Paul

This beautiful Tibetan family story explores how people can feel tied to a sense of place years or generations after having to leave it. Ranging from a small nomadic community high in the mountains, to their forced relocation to Nepal and finally to a small apartment in Toronto, the book follows the daughters of a highly respected local healer and mystic as they are forcefully displaced as part of China's cultural revolution. Not only are they forced to leave their home, but their community's cultural practices are outlawed, and buildings and artifacts are being systematically destroyed. In spite of the trauma and poverty that arises from the displacement, the sense of community, family and tradition remains steadfast among those in the refugee camp, and beyond.

There's a natural authenticity to these stories that can be rare to find when reading stories like this. All the characters are multidimensional, complicated people, and whether they do good or bad or questionable things, it's always understandable why they do what they do. Even the most hatable characters can become sympathetic in their own way. And by focusing the narrative around a treasured statue, the multiple characters and timelines didn't get overwhelming or confusing.

This book works on many levels: the writing is great and has many quotable moments, the characters and their stories are strong and touching, the cultural references were enlightening, and the perspectives and social commentary about how the West seems to view Tibetan culture really forced me to think differently. I recommend this book highly.

This was a hands-down spectacular read. It had a unique protagonist, a very propelling plot, a clever and cool world, and it was just non-stop engaging. This is definitely going to be a top read of 2024 for me.

Besides it being an exciting Space Opera-style adventure, it also did what all great sci-fi does and really forced us to reflect on ourselves and our society. To what extent are you who you choose to be, and to what extent are you the product of the world that made you? That's probably the central question explored in this, but it's also much more than that.

I heard in the Sword and Laser book club that many people found the main character hard to put up with, mostly because she is a very difficult character to like. Personally though, I love investigating villains and "bad people" because so often there's more to them than just their bad ideas or detestable attitude, and this story really explores that very idea in a powerful way.

I would actually recommend this book to anyone who's not immediately turned off by the idea of futuristic stories, including young people. It's exciting, provocative, gripping, and just an amazing story. But it also sneeks in examinations of governmental systems of military populism and the way propoganda can infect communities, from people willing to go all in, to conscientious objectors, and the surprising commonalities beneath them all. I think it speaks volumes that the author was a Greek scholar who largely modelled the society on Sparta. Somehow though, it seems to relate incredibly well to the state of governments today as well.

The story takes place in Victorian Era Oxford, but its relevance to today's world is undeniable. Mirroring the industrial revolution, Babel plays out an alternate version of British colonialism wherein silver - not coal - drives the world order.

Oxford scholars have used silver to harness the power of language and translation to perform fantastic feats. As a result, linguists are some of the most valuable and powerful people in the world, and the more languages they can harness, the more power their silver bars can create. To gain more linguistic knowledge, Oxford is doing something unthinkable: letting people from other cultures into their school!

The way this book deals with racial and cultural tension is indescribable. The injustices the Babel students faced were very nuanced, but at the same time very obvious. The privileged classmates and professors ask what they have to complain about since they have things so easy - better than most Englishmen, let alone people of their own race - so how dare they complain about colonialism. But they see exactly what it's doing to people just like them. They see how easily wealth and power could be distributed, and how petty the reasons for withholding resources and aid are.

These characters and situations are so perfectly orchestrated that it allows the reader to clearly see all the perspectives enmeshed in the messiness of colonialism. With the way the characters of colour interact with the others, unintentional racism is also portrayed in a visceral way. Even the most well-intentioned characters would do things that would make me cringe, because though I may not have felt it through my own lens, experiencing the interactions through their lens made the awkward moments so potent, I could practically taste the unintended insults.

Some of these concepts might sound intimidating and heavy, but they are approached with a masterful tact, sticking to the story and the perspectives of the times, and focusing on the characters. The main story is then peppered with historical details and anecdotes in fun, and occasionally vicious footnotes. When footnotes are done right in a novel, they can be such a spectacular delight, and this author nailed it.

