Rai
I'm not crying, you're crying.
This is an episodic comic/graphical novel hosted on Tapas. It has 31 story episodes and 27 of which you need to ‘unlock' with ‘ink' for 333 a single episode. You can earn ink for free by filling out surveys (which will take you forever) or buy ink via the app, so it'll be around a tenner to get all the episodes unlocked, which is a fair price. I'm not sure if there's a clever way to unlock them all at once as I'm not super familiar with Tapas and only joined specifically to read Magical Boy.
There are some episodes that really hit you in the feels, especially if you're queer or ever had difficulty being accepted (particularly by parents), and the episodes with the most distressing stuff have warnings at the start. That art is exceptional and while there were a couple of typos that's easily forgiven for such a great comic.
It is a really beautiful story and so inspiring; I hope there's one day a physical copy printed or just a follow up that details Max's life as he gets older.
Merged review:
I'm not crying, you're crying.
This is an episodic comic/graphical novel hosted on Tapas. It has 31 story episodes and 27 of which you need to ‘unlock' with ‘ink' for 333 a single episode. You can earn ink for free by filling out surveys (which will take you forever) or buy ink via the app, so it'll be around a tenner to get all the episodes unlocked, which is a fair price. I'm not sure if there's a clever way to unlock them all at once as I'm not super familiar with Tapas and only joined specifically to read Magical Boy.
There are some episodes that really hit you in the feels, especially if you're queer or ever had difficulty being accepted (particularly by parents), and the episodes with the most distressing stuff have warnings at the start. That art is exceptional and while there were a couple of typos that's easily forgiven for such a great comic.
It is a really beautiful story and so inspiring; I hope there's one day a physical copy printed or just a follow up that details Max's life as he gets older.
If you've come for the “lesbian necromancers in space” then, er, readjust your expectations. There's no romantic or sexual involvement between anyone. Sure, Gideon fancies women but at no point does anyone identify themselves by a set sexuality - she could be bi for all we know - and while she sort-of fancies one of the other necromancers (not Harrow) for a while, that's it. She notices when one of the other women is in very flimsy attire but also notices the ‘58 abdominal muscles' of one of the male cavaliers too. Also, Gideon is not a necromancer. Also, they're not really in space, they're on a planet. So forget all the taglines, because they're bullshit.
I liked Gideon as a character but felt like there wasn't enough development of her and Harrow (more in the spoiler section below). Sure, their relationship changed but it made some big leaps as opposed to a steady progression and as such some of the story that relied on their relationship fell a bit flat. The necromancy and sword fights were pretty fun and if there'd been more than 2 or 3 actual fights I might not have felt quite so bored mid-book. I started skim-reading toward the end of Act III through some of it just to get to the next dialogue section as that seemed to be where all the information lay.
One criticism I heard before reading was that it was hard to follow all the names of characters because there were so many ways to refer to the same person, e.g.: Coronabeth Tridentarius was also Corona and ‘the glorious twin' (or something similar). And while ‘the mayonnaise uncle' was an amusing moniker, it was a bit difficult keeping everyone straight in my head and I had to keep referring back to the roster at the start of the book. The names were also a complete pain to try and pronounce correctly and I spent the whole book arguing with my brain and ended up shortening names to make it easier to read. After I finished the story, I found the pronunciation guide right at the back of the book, however, even then, my brain rebels.
One such other naming scheme was that of the Fourth house's obnoxious teens. The awful teens. And so on. Despite the fact Gideon and Harrow are also teenagers. This felt like something a person in their late 30s or up would moan about - teenagers so obnoxiously full of life - not an 18 year old.
———SPOILERS BELOW————-
There was a lot unexplored and unexplained and bits that seemed to contradict other parts of the story; it is mentioned that Gideon survived huffing nerve gas for 10 hours as an infant; she's survived a lot of things that should've killed other people; her parentage is a mystery; and then all of a sudden she's dead at the end of the book. Um, what? Sure I expect those things will be explored in the next book(s) but the ending doesn't exactly encourage me to read those because there's just too many arrows that were let loose all at once and only some hit their mark, the rest are scattered all over the place.
In a review for Harrow the Ninth, I read that Gideon was H's “one true love” and, I'll be honest, that is 100% not what I got from this book. They realise they need each other and rely on each other but “one true love” was not what they were exuding at all. Here, I'll point back to my comment about their relationship development taking some awfully big leaps without any groundwork to justify them.
