Avery

Hard to know exactly what to say about this one.

When I started the book, I was worried there might be more gothic/fantasy elements than sci fi, but there were more than enough fascinating ideas to draw me in. It didn't go in the direction that I had expected/hoped, but the subversion of my expectations ended up interesting in itself. It kind of goes in a more philosophical direction than the sci fi one I'm used to.

I do think that the story probably could have ended several chapters earlier, taking longer to wrap up than I expected. I'd love to read more about the world built in this book, but the last few chapters of this one ended up a bit predictable and strayed from the cool ideas of the first 2/3.

One note about the audiobook - while on the whole it was well done, the French accent was basically impossible to understand (as someone who speaks French, this was frustrating). Might have to flip through a physical copy to see what it looked like in print.

Fun, twisty book, went by quick and left me pretty sure I'll read the sequel.

The world building, especially as we learn more, was definitely my favorite part. There's a lot of mystery and plenty of unanswered questions, without feeling like this was just a setup for another book.

The main character is a little too “best at everything”, breaking immersion a little. Would have been nice for him to fail a little more often and have to rely on other people. The individualistic theme it evokes gives the book a little of a hero-worship feeling. The big bad establishment gets accused of loving heroes, but I can't help but feel like the author does too.

Definitely fun. Makes me wish I was playing an great RPG but who has time for that! Anyway, nothing would be as epic as this.

The characters are .. decent, it helps that the main characters aren't terrible people, but I can't say the dialogue is my favorite ever. That said, the systems, loot, battles, plotting are all <3

Kind of like Peter Watts's Starfish, but after they get back home, if it was less about what actually happened and more about the state of their relationship. Which is to say, I guess, not very similar. It was a bit more “lit” than I prefer, with a focus on somewhat dysfunctional relationships.

The premise going in was excitingly eerie but it didn't develop much past that.

That said, the writing itself was not bad, and I found myself enjoying and noting down several lines that were particularly clever, cool or funny. I also suspect some of the greater themes went over my head.

Anyway, if you want creepy deep sea people but hard sci-fi, try Starfish.

> “He's written a quine,” she murmurs

While it took a few chapters to get going and at first I wasn't sure, when I got to this line I knew I was reading the right book.

But that was FAR from the biggest reveal in this book that is practically constructed out of galaxy brained twists.

There are quite a a few narrative discontinuities, which can be pretty disorienting. I imagine that's the intended effect but it definitely made it a trickier read.

Part of me hoped it would spend more time developing the magic system itself rather than escalating to blow my mind several times. If anyone has recommendations for “Magic as a programming language” books, please share because I'm a big nerd.

All is forgiven though, after I managed to hold on through the rest of that insane rollercoaster ride.

Not necessarily what I was expecting, very light compared to his other books. The stakes are just as high but its played for laughs usually. Mad scientist cartoon vibes.

Pretty sure I wasn't the target audience for this one. The description of dysfunctional academic life is enough of a horror story without anything supernatural going on.

Ended up being better than I was expecting :)
It's clear the author is pretty familiar with MMO/raiding-style games from the integration of lots of systems, aggro mechanics etc. This makes the combat more interesting, and combined with the cool loot and abilities, makes it feel like I'm getting the buzz from playing a great game (which I don't have much time to actually do these days).

This is the first book in this genre where the death penalties aren't game-ending, which was really refreshing! Allows the main character to not feel overpowered or too lucky.

There are some blocks of stats in there which aren't usually my favorite but it's not too often, so it was alright.

An accessible read with some good stuff in it. It basically tries to place the lived experience of Jews in the framework of identity politics and seems like it does a decent job of it. The audiobook was well-read by the author and had some entertaining moments.

I spent about 4/5 of this book wondering whether I should bother to finish the series, and figured maybe I should take a break and read something else afterwards.
I'm not totally sure what happened next, but I picked up the sequel and started reading it immediately after finishing. I guess it's good??

Took me a while to get through it all, but felt well worth it. I feel convinced for now that this is an important issue. The fact that the author has such a strong/respected medical background in the same domain as his argument lends a lot to his opposition to commonly-held beliefs in the wider medical (and general) population.

Lustig explains things I never thought about when it comes to what the actual effect of sugar is on the body. I also appreciated him going into more detail about how important fiber is as well. It helped clear up a lot of the confusion I felt concerning the advice I have received from doctors/others about what foods and activities are healthy.

The criticism I read about his work online seemed to focus mainly on his neglect of the dose-dependent nature of the problem with sugar, and while that wasn't directly addressed in this book, it seemed like, especially in the second half of the book, the focus on sugar-sweetened beverages and heavily processed foods helped.

I appreciated the effort to address some steps to change policy in the last chapter, though it did feel like the weakest part of the book. The book did occasionally feel repetitive, but it came in handy more times than not, reminding me of parts that I hadn't absorbed fully, and helping with anyone jumping around the book.

I was initially excited about this book providing a new perspective on how to make the world a better place. I saw some negative reviews but assumed they were written by the same type of idealistic environmentalist types that Lomborg is trying to argue against, and so didn't pay much attention to them.

After reading the book, I tried to learn more about the claims made in the book, and it started to feel more and more like the facts had been misrepresented in order to make Lomborg's argument more compelling. For a summary of some of the issues, you can see http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/ or the complaints to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty.

