sydney.

AlexKorobeiniki

Unless they’re receiving power externally and it’s simply undetectable. Agreed that there’s no evidence of that so far but it’s still a possibility. Also, I’d love to know what “they” have been thinking of Sidney this whole time. “Dear god, she’s insane!” “Wait, hold on, she’s actually not doing too badly. Huh.”

AlexKorobeiniki

And Sydney has once again shown she can handle her shit when things get exceedingly real. All that training is really paying off. Then again, compared to a literal planet-destroying armada, dude-with-gun is kinda weak sauce. It’s all relative, i suppose.

Stan

Can't really think of someone else in the story that deserves a healthy serving of gore like "little bitch" except perhaps the Fel.

Marc Vun Kannon

Boy, this guy just keeps digging his grave deeper, doesn't he? I expect the first panel of the next page will be a red wall, and you'll go on from there. Go full-out, pre-code comics on that guy. He tortures Concretia, injects Sydney with a drug without any awareness or concern about side effects, slaps her, and then tries to kill her. Not to mention doing him will probably put a neat end to the LLC that's powering HW.

Brandon Pio

Would love a snippet of an alternate earth timeline were they decided that Sidney is just not "worthy" of being in control of the orbs, and the resulting nuclear implosion of the planet as objects that literally contain unfathomable powers are rendered insane by the death of their host. (Its not like they are show to draw their powers from elsewhere, those pew-pews are self contained, with seemingly no limits, which means they have power enough to handle such a thing) btw, love tour work, and that this arc (heh) is finally progressing(no complaint, just happy subplots are finishing)

Michael Obert

I am Thor . . . I am mighty . . . I am running out of things to say . . . lol. Not a problem Sydney suffers from.