Reviews and Comments

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greynotgrey@books.theunseen.city

Joined 2 years ago

Raconteur, bon-vivant, man-about-town. Book nerd.

Mostly just keeping track of what I've been reading for myself, but always interested in what like-minded souls enjoy when I stumble across their online traces.

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commented on The periodic table by Primo Levi

Primo Levi: The periodic table (1995)

The Periodic Table is largely a memoir of the years before and after Primo Levi's …

Mostly I'm posting this comment to see if Bookwyrm adds it to my "currently reading" feed. This platform is still kind of buggy so I'm trying to figure out how to make it behave.

reviewed The Murderbot Diaries #1-4 by Martha Wells

Martha Wells: The Murderbot Diaries #1-4 (2020)

Layered page-turner, an interesting twist on an old theme.

Not just a compelling read on the whole "what is human" SF trope but also a VERY insightful expression of what it is like to be autistic.

reviewed Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)

Martha Wells: Rogue Protocol (2018)

SciFi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is again on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris …

The one with Miki

Engaging, moved along well. The series is starting to feel a little formulaic but I'll read the next one. The exploration of different aspects of "what does it mean to be a bot" is compelling, Miki is a great character.

reviewed All Systems Red by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)

Martha Wells: All Systems Red (EBook, 2017, Tor.com)

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring …

Engaging, unique

I am reminded of one comment I read some time ago from somebody talking about machine intelligence - tehy weren't so much interested in what art a machine would make for humans, but what they would make for one another. To some extent, this series explores that.

reviewed Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn

Melissa Chadburn: Tiny Upward Shove (2022, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Weird and moving

Imagine a book about a coming of age story starting with the death of a young Black/ Filipina victim of Robert Pickton & her journey into becoming a revenge monster from Filipino mythology. This is that book

reviewed Slavic Myths by Noah Charney

No cover

Noah Charney, Svetlana Slapsak: Slavic Myths (2023, Thames & Hudson)

Overview and intro to Slavic Myths and their mythological ethnography

Great read but not definitive

A very good overview and intro to Slavic myths from an ethnographic perspective. Some questionable conclusions but nothing too egregious considering it's really meant to be a very broad introduction.