I'm not mad I read this, but it's not really my thing! It's literary near-future sci-fi, where AI has become universal, to the point that there are AII'm not mad I read this, but it's not really my thing! It's literary near-future sci-fi, where AI has become universal, to the point that there are AI beings called Hums walking around everywhere, replacing human jobs. Our MC worked testing and programming them, and now she has been made obsolete. She's floating in potential economic ruin when she gets the chance to participate in an experiment. She will become surgically unrecognizable to AI, and they will pay her almost a full year's salary. But instead, she impulsively uses a lot of the money to take her family to an expensive nature reserve that only rich people use. She also takes the time to unplug her family from their devices and their AI. Both of these things have unforeseen consequences.
If the Hums would have been more of a plot focus, this would get a full-throated four stars from me, but this was more of a slice of life, contemplative book, and