Kat
Solid transhumanist cyberpunk. I'm a sucker for explorations of the questions of identity that arise when you can clone and upload yourself. What I like best about this book is that the three main characters are all versions of the same person – a pattern that is repeated in Wynne, fractally. It's really a story about how too much of a focus on one's self, too much inward-turning without the genetic (and memetic) diversity of others, can amplify and propagate patterns of dysfunction. And it's about the lengths you might have to go to, and the things you might have to sacrifice, to escape the patterns of your past.
On rereading, I found the previous books in the series stunningly mediocre, but this one was a dull morass of actively bad writing, lazy plotting and cardboard characters. It wasn't even internally consistent – one of the things I loved about Pern was the way the fantasy world turned out to be science fiction (meaning all the fantasy elements had a basically consistent, non-magical explanation), but in this book we discover odd things like that the dragons aren't affected by vacuum and can carry as much as they think they can carry (what?).
I mean, I'm all for the concept of dragons in space, but for McCaffrey to just throw all of the science fiction world-building out the window really destroys what's so unique about Pern.
There's a deus ex machina in the form of a literal machine, the computer AIVAS that spends the book telling everyone what to do. The characters spend the majority of the book either following the AI's instructions or arguing amongst themselves about whether they should trust the computer. It was kinda cute to see the harpers become programmers, but otherwise, meh. Similar to Discworld, I think it's hard to make it interesting to watch a fantasy world (re)discover the technology of our world.
There wasn't much in the way of real crisis or danger or even wondering what was going to happen, especially after AIVAS convinced Jaxom to agree to his plan by having him jump forward in time to verify that the plan worked. No dramatic tension there, then!
The only bits that were mildly interesting were the ones involving Robinton, and honestly McCaffrey has so successfully turned a character I once loved and admired into a dirty old man and a drunk that I was almost relieved to have him out of the picture.
Oh, and there was a thread about the dolphins that never got resolved, which annoys me because I've been wondering what happened with the freaking dolphins. They keep getting mentioned but it never leads to anything!
The Kindle edition had a bunch of places where it looked like things didn't get properly edited, too. Like sentence fragments and paragraphs that cut off in the middle. Not sure what was up with that.
The one nice thing I can say about this book is that it did lack the slut-shaming, rape and casual domestic violence that I've come to pretty much expect from Pern novels. I think a few people gave other people little shakes and that's about it.
Your basic pulp scifi space opera. I kept this one after reading it once and now I have no idea why.
I picked this up because it happened to be in my house (D. was reading it for a book club) but tbh I don't think I had enough context for it (having never heard of either Luxemburg or Jogiches). A few interesting lines but mostly it was either “ugh, this relationship seems exhausting and borderline abusive” or “cool, another long list of daily happenings and grievances that don't even seem like they'd be that interesting if I understood the political backdrop.”
This is a strange and somewhat sad little time travel story that I read as a kid and have never forgotten. So much of the detail and description has stuck with me for all these years.
The first Stainless Steel Rat story. I was expecting a completely new story, but it turns out this is just the middle part of what later became the book The Stainless Steel Rat. Even so, Slippery Jim is always a pleasure to revisit.
I read this in tandem with [b:Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure 11574167 Lost Kingdom Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure Julia Flynn Siler https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328824062s/11574167.jpg 16515137], which provides some of the missing context. While it's historically important, it's kind of a chore to actually read, and I didn't find Lili'u as sympathetic as I'd expected to.
This is a mushy, unimaginative pablum of generic YA tropes, weird Christian prudery/moralizing, one-note characters and drab writing, sprinkled generously with the trappings of a steampunk setting without doing any of the actual work of worldbuilding.
I was honestly gonna give it two stars, the first story isn't awful. But they go quickly downhill, and the one about their first Christmas together actively annoyed me (just gets so deep into cliches and heteronormative gender roles and also utterly misrepresents partnered dance).
Avoid. Pick up anything by Cat Winters instead. Odd & True and The Cure for Dreaming would both be good bets.
Super cute and educational and fun. Rosemary's work is always delightful and her love for the natural world is contagious.
I'm belatedly figuring out that Yoko Ono is actually extremely interesting and good and I'm mad at the patriarchy for the Yoko-Ono-broke-up-the-Beatles narrative that prevented me from learning this for so long.
Okay so yes this is a very x-rated fanfic about Captain America. It was also on the 2017 Long List for the James Tiptree, Jr. award (I've been working my way through everything listed in previous years and so far this is proving to be an excellent life choice).
It's the most well-written and extensively-researched fanfic I've ever read, and it gets deep into nuances of queerness, community, self-discovery, politics, and trauma. (It's also the size of a hefty novel, weighing in at almost 300,000 words.)
Anyhow this genderqueer polyamorous socialist punk Captain America is canon forever now. Sorry but I don't make the rules.
The title is misleading; it's barely about New Orleans at all. In fact 3/4 of the book doesn't even take place in New Orleans, and half the book isn't in Louisiana at all. Even the bits that are in New Orleans are mostly about the author's trials and travails. Read this book for riveting discussion of exciting events in the author's life, such as: being torn about which of two women to date while he was studying in Paris, being unsure whether he wanted to pursue a college degree instead of inheriting the family business, and not having any idea how to talk to his girlfriend about feelings.
ugh this was really terrible and not in a good way. did not think it would be possible for a story involving lots of trans and ace/aro and punk gay vampire shit to be this bad buuuuut it was ;_;
god bless this socialist genderqueer race of mages and inventors and artists... and the first thing i ever read that used neopronouns! (ok technically the second book in this series, which i read first)
a comfort read for me that i revisit over and over.
This is the Solnit collection that took me the LONGEST to get through. And I do love her writing. Some of these essays are great and others are very dense, dated or otherwise didn't really hold my interest.
This is the companion piece to an audiobook / symphony; I didn't realize this at first since the audio part isn't included with the Kindle version. It works better with the audio.
Anyway it's a cute kids' book that talks about and demonstrates the role of each instrument/section in an orchestra.
Quirky and poignant and kind of all-too-relatable. A bittersweet dessert you keep trying to savor but find yourself sneaking just another bite, and another, until you've stayed up until 1am reading it and then you flip back to read the first few chapters again just so that it won't be OVER over, not quite yet.
Wiiiiiiidely varying in quality but an interesting collection nonetheless. I was hoping for fewer romantic fiction pieces / poetry type things and more autobiographical essays.
dreamy, maybe a bit sad, but i have never read so many perfect and beautiful and evocative lines about flowers
Previous rating: 4 stars lol
might review this more later but on reread i am very underwhelmed by angsty professor/writer guy trying to work out his philosophical/existential questions about the nature of consciousness by dating one of his students, paternalistically emotionally abusing her, and then inventing an (of course female) AI in order to try to work out said big existential issues like “what is consciousness” and “what is love” and “why do i treat everyone in my life like an object” even though this was all kind of tongue-in-cheek and/or self-referential
i don't know it's just very LITERARY
I see it has a lot of reviews accusing it of being self-indulgent, and it probably is. I liked it anyway (despite or because). Scathingly funny at times, enlightening about the past and present of feminism.
Good, very nuts-and-bolts guide for folks thinking of trying nonmonogamous relationship styles. I found the history interesting and some of the practical tips useful (especially around jealousy, legal issues and childcare). I was sort of hoping for a book to share with people who know nothing about the topic (and aren't necessarily interested in it for themselves), and I think this is less that. Probably the new version of The Ethical Slut (though I never did read that one).