I read largely sff, some romance and mystery, very little non-fiction. I'm trying to write at least a little review of everything I'm reading. I love love love talking about books, and always appreciate replies or disagreements or bonus opinion comments on any book I'm reading or have talked about.
I'm @picklish@weirder.earth elsewhere, where I also send out the monthly poll for #SFFBookClub. See sffbookclub.eatgod.org/ for more details.
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And that was how, after a rest period that I was surprised to spend deeply asleep without any self-interventions (and without interruptions from other members of the hospital staff), I wound up playing secret agent/detective/tour guide to a sexy robot. If that sounds like the sort of punishment that would be handed out in a particularly surrealist purgatory, congratulations. You’re not wrong.
— Machine by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate) (36%)
This book was not what I expected. It's got a different protagonist than the first book, and also steps a bit more into mystery and horror genres. It's also a second book in a series that I liked better than the first, if such a thing is possible.
I think this book starts off with a bit of almost space horror, with Dr. Jens investigating a ghost colony ship and trying to figure out what's gone wrong with its ancient crew that are now all in cryo. If I had to try to pin some genre on it, I'd say the bulk of the book feels like mystery/space politics with the start leaning horror and the end leaning action. It's a tasty blend for me, specifically.
What I liked the most about this book is how characterization and themes tied in so strongly to the plot. Dr. Jens …
This book was not what I expected. It's got a different protagonist than the first book, and also steps a bit more into mystery and horror genres. It's also a second book in a series that I liked better than the first, if such a thing is possible.
I think this book starts off with a bit of almost space horror, with Dr. Jens investigating a ghost colony ship and trying to figure out what's gone wrong with its ancient crew that are now all in cryo. If I had to try to pin some genre on it, I'd say the bulk of the book feels like mystery/space politics with the start leaning horror and the end leaning action. It's a tasty blend for me, specifically.
What I liked the most about this book is how characterization and themes tied in so strongly to the plot. Dr. Jens wears an exo (prosthetic adaptive exoskeleton) for her constant pain; talking obliquely to avoid spoilers, the climax of the novel revolves around her confronting her relationship with her disability and her exo. The book also deals quite a bit with what it means to have faith (in institutions, but also friends, and religiously).
I am amused a little at how much Master Chief Carlos feels like the gender anachronauts from Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder. Characters out of time and out of step with current mores. Certainly, their function in each novel is very different; also, Carlos manages to be infuriating but also somehow sympathetic at the same time, and that makes him a much more interesting character than I had expected.
If there's any disappointment in the writing for me, there is a bit where Singer from the first book shows up as a deus ex celebrity, and it feels a bit like a distraction rather than something that added to the story. I think he could have been edited out without the story losing anything. Oddly, Cheeirilaq showing up again worked for me, possibly because we get to see it as a foil against Rilriltok and learn more about their species. Also, bug friend(s).
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” I said, after due consideration.
— Machine by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate) (46%)
@kingrat@sfba.club Yeah, it's deeply frustrating. I think the problem is that people just create a new book entry or the duplicate maybe gets imported from somewhere else? Ideally different editions should be on the same book, e.g. sfba.club/book/2692/editions?
My dream is that bookwyrm lets us merge duplicate authors and books together. I wish I had the energy to implement that myself. It doesn't seem like it's going anywhere: github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm/issues/1119
@kingrat@sfba.club Yeah, it's deeply frustrating. I think the problem is that people just create a new book entry or the duplicate maybe gets imported from somewhere else? Ideally different editions should be on the same book, e.g. sfba.club/book/2692/editions?
My dream is that bookwyrm lets us merge duplicate authors and books together. I wish I had the energy to implement that myself. It doesn't seem like it's going anywhere: github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm/issues/1119
Admittedly, it was a giant bug—but it was also a giant bug in a tiny bolero jacket.
May I ask you some questions? it said.
— Machine by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate) (56%)
One thing about the kind of pain I have is that it is so amorphous—so unlocalized—that it’s hard to describe and easy to ignore. You don’t even necessarily notice that it hurts, when it hurts. You just notice that you’re crabby and out of sorts and everything seems harder than it should. Not being able to describe it also tends to make other people take it less seriously. Like family members, and sometimes doctors, too.
— Machine by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate) (11%)
Content warning full spoilers for Ancestral Night
Here's a few assorted spoiler-y drive-by comments about Ancestral Night:
This is the most petty complaint, but I strongly dislike that the book code uses "Terran music" notation to communicate with an ancient alien artifact. Sorry, music scales are absolutely arbitrary and there's no way an alien communicating would use the same arbitrary choices.
Also, holy moly, the gut punch of the middle of the book after Haimey gets on the Prize is incredible. It's such a good moment, especially functionally because of how it emotionally abandons Haimey as well.
