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I've Joined The Creator Accountability Network

I've joined the Creator Accountability Network (CAN) as a provisionally credentialed creator! The provisional period is three months long, and at the end of that time I'll be fully credentialed if nothing disqualifying comes to light.  I'll be excerpting details from their website as the best way to explain what this is and what it means for me as a content creator and for you as readers and audience members. The short version is that I've undergone ethics training as part of the credentialing process, and that if you feel my actions have harmed you (now or in the future), you can report harassment, abuse, or other harm to CAN. Quotes in the rest of this post are from CAN's website as of August 16th, 2025. Here's the long version: From CAN's mission and purpose statements:  "The Creator Accountability Network empowers Community Members to build trust with Content Creators through ethical training and credentialing, victim-centered reporting of unethical...

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

A wildly successful innovator to rival Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she's trying to outrun those who are trying to steal her success.

In the chilly darkness of a Boston server farm, Viv sets her ultimate plan into motion. A terrifying instant later, Vivian Liao is catapulted through space and time to a far future where she confronts a destiny stranger and more deadly than she could ever imagine.

The end of time is ruled by an ancient, powerful Empress who blesses or blasts entire planets with a single thought. Rebellion is literally impossible to consider--until Vivian arrives. Trapped between the Pride, a ravening horde of sentient machines, and a fanatical sect of warrior monks who call themselves the Mirrorfaith, Viv must rally a strange group of allies to confront the Empress and find a way back to the world and life she left behind.

TITLE: Empress of Forever
AUTHOR: Max Gladstone
PUBLISHER: Tor Books
YEAR: 2019
LENGTH: 480 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: N/A

Partial Queer Rep Summary: Lesbian/Sapphic Main Character(s).

DNF 114 pages in (24%).

I think what turned me off of this book is I was initially very stoked for Vivian's covert exit from her life, the intrigue of managing anonymity after being so famous. Emotionally I was all set for something that felt like a heist and then the book abruptly transforms into something else. I was fully absorbed into the first set of rules and then just couldn't make the pivot into the galaxy-hopping ragtag band story.

CW for confinement, blood, violence, torture, death.

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A woman glares angrily from under an elaborate green helmet with several horn-like structures reaching upward.


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