Reviews and Comments

It warms up slowly, but then it barrels along. This was fun. There aren't enough middle-aged women doing cool shit books, so that was a pleasure. Great rep. Wonderful to read a book that makes me miss evenings at the masjid. And the small twist for Dunya was also welcome and done well, imo. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

I loved a lot of this: the deep character building; the reality-details; and the odd topic of early game development. I found at the end, though, that I didn't love it as much as I had while I'd been reading. I grew to dislike Sadie pretty strongly, and felt like her character didn't get as much development as the men, and therefore her choices and behaviors felt abrupt and awful. I'm annoyed that the one woman in the book wasn't treated as carefully and fully as the other two--it really spoiled the whole barrel for me. Having said that, the story and the writing are pretty amazing in how they pull you in and don't let go.

I blew through this too fast and now I want more, but there isn't any, I ate it all. I've been dying for a book about Translators, and Leckie delivers, and I can only hope that there's another one coming with more of everything and everyone because I love it all and I'm oh so greedy. Like the other Radch books, there's a pretty strong theme pointing a finger directly at our current society. This one is about consent (and identity because all the Radch books revolve around identity in a beautiful, subversive way). I love this series, and this book fits in with a satisfying snick.

The start of this book felt really choppy and odd, but the more I read, the more I warmed to the style and voice. My biggest complaint was that the "kid" didn't feel realistic to her age, and that was a constant distraction as she's pretty much the crux of the story. The premise of extra shadows as a social controller was really interesting, and I almost wish there'd been more examination of this, but that's not the story Crane was telling. This is a difficult book at times because of the persecution and grief (as advertised), and I found the narrator to be a bit annoying, but I loved the queer rep in this, and came away satisfied by the end.

This was a quick read, kept me interested and turning pages. Not sure I bought the twist, though. I really liked the relationship and character work, but I cringed several times at the characterization of being blind as being something horrible. I think this book seriously needed blind sensitivity readers. It was yeesh and yikes quite a few times. He acknowledges how negative his characters are about being blind in his afterword, but I think this could have been balanced by having some characters be positive about it, you know? He sorta does that with the fighting deacons, but I felt it wasn't enough, and while many characters were head-hopped, none of the blind ones were. I enjoyed the tech aspects--the idea of how do we know what is real, etc. A good premise.

Written in 1953 and covering Clarke's ideas of modernity and social philosophy, it was interesting to compare reality with the fictional predictions of how to create utopia. Two moments stood out: the invention of birth control and paternity testing leading to the end of "Puritan aberration"; and while he claims, " Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded," he doesn't seem to apply this to systems-thinking. So, there's a lot of racism and patriarchy in a book that is trying to write those things out of fictional existence. I imagine Escher's flawed hand drawing the flawed human. He also had a character outraged at the THREE whole hours of radio/TV consuming people's minds, and how this was a blight on humanity's creativity and thinking. That one he seems to have nailed pretty spot-on. His solution for it was odd, and left out women completely. He kind of glosses over UBI or work-related issues. I suppose that was necessary to keep the focus on the plot, but it's a pretty huge handwavium for a utopia. I would have preferred to hear more about those things, and less about the flying transportation. There was a lot in the travel parts that I found silly. Did they not have international travel in 1953? [they did: 1945] It certainly hasn't cured any societal ills. As far as the actual plot of the book goes - meh. The aliens were a fun surprise, but beyond that I found it kinda dull.

The author is Deaf, as well as of mixed heritage, and this intersectionality is present in many of the poems. Maybe not as much as I'd have liked? but yeah. I feel like the larger, lurking presence of the author's father was the center around which all the poems spun, even when they weren't about the relationship. Nothing here really blew me away, but I found the interview in the back to be interesting and profound in many ways.

An entertaining homage to Heinlein (better, imo) with a nice, sometimes witty, protagonist who is lucky in love, friends, and war. It's just fine. Nothing wow - just does what's on the tin. I'm sure the series would be good, and while I doubt I'll get to them, it's something to keep in my pocket for when there's "nothing to read" and I just want something smooth.

This will probably be my book of the year choice. I loved the themes and potential discussions in this one, and there's not a whole lot I can say in a review without either spoiling it or setting up a new reader to see things a certain way. I don't want my own biases to influence someone coming to this fresh. I think who you are and what you believe will drastically change how you perceive this book, and that's kind of fantastic to me. I will say, I borrowed this from the library but will be buying a permanent copy to own. I think I'll see and feel different things on subsequent re-reads. I will also say this is a completely different flavor from her fantasy duology.

This was both hard to read and hard to put down. I think Ward does an incredible job at keeping the balance between heartbreaking and heart-filling, and she never crosses over to the point that I couldn't bear to witness the pain. These characters will stay with me a long time.

I read the sample for this and could not stop thinking about it until I bought it. I don't think I've ever read a book with such deeply written, and carefully flawed, characters who interact and navigate each other with such realness. It was incredible. Having said that - because the characters were so well done - it was jarring when the spaceflight science didn't fit reality. Like, I don't think they'd have canned anything on a spaceship. Pretty sure they'd plan birthdays so far in advance that it would be laminated. I don't think any of these kids would have tested into this program. I don't think adults would hang back like that when lives (and millions) are on the line. And other stuff that would spoil things, but you get the gist. I should add this is a super-hetero book with christian undertones. Nary a queer, alas. It would have been beyond fantastic with more rep. I was able to ignore it (mostly) because, dang, I just wanted to eavesdrop on those kids more. Seriously, I could listen to them argue and make up and grow up for hours. Not sure what that says about me, but there you go.

This was riveting, and I couldn't figure out how the end would go even up to the last minutes. There are murders in this, but I don't think they get, you know, lurid or whatever - but fair warning given. And I think the psychology of the murderer is pretty spot-on, if a little oversimplified.

The rat people were funny, until they weren't. I loved the dragon - gave me Sunday comic strip vibes. This is our May book club read, along with Vol 2, and I know I'd never have picked this up otherwise, so I'm glad this pushed me out of my comfort zone as it's entertaining.