Author Archives: lydias

About lydias

I'm a sci-fi writer who loves lifting weights and hates eating Brussels sprouts.

A Review of Homeless

Book cover for Homeless by Neal Shooter. Image on cover shows a black and white sketch of someone walking through a forest on a cold winter day. The ground is covered in snow, the trees are bare, and the person is so bundled up you can’t tell what they look like. Title: Homeless

Author: Neil Shooter

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: November 9, 2013

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 15 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Winter didn’t end, but his world has. Is he completely alone? In a world gone cold, what can keep the spark of life shining?

Content Warning: Animal attack. Murder. A character who eats a dead, raw rat. Possible mental health problems depending on how one interprets certain scenes.

Review:

Sometimes the world ends with a whisper, not a bang.

The first half of this tale was an excellent example of what the post-apocalyptic genre can be like. The unnamed protagonist has somehow survived a catastrophe that killed the vast majority of humans and should have killed him, too. His limited information about what happened only made his struggle to survive even more poignant as I had no idea what else might await him after the months of hardship he had already endured. I loved the fact that the reader was limited to what this character knew about the world and could only make rough guesses about the things he had yet to discover.

Unfortunately, I struggled with the second half of this tale due to how unbelievable I found certain scenes. Their themes were so exaggerated when compared to what happened earlier that I kept wondering if there was a piece of the puzzle I was missing. Was the narrator holding something back from the audience? Was he unaware of an important detail that would make later scenes feel more logical? There were answers to these questions that I thought made sense, but I kept wishing that Mr. Shooter would give us a few more hints about which direction he intended his audience to go.

With that being said, my ultimate conclusion about what happened was an interesting one and did help me to find some closure for this character. Whether or not it was what the author intended, it made sense given what I knew about the protagonist early on as well as some of the clues about his personality that were revealed later on. If my interpretation was correct, this was a more realistic assessment of what this catastrophe would actually be like for the surivors than many books in this genre tend to create.

Homeless was a wild ride.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: The First TV Show I Remember Watching

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

The Sesame Street logo. It looks like a street sign with the numbers 123 at the top and the phrase “Sesame Street” written in a plain white font against a green and gold background. Oh, this is an easy one: Sesame Street.

My grandparents’ live out in the countryside. They used an antenna on their old TV to get a few basic channel back in the day and probably still do.

Depending on what age I was and where we lived, my parents either didn’t have a TV at all or did the same thing as far as not paying for cable goes for most of my childhood. We generally didn’t get to see much current stuff unless they were on PBS or other public channels. It was a lot of news, Jeopardy, and reruns of older movies or shows instead.

Luckily, Sesame Street was available when I was in the right age groups to watch it.

(The Internet was not even something on our radars back then, and what did exist of it back in those days was nothing at all like what we have today).

I have fond memories of the songs and skits they included on that show. See also: “Sunny days, chasing the clouds away.”

My favourite scenes were the ones that showed other children running around and playing outside on playgrounds or other fun places. I also enjoyed how grumpy Oscar the Grouch was and wished I could climb into his trash can and find out why he liked it so much.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2026


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Drawing of the outside of a blue multi-story building. Snow is falling gently outside as the street lamp glows dimly.Inside a window on the second story of this building, a pale-skinned man and woman who both have black hair sit by the window wearing sweaters and reading books in companionable silence.

Image credit: ninikvaratskhelia_

We’ve reached what is often Southern Ontario’s snowiest and iciest portion of the year.

This is when I often get a disproportionate amount of reading done due to how cold, slippery and dark it is outside.

(We have about 9 hours of daylight per day now. It’s nothing at all like how things are way up north where they have months of darkness, but it’s quite cloudy most days and I do definitely miss the feeling of sun of my skin right about now).

I’m writing this post in advance beginning in November. As I only had three titles to add in when I began, I am hoping that by the time this is published that number will have grown a little.

Let’s see what future Lydia can do!

 

 

 

Book cover for Phases: a Memoir by Brandy Norwood. Image on cover is a close-up photo of her face as she wears a blue silk garment and gazes thoughtfully off into the distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Phases: A Memoir by Brandy

Publication Date: March 31

Why I’m Interested: Yes, I have mentioned this book a few times lately, including the most recent Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge post. I’m too excited about it not to talk about it again today. I loved Brandy’s music growing up and am curious to learn more about her life.

