Lewis

This book was not for me, really. I don’t have a bunch of specific complaints, but the middle third was a bit of a slog and I didn’t find any of the characters very likeable.

The book version of a popcorn movie.

I liked this well enough for much of my read, but it does feel like some things remain mysterious just because there is a sequel and not because the mystery benefits the narrative. I also found the condescending nameless character who appears in most of the documents to be more than a little grating.

This book is very readable but I don’t think I am going to become one of the die hard DCC fans. I’ll probably read the other books, but more as popcorn fare than because they are doing anything too exciting

One of my all time favorite books. Such characters, such friendships! Such villainy and such a good story about misjudging monsters and heroes.

This is one of my favorite series I've ever read. It's difficult to give a lot of details without risking spoilers, but I will say that this book, the second in the series, opens up the world from the first offers some really satisfying resolution to questions raised in the first, and continues to develop the mystery driving the story. Part of what makes the books so good is the fully developed and realized characters and their relationships. It's hard not to be drawn into caring about Rowan and Bel and the people they spend time with.

very quick read, not very subtle. The ending was underwhelming.

I love this series so much. It is so good. Doing a comfort re-read of the books and they are so easy to sink into.

very grabby writing but there are issues of inconsistent tone that kept me from really getting into it

The volume provides a nice array of stories, with a lot of variety in their interests, despite only having 10 stories.

The stories that stuck with me were Tombstone, which had to do with a deceptive uploading afterlife, PTSD, which was a somewhat contrived but engaging cyberpunk/hacker/mecha story, Pixiu, which was a more somber story about genetic engineering and resource extraction, and The Postman which was a very somber story about isolation and connection across vast distances (and times).

Engaging while reading it, but it ends entirely unresolved. Not sure if I will check out the subsequent volumes.

if you want to “the Thing but in the desert and Macready wants to fuck it” this is a book for you.

fascinating world building, deeply rendered characters, weird alien biology and engaging speculative modes of social organization. As with “The Fortunate Fall” it doesn’t quite fit any standard shape of story, but everything still fits into place as it goes

A favorite read when I was younger, decided to re-read it and it holds up surprisingly well!

a book that is hard to describe

The story grabbed me almost immediately; the world building was fascinating and curious, the characters were excellently realized.

The book went in many ways as I expected, but I still felt surprised as it went along.

Genuinely not sure how to describe this other than as a wild subversive retelling of sleeping beauty

I’m in a bookclub that reads speculative fiction short story anthologies, and this is our most recent read. Like any anthology, it has stories I liked more and stories I liked less, but in terms of the anthologies our book club has read, this is one of the stronger entries overall.

Stories I particularly liked include:

All That Touches the Air (An Owomoyela)

A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i (Alaya Dawn Johnson)

A Song For You (Jennifer Marie Brissett)

Tender (Sofia Samatar)

Shape-Ups at Delilah’s (Rion Amilcar Scott)

The Orb (Tara Campbell)

I will be thinking about the An Owomoyela and Alaya Dawn Johnson stories for a long time. The former does a nice job of depicting someone with prejudice/fear of alienness developing and interrogating their own outlook, without seeming too pat about how that improvement might look, while the latter was a genuinely inventive and compelling variant on vampire stories.

I want to go back and re-read Tender, because I know I missed a lot of what was going on in it on my first read, but even what I did get out of it was satisfying.

Shape-Ups at Delilah’s shows how to take an existing story/myth/etc. and reinvent it, rather than simply doing a palette swap on the setting and characters.

The entries that I resonated with least were Bludgeon (it is hard to get me to care about sports, and this one really needed me to care about sports), Calendar Girls (this felt like a premise in search of a plot, and what plot it did have didn’t quite make sense to me), The Ones Who Stay and Fight (which either doesn’t understand Omelas, or takes a response to it that I think is pretty misguided), and We Travel the Spaceways (which felt exploitative of homelessness and mental illness).

Overall I would recommend this collection.

a classic; drags a bit at some points but overall very satisfying

Engrossing, well thought-out infohazard novel

I thought the character of Katrina was well done. The other main characters felt a bit two dimensional, and their motives and occasions on which they cared vs. lack of care was puzzling at best.

This is a reflection on purpose in life almost as much as it is a novel. If you need all your questions answered, I would not recommend this book, but if you want a calm, patient exploration of humanity and its relationship to community, society, and civilization, this is a very good choice.

This was a really good book if you like cosmic horror and adjacent tropes. The alien mind is nicely alien, and it gave a lot to ponder about the nature of consciousness, identity and communication.

ambitious, reminiscent of the neverending story in some ways.

I liked this better than The Deep Sky. I am a sucker for aliens with weird biologies and whatnot. It doesn’t feel like horror overall but has some cosmic horror elements. Some of the characters and motivations could have been better fleshed out, but overall it was immensely readable.

This is an intriguing book, in that most of the time while reading it, I was noticing th similarity between the behavior of the primary Taoist master and cult leaders; but eventually the book focuses quite a bit on one particular disciple, and it became easier to focus on the Taoist principles conveyed in the text.

As far as novels go, it isn’t the best structured narrative, but for those interested in Taoism, it is a good text to read.

The premise was really interesting, but I felt like it had tonal issues, where it neither avoided nor embraced the potential horror elements of the premise. I liked that was got to see various generations of the human society, but there were some aspects of the time-skips that made it harder to appreciate. I'd also have appreciated the book making it clearer what Stevland's limitations were, before they became plot relevant, so that we had a better sense of what threats he posed, and what threats he was able to address. Ultimately, my biggest dissatisfaction with this was that the alien intellect didn't feel as alien as I would have liked.