Reviews and Comments

Leaving_Marx

Leaving_Marx@wyrmsign.org

Joined 1 year, 4 months ago

Printer, anarchist, illustrator, & enthusiast of the printed word.

FediBanter: @Thundering@kolektiva.social

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I want everyone to read it and think of it often ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great book, fun, and uncomplicated ⭐⭐⭐ Good, feel complicated about if I wasted my time ⭐⭐+⬇️ I hate read this

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reviewed Embassytown by China Miéville

China Miéville: Embassytown (2012, Pan Publishing, PAN) 5 stars

Embassytown: a city of contradictions on the outskirts of the universe.

Avice is an immerser, …

Best book I read of 2024

5 stars

This was a really fantastic novel and I think you should read it. With a heavy hand in world building and exploration of linguistics and translation this novel gave so many hints and tidbits of the world without creating a complete picture which left you will so many paintings of these worlds with just enough to have you pondering the world just outside the frame.

It is really impressive the amount of world building that was built into a standalone novel, I would read anything, including fan fiction, created in the universe after finishing it.

The story itself and it's interactions were fantastic. There was many times I was left feeling so alien from the valleys that divided characters that I truly believed that there was alien consciousnesses so different than ours, rather than a metaphor for human struggles.

The plot was very hard to predict and kept my rapt …

Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Doors of Eden (2020) 4 stars

From the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Doors of Eden is an extraordinary …

A Standalone a.t. novel

4 stars

Content warning Very general spoilers

Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Ken Scholes, Mary Robinette Kowal: METAtropolis: Green Space (AudiobookFormat, AUDIBLE) 3 stars

As METAtropolis: Green Space moves into the 22nd Century, human social evolution is heading in …

Concluding the Series

3 stars

Just finished the last compilation in the METAtropolis series and it is a mixed bag. I was pretty happy with the final two stories in the series which had Bashar reprising his role and the general timeline development across stories and characters which took us from a recent collapse world to what is probably 120 years later.

The first book in the series really felt like a certain idealism, horizontalism, and anti-capitalism diffuse amongst the stories. as the series, and the world, goes on capitalism, class stratification and political power creep back in as it is consolidated and exercised in the radical and new forms of life that developed in the first series.

Positives is carnies made their first appearance in the universe in this book, negatives beyond the above mentioned development in the universe is that the stories just came off more "action-adventure" and less world building and social …

Wendell Steavenson: Stories I Stole (Paperback, Grove Press) 5 stars

Fuck, the 90's in the Caucasus was a rough time

5 stars

First off, I am dying for mingrelin khachapuri with the cheese inside and the cheese on top.....

Anyways this is an old memoir from a English journalist living and flailing about in Georgia in a time where wars with ethnic cleansing were rampant in the region, power was spotty and on maybe 1-2 hours a day, and drugs, desperation, and no work was rampant in Georgia. It was a really good read, and while the landmarks, friendliness and warmth, beauty, and prose were all very familiar and nostalgic, the Georgia I travelled in has come along away. With a stable electrical grid, low crime rates, little drug use outside of club drugs (fentanyl is still a problem there too) and some work and some forms of stability it really seems like things have improved for the lives of people in the country.

Wendell writes well, and tells stories -- some …

John Scalzi: The Last Colony (2007) 4 stars

Retired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony …

The trilogies conclusions

4 stars

This was a fun conclusion to the series. Felt this mild contempt to so many characters in this series the whole time but more so to the larger government structures and politicking. Good book, would have gotten 5 stars if there were dog characters. 😜

China Miéville: October (2017, Verso) 5 stars

"Acclaimed fantasy author China Mieville plunges us into the year the world was turned upside …

A whole lot about Petrograd

5 stars

I was really curious about this book more for its author than because I really needed to learn about the Russian Revolution. China Mieville is a pretty successful sci-fi and fantasy author whose works blend surrealism, fantasy, and politics. But beyond his successful fiction he also writes and edits an unconventional communist journal called Salvage from England and publishes some non-fiction like this book on the Russian Revolution.

From the introduction Mieville responds to the unasked question," why do we need another history book about the Russian revolution?" By suggesting that rather than being just another history text that he undertook an attempt to write a narrative of the revolution that follows it from its embers to insurrection.

It read confidently as a hybrid narrative/history book which prioritizes the debates, actions, and tensions of the revolution over citations and scholars opinions on it. That being said, this narrative does take …

John Scalzi: Redshirts (2012, Tor) 4 stars

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship …

For those who like to trek

4 stars

Redshifts was funny, goofy, satirical. Definitely a fun read. I went in blind without a synopsis and I'd recommend the same for you.

If you're a fan of lower decks or the Orville you'll probably like it. Or truly hate it. But at 300 pages it is worth the risk.

John Scalzi: Old Man’s War (Paperback, 2005, Tor Books) 4 stars

John Scalzi channels Robert Heinlein (including a wry sense of humor) in a novel about …

What a different type of sci-fi

4 stars

The first book in the old man's war trilogy was different than I expected. It was campy, humours, and much more straightforward in its delivery of a sci-fi action story than I am used to.

Most sci-fi I have picked because of its stewing political subplots, the meta commentary podcasts everywhere and the social commentary masked as alien species and totalitarian power relations.

This book was fun, and if critical of the colonial and war-mongering society that features at its heart, it has an over-the-top presentation which reminded me of the starship troopers movie.

Definitely a brain off, retro futures good read and I am looking forward to seeing if there is more interesting subplots developed in the following novels.

Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, Jay Lake, Ken Scholes: METAtropolis: Cascadia (AudiobookFormat, Audible Studios) No rating

This provocative sequel to the Hugo and Audie Award nominated METAtropolis features interconnected stories by …

Content warning Very general spoilers