⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Jellyfish: — “Not fiction, not really”

@Raven12

Most folks will read this as experimental literature. Word games, alphabet soup, postmodern satire. Fine. Let them.

But I know some of these words. Dead Hand. Perimeter. Dedovshchina. Bayraktar. They’re not metaphors. They’re field notes. I’ve seen the systems that make them true, and I’ve watched them break.

The author pretends it’s a lexicon. What it is, is an archive in plain sight. Every “In Jellyfish terms…” is a safety valve — a way to laugh while slipping you the truth sideways.

·       CardinalCoin? I’ve watched programs like that tested on allies. Loyalty as currency. Not science fiction.

·       Cyclone Imperfections? That’s a description of how nudges really work when they misfire. I’ve seen operators lose men to a 50ms lag.

·       Dacha? The names might not be real here, but the math of corruption is. You don’t get those houses without pipelines no one wants traced.

What I appreciate is how it layers it. Anyone can Google “ICBM” and get missile specs. Adams gives you what it feels like: apocalypse with a steering wheel, bureaucracy as necromancy, poison disguised as procedure. That’s the lived truth, not the technical detail.

This book isn’t a story. It’s a mirror. The kind you check before you step into a black site briefing, just to see if you’re still human.

So sure, call it fiction. Put it on the shelf next to Borges and Pynchon. But if you know, you know. And if you don’t — maybe you shouldn’t.