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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He who controls ichorite controls the world.
A malleable metal more durable than steel, …
I did not yet know that I belonged with them. I didn't know that they would be mothers to me. That I'd be their heir and squire, then come of age, that I'd be the Whip Spider and that the gentle and monied would weep to hear my name.
— Metal from Heaven by August Clarke (9%)
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He who controls ichorite controls the world.
A malleable metal more durable than steel, …
Metal From Heaven is a sapphic revenge story following a lovesick supernaturally gifted survivor of a peaceful protest as she joins revolutionaries against industry and feudalism. It is narrated by the MC to the object of her love, who she last saw as her fellow protestors were gunned down around her. It includes explicit sex scenes, new slurs for queerness, interesting new perspectives on gender identity, and frequent in-depth explorations of the politics of revolution and survival in an oppressive world. I would describe the prevailing mood as being a strong mix of hopefulness and despair, and the tone is one of zealous love in the face of loss and sorrow. I cried. You might, too.
Dr. Sunya Song embarks on an interstellar journey across the Milky Way to connect with …
It was easy this time. Okay, I’m lying. But I want to tell you it was easy this time because that’s how stories work: you overcome something that is holding you back and it never troubles you again. But in the real world, you have to do the hard thing over and over again, and reward yourself for succeeding, until it wears a new groove. It was, at least, easier.
— The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear (White Space, #3) (87%)
Dr. Sunya Song embarks on an interstellar journey across the Milky Way to connect with …
No matter how much I liked the first two books, this book was "just ok". I think it just wasn't as philosophical as the first and it didn't have the thematic strength of the second. There were some attempts to tie together metaphor through the family tree but it felt more told than shown for me.
(And to my eye, there were some missed opportunities for connections and depth. So many hooks of ideas that could have connected better: the chives vs baomind mind over distance, human desire for narratives, human tendencies towards binary thinking, or the way humans treat AIs.)
Overall, this is an interesting trilogy of books. Every book has a different protagonist and a very different feeling to it; there's some loose continuity going on, but it's more like a series of different windows into this universe rather than a strong arc plot. It's not …
No matter how much I liked the first two books, this book was "just ok". I think it just wasn't as philosophical as the first and it didn't have the thematic strength of the second. There were some attempts to tie together metaphor through the family tree but it felt more told than shown for me.
(And to my eye, there were some missed opportunities for connections and depth. So many hooks of ideas that could have connected better: the chives vs baomind mind over distance, human desire for narratives, human tendencies towards binary thinking, or the way humans treat AIs.)
Overall, this is an interesting trilogy of books. Every book has a different protagonist and a very different feeling to it; there's some loose continuity going on, but it's more like a series of different windows into this universe rather than a strong arc plot. It's not what I expected at all.
I mentioned that I felt like the previous book had a bit of a mystery vibe to it, and that continues here. To be clear, I think both of these are "mystery adjacent action" where there's some attempted murders and mysterious goings-on; in both cases, it's there as a way to build tension and not as the main vehicle for the novel or something the reader could solve on their own.
Also, pettily I had some minor complaints which maybe made this book less enjoyable:
This book opens with Sun off on a far away research trip without her wife and kids. I wrote a note to myself at the time: "is every book in this trilogy going to be about absent family?" In this case, no. Sun's wife Salvie surprises Sun by showing up with the kids.
Salvie has some neat backstory of not fitting into the alien gender roles of her species (which we don't hear enough about), and then in practice she's got a single facet: the supportive wife for Sun's problems. Sure, the story isn't about her, but... also... it could be more about her. It's made worse for me that Sun is so often resentful(!) of Salvie, especially around her showing up unexpectedly. Even this point of conflict and resentment felt over very quickly and not processed very thoroughly. (It should also be noted that Sun left the kids that she didn't want to take care of with Salvie to do full-time parenting for five years.)
And that sort of leads me into the other point, is that maybe I just didn't enjoy Sun as a main character? In a world full of rightminding, Sun felt incredibly emotionally immature and deregulated. Their interaction with their kids felt like a very trope-y arc, especially with her feeling paranoid and overprotective. (If her behavior towards her children had tied in more clearly to her backstory about hab failure trauma, maybe this would have felt more nuanced?)
Finally, the main nemesis figure (Vickee Devine) felt quite flat. It was INCREDIBLY funny for Sun to bring up this long-time academic and personal rival, only to have said rival's entrance be showing up piloting a spaceship (surprise ferrying Sun's wife and kids) and then doing some hot shot flying during a pirate skirmish to save Sun. Overall though, I was expecting more of a twist or some nuance with her character. In the book there was even a direct nod to Malka Older's narrative disorder and the bias that Sun feels towards Vickee and tries to ignore, which felt like an opportunity for some other story to be told here; in the end it seemed to be exactly what it said on the tin.
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.