While the story builds gradually, the groundwork it does to make the four main characters so familiar pays off in powerful ways. When the tension rose, Robin and his friends tore at my emotions in ways I couldn't begin to predict. This book is an unstoppable force, and I am telling any person who will listen that it is THE must-read book. Stop reading this review, and get your hands on this book!

This gorgeous retelling of a classic Arthurian tale perfectly balances the 21st century with the 6th century. The writing style seemed to instantly transport me to that world, and engulf my senses.

Starting as an unusually tall and strong girl raised in the woods by her mother, Peretur - classically known as Percival - easily passes as a handsome man and fawns over young women, earning a reputation as both a warrior and a heart-breaker. Lanza (Lancelot) is a disabled foreigner who fights like a centaur when mounted. None of this inclusive revising of the story felt forced though. It seems only natural that LGBTQ+ people existed then as they do now, and more than likely that in a time before medicine, disabled people would be very visible. And why is Peretur unusually big and strong? Oh, you'll find out.

Griffith keeps a feeling of authenticity to the story by using Early Medieval names, and integrating Celtic mythology from that time. The mix of religions and cultures in this story was particularly refreshing to me. Christianity, only just introduced to England, was only established in some communities, and Pagan gods mix into the tale in fascinating ways. Griffith melds the treasures of the Tuath De with many of the mythical objects in the Arthur legends so seemlessly that it feels like the story should have always been told this way.
These changes brought the story to life such that, in spite of the magic and myth, it felt like reading history, only better.

Despite the dystopic future setting, this story is very down-to-earth. In many ways, it's a classic “coming of age” story, about having to grow up too fast and make big important decisions where every option feels like the wrong answer. It's particularly relatable for anyone faced with having to leave behind the world they knew to pursue their future.

Reid's perspective is that of a bright young person who is suddenly excited and overwhelmed with the immensity of the world, and unsure what her place in it will be. Her story and much of the imagery seemed to relate closely to modern tensions about being from a colonized or oppressed group, and being offered a chance to learn or work in one of the colonizer's own institutions. There are feelings of resentment - betrayal even - but also opportunity.

I felt like the ways in which she wrestled with her feelings to be incredibly genuine and touching. How she feels towards her mother and her home, and how uncomfortable she is around people supporting her, even her willingness to doubt what she knows is true; these are all feelings we deal with when making consequential decisions. Too often, protagonists will be sure-headed about doing the right thing, but Reid's emotions felt much more real.

All this is portrayed in a short book with a darkly meditative and occasionally haunting style. If I was disappointed in anything, it's that the story stops so soon. I would have enjoyed more exploration of the world, though I respect the author's choice to stop where she did. Also, some might find the near-future setting was unnerving, and the themes of climate and disease a bit too close to home. But all in all, I will definitely be seeking more from this talented writer.

A Dark-Cute Fairytale

Dark themes do not necessarily lead to a dark book. Nettle and Bone approached mature themes, and occasionally evoked dark scenery, but its tone and characters were endearing and charming. For example, there's a resurrected skeleton, but it's a dog skeleton, and he's really friendly. Marra is keen and perceptive, but due to her youth and sheltered upbringing, she can be naive at times. Through her eyes, we learn of a world of kingdoms and magic: Hidden fairy markets, strange spells, witches, fairy god mothers, and a noble knight with a dark past. In spite of all the tropes however, each character is more than they seem. They all have interesting personalities and quirks, and the way they interacted felt human and natural.

Kingfisher's magic with this story is in how she creates something that feels familiar and fresh at the same time. It reads somewhat like an old-fashioned fairy tale - but one that fits with more modern ideas of morality. Women, including older single women, have value and are not just evil witches, and the handsome prince is not the good guy, but the villain. Probably the most subversive element is actually that Marra's mission is essentially to save her sister from a toxic and abusive relationship, and that everyone agrees this is a mission worth fighting for. In the age of he-said-she-said, the idea that a woman being mistreated by her husband is ample grounds for a great quest is a quietly radical idea. This is the kind of story I'd read to my daughters... But not until they're a little older.