 

Book cover for What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed. Image on cover shows a white flower with yellow spines, or possible very thin yelllow petals, sticking out from it. The other half of the image shows a black moon slowly merging with the flower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed

Publication Date: April 7

Why I’m Interested: The alien planet described in this novel sounds so creative albeit dangerous.

 

Book cover for Canon by Paige Lewis. Image on cover shows a collage of various scenes: a blue whale flying above a mountain range; a pink and blue lizard scuttling about at the bottom of the cover; and in the middle of the cover, a soldier with a long spear rushing towards someone wearing modern clothes who is sweeping the street. The city behind them looks a little overgrown and the sun is setting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  Canon by Paige Lewis

Publication Date: May 19

Why I’m Interested: Weird fiction is alluring to me, and this was so odd I’m struggling to condense the plot into one sentence.

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A Review of Sunset

Title:SunsetBook cover for Sunset by P.B. Cannon. Image on cover shows a gorgeous orange and yellow sunset in the sky overhead a distant pine forest on an overcast day. The light appears to be dancing in the clouds almost because of how it gently touches everything.

Author: P.B. Cannon

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 3, 2022

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery

Length: 25 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Charlotte, North Carolina, is an area where earthquakes are uncommon, but one bright morning it is struck by one so vigorous that it forms deep crevasses in the ground, knocks out communications, and leaves the city in disarray. Can a bodyguard and the bodyguard’s two clients who were about to board a private plane along with a tag-a-long passenger, get to the bottom of why their trip to Columbia, South Carolina has been so disastrously interrupted? They don’t know, but having no choice because all air traffic has stalled, along with the three employees from the small airport that was handling their flight, they begin a journey to find out.

Content Warning: An earthquake.

Review:

Airports are no place for any funny business.

Some of my favorite scenes were the ones that explored the relationships between the main characters and how their experiences with the world differed from how many men see it. Science fiction hasn’t always done a good job at writing female characters or delving into the nuances of what it means to be part of a minority group, but this is thankfully changing with newer generations of authors in this genre who have the life experience and compassion to write such things.

I struggled with the abrupt ending of this short story. While some of the conflicts were resolved, other ones were still left up in the air by the time the final sentence was completed. I’m not the sort of reader who requires everything to be wrapped up neatly, but I did find myself wishing more had been explained in that final scene so that I could better understand what the characters might encounter next. There was still so much that could have been done with it.

The explanation for the earthquake was strong and memorable. Even though I can’t go into a lot of detail about it for plot twist reasons, the scientific principles behind it intrigued me and made me want to learn more about the subject. Other readers who have stronger backgrounds in science can share their own thoughts about how realistic it is, but I thought it was well done and possibly could be something that happens in real life. (Oh, if only I could write more about this topic in this paragraph!)

Sunset kept me guessing.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: New Books I’m Looking Forward to This Year

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Top Ten Tuesday has a similar topic coming up next week, so today I’m going to be narrowing my list down to my most highly anticipated reads of 2026 so far.

This is going to jump around genres a bit because, as usual, that’s how I prefer to read!

Book cover for Onward: Climate Fiction to Inspire Hope by Erin Entrada. Image on cover is a drawing of two birds sitting at the mouth of a cave whose entrance is shaped like an hourglass. Beyond the birds there are numerous tree branches and a calm body of water, perhaps a sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.Onward: 16 Climate Fiction Short Stories to Inspire Hope  by Erin Entrada Kelly

Publication Date: February 24

Solarpunk is my new favourite subgenre of speculative fiction. I love reading about possible ways the future could be much better than life is at the present, so my fingers are crossed this will be an uplifting read.

Book cover for Phases: a Memoir by Brandy Norwood. Image on cover is a close-up photo of her face as she wears a blue silk garment and gazes thoughtfully off into the distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Phases: A Memoir by Brandy

Publication Date: March 31

As a preacher’s kid,  I wasn’t always allowed to listen to secular music, but Brandy was one of those wholesome artists who passed my parents’ standards once the rules loosened up a little.  I’m so curious to read her story from her perspective and hope she has a lot of interesting stuff to say about the parts of her life she hasn’t always been forthcoming about in the past. This is by far my most anticipated read of the year.

 

Book cover for Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel. Image on cover is a stylized painting of what appears to be rays of yellow sunshine flowing out from a large orange and yellow sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Enormous Wings by Laurie Frankel

Publication Date:May 5

In a recent Top Ten Tuesday post, I talked about my desire to read more books about protagonists who are senior citizens. This definitely belongs in that category, and I look forward to see how Pepper adjusts to being forced to move into a retirement community only to discover that she’s pregnant shortly after that. What an unusual combination of conflicts!