It took me almost a month to read because of all these little niggles and because Act 3 & 4 were just a bit bleh. The novelty of having Gideon be a foul-mouthed teen using 21st Century language wore off pretty swiftly as I wondered how the heck she was meant to have heard of pizza or mayonnaise while spending her entire life on a dingy rock of a planet where they all live underground and eat gruel and ‘snow leeks'. Hm. It's not quite bad enough to be a 2 star but I was really hoping for better.
It's a fairly short thriller at 255 pages and it has a tight mystery at it's heart that will keep you guessing. I finished all within a day; it's easy to read and intriguing to keep you going. You can sense something's off with some of these characters but it's never too much to give the game away too soon. A great little who-dunnit.
I started this expecting more of the things that really grated me about the first two books (esp. the second) and when another terrible plot to destroy Tristia is discovered I was expecting it to be one of the previous two (painfully obvious) baddies, Trin or the Tailor. If you're worried about the same thing, then don't! The Big Bad in this book in entirely new.As always this was a really easy book to read (once I got past my initial concerns) and I enjoyed this a lot more than [b:Knight's Shadow 23547364 Knight's Shadow (Greatcoats, #2) Sebastien de Castell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421878279l/23547364.SY75.jpg 41935536], which has encouraged me to see it through to the end of the series. Falcio seems to have grown out of his ‘stupidest smart person' phase finally and all our central characters continue to develop alongside the introduction of some new ones. A great continuation of the story.
HUGE CW FOR SUICIDE as soon as the book starts. And CW for mistreating and gaslighting of someone with mental health difficulties throughout the book.
Aside from being predictable there were various parts of this book that irritated me.
The main character has some very stuck-up, prudish opinions that really added absolutely nothing to the story. She makes some comment about how tattoos are wrong and people who get them are not only idiots but apparently morally bad. WTF. She assumes the male landlord is a bad guy because he has tattoos.
Later, she hears the couple fighting and someone getting punched. She assumes he hit her despite him having a black eye and her being unscathed. Honey, you went to private school and you can't put 2 & 2 together?
Speaking of private school. This seems up for debate as at one point the author says private school and at another says public school, which are different things. Which is it?
Somehow, despite it being totally illegal in the UK, MC goes out on her lunch break and casually buys some pepper-spray.
The only reason I finished the book was to see what the reason she was so obsessed with this house in this otherwise totally shitty situation was.
And what kind of person in the 21st Century says “pauper suicide”? I mean, really?
Unlikeable characters throughout, huge plot holes, no real explanation/ending to one of the plot lines, and someone murders a cat. So. Overall, not worth the effort imho.
2.5 Stars
It was OK. I recognise that for it's time it was good, sinister and a bit creepy but only if I sat and thought about the torment Jennet (the eponymous Woman in Black) had to go through. I feel my brain is just not made for classics or gothic horror as I tend to find both terribly dull.
For added interest, try reading this as a cautionary tale as to what happens when patriarchal systems of oppression get their way. What of the book would have come to pass if Jennet had not been cast out by her parents?
A detective on long-term sick leave is stranded in a fancy hotel in the Alps when weather takes a turn for the worse; she's visiting her estranged brother and his new finacée, along with her boyfriend. Elin isn't sure if she wants to return to the force or whether she can even be a detective anymore but when a body of a missing woman is found and the hotel is cut off, she's the best option anyone's got of staying safe and solving the crime.
The Sanatorium is a good little detective thriller with a flawed and fallible main character trying her best to right herself after a traumatic experience on the job. While I managed to guess one twist relating to Elin's past, the twists in the present-day remained elusive until the end of the book.
A good debut, well written and engaging.
This is a (really) short novella featuring Nick and Charlie from the Heartstopper series. This is 2 years into their relationship and Nick is finishes Sixth Form and will be off to uni after the summer and this is putting some pressure on the relationship. The boys have a fight and end up not speaking for a while, later making up and going back to being the sweet, cute couple we know and love. There's some artwork throughout the book but otherwise that's about it.
Unless you're specifically collection Oseman's books, I'm not sure it's worth buying as a paperback for such a short story, however good that story is.
This is rounding up from 2.5.