I really loved getting to know Tetley (the voice of the narrator), and learning to understand the way she sees her world. And it really is her world in a way. In a world made out of cleverly arranged floating garbage on an unending ocean, a small town of sorts has been built up, and she loves this world. But it does not love her back.

Despite being the town's outlet for their rage, she maintains that she is the happiest person in the world. Everyone else is so busy wanting what they can never have, and dreaming that the world will go back to what it once was. She likes her little garbage world though, and wouldn't want the world any other way. That is, until she makes a new friend, and her cheery resolve becomes challenged.

I found this a very emotionally calming book in a weird way. It could be heartbreaking at times, but Tetley's resolve to see the whole world as it is and love it kept the story from feeling sad. The writing is poetic and fun (and peppered with profanity that no longer counts as profanity). It's post-apocalyptic insofar as there clearly has been an apocalypse, but really it celebrates life and perspective and the hunt for a shared humanity. One might even say this book is inspiring. Maybe.

Way better than I expected it to be! I picked this as a short silly book to breeze through as something of a palette cleanser between serious books, but dang, I got so wrapped up in this, I just couldn't stop talking about it.
It nails the murder mystery sensation of making you suspect every single suspect and getting to the reveal having no idea whodunnit, not to mention having a great multidimensional detective with a brilliant backstory. The sci-fi element is really intriguing and while it his out in the background for most of the book, it was quite a strong story in itself. And it was really touching too. Sam Miller's blurb on the cover was really on point: by the end of the book, I was really emotionally tied to these half-animal young men in a way I definitely did not see coming. Every character in this story is very well developed. And how it does all this in such a short story is a bit of magic in itself.
Oh and the animal puns were horrible in the absolute best way. Well done, Mr. Gregory!

D.O.D.O is one of my all-time favourite books, and one of the funniest and most charming books I read. I remember being sad when it ended (despite it being 800 pages) because there was SO much more room for this story to grow, and when I found out Galland was writing a sequel, I thought there was no way it could go wrong.

But long story short, the story went stale. The humour had almost completely disappeared, the formatting that was so unique in the first book had fallen into a boring pattern, the exciting technology was almost forgotten about, so that it became a standard time-travel story, and what bugged me most (though others might find this a perk) is that it got comfortable telling tales surrounding Shakespeare and DaVinci.

The last book was packed with super-interesting but under-represented historical stories, while not directly involving any critical historical figures. So for it to lean so hard into Shakespeare, it felt like the story had lost its way. When it hinted that DaVinci might make an appearance, I realized that this was not the story I was hoping to read, and put the book down.

While the last book was a smorgasbord of quirky history, crazy tech, snarky witches and hilarious situations, this book felt more like a lesson in classical Renaissance history. I was so disappointed, I still look at this book on my shelf and feel betrayed.

But if you want a time travel story where people hang with Shakespeare and romp around Renaissance Europe, go for it.