 

Book cover for The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden. Image on cover is a painting of a white woman in a medieval-style flowing white dress standing in front of a multi-story window and looking out at what appears to be an ornate garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden

Publication Date: June 2

I enjoyed her Small Spaces quartet and hope the storytelling in this fantasy novel will be just as playful.

 

I suppose the second half of the year will remain a mystery for now as there weren’t a lot of books scheduled for release then yet, and none of the ones I did find gave me that, “I must read this!” sort of feeling.

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Top Ten Tuesday: My Favorite Books I Read in 2025


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A sideways snapshot of four layers of bookshelves that are all stacked with antique hardbound books in various muted shades of red, orange, and dark yellow. A few days ago I blogged about all of the books I read 2025.

Today I’ll include a brief description of why these titles were my favourites from last year as well as I think it makes these sorts of posts more memorable. It always makes me smile when other bloggers share those details, too.

1. “Reindeer Moon” by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Why I Loved It: Ms. Thomas truly made me feel as though I’d travelled back 20,000 in the past to meet a tribe whose culture, religion, social structure, and way of life shared almost nothing in common with how I grew up.  That is not an easy accomplishment, but it sure makes for a compelling read.

 

2. “The Testaments” by Margaret Atwood

Why I Loved It: We finally were able to find out what happened to Offred and many of the other characters from The Handmaid’s Tale. The ending was immensely satisfying, too.

 

3. Ghosts, Trolls and the Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends” Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir

Why I Loved It: I have zero Icelandic ancestry or any other connection to this part of the world, but at least these tales were (mostly) created at a time when things like Christianity and farming existed. As with Reindeer Moon, it was marvellous to get to know a little about a culture so different from the one I grew up in. Learning about other cultures is so rewarding.

 

3. The Blue Castle” by L.M. Montgomery 

Why I Loved It: The romance genre is one I only occasionally visit, but this was an excellent reread. There’s nothing like seeing a character who has suffered for years finally not only find relief but also true love and happiness as well.

 

4. The Hunger We Pass Down” by Jen Sookfong Lee

Why I Loved It: This was such a creative take on how generational trauma can be passed down for decades even after the original stressor has long since disappeared. I also thought the characters were well written and memorable, especially Alice.

 

5. Born: The Untold History of Childbirth” by Lucy Inglis 

Why I Loved It: This is something that was never covered in any of the history classes I’ve ever taken, and yet humanity wouldn’t survive if nobody gave birth anymore. Most of this book covers the tens to thousands of years when pregnancy and childbirth were far more dangerous than they are today. One of my favourite sections was the one that explored how medical advancements like cesarean sections,  antibiotics,  blood transfusions, and incubators have made both of those experiences much safer for both mother and child. I am so grateful for modern medicine.

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The 2026 Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge Topics

Long and Short Reviews has released the list of topics for their eighth year of Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge posts.  I’m going to start working on my replies ASAP and will see everyone for the first one in three days.

This is a graphic that shares all 50 Wednesday Weekly Blogging challenge topics for 2026. I will transcribe them in the post as there isn’t space here. Above the list in this image you can see an opened laptop on a wooden table. All of the details on how to participate can be found on their site.

If you’re having trouble reading the image, scroll down for a transcription of the weekly topics. Everyone is welcome to join in at any point of the year.

January 7 – New Books I’m Looking Forward to This Year

January 14 – The First TV Show I Remember Watching

January 21 – Humorous Book Titles

January 28 – Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time

 

February 4 – Will You Watch the Super Bowl? Why or Why Not?

February 11 – My Favourite Song Lyrics

February 18 – Song Lyrics That Made Me Cringe

February 25 – Fictional Things I Wish Were Real

 

March 4 – Fictional Things I’m Glad Are NOT Real

March 11 – Books About My Favourite Topic

March 18 – Audiobooks I’ve Enjoyed

March 25 – A Genre I Want to Read More of This Year

 

April 1 – Favourite Book Blogs and/or Book Bloggers

April 8 – What Were You Like as a Child?