If you've watched the Mike Flanagan TV series of the same name, be aware this is a totally different story in comparison. The book is - while a novella - very slow going to start with and even after arriving at Hill House not much happens. Doors close themselves, people see or hear things that “aren't there” and there's some angry banging on the bedroom doors at night. Mostly it focusses on Eleanor's devolving mental state to the point she believes the house wants her to stay.
It's not particularly creepy, scary or disturbing and the prose is certainly dated. If you like ‘classic' era writing then you may enjoy this more than I did.
This was a quick read although nothing special. I was expecting more suspense and maybe a bit more creepiness compared to court-room drama, sleuthing and inconsequential - almost random - KGB old boys. It felt a bit drawn out and slow-paced with no shock reveals to speak of. As the Goodreads ratings say “it was OK”.
What irked me most was that it felt at times as if the author, through these characters, was trying to justify things like toxic masculinity, objectification of women, xenophobia and other such things. That grated on me because not only was it a bit gross, trying to rationalise objectionable behaviour (including the far-right), but also utterly unnecessary; it added nothing to the story so only seemed to be there for the author to moan about ‘political correctness'. While I tried to ignore these sections and get on with the story, it has certainly put me off reading more of Coben's work in the future.
The Audible production narrated by James Franco: read for Banned Books Week 2020.I'm not sure what to make of SH5 because the narration by Franco was so very difficult to pay attention to. His voice was incredible soporific and not in a good way. The narration was frustratingly boring so I have no idea whether the book itself was boring or if it's the narration that's put me offThis book has been banned multiple times (in America) for “explicit sexual scenes, violence, and obscene language.” or “strong sexual content.” although whether some or all of those ban reasons were a smoke-screen for the anti-war sentiments I don't know. To me, there wasn't anything particularly explicit in terms of sex or violence. Sure, there's a few instances of swearing but it's an adult fiction book, why is that ban-able?I am unsure what within the book was ban-able as equally unsure as I am that it warrants the accolades it has as a ‘sci-fi classic'. It's a simple account of a man's life that happens to be told out of order because that's how he experienced it after becoming ‘unstuck in time'. If you're looking for a good, time-out-of-order sci-fi novel, [b:Use of Weapons 12007 Use of Weapons (Culture #3) Iain M. Banks https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1587400756l/12007.SX50.jpg 1494156] is a considerably better offering. If you plan to read Slaugherhouse-Five, I can only suggest avoiding the Franco narrated audiobook.
This is a brilliant book that, while fictional, is drawn from the author's own experiences as a black woman in a predominantly white environment in the aftermath of police shooting and killing Oscar Grant (2009). Thomas has taken some of her own experiences, feelings and even guilt over her silence in that situation and turned it into a novelisation focusing on Starr, a 16 year old black girl who attends a predominantly white private school and lives in - as she describes it - “the ghetto”.
Starr witnesses her childhood friend Khalil get shot dead by a policeman and the book then follows her as she struggles to keep herself and her world from falling apart. She seeks justice for Khalil while her neighbourhood erupts into riots and the police roll in with tanks and tear-gas.
Black Lives Matter has been around since 2013 and we have seen a huge surge this year, 2020, again following the multiple unlawful killings of unarmed black people by police in America. THUG is as relevant now as it was in 2017 and when it began as a college short story for Angie Thomas in 2009. Despite being fictionalised this is a very realistic account of aftermath of one such police shooting and the various ways in which oppressed people can react.
I am not usually one for YA but this book doesn't feel like YA to me. By all means, it still is, I mean more than it doesn't dumb things down and that's important especially with a topic like this.
If you haven't read it, please do so, it's a brilliant book with captivating prose and a seriously important story.
3.5 out of 5.
An engaging thriller with a hint of the supernatural mixed in.
This is a multi-perspective thriller with a good balance between victim/s, killer and police POVs set in England with some internal themes around parenthood - specifically fatherhood - and the relationships between fathers and sons. The added reflection between the different father-son relationships in the book made for some extra content to think about in relation to the central story and characters as well as a couple of unseen twists along the way.
One part of the killer's identity was guessable but another aspect to it was hidden until late in the book and there were other reveals that I didn't see coming.
