Vivid and imaginative, crams so much in and not all of it fits but such fun. I originally read this as it was appearing wiki'd on e2, and many years later it reads much more like comic book superheroes than hard mysterious sci-fi, and that's perfectly enjoyable.
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Reading for fun, threads over the years of scifi, history, social movements and justice, farming, philosophy. I actively work to balance out the white male default in what I read, but have a long way to go.
He/they for the praxis.
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loppear's books
2024 Reading Goal
22% complete! loppear has read 20 of 90 books.
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loppear reviewed Fine Structure by qntm
loppear reviewed Orbital by Samantha Harvey
my bookclub did not like this
5 stars
Look, this is not-a-novel and is not-sci-fi, unless we freeze and shatter those definitions - but I would read more fictive-philosophical-observational whatever this was on most any subject. There's no plot, there's hardly movement as we do just what it says at the top, circle the earth 16 times in a single day aboard the space station. Instead, we dive deeply into the human experience of Earth, family and civilization and war and politics and futures, and separation and disorientation from it all.
loppear reviewed The way it is by William Stafford
the movie is noir and cyberpunk, but this hardly is
4 stars
Oddly hilarious, actual electric sheep, and an overindulgence of layers of binaries between real and simulacra, valued and disposable, purpose and performance, without an attempt to choose sides in a dark doomed world.
loppear started reading A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
This debut novel by an Arab-American voice,takes us inside the lives of conservative Arab women living in America.
In Brooklyn, …
loppear started reading There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties ; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people …
loppear replied to Theta Sigma's status
@Doomedrider how perfect, a copy of this has been waiting on my shelf and it comes highly recommended, coming up!
loppear started reading Hunger Mountain by David Hinton
Hunger Mountain by David Hinton
Come along with David Hinton on a series of walks through the wild beauty of Hunger Mountain, near his home …
loppear started reading The way it is by William Stafford
loppear quoted South to America by Imani Perry
If you think, mistakenly, that American racism can be surmounted by integration, by people knowing each other, even by loving each other, the history of the American South must teach otherwise. There is no resolution to unjust relations without a structural and ethical change.
loppear reviewed South to America by Imani Perry
challenging
3 stars
A difficult read: first for a rambling conversational style that demands steady accumulation along threads of memoir, travel, genealogy, and history; second and deeply, for layering complications on The South, our senses of racism and slavery and treason and charm. Responding to current events - BLM, MeToo, Monuments - but not lingering there for long.
loppear reviewed Wilding by Eric Schlosser
lovely on unexpected ecological joys when we let go
3 stars
If you had a castle and 3500 acres intensively farmed dairy pastures and crops, and realized that wasn't sustainable, and so sought conservation funding to let it return to a wild state... this is the book is for you to rethink what wild might mean. Presents a hopeful sense that conservation and ecological repair should not be a static goal or species-specific understanding or undertaking ("this used to be wetlands, these birds are only found in closed-canopy forests") but a dynamic stepping back and observing and waiting to find out what the purpose of letting nature proceed may be.
loppear reviewed Matters of Care by María Puig de la Bellacasa
responding to more-than-human feminist complications
4 stars
It is hard to say easily what this directly contributes, a weaving and complication of many thinkers - Latour, Haraway, Tronto, Stengers - on care's challenges, on critique and trust-building - dissent from within - for avoiding objectification and maintenance of obligations to more than just our tribe, to more than just human relationships. Roves slowly from STS to permaculture and soil ecological timescales, full of considered light shoves and repositionings of our language and thinking.
loppear reviewed The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein
promising start and pace
4 stars
Content warning for some reason the slow steady conceptual reveal here wants to be hidden, but no plot spoilers
What a curious and lovely blend of stock fantasy and overturned expectations - a trudging journey of mysterious import through rival wizards realms, a steady unwrapping of a tension in the world between academic pursuit and dispersal of knowledge versus technological hoarding of power and secrets.