Book Highlights - Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove

Feb 9, 2026

I love this book because the prose is very concise. The gender-bending helps. Also the tech/ai easter eggs, especially if you work in this field.


Stewart: Before my ethics module can kick into gear...

Stewart: YOU USELESS SUM OF A BYTE!

Stewart: To borrow a human expression: fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Hades: spits out a lump of nasty-looking HTML

Agnus: Also, explosions are bad, and Demeter can do any equation, but she needs solid numbers. Haven't you ever heard of 'garbage in, garbage out'?

Demeter: sobs out a bitter, wretched block of zeroes

Demeter: Unregistered Flight AI management system Nos-C71897 Demeter Unit 0.0.0.0

Demeter: There are some advantages of having your code [Stewart] so close together after all.

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