Leaving_Marx started reading Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (Old Man’s War #1)

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (Old Man’s War #1)
John Scalzi channels Robert Heinlein (including a wry sense of humor) in a novel about a future Earth engaged in …
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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73% complete! Leaving_Marx has read 22 of 30 books.

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

This provocative sequel to the Hugo and Audie Award nominated METAtropolis features interconnected stories by today’s top writers of speculative …

Stephen is an ideal child of aristocratic parentsa fencer, a horse rider and a keen scholar. Stephen grows to be …
Content warning Very general spoilers
Confessor by Elizabeth Bear is a cool and divergent theme in the metatropolis universe. Following the cop trying to crack a crime storyline, we are deep on the woods and unravelling a mysterious black site and what goes on within.
It is interesting to see regular engagements with cops in this world that sees them as general low tier, disliked, corrupt members of these more institutional societies, some terking work as private eyes, some on the payroll. The whole societies saviour narrative isn't present but at the same time it consistently plays up the "few good cops" vibe, working against the "bad guys" who are regular corporate and mafia actors and also the people on the take or politicking within the cops themselves.
I wish there was a bit of vision in the series that fantasized about a world without penal and carcerial systems, but wear it seems progressing or interesting is the balkanizing, federating, green, and tech fronts and this is where I think the authors explore the most interesting content.

All About Love offers radical new ways to think about love by showing its interconnectedness in our private and public …
Bell hooks proses and musings on love. Not sure why, but I expected it to be a feminist text engaging with the idea of love. It is more a love text engaging with feminism. I recently lost my mom and "recently" ended a handful of important relationships and want to engage with this concept of love from someone I respect. I want to both play with an openness to love and optimism being apart of politics and I want to feel open to love when feeling like vulnerability can be so hard.
I liked her engagement with childhood and learning love that we reproduce when we are older, at least when we don't interrogate it and seek to change that relationship. And her critiques of patriarchy and the ways that socialized men and socialized women commonly relate to love, care, and empathy.
The section on grief and love was my …
Bell hooks proses and musings on love. Not sure why, but I expected it to be a feminist text engaging with the idea of love. It is more a love text engaging with feminism. I recently lost my mom and "recently" ended a handful of important relationships and want to engage with this concept of love from someone I respect. I want to both play with an openness to love and optimism being apart of politics and I want to feel open to love when feeling like vulnerability can be so hard.
I liked her engagement with childhood and learning love that we reproduce when we are older, at least when we don't interrogate it and seek to change that relationship. And her critiques of patriarchy and the ways that socialized men and socialized women commonly relate to love, care, and empathy.
The section on grief and love was my favourite part, and how we know love fully, and the love and value we have for a person, in the process of grief.
Definitely lots of engagement with Christianity and spiritually which doesn't speak to me but the politics and musings on childhood and patriarchy and loss are worth the read.
The 3rd story in the anthology, "Byways" by Tobias S. Buckell, follows a character from the first book, after leaving Detroit and starting to work on a road crew that goes through the Midwest tearing up roads and suburbs to start the process of a rewilded Midwest. The politicking and espionage make it a fun story, where the anarchist societies we met in the first book become a bit more complicated when their form of development comes in conflict with other regions. Dealing with power generation and a balkanized North America, it feels like peak behind the curtain of a possible future.

All About Love offers radical new ways to think about love by showing its interconnectedness in our private and public …

The definitive cult, post-modern novel – a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When our narrator smashes his car …
Finished the second story, "Water to Wine" by Mary Robinette Kowal. Best part of it, read by captain Janeway from ST Voyager. But otherwise the most personal interest story of the anthology so far. It follows a winemaking family, and reminds me of this hallmark Christmas rom-com I've watched a half dozen times in the past few years. Could have skipped. it the second time round but looking for Easter eggs in ways the stories interact with each other.
Finished the first story in the compilation, with Jay Lake returning to Cascadia in "The Bull Dancers". A half decade later, a cop and some surviving members of Jays last contribution to the metatropolis universe try to unravel the events of the last story and solve the outstanding mysteries left behind.

This provocative sequel to the Hugo and Audie Award nominated METAtropolis features interconnected stories by today’s top writers of speculative …
This text is a great collection of world building in an apocalyptic future with elements of dystopia and utopian dreamers abound. Almost all stories interact with some form of anarchistic social formation or way of life and their different approaches to climate crisis, economic crisis and technology.