Ben Saufley
Most of my feelings about this one are wrapped up in how it ended. Spoilers are not specific but will tell you what to expect from the ending so read at your own risk. It's tough to read a lot of this book because it's a lot of people being relentlessly cruel to each other and a lot of “they don't know what we know” frustration, but while I spent a portion of the book worrying that this would be one of those “everybody loses” kind of dark reads, it wasn't, and because the ending was satisfying, I ended up liking the book.
I enjoyed the book overall but I do think that the eventual revelation that the women were lying, while maybe necessary to keep the twists coming and reveal the big twist (which was an interesting if not entirely unpredictable one), wasn't really twisty itself and is obviously problematic. I spent a lot of the book wondering if the author would reveal their politics, and while I don't think the twist is an endorsement, it builds up these women to a real extent, somewhat intelligently presents all the things people tell themselves so as not to believe the victim, while presenting them in a way that seems to indicate it's not a great thing... and then says “yep that's right they weren't a victim” and that sucked
This one was pretty challenging in some ways for me, as a straight, cis man—not because the cis men have become zombies, but because the life experiences I was reading about were vastly different from my own, and in some ways, unfamiliar or new to me and in others, just hard to hear about because I know how real some of that trauma etc is. The characters and the plot were novel and entertaining. I rooted for the protagonists and enjoyed their victories. I also appreciated some of the winks—I think some of the characters traveled through Derry, Maine (? maybe I misheard, listening on audiobook), and the terfs' warship was named the Galbraith, an obvious nod to JKR's pseudonym which I understand itself is a nod to a historical transphobe of some kind?
The narrator mispronounced Worcester, which is basically a crime for a book set in New England.
This is the first romance novel I've ever read. It's a charming story and I enjoyed it, with well-written characters and fun dialogue. I liked the way the leads' traumas were handled and how they complimented each other. I didn't need or enjoy the sex scenes, but that's a me thing and it's my understanding that it's kind of part of the genre, so I recognize my issues there are more of a me thing. They were written fine, for what they were.
This would be an unremarkable three-star book that blends into the broader Anglo fantasy genre except that it goes on these weird asides to advocate for monarchy and plutarchy. Nothing to do with the plot, except I guess as an intended red herring? And the primary “anti-monarchist” revolutionary never even says anything that's wrong. But the protagonist still calls her “despicable” and then goes on a small rant about how her rich parents are self-made. It's weird and unnecessary but I guess it is, like, the one thing in the book that stood out. The magic is unremarkable, the villain is generic. Blah.
When I was in high school, a catholic school, I asked my religion teacher (social justice, I think, which is interesting in retrospect because of how so many Christians currently treat the concept as demonic) a question about hell: “if Satan was cast out of heaven for wanting to be greater than God, why would he make Hell a horrible place—wouldn't he want to make it the best place he could?” And the answer I got has stuck with me for twenty years, despite my agnosticism bordering on atheism: “God is the source of all goodness. No matter how good Satan would want to make Hell, Hell would remain a place out of God's light and thus devoid of any goodness.” It's compelling and, frankly, terrifying. And honestly I've never heard it discussed like that again, until one of the stories in this book. The story notes at the end also add some really interesting context to that story.
Arrival was one of my favorite movies in years, so I had to pick up this book, which features the short story it was based on. That story is very different in literary form, but just as good, and the other stories approach that same level of excellence. I especially love the last story, about a scientific advance that allows people not to see beauty and ugliness in faces. Really thought provoking. I'd definitely give it a go.
Highly recommend this collection to anyone and everyone.
I really enjoy Horowitz's writing, and the Susan Ryeland series especially with its book-inside-a-book conceit. But I'm growing more uncomfortable with his relationship to homosexuality. He made Hawthorne, his meta detective written as nonfiction with Horowitz as the first-person narrator, a homophobe, and literally in his book said “I would not have chosen to write a character like this” but uh, he did. And with Alan Conway, whose sexuality is prominent through two books, we mostly get ugly caricatures as well. SpoilerThe eventual villain of this book turns out to be a former “rent boy,” who is apparently not actually gay but performed gay sex for money and is just disdainful of basically everyone around him. It looks like Horowitz once played devil's advocate in a TV discussion, against gay marriage, despite purportedly not actually objecting to gay marriage himself. It's not absolutely damning, but also, like, the devil doesn't need an advocate. So it kind of fits this bill, where I don't think he would see himself as homophobic but he's certainly not doing himself or the LGBTQ community any favors.
I feel like I missed an obvious clue (in retrospect) to JKR's transphobia in the early Cormoran Strike books, and I'm worried I'll be doing the same here if I continue reading these. I don't know, though. We'll see I guess.