When the galaxy's biggest hospital is caught in a whirlwind attack from sources unknown, and creatures of unimaginable variety are in crisis, the workload can get pretty exhausting for a rescue specialist. And to make matters worse, Dr. Jens can't even drink coffee (it offends the senses of most non-humans).This is a complex space-opera with a built-in series of whodunits, a massive cast of characters ranging from a sentient tree to a virus-infected ancient computer intelligence, and technology that can affect consciousness and gravity. It's not what I would call easy reading (even the author admits that the plot gets “labyrinthine” in scope), but it is a lot of fun.Jens - our protagonist - is a fun character to follow. She's a down-to-earth straight-shooter who tries to keep things uncomplicated in a very complicated world. She's devoted to her job, has a lot of baggage from past relationships, and despite being at the cusp of medical innovation a thousand years in the future, she suffers from incurable chronic pain, and is aided by an exoskeleton. She also makes a great first-person narrator. I found it reassuring that as the plot twists start to add up, she felt just as overwhelmed and in need of a nap as I did!There are also a host of artificial intelligences (aka non-biological intelligences) who play a prominent role in the story, and the way the book approaches a world full of AIs is extremely well thought out. I also really enjoyed the introduction of people from “ancient” times who were discovered cryogenically frozen in a long-lost generation ship from centuries ago when people thought the Earth was doomed. The cultural clash between humans separated by centuries of technological and social development was very clever and often funny.Like the book's predecessor, [b:Ancestral Night 26159745 Ancestral Night (White Space, #1) Elizabeth Bear https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549453849l/26159745.SY75.jpg 41186071], the world feels like a utopic future, but it also challenges whether utopia is something that can be achieved, and asks what we are willing to sacrifice to make a fairer and happier world. But apart from that, one crossover side-character (the super-awesome giant mantis Cheeirilaq) and a few Easter eggs that allude to the previous book, this is completely a stand-alone story.I'd recommend it highly to anyone itching for an engaging modern deep space story, alongside the [b:A Memory Called Empire 37794149 A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1) Arkady Martine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1526486698l/37794149.SY75.jpg 59457173] series.

Another fantastic addition to this amazing series! The creativity of this writing team seems to know no bounds, as they create yet another intriguing and detailed world with fascinating characters.
There's the duty bound representative of the “bad guys” who seems to be a really good guy, almost Ned Starkian in his sense of honour; a wife who is driven by a need for scientific success becoming a vigilante in an effort to overcome corruption; and a great antihero who has made a few small appearances in the cannon but who hopefully will have a bigger role in the final novel.
You don't know who to root for and the whole time, the question of what is right and what is wrong is a total unknown, making this a very fun little story to follow along.

This book gets filed under “books that changed how I see the world.” And I honestly think that the more people who read this, the better our odds of having a future worth fighting for.
It's not an easy read. It gets into the weeds about topics from sociology and glaciology to economics and monetary theory. In fact, at times it felt more like non-fiction than fiction. And the style this book is written in takes a little getting used to, but the effect it had was pretty undeniable for me.
To sum up the book in a sentence: Regarding climate change and global inequities, things are obviously going to get worse, but then they CAN get better - must get better - and it is possible using tools that already exist combined with a sufficient amount of collective will power and gulp bureaucracy!
And I believe it. The future of Earth doesn't have to be a drowning burning dystopia with capitalist rulers pitting poor people against each other in death games. My hypothetical grandkids MIGHT just live in a better world than I do. We just have to buckle down and make things like government and scientific advice mean something again.
Also, I want to visit Switzerland now...

A Hypnotic Dive into a Beautiful World

This might just be the perfect book to choose as a COVID companion. At its core, this is a story about a man who sees his world for what it is, and loves it dearly. His world is not ours though. It's an endless maze of halls packed with unique and intricately detailed statues. And he is one of two known living humans in this world. Because he knows nothing else, he does not find this odd.

Fashioning himself a scientist, he studies the world relentlessly and finds beauty in all of it.
Contrasting this is the Other. He tries only to utilize the world. He believes there is ancient power to be harnessed in these halls, and tries tirelessly to manipulate the world to its will. Because he has such a singular and selfish goal, he fails to see the beauty and perceives the halls as only a prison.

The first half of the book is beautiful and meditative, familiarizing the reader with this strange world. Meanwhile, the writing leaves a bunch of curious tidbits and clues that there is much more to the world than what's being revealed. Then slowly but surely it picks up momentum, as more puzzle pieces fall into place, until the tension silently builds up into a gripping climax.