The prose was easy to read and still engaging and the main character was sympathetically written. There were some supernatural-ish elements that I can't add much more about without spoilers and some additional creep-factor moments that added to the suspense.
Worth a read and can be picked up fairly cheap (e.g. The Works, paperback, £2; Amazon Kindle ed, £2.99).
Ah, Falcio, Falcio, Falcio; sometimes you are a bit of a great big dumb-dumb.
As this book was significantly longer than the first I was expecting it to take longer to read but somehow it was just as easy to make progress with and went by quite quickly for 600 pages. Compared to the first book there was also a lot that was very similar and Falcio seems to be somehow both clever and utterly oblivious all at once, which did start to grate on me a little in this installment.
How is he so intuitive in battle and negotiations and putting all the pieces of the puzzle together to see the picture no one else can and yet still never figure out who is behind the grand machinations that are sweeping Tristia? I guessed both “big reveals” of who was behind the two different forms of atrocities fairly early on and found myself getting more and more frustrated by Falcio's dumbest genius routine. This happened in the first book too but as that was a lot shorter it didn't impact my overall enjoyment quite so much; in this book I found myself getting a bit bored of Falcio's selective stupidity.
Oh, and can we stop calling every woman in the book a ‘whore'? I mean, c'mon! Use your imaginations, boys & girls.
DESPITE the drawbacks above, I still enjoyed the story overall though it feels very compact. I will continue with the series to Saint's Blood and I'm curious to see if any of my other predictions will come true.
This was a bit of a weird one to rate and categorise for me. It's billed as being ‘darkly comic' but I didn't feel anything like that coming through. It's a tale of a woman who does not fit in and trying to fit in the only ways she knows how. It explores ideas of normalised behaviour within society and how these normalisations can make anyone who doesn't adhere to them feel alien or, in Keiko's example, not human.
She goes from trying to be normal based on what her family and sister want or react to, to people she's known from school, to her colleagues at the convenience store, including Shirara, who also falls outside social norms but is equally no good for Keiko.
This is a story about following your instincts whether or not that makes you appear ‘normal' and ultimately trying to shake off the restrictive expectations that are placed upon us by societal and cultural norms.
Keiko is a well-written, neurodiverse character in a story that does not focus on naming and parading her differences. The author has successfully made a sympathetic character and does an excellent job of telling the story through the eyes of someone who feels out of place and as if they don't understand the world swirling around them. Keiko's slice of normalcy as a ‘Convenience Store Woman' feels tangible and provides an excellent opportunity to explore the difficulties she faces getting on in life.
As a modern retelling of The Turn of the Screw I was sceptical at first as I didn't enjoy the original. I saw a lot of positive reviews for Ware's interpretation and ended up receiving this via a giveaway on bookstagram.
I enjoyed this much more than ‘...of the Screw'! The modernised elements (such as the smart house) gave more avenues to explore strange goings-on at Heatherbrae and had me guessing. It is a clever use of technology in a ghost(-ish) story, proving that not all spooky things have to be in ancient mansions purely by candlelight.
I would have liked to have known what happened to the characters after the end of the main story - written as a letter from the protagonist as she waits in jail for trial - but I'm content enough to draw my own conclusions.
A good thriller, cleverly written and enjoyable (so much so I finished it all in one day).
When We Cease to Understand the World features an exploration of major scientific advances in the 20th century alongside the idea that genius is often beset by madness. It is important to note, however, that there are increasing fictionalised elements as the book goes on and it becomes hard to determine what is truth and what is fiction. I was unsure how to rate this book because of this. On the one hand, I enjoyed the scientific content whereas on the other hand I would've appreciated more a genuine account of genius vs madness, to see what the real correlation is (if, indeed, there is one).
In order to separate facts from fiction, the onus is placed on the reader to go and do further research to determine what is true and I have two issues with this:
1) I don't read a book in order to be left with the prospect of extensive research to unravel it, and;
2) There is a risk others will not read the Author's Note (noticeably at the end of the book) to see that parts have been fictionalised and continue believing everything within it's pages as truth and fact. In an age of ‘Post-Truth' this is a bit of a risk to take and I felt like the scientific discoveries detailed are diminished because of this.
Otherwise, the book is well written and interesting. It's not too heavy to read and seems to have been translated well.