April 15 – My Unusual Hobbies/Interests

April 22 – A Few Happy Memories From My Life

April 29 – A Celebrity I’d Like to Meet

 

May 6 – Something I Could Give a Speech About With No Notice

May 13 – Something I Wish I Knew More About

May 20 – A Typical Day in My Life

May 27 – Animals I Wish I Could Have As Pets

 

June 3 – Unique YouTube, TikTok, or Other Videos I’ve Seen Recently

June 10 – A Story About My Best Teacher

June 17 – Something to Know Before Visiting My Country/City

June 24 – Have You Ever Attended Your High School Reunion? Why?

 

July 1 – Websites I Wish Still Existed

July 8 – Stores or Other Physical Place I Wish Still Existed

July 15 – Would You Go Skydiving? Why or Why Not?

July 22 – Books I Wish I’d Discovered Sooner

July 29 – My Life in Photos or GIFs

 

August 5 – Reasons I’ve Stopped Reading or Watching a Series

August 12 – Foods From My Geographic Area That I Love

August 19 – Foods From My Geographic Area That I Don’t Like

August 26 – A Weird Fact I Learned from Reading Fiction

 

September 2 – One Sci-Fi Item or Ability I Wish Really Existed

September 9 – Books Set Near Where I Live

September 16 – Book/TV/Movie Characters I’d Invite to Dinner

September 23 – One of My Pet Peeves

September 30 – Something I Can’t Live Without and Why

 

October 7 – A Profession from a Book/Movie/TV Show I’d Like to Try

October 14 – Prologues/Epilogues – Love or Hate Them? Why?

October 21 – Reread Books or Rewatch Movies? Why?

October 28 – Favorite Memories From My Childhood

 

November 4 – Something I Always Thought Was True (But Wasn’t)

November 11 – Favorite Festival/Fair/Holiday

November 18 – Activities That Improve My Mood

November 25 – One of My Strangest Dreams

 

December 2 – Favourite Movie/TV Show I Saw This Year and Why

December 9 – Favourite Books I Read This Year and Why

December 16 – The Best Gift I’ve Been Given

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A Review of New Year

 

Book cover for “New Year” by Neal Shooter. Image on cover is a very bright yellow background that reminds me of the glow of a lightbulb. It’s so bright it all but obscures the title and author.

Title: New Year

Author: Neil Shooter

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: November 26, 2019

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 12 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Life on Mars is a constant struggle, and not at all what Naamah expected. The Mission backers melted away, and the four new Martians are alone. To survive Mars, she must come to terms with her past, her present, and her future.

Content Warning: Religion, pregnancy, miscarriage, and stillbirth. I will be discussing these topics in my review.

Review:

Nothing is more important than hope.

It’s uncommon for me to find stories with this setting that talk about the challenges of trying to become and stay pregnant in such a hostile environment, so I was excited to see what Mr. Shooter was planning to do with these topics given how important they were for the characters and their fledgling community. While this meant that some scenes were sad ones, I thought the author handled the topic nicely and realistically given the characters’ circumstances and the tragedies they’d already endured. If only i could read a few more instalments to find out what happened next.

I’ve struggled with the ambiguous nature of some of Mr. Shooter’s other stories, but in this case it worked out beautifully. Life on Mars would rarely if ever be straightforward, especially for couples who are attempting to bear children but have little if any medical assistance with pregnancy or birth. When combined with the many dangers that would be present for a new colony on that planet, of course Naamah and her companions would struggle to know what the future brings and what they should do to make it as pleasant as possible.

The religious themes in this short story were strong and critical in order to understand the ending, but I wouldn’t classify this as belonging to the inspirational genre due to the protagonist’s misgivings about that topic at times. This is something I’d recommend to people who are interested in religion from an academic or philosophical point of view as it did sometimes take a critical approach to certain negative consequences of believing that one is the messenger of God and that feelings always should be taken more seriously than concrete evidence. Readers who are able to step into Naamah’s shoes may find rewarding themes and messages, though! Just don’t go into this expecting a Sunday School lesson.

New Year made me yearn for more.

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What I Read in 2025

A pair of glasses, possibly reading glasses, lying on a page of an opened book that has a map drawn on it. Happy (almost) New Year, readers!

In January of 2013, I began blogging about everything I’d read that previous year.  This tradition began when my dad asked me how many books I’ve read in my entire lifetime.

I couldn’t begin to give him an answer to that question, but it did make me decide to start keeping track from that moment forward. The previous posts in this series are as follows: 2024, 2023, 2022,  202120202019, 2018,  2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

In 2025 I had a lot of DNFs of full-length novels due to some very difficult times my family and I have gone through these past couple of years, so I did not read as much nonfiction as I normally would. Short stories and similar types of writing were much more my speed in 2024 and 2025, especially if they were closer to the cheerful end of the scale.

