Bring me all the speculative fiction. Whose stories have I been missing out on?
Rating system calibration:
1 star - not worth reading 2 stars - worth reading, but has major problems 3 stars - satisfying read, may have minor problems. Most books live here. 4 stars - inspiring read, overshadows any issues 5 stars - life-changing read
Reading log for @infryq@social.wub.site, @infryq@sunny.garden
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In this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange …
Elaine and Johan are preparing to leave Golden City, with Daria and the travelers, in order to search for the …
Not every ugly duckling becomes a swan … In the wake of the disastrous attack …
Caveat legior: some weirdly sexualized moments, and the world is (still) authoritarian and anti-consent.
Not every ugly duckling becomes a swan … In the wake of the disastrous attack …
Popcorn reading
Elaine is an orphan girl who has grown up in a world where magical ability brings power. Her limited talent …
Okay so the main characters do seem to recognize that the nazi family is problematic but it’s still at core a book about how important blood purity is so. There’s that.
There is foreshadowing of a more-complexly-imagined world in future books, but it’s still the wrong side of the irony line for me.
…this might turn out to be white nationalist recruitment trash but we’ll see if it gets better
The Tarman expedition has at last found Kelsingra, a city filled with ancient treasures. Here, …
(review of series) These got progressively better-written, with more interesting plot tapestries, as they went. Still more homophobia than I'd prefer, of the "evil, gay, evil ... because gay?" variety, though that also walked back to something more reasonable in the later books. A decent presentation of how abusers get in your head, petty prejudices, and self-acceptance. Also provides a different angle on the magic system than the assassins books, which is neat.
(review of series) These got progressively better-written, with more interesting plot tapestries, as they went. Still more homophobia than I'd prefer, of the "evil, gay, evil ... because gay?" variety, though that also walked back to something more reasonable in the later books. A decent presentation of how abusers get in your head, petty prejudices, and self-acceptance. Also provides a different angle on the magic system than the assassins books, which is neat.
Welcome to the sunlit uplands of the 21st century! Britain's avuncular Prime Minister is an ancient eldritch god of unimaginable …
The charms with these book where its drawbacks for me. I find it wonderfully simple and completely ridiculous. Sometimes i …
From New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, In the Lives of Puppets is a queer retelling of the Pinocchio …
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the …
From science fiction visionary Annalee Newitz comes The Terraformers, a sweeping, uplifting, and illuminating exploration of the future.
Destry's …
Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.
Following the events …
This was a delight, as is usual with Murderbot. I enjoyed the treatment of trauma recovery as a confusion of "why can't I just keep using my old coping mechanisms" "what the actual fuck is my brain doing, this is not helpful" "if you do not schedule time for maintenance, your systems will schedule it for you, and their timing will be antagonistic".
Noticeably less snappy than the earlier books though -- it was easy to lose focus in descriptive stretches, and I wound up reading it twice to see if I could catch the things I missed the first time around.
This was a delight, as is usual with Murderbot. I enjoyed the treatment of trauma recovery as a confusion of "why can't I just keep using my old coping mechanisms" "what the actual fuck is my brain doing, this is not helpful" "if you do not schedule time for maintenance, your systems will schedule it for you, and their timing will be antagonistic".
Noticeably less snappy than the earlier books though -- it was easy to lose focus in descriptive stretches, and I wound up reading it twice to see if I could catch the things I missed the first time around.
Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza …
