Spacecraft

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for the ARC!

Onto the actual book... What on earth was this? I wanted to abandon it halfway through, which is sadly impressive for a book of this short length, but ended up powering through. I was expecting a fairly surface-level exploration of spacecraft in fiction and popular culture, and got... a book focusing for the most part on the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars (which the author seems to be in love with), with lots of rambly thoughts- all over the place.

This book mostly attempts to explain why the Millenium Falcon is such an amazing spacecraft and the tens of special meanings it has which has made it so adored by people all over the world! It goes from analysis of Star Wars to weird Freudian sexual comparisons (describing the way the Falcon enters hyperspace as being swallowed by a vagina or anal sphincter, and there's a whole part about the “vulva of hyperspace” too), philosophical ramblings and lots of ideas on life, American culture, economy, ecology, feminism, stream of consciousness, Gaussian geometry, how spacecraft are penises penetrating hyperspace (yes, it never stops with the weird sexual analogies), left-wing cynicism, but most of all, Star Wars.

Much of this book is just about how great Star Wars/the Millenium Falcon is, how it is even philosophically and politically more sophisticated than any Kubrick or Tarkovsky film.

It's a baffling book, almost feels like false advertising, and definitely made me go “what is this guy even going on about” multiple times throughout reading it. Hard pass.