Thirty full-length books read is honestly impressive given everything I was dealing with behind the scenes, and I have hope that 2026 will be easier for all of us. Some of them were comforting rereads, too, to be honest.

Books I never finished are only occasionally included in my lists of what I read. For example,  if there was something memorable about that tale and I want to remember that, yes, I have already tried to read it, I’ll add it in. The other 99% of the time, I do not.

 

Autobiographies, Biographies, and Memoirs

“Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins” by Barbara Demick 

“No One Taught Me How to Be a Man” by Shannon T.L. Kearns

“Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World” by Jessica Slice 

“Little House in the Big Woods” by Laura Ingalls Wilder 

“Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Little House on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder 

“On the Banks of Plum Creek” by Laura Ingalls Wilder

“By the Shores of Silver Lake” by Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

Fiction

“A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman

“Isaac’s Song” by Daniel Black 

“A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens 

“Reindeer Moon” by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

“The Blue Castle” by L.M. Montgomery 

History

“Born: The Untold History of Childbirth” by Lucy Inglis

 

Horror

“The Hunger We Pass Down” by Jen Sookfong Lee (My review

“Horsefly” by Mireille Gagné (My review

“I Found the Boogeyman Under My Brother’s Crib” by Ben Farthing (My review)

“I Found a Lost Hallway in a Dying Mall” by Ben Farthing (My review)

 

Psychology and Sociology

 

“The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution” by Dixon Chibanda MD 

 

Science Fiction and Fantasy

“Apis” by Liz Boysha  (My review)

“The Testaments” by Margaret Atwood (My review)

“The Golden Key” by George MacDonald

“Mob Lodge” by Krrish Anand (My review)

“The Last of What I Am” by Abigail Cutter (My review)

“Ghosts, Trolls and the Hidden People” Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir 

 

Science, Health, and Medicine

“Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection” by John Green 

“Beyond Limits: Stories of Third-Trimester Abortion Care” by Shelley Sella, MD

 

Young Adult

“Where the Water Takes Us” by Alan Barillaro 

“For the Rest of Us: 13 Festive Holiday Stories to Celebrate All Seasons” by Dahlia Adler (My review

“The Lost Girls” by Sonia Hartl 

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Library Books With Long Waitlists


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

The original topic for this week was Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf, but I’m tweaking it a little bit as nearly everything I read comes from my local library. 

Black and white photo of someone walking down a desolate road next to a line of street lamps that are closely packed together but not turned on.Here are ten books with long waitlists that I hope to request from the library once the demand for them isn’t quite so high. Yes, I know I did this same topic a while ago, but might as well recycle it every now and again.

 

 

 

Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging by Angela Buchdahl

Wait Time: 12 weeks

Why I’m Interested: Earlier this year I met someone who is on the heart transplant list. I continue to think of him and hope he gets his transplant.

 

Recitatif by Toni Morrison

Wait Time: 12 weeks

Why I’m Interested: I generally enjoy her work quite a bit.

 

On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters by Bonnie Tsui

Wait Time: 15 weeks

Why I’m Interested: The science of fitness is interesting and can change rapidly.

 

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Wait Time: 16 weeks

Why I’m Interested: Terrifying vampires are the best sort of vampires if you ask me.

 

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Wait Time: 16 weeks

Why I’m Interested: I like the idea of memorializing a child who died young a very long time ago (even if a good deal of this is probably fiction). Too often their lives were forgotten.

 

Ingram: A Novel by Louis C.K.

Wait Time: 2o weeks

Why I’m Interested: It predicts how climate change will affect us all in the coming decades.

 

Flashlight by Susan Choi

Wait Time: 22 weeks

Why I’m Interested: It appears to be long and character-driven. If I’m going to read a long book, it needs to have excellent character development, so I’m hoping this will fit the bill.

 

Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It
by

Cory Doctorow

Wait Time: 22 weeks

Why I’m Interested: I may or may not have ranted about this phenomenon a few times this year.

 

Are You Mad at Me? by Meg Josephson

Wait Time: 23 weeks

Why I’m Interested: This is something I struggle with.

 

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Wait Time: 25 weeks

Why I’m Interested: Climate change, seed banks, and literary fiction sounds like an interesting combination.

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