Seemingly out of nowhere, this pleasant little book becomes a total page turner, and by the time I was done, I knew it would be a long time before I read a book this fantastically woven together. I call this a perfect COVID companion because first and foremost, it always elevated my mood and enveloped my mind completely. But also, it brings a unique perspective to concepts such as solitude, and the separation between oneself and the world. Long story short, this book did much more than simply entertain me, and I highly recommend it.

This is a wonderfully strange book that is so subtly impactful that when I finished it, my first thought was “well that was a little odd.” Days later though, I realized it was one of the best books I had read.
Having never read it in school, I figured it was just another modern classic about war. But early on, you find out that Billy Pilgrim isn't just a WWII survivor, he's an alien abductee! (This excited the X-Files fan in me.) The story (and to an extent, Billy himself) jumps back and forth through time between Billy as an American soldier with no survival skills and Billy as a moderately successful eye doctor with a seemingly boring life... Until he mentions aliens and being “unstuck in time”.
The aliens aren't what make this book unique though. It shows soldiers as essentially frightened children, some of whom are brave, some cowardly and most dead before one really gets to know them at all. It highlights the actual human consequence of questionable war strategies. It forces you to take a step back and look at the world through a different set of eyes. This book will open the mind of anyone who reads it. At the very least, it will make you look at war from a different angle.

What at first feels like an exposé of Silicon Valley's slimy underbelly quickly becomes a much more nuanced story about the role of the individual in a world driven, not just by data, but by manufactured ideals of the Good Life.
The author's voice is stark and honest. She has more than her fair share of stories to tell, but maintains a very true sense of being a semi-entitled, fairly well read normal person with no direction, trying to “make it” and always feeling like she's failing, mostly because she's not sure what succeeding is supposed to look like for her.
Her stories about sexism are shocking, her inside knowledge of data harvesting and disturbing content are every bit as juicy as you want them to be, but even though that's what I was hoping to find in this story, it all plays second fiddle to her internal struggles regarding trying to find purpose, and understand all the hypocrisies in modern society. It really helped me look at the world, and want to ask some fresh questions, like “why are the brightest minds in our time all just trying to optimize ad-tech?”
You should read this book.

Many say that anyone who likes Dune must read Dune Messiah, because it completes the story. I respectfully disagree. I enjoyed this book quite a lot, but after finishing it, I think I would have been completely satisfied leaving the original Dune story as it was.
The writing has a magic quality in that Herbert creates very complex and strange types of characters. Some are living computers, some have prescient senses, some have the consciousness of other people, there's body manipulation, gene manipulation and all manner of other weirdness, but it all makes intuitive sense somehow. This is evident in Dune, and he doubles down on that in Messiah.
But I did find some of that combersome on the plot. The Ghola Hayt is a perfect example of that: a type of robot mind programmed to think like a Mentat and given knowledge of a Philosopher, but the genes of Duncan Idaho and secret coding to override his brain. The character was a walking personality disorder, and though I liked his development, it felt like a bit much.
To me the plot itself was quite thin. When all was said and done, I felt that not much happened. Of course, I'd argue that similar can be said about the second half of Dune. The focus is more on the exploration of characters' minds and the world and people they interact with. And I thoroughly enjoyed that. I think I'm just too jaded on Great Man narratives to fall in love with Dune the way so many do. Maybe if I were younger.

One thing I did feel was much more evident in Messiah was the allusions to the birth of Islam and the role of Mohammed in Middle Eastern history. I'm sure many academic essays have been written on the topic, but that was very fun to think about while progressing through the story. Probably that was my favourite part of this book: meditating on what it means to form and run a government founded on a newly created religion; the leader both Prophet and Head of State. I think that stuff was brilliantly told.

In the end, I'd say Dune is a ground breaking coming of age story, emulated and retold countless times, while Messiah basically gears up the world for a large epic series. There are new characters, new systems of mental and technological wizardry, and an ending that feels less like a conclusion, and more like a preface for a much bigger story. If you liked Dune for what it was, you can stop there, but if you want to go all-in with Moadib and find out what comes of this universe, dive right in and enjoy!