This was very disappointing to me. I think it is possible there is still a kernel of truth to Lomborg's argument and it is unfortunate if it is lost due to making arguments in bad faith with hidden agendas. If there is some truth to this argument that we are attempting to solve the climate problem in the wrong way, then I hope that someone can do this work in a more intellectually honest way, adapting the argument to take into account criticism/suggestions by other experts. Hopefully Lomborg's style of argument hasn't done too much to destroy the credibility of any similar research.

After seeing this series mentioned positively in a few places, I finally got around to picking it up. It went by pretty quick, has some fun magic elements without forcing you to ramp up on a whole world. I'm curious to see how it progresses.

Several original ideas presented in a fun-to-read way. Never seen some of these concepts explored in the this direction.

I liked this more than I thought I would. Was pleasantly surprised to see it was somehow not very partisan. I certainly wasn't expecting to feel like I should be working in government. If “Born to Run” can make anyone consider running, this book does the same for joining a governmental agency/department.

One of my favorite parts of this book is how it describes what kinds of problems are solved by different departments – the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and the National Weather Service for instance. I'd love a recommendation for a book that goes into more depth here, especially if it keeps from getting dry like Michael Lewis always seems to manage!

I wasn't a fan of most of the book but I think it redeemed itself for me in the last chapter. The optimistic solarpunk vibes felt bland and the whole “artificial consciousness came and went and no one cared” felt convenient and unrealistic. The naivety of both characters felt ... convenient and unrealistic.

All that said, the question of whether animals, plants, objects, robots are fundamentally or meaningfully different from each other, and whether purpose is important pushes back gently on the simplicity of the utopian vision. I found this part interesting, but wish the characters had been more willing to really get into it!

I'm rating this a 5 with a caveat -- I wasn't a fan of the YA-ness of all the characters being teens at school. The thing is, the stuff they were learning was too cool.

The way that the exercises and concepts are described is so perfect -- just enough detail to feel real and part of a huge coherent system.

Also all this talk of cured meats and pickles and heavy breads kept making me hungry.

Quite comprehensive and clearly written, exactly what I was looking for after reading Stop Stealing Sheep. It was funnier than I expected, the author writes with a lot of character and clearly has a bone to pick with computers, which was entertaining as a web developer reading this to learn more about typography. It's obviously a beautifully crafted book and I'm glad to have read it as a physically printed book rather than digitally. Feels like Bringhurst would have approved.

Full disclosure, I didn't read all of the appendices (which make up like 1/3 of the book)

It wasn't what I was expecting, more poetry than science-fiction. That said, it was an interesting read and had some twists I didn't see coming.

I'm very glad that Piketty wrote this more accessible update to his material. His other books felt a little intimidating but this was readable while still containing so many important ideas. Even though some of the examples and vocabulary still went over my head, I found myself highlighting a paragraph every few pages.I read this after [b:The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism 1237300 The Shock Doctrine The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Naomi Klein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442590618l/1237300.SY75.jpg 2826418], which had made me feel somewhat pessimistic about the future and at a loss for what a functional globalized society could look like. Klein's book did a lot to point out the flaws in Friedman's economic model but didn't provide as much of an answer about what might be better. At times, it paints a pretty grim picture of humanity.Piketty's ideas seemed to perfectly fill the gap - he is generally optimistic about our capacity to move towards equality over time, while still being completely realistic about how much work it requires to do so. He has many example of concrete policies that could be implemented to increase equality.If anything, I wish it had felt more actionable, but I'll admit this is probably hard to do. I did appreciate that he mentioned whenever a specific government was trying to implement something similar to what he was describing.To me, this feels like required reading for anyone who is losing hope in humanity's ability to “play nice”, making a compelling argument that in helping each other and working together, we can all benefit.

Was more of a casual coffee-table book than I was expecting but still served as a decent intro to the topic with lots of visual aids. I also felt that it curiously never fully explained the reference/joke of the title — they mention letterspacing as a noun but not a verb..

Definitely not just a repeat of the first book, nor a straightforward continuation. I was worried it might just be about the two species figuring out how to coexist on Kern's world, but thankfully this book explores plenty of new territory!

Cool non-human intelligences of all sorts, cool exploration of the splitting up of consciousness into several distinct parts. Some exciting high tension moments, but...

Some of the world building exposition/history felt a little slow, and ends up feeling like it just exists to prolong the tension in the part of the story we're not currently reading.

It also felt like I was being constantly explained the same core traits and tendencies of the various species of creature in the book. A little tiring sometimes.

Still loving the electrical/biological hybrid computers.

Probably the coolest Sci-Fi bit of this book is the premise itself. It gets developed a bit but not a whole lot. The content of the book itself ends up being more about the (in)humanity of living in the real world. All the characters are imperfect, rough around the edges people and the book is mostly about them bumping into each other while trying to survive.

I read the “new translation” of this book, which has some interesting extra bits describing the circumstances of the book's publication. Hard to imagine what the version with all the “gunk” removed would have looked like – it feels like that's the whole book!

In general, I think this book has an important message about realizing where to draw the line when it comes to people being considered “rich“.
It felt a little unfocused at times, the author's own strong dislike of anything resembling a class-based society sometimes gets in the way of a clear exploration of the ideas.
That said, it felt pretty realistic in its suggestions and had some interesting ideas. Definitely worth thinking about for many people.

> .. and did that imply evil moths?

An enjoyable classic D&D-style fantasy adventure with a greater and more realistic than average focus on the “good vs evil” trope.

I think that if most books in this genre had this amount of self-awareness (without just becoming a parody, which this book accomplishes), I'd read more fantasy.