Interests: climate, science, sci-fi, fantasy, LGBTQIA+, history, anarchism, anti-racism, labor politics
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No logré engancharme. Tal vez es que la realidad de la guerra es demasiado punzante …
Back in the YA section. I was taking a break, but if you're really into genre fiction (like I am in SF), it's almost unavoidable.
Anyway, the writing is good. Descriptive, blunt, to the point. I'm enjoying it so far. Giant robots FTW! Can't wait for the sapphic romance to take off.
Sally Strange
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Tomoko is no stranger to change. With two boys in high school and a husband …
A+ touching manga
Sally Strange
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All About Love: New Visions is a book by bell hooks published in 2000 that …
At a fun party, mostly of educated, well-paid professionals, a multi-racial, multigenerational evening, the subject of disciplining kids by hitting was raised… As one man bragged about the aggressive beatings he had received from his mother, sharing that “they had been good for him,” I interrupted and suggested that he might not be the misogynist woman-hater he is today if he had not been brutally beaten by a woman as a child.
— All About Love by bell hooks
Imagine not only getting owned this badly at a party, but also having it recorded in a bestselling book
Content warning Spoiler for Russian Civil War
@AlexanderVI@stranger.social lol @ "spoiler for the Russian Civil War"
I don't know. It purports to be all about 1917 but reviews have mentioned that its scope is obviously larger than that. I just started.
Sally Strange
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Content warning Spoiler for Russian Civil War
@SallyStrange interesting - does it go as far as the bit where we all invaded Russia to try to put down the Red Army, or is it just about 1917?
It's an audiobook (I basically don't read paper books anymore) and the narrator, Stephen Rudnicki, is the same guy who often reads Samuel R. Delany books. This creates an interesting effect...
This is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the …
As an American, this was a fascinating and educational read. It fills in the blanks left by our myopic media and provides context to events that were quite mysterious and unexpected at the time that I was living through them.
To have finished the book, which closes describing scenes in Moscow in December 2011, when Alexei Navalny was leading hopeful protests against the Putin regime, on the same day that the news of Navalny's death in prison reached me, seems cruel, but entirely fitting. In these passages, Gessen notes that Putin and his allies were slow to recognize the danger they were in, and predicted that when they did, they would lash out violently, like a cornered animal. Perhaps with a terrorist attack, like the ones the KGB engineered against the Russian people in 1999 - 2000, when Putin was first running for president. But no. Putin started a war.
This is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the …
Excellent! Makes me want to read more by Masha Gessen.
The dust may have just settled in the failed war of conquest between the Holy …
Imagine your little moon was conquered and colonized, your people exploited. You live with it and try to get by. Then one day your sibling gets abducted. When you ask your ex, who happens to be the governor, to find out what happened, your ex dies rather suddenly. Then, unexpectedly, you have the chance to travel to the heart of the empire, there possibly to seek revenge for your people's insults and maybe even find your sibling.
As noted in other reviews, the book strains belief occasionally with the protagonist's many lucky breaks. A couple of details were inconsistent--like an android who can't go undercover for long because he doesn't breathe, but he does sigh once. In my opinion, these aren't enough to outweigh the interesting development of a character who's far from a spy or assassin having to cope with spy/assassin type problems. Plus, the author clearly has an …
Imagine your little moon was conquered and colonized, your people exploited. You live with it and try to get by. Then one day your sibling gets abducted. When you ask your ex, who happens to be the governor, to find out what happened, your ex dies rather suddenly. Then, unexpectedly, you have the chance to travel to the heart of the empire, there possibly to seek revenge for your people's insults and maybe even find your sibling.
As noted in other reviews, the book strains belief occasionally with the protagonist's many lucky breaks. A couple of details were inconsistent--like an android who can't go undercover for long because he doesn't breathe, but he does sigh once. In my opinion, these aren't enough to outweigh the interesting development of a character who's far from a spy or assassin having to cope with spy/assassin type problems. Plus, the author clearly has an intimate understanding of what it's like for a colonized person to live amongst their colonizers, constantly dealing with condescension, exploitation, bigotry, and even outright violence. Overall, it's a good balance of serious and silly, plus the descriptions of cultural conflict are absolutely on the nose. Worth it, unless you're a stickler for detail.
The dust may have just settled in the failed war of conquest between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish …
Sally Strange
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@SallyStrange ugh! I heard about this from an episode of This American Life and it was mind-blowing
This is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the …
I learned: that there was a string of bombings in Russian high-rise apartments during 1999, right before Putin's election. At the time, it was widely assumed that these were the work of Chechnyan separatists, but the book reveals convincing evidence that it was really the KGB. Trying to get their man in, apparently.
I found nothing to dislike about this book aside from one thing: I'd have liked to explore more about the main character's love interest's background. This is eminently forgiveable though. The writing is rich and lyrical and the world Solomon creates is recognizable and believable even as she populates it with fantastical creatures. Even as the main character becomes one of those creatures.
Fantastic!
