Hellspark

I enjoyed this incredible ride of a story. Set in a future world and space, with most of the time spent on an alien planet with different biology and social animals, the story was about how we communicate.

The strongest theme and storyline is about how language divides us and bridges gaps between us. This aspect of the book is fascinating to me.

This has one of the most impressive heroines in fiction. Her preferred approach to hostility is to prevent a fight with words and cultural knowledge. That is what I'm talking about. I believe the most powerful weapon humans have is language, this author wrote about that idea.

We live the story with the characters. There is a naive narrator, who contributes to us learning through her questions.

One of my favorite reads of all time. If you like hard science fiction and like to think during your reads, this is a book for you.

Murderous zealots
shocking lessons to be learned
bitey feathered friends.

Really interesting exploration of language and culture, with good queer representation. I'm looking forward to reading it again.