This continues to be the most unpredictable story of all time, I feel like I'm getting intellectual whiplash! I'm totally in to finish this and see where it goes, but I'm a little surprised that there are just more upon more secret abilities of titans. I feel like that's the one big weakness of this storyline, but I don't mind, because it tells the story well.

This was a wonderful love letter to a precious career. As an amateur astronomer, I loved the descriptions of the crazy-large telescopes, and the evolution of how astronomers used them, and how the technology changed their relationship to the cosmos. Her final chapter which mentions that pretty much every person she interviewed pursued this career after looking through a backyard telescope invigorated me to continue to inspire young people by sharing my hobby.
Her book also has made me a more educated reader of astronomy news, now that I have a fuller understanding of the tools and the people behind them. Since reading this book, all the new discoveries about black holes and gravity waves are just that much cooler.
I hold back on a higher rating only because the writing style seemed a little bland to me, and I think if I was less personally invested in the information, I would have gotten bored of the long list of anecdotes and telescopes. When it came to the author's reflections and insights, it felt a little restrained.
In short, this book gave me exactly what I wanted... and nothing more. Maybe that makes a 3-star rating a little harsh, but like how I felt about Chris Hadfield's memoir, I think a personal perspective on an unusual career needs to be a bit more personal. I loved what I learned, but I guess I just expect to be challenged a little more when I read non-fiction.

This was exactly what I needed at this time: A gorgeous escapist tale full of imagination and adventure! This is something of a love story, where the love interest is Fantasy stories and books.
That said, it does not shirk from the realities of the real world. It has villains who believe they are the hero, the role of status, and its fluid nature. While the story is steeped in classic themes, the perspective is still unique.
Speaking of perspective, this is one of the best uses of first-person narration I have read. It's a fantastic story, beautifully told. Steeped in emotion and completely fulfilling, this is a must-read for fantasy lovers and book lovers in general!

Very poetic and beautifully written. I particularly liked the Red character. Due to its style, it lacks momentum, but I don't hold that against it. I actually found it somewhat meditative.

For me, this book felt like an experience more than it felt like reading a book. I don't think it will be for everybody, but if you like to get lost in a world - or just lost in thought - this is a winner.

I spent the first 100 pages wondering when the story would start. It seemed like stuff was just happening, one thing after another, as if there was no real story or plot. However, the writing and imagination was so compelling that I never considered giving up on it for even a moment. Eventually, I realized the lack of a traditional plot arc was intentional. Rather, tiny pieces of story line up one after the other, creating a beautiful tale set in a world that seems like our own, only not quite.

I read a fair bit of climate fiction, and I think some might characterize this book in that way, but I don't think that's correct. Most of it does take place in the near-future, and since climate change is a thing that's happening, it will be present in any near-future story, but what this is really about is community. How do we create a community, and what does that mean? Also, how do we interact with other communities and cultures when the world and human nature inevitably lead us to all mix together in unpredictable ways?

As the title suggests, I would consider this to be a very uplifting book. It doesn't avoid the myriad issues happening in the world at all; corruption, climate emergencies, identity issues and more all show up in the book just as they do in life. But it focuses on how changes can happen, communities can come together, people can survive tragedy and come out stronger, people can make good choices. It promotes the value of the long view, and asks "What if we really asked ourselves what the next thousand years will be like?"

It's not preachy though. The central community is an invented "religious group"/modern hippy cult that doesn't really resemble any modern community, so by viewing how this group moves through the world, the book examines community, relationships and culture through an entirely unique lens, rather than trying to imitate a specific culture's view. I found that approach pretty ingenious.

There's 120ish small chapters, and each little chapter was like candy for the brain. The chapter that describes the Music is probably going to be one of my all-time favourite pieces of literature.