This is a book with a lot to offer. We have four POV's from two main characters and two slightly more secondary characters. The narrative swaps between these four in a chronological fashion, as opposed to simultaneous so the book covers a good period of time and develops events and characters over this. Our two key protagonists are Ead and Tané, two women from opposite sides of the known world who each come to discover their importance to the endeavour to save the world from the returning Nameless One: a big, nasty fire-breather dragon (or wyrm as the book prefers) who will destroy humankind just as he attempted to do before, 1000 years ago.
Both face danger, tragedy and huge feats of endurance and strength to reach the end battle; Ead as a member of the eponymous Priory of the Orange Tree and Tané as an Eastern dragonrider. The East reveres dragons - these are water and air dragons, not fiery fiends - as gods and to be a dragonrider is a great honour that requires years of training to compete in a once-every-50-year selection process. These Eastern dragons are graceful and beautiful and able to live in harmony with humans; the Western dragons/wyrms are the fire-breathing kind who seek to dominate the world and they are waking up from their slumbers to heed the coming of The Nameless One.
Without going into the story much more (trying to avoid spoilers) I can only attest that it is well pace, cleverly written and highly engaging. While I found the first few chapters a bit of an ‘info-dump' and a little difficult to get used to the dialog, after this I was constantly wishing I could stay awake a little longer to squeeze one more chapter in. Shannon does a great job of dripping mystery and questions into the story; as one resolves, another question appears to keep you intrigued.
It is a long book at 804 pages of story and while there are sections/parts that this is divided into, each part could not be separated out to make this into 2 or more books. It all flows together and is well worth the commitment. Commendations to Shannon on creating such a massive tome that doesn't feel like a chore and keeps the reader interested throughout.
There are a lot of themes that are explored in the course of the story including, love, duty, justice, courage, honour, religion and the overcoming of our differences. The two key Western religions both venerate a female figurehead of one sort or another; and same-sex relationships are not frowned upon in these societies. There is a historical m/m relationship and a present-day f/f one; while both encounter resistance, this is not because the relationships are queer, as we would see it, moreover because they each involve a member of nobility or royalty who is controlled by other forces to conceal their relationship - one of the men is already married and a father, honour-bound to remain so; and one of the women is controlled by external, malicious, forces to the extent she keeps her true self thoroughly hidden.
While there are battles and tragedy, romance and intimacy, there is nothing particularly graphic or gory in this book; if that is any concern to you. What you will find are beautifully written characters and compelling story with mages, witches, queens, emperors, dragons, wyrms and many other magical beasts besides. It is a great read and this edition has magnificent cover art so that The Priory of the Orange Tree will shine on your shelves for years to come.
The book is set between the first two films and this was the Audible dramatisation of it. These Dirk Maggs audio-dramas in the Alien universe are a great addition and I'd 100% recommend them to any fans of the franchise. Audible has handily turned them episodic so you can fit little 30 mins bites into your day between meetings, on lunch breaks or commuting.
The voice acting is exceptional (they found someone who sounds remarkably like Sigourney Weaver in Laurel Lefkow) and the soundscapes and music are similarly brilliant. Rutger Hauer as Ash was excellent and really made it feel so much like the film; it'll be a while before I can get his enunciation of “Science Officer Ash reporting...” out of my head.
I first heard about this book/series via booktube when a readalong was announced for August-November 2020. The blurb sounded interesting and I had seen it mentioned a few times that it wasn't too long a book and easy to get through so I decided to join in with the readalong. Plus it has a cool cover and the Kindle edition was £1.99!
While Traitor's Blade feels a little bit like a ‘setting-the-scene' for a greater story sort of book I don't think that is a big deal. The world- and character-building are both great and the story is plenty engaging to keep you reading to the end. There are some very obvious points where information is not revealed to the reader, which I think you have to take with a pinch of salt - and faith - that all will become clear in the later books. Although those parts felt a little bit clumsy this is the first book not only of the series but of the author's published works so I am willing to give a bit of leeway there.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and that's worth a lot in my opinion. I can't wait to get started on #2 even if it's another 200+ pages longer than this one! While I haven't finished the series (yet) I can say that Traitor's Blade was a fun, engaging fantasy with well written combat (not gory) and characters that's sub-400 pages and easy to get into. Well worth a try!
This and my other reviews are on my website: Aspects of Me.