It was fine. My biggest annoyance is that about half the book is spent running from the obvious truth that the protagonist is misjudging the situation and she absolutely refuses to consider the possibility. That might be a spoiler I guess but it's so, so obvious the whole time. I feel like it's written that way intentionally. But then... it's just annoying.
I was really excited to check this series out. I enjoy the LitRPG genre as I understand it, and I was excited to see that the “founder” of the genre was from an underrepresented group, which I'm trying to make an effort to be mindful of in my reading.
But only about two chapters in this book were particularly interesting or engaging.
The early hours of playing a new RPG are often full of grind. Sometimes, that's nice because it allows the brain to turn off, fall into a familiar pattern, get that dopamine rush from watching your stats rise. But if you were to simply describe this process to another person, even a fan of the genre, it'd be entirely mind-numbing. Sometimes, a good game spices up that process by adding unique lore, uncommon facets to the magic or other systems. Sometimes that can be enough to make the early hours more than a grind. It can add a layer of joyful discovery. But in this book, that wasn't the case. Nothing particularly original seems to exist in this world so far. It's all quite standard. What's worse, the protagonist is supposedly very familiar with the world, from the game. Not everything is apparently like the game, but much of it is. So why spend so much time on piddling exposition? Few interesting characters are met; almost no world building. Much of it is taken up by actual reading of non-metaphorical repetitive dialog boxes and prompts. It's truly like listening to someone describe their first ten hours in WoW. There's not even much of the characteristic “modern Earth inhabitant meets fantasy world” wit of the LitRPG genre, besides like one “FML” reference.
The story of the world and why the protagonist has been brought there is established in the prologue and then never mentioned again.
The book has no thrust, no real climax, and ends suddenly and unexpectedly. We still have neither a short term goal (besides “level up village”) nor a long-term goal.
The third act starts to introduce some characters and some conflict but it doesn't do anything with it besides a quick skirmish and I guess a sub-boss?
I dunno. I want to say I'll give book two a chance because it's a popular series and it's possible the author learned a lot from book one, but this one was no fun and I listen while running so it actually meant I skipped my run for a while because I the book didn't motivate me to return to it.
Honestly surprised at how moderate it felt. With such a bold title I expected more extreme stances. But it seemed pretty levelheaded and a lot of its points were not specifically related to abolition, but more to the problems faced and the things needed to fix the problem even partially. One could easily read this book and come away with a strong advocacy for reform, rather than abolition. But all the points combined certainly paint a picture of a situation that is very hard to fully address with reform (and in fact it points out a lot of the ways attempts at reform fail). Quick read, full of good (if depressing) examples of the problem we face. Recommended most for people who are new to these issues.
I would expect that I'd have enjoyed this more than I did. It was fun enough and relatively novel, magic and sci-fi in an interesting blend, but I found myself regularly losing interest.
The audiobook is frustrating because at least one character is clearly written as British (or whatever fantasy world equates to British here), with obvious Britishism regularly injected into the dialog—at one point they even pointedly express confusion about “the can” before realizing it means “the loo”—and yet the reader read every character with the same bland and indistinguishable American accent. For such a dynamic and colorful world, the reading was pretty blah. It may have contributed to my disinterest. It wasn't outright BAD reading but it wasn't very good either and ignoring obvious speech pattern cues is annoying.
Honestly from a pure entertainment standpoint, I enjoyed this just fine. It's like average pop music—it hits a lot of familiar notes and wraps up quickly. And that's really a lot of what I look for in a book like this, so I was preparing to give this a three or a four.
But it's apparently some kind of love letter to libertarianism by the end?
This is Lisa Tanchik book one, but it's Nate Fallon's book and despite Lisa having lost a sister to drugs, it spends zero time examining Fallon's bullshit justifications, and ends with a little Rand-ian soliloquy offering one final justification for his actions. It's a bummer because it's a moderately fun cyber-thriller that could have had something interesting to say without much effort.
Fallon didn't have to be a cartoon villain; taking apart the things that at first made the character sympathetic would've been more interesting than simply making him bad, but the book opts for neither.
Obviously, there are moments that the book realizes (and quickly sweeps aside) the real, negative consequences of his actions. And at times I think the author intended to go further there? A few conversations he has weakly imply a deeper criticism. But it never goes anywhere, and on the balance, the book appears to be more reverent than anything.
And also Lisa Tanchik is in this book for some length of time, I guess?
I read this book because Charlie Jane Anders, whose work I've really enjoyed, recommended its sequel. And to be truthful, I still might pick that up at some point. But I'm kind of surprised at the recommendation, in retrospect.
