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.