There are a lot of things that can be said about this book and given it's almost 70 years old at this point I'm sure most of what I have to say has been said before. Nevertheless, in trying to keep up the habit of reviewing what I read, here we are.
The first thing that struck me about Fahrenheit 451 was how lyrical it is; I was not expecting a dystopia about burning books and controlling knowledge to be so beautifully written. Bradbury did an excellent job in composing some brilliant prose that still managed to feel light and easy despite the dark topics it explored.
In addition to this, Bradbury has woven in quite a few literary references in the telling of this tale that it feels exciting to pick up on when you spot something not in quotation marks. It doesn't feel like he was trying to be too ‘high brow' about it either, moreover it seems like an extra dimension to a story about how and if literature is worth saving from destruction. It was also interesting to wonder why exactly Bradbury picked the references he did, how they are related to the story of Montag and what extra depth can be eluded to.
The second thing that I'm sure everyone notices is how prescient the content of the book is: personality politics, war, inundation of information, control of information, valuing the sciences over the arts, TV, social media, even down to the little ‘green bullet' that sounds awfully similar to Bluetooth earpieces! There is a lot to unpack in such a short book and you will end up thinking about it long after you finish. While we now have greater access to books than ever before that isn't to say that Bradbury was wrong about other aspects of Fahrenheit 451.
Lastly, though I could talk for quite some time on this book, if you haven't read it let me highlight that this is not just a story about burning books vs saving books. It explores censorship, yes, but not simply in the forbidding of the printed word. Who controls the information you are fed? Who controls the ideas that are allowed out into the open? How do we censor ourselves within a society even without a government to do it for us?
Fahrenheit 451 will certainly make you think, if nothing else.
This was an Advanced Reader Copy via NetGalley & the publishers in exchange for an honest review.
3.5/5
I dropped it a half star in my mind because I guessed who the killer was in the first half.
We Are All the Same in the Dark is a mystery/thriller set in small town Texas where the stories of two missing girls ten years apart weave and wind together as local cops try to solve these cases.
The PoV switches quite dramatically midway through so we primarily see things through the eyes of two different women. This keeps the story fresh and sets it apart from some the usual police-hunt-badguys thriller staples out there.
Heaberlin builds up two solid, well built main characters who we can sympathise with and understand their motivations. Some of the supplementary characters are a little more obtuse but that's necessity of the mystery genre.
Overall it's a well-structured, -paced and -finished novel that delivers a good storyline with believable characters.
chef's kiss Muah!Mm. Yes. Please. Thank you.Loved this, - perhaps not as much as [b:The Fifth Season 19161852 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) N.K. Jemisin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386803701l/19161852.SY75.jpg 26115977] but - it was everything I wanted from the series so far and more.The writing is excellent; character building is balanced and the sections with 2nd person PoV are well done and didn't effect my immersion whatsoever.The story covers a shorter overall period of time than the first book; in this entry a little over a year passes during the course of the story in which both Essun and her daughter Nassun are improving and honing their skills, albeit they seem to be on a collision course with each other for the third instalment.Besides this I don't think I can say much more without spoilers so sufficed to say this is a worthy follow-on and deeply enjoyable ‘next step' in the trilogy. If you read and enjoyed The Fifth Season, definitely keep going.
Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity
An inspirational read despite some rather dense science involved.
Carlo Rovelli does a good job and explaining complex scientific ideas to non-experts. His prose is well-written and quite beautiful. It isn't all hard science as there is a certain element of story-telling as he recounts the journey of knowledge that has brought us to where we stand today with quantum gravity and loop theory.
That being said, you almost definitely need to have an interest in theoretical physics in order to persist through the more obtuse and complicated sections. I feel like I absorbed maybe 70% of the science explained in this book and the remaining 30% I suspect I may never fully grasp, although, as Rovelli argues science is all about butting up against those things we don't know or don't fully understand. I'm happy with what I did take away from the book.
Aside from the formulae and theories and equations, this is an enlightening and inspirational read that will provoke some philosophical questions in its reader. How much more might we know now if the science of antiquity had not been destroyed? What might we be able to do if 1400 years hadn't been lost to the dominion of religion over science? It's an interesting question to think on, when reading Rovelli's accounts of how much science has advanced since 1900, when it was free to do so.
This and my other reviews are on my website: Aspects of Me.