It's in a linear order, following two main characters and a couple side characters, so it's a pretty standard story in that sense, but - like real life - you never quite know where it's going or what the characters are going to do next. In that way, it may not appeal to people who like classic story arcs, but for lovers of setting, character and prose, it's fantastic.

There's the tiniest sprinkle of the fantastic in there as well, but it is so sparing and well integrated, that the "fantasy" can basically be written off as a detailed description of dreams or superstition, much like the idea that god(s) are watching people.

And yes, I'd totally join Hopeland... Maybe. Or maybe I just want to be named after a star.

All Filler, No Thriller

The whole book is pretty much setting up the next part of the series. Very little actually happens in this one, which I find very upsetting.
I have always liked not loved this series, mostly because it is light on concept and originality, but heavy on cool characters and excitement. This one had little character development and practically no excitement, so it was a huge let down.

I don't think I'm going to keep reading this series because what seemed like a fresh pre-civilization concept is falling into an old trope about elves, men, dwarves, with some people who can do magic and they have wars. Been there done that, and if you're going to just stretch the crap out of the story so you can keep putting out books every year, I'm out.

I was so shocked when this book ended because I thought we were just about to get to the interesting part, but my audiobook just stopped and ran the credits, and I was left thinking “Seriously? That's it?!” This book could have been written in three chapters, so if you're more committed to this story than I am, maybe wait for the next book and read a summary of this one.

This book has everything that makes me love old sci-fi: A positivist view of humanity, open to the possibility of the truly strange, and progressive social and philosophical ideals underlying the story.
The basic premise is that alien overlords come down to Earth and presume to rule humanity. It turns out that they're much better at running the world than humans and that their motives seem to be altruistic. However, they are very secretive and refuse to reveal why they are so interested in helping humans.
This book is timeless, but it's also a beautiful reflection of popular ideas from the 50s and 60s, when interests in aliens, psychics and the paranormal really became popular. In Clarke's style, the characters are secondary and the plot doesn't follow a standard build-up, but there are so many brilliant concepts squished into this story that build-up really isn't necessary.
This book is very unique compared to modern stories. I recommend this to anyone who is looking to read something “different”.

This woman's creativity knows no bounds! This collection has so many fantastic stories, and I personally hope that she writes some long-form sci-fi some day because her sci-fi shorts knocked me out. They were unlike any futuristic stories I read before and just perfectly on point on so many levels!
This is one of those collections I know I'll keep going back to. And give to my daughters when they're old enough to get it. Thanks to the author for sharing her creative gifts to the world.

When the internet was just starting to become a thing, no one knew quite what it would do to society. Stephenson took a guess, added some William Gibson and some humour and swords, and created a really fun story. (He was WAY off though.)
It did feel a little dated of course, not just because it takes place approximately now, but is nothing at all like our present day, but also the relationships were a little iffy and the gang and racial factions were a bit hard to swallow. I recognize that this is extrapolated from LA in the 90s, which was consumed by gangs and racial factions at the time, so I wouldn't say that it is problematic, but I think Stephenson would agree that if he applied this concept of a neural linguistic virus in the near future now, it would come out very different.
That said, Stephenson's trademark ability to combine humour, excitement and fascinating details over larger-than-life, mind-bending philosophical concepts is very evident here, and I certainly enjoyed the ride.
I listened to the audiobook, which I wouldn't recommend too highly. Stephenson books are tricky on audio because he adds a lot of details and multiple perspectives, including the perspective of a cyborg super-dog in this case, so while I usually listen to books a little sped up, I couldn't in this case. Also, the intermission between chapters is odd and feels a little racist, though it turns out it's just an approximation of what Sumerian would sound like, but all this meant I wasn't too thrilled with the audio. Also, the narrator did a bad job with the lead character's voice in my opinion.
But overall, it was a fun and exciting read for sure!

Oh, and I just want to add, Neo from the Matrix is a total rip off of Hiro.