Critiques et Commentaires

Tak!

Tak@reading.taks.garden

A rejoint ce serveur il y a 3 années, 9 mois

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Non-bookposting: @Tak@glitch.taks.garden

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Adrian Tchaikovsky (duplicate): Service Model (2024, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

o fix the world they first must break it further.

Humanity is a dying breed, …

Service Model

This is one of the ones you can tell he had fun writing.

The tone is all across the spectrum, from farcical to bleak to heartwarming, and the writing is characteristically delightful, with lots of flippant throwaway lines.

I love that @janellecshane@wandering.shop got a well-deserved mention in the acknowledgements.

Vajra Chandrasekera: The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

a publié une critique de Exordia par Seth Dickinson

Seth Dickinson: Exordia (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. …

Exordia

Exordia is a wild, weird scifi novel with snappy writing and a surprising level of commentary on genocide, imperialism, and american exceptionalism.

cw: so much violence

Waubgeshig Rice: Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018)

"A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small …

Moon of the Crusted Snow

Avertissement sur le contenu plot discussion

Hwang Bo-reum, Shanna Tan: Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop (2024, Bloomsbury Publishing USA)

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

This is not my usual type of read - in fact, I almost put it down early on, but then I identified so hard with the first Minjun chapter that I stuck with it.

It's very much like a version of Bookshops & Bonedust without the fantasy trappings and the larger plot - characters with a variety of personal issues come together around a bookshop.

It's well written (and well translated! which is not a given!) - what I'm really missing is something actually happening. The characters each go through their different journeys of personal discovery and/or growth, but nothing is materially different at the end of the book. 🤷

a publié une critique de Steelflower par Lilith Saintcrow (The Steelflower Chronicles, #1)

Lilith Saintcrow: Steelflower (2008, Samhain Publishing)

Thief, assassin, sellsword—Kaia Steelflower is famous. Well, mostly famous, and mostly for the wrong reasons. …

Steelflower

Steelflower was kind of a rollercoaster for me.

The world-building was nice, and I like that it avoided both the elves/orcs/humans/hobbits and fantasy-china/fantasy-italy/etc. tropes - I particularly enjoy the habit the author has of reconstructing words from their components (e.g. telescope => farseer).

I got really annoyed with the main character's level of melodrama and self-victimization around halfway in - I get that it was probably intentional, but I still found it aggravating. Overall I do enjoy that the characters are complex and that the protagonist isn't a perfect chosen one.

I don't feel like there was a whole lot of conclusion at the end, it kind of just segues into the next book without anything really being resolved. …so I immediately started the next book. 🙂