Finally, I do wonder where the space therapists are. Technically there are one or two mentions of therapy, but in other ways it's kind of wild to have everybody bumping their emotions and tuning their brains all the time without some professional consideration on its impact. At one point, Farweather quite rightfully accuses Haimey of just avoiding her sexuality by turning it off rather than going through rehab and therapy for her trauma.
Ancestral Night is a snappy and grippy space adventure. The big "future idea" here is not faster than light travel or even arguably the alien artifacts from long-disappeared alien races (although these things appear in the book); it's instead that humanity has discovered "rightminding", or the ability to directly manipulate emotions and hormones such that they can get past tendencies towards hierarchy or antisocial behaviors and coexist peacefully with aliens.
Rightminding reminds me of the mood organ from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. However, instead of being a metaphor for the similarities of humans and androids (and also being a tiny side mention), here it's the meat of the story and gets at the line between brainwashing and merely adjusting your brain to get along better with others.
I love how talky this book is. Yeah, sure, there's stolen alien spaceships and sexy space pirates and giant …
Ancestral Night is a snappy and grippy space adventure. The big "future idea" here is not faster than light travel or even arguably the alien artifacts from long-disappeared alien races (although these things appear in the book); it's instead that humanity has discovered "rightminding", or the ability to directly manipulate emotions and hormones such that they can get past tendencies towards hierarchy or antisocial behaviors and coexist peacefully with aliens.
Rightminding reminds me of the mood organ from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. However, instead of being a metaphor for the similarities of humans and androids (and also being a tiny side mention), here it's the meat of the story and gets at the line between brainwashing and merely adjusting your brain to get along better with others.
I love how talky this book is. Yeah, sure, there's stolen alien spaceships and sexy space pirates and giant ancient space squid. But also, there's constant rumination and bickering on what makes a just society, what it means to be a person, and what an individual's responsibility to their society is.
The other thing I think is done well is that nobody and nothing is perfect here. Maybe the Synarche is better than alternatives and involves a lot more consent than similar systems, but also it's built on atrocities and there's rightful criticisms you can make about what little you see. Similarly, rightminding is a useful tool, but also any tool can be misused.
Anywho, I quite enjoyed this. Fun ideas and interesting characters wrapped up in an action space story.
(A few more spoiler-y opinions in this post.)
We think of forgiveness as a thing. An incident. A choice. But forgiveness is a process. A long, exhausting process. A series of choices that we have to make over, and over, and over again.
— Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate) (98%)
Anyway, one of the first things you learn in space is not to thrash. If you have nothing constructive to do, the most constructive thing you can do is often nothing at all. In a mindful sense, I mean.
Thrashing is the thing that gets people killed. Not sitting still.
— Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate) (27%)
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From one of the most original voices in science fiction comes the spectacular sequel to …
Finished creating a list of books from Reactor Magazine Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2025. There's some pretty good stuff here, including this book.
On SFBA.club, the list can be found here, and I made sure the books have high-res covers and descriptions. YMMV on other servers. However, a lot of the books hadn't been added anywhere yet, so there's a decent chance the data I entered is copied to servers where accounts follow me.
Finished creating a list of books from Reactor Magazine Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2025. There's some pretty good stuff here, including this book.
On SFBA.club, the list can be found here, and I made sure the books have high-res covers and descriptions. YMMV on other servers. However, a lot of the books hadn't been added anywhere yet, so there's a decent chance the data I entered is copied to servers where accounts follow me.
Some find the Galactic Synarche suffocating. And I have a healthy sympathy for the whole avoiding-suffocation thing. But there’s asserting a reasonable individuality in the face of social norms, and then there’s piracy and murder as an economic model.
— Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear (duplicate) (1%)
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This is a story about hunger. 1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A young girl …
I’m a fan of Schwab—she always delivers. Not sure why, but I was surprised this turned out to be a vampire novel. Lesbian vampires! Schwab makes some interesting tweaks to the lore, like how walking on graveyard soil is deadly to them. And explores how immortality affects them differently; the way some are less/more successful at hanging on to their humanity. A sad, hollow ending though. On the longer side, but unlike many of the other books I’ve read this year that should’ve been shorter, this (mostly) knew how to tell a good story.
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A speculative romance reimagining of The Great Gatsby set in 2075 New York, perfect for …
This novel absolutely broke my heart, and it's so perfect for that. I feel like every Gatsby retelling I read, the more I love the guy and all is quirky charms. I'm not sure what's not to love about queer, cyberpunk Gatsby, so like, just read the book.
In all seriousness, I wrote a full review on my website because I got this book for review from NetGalley. Check that out for more coherence. It's linked in my profile.
This novel absolutely broke my heart, and it's so perfect for that. I feel like every Gatsby retelling I read, the more I love the guy and all is quirky charms. I'm not sure what's not to love about queer, cyberpunk Gatsby, so like, just read the book.
In all seriousness, I wrote a full review on my website because I got this book for review from NetGalley. Check that out for more coherence. It's linked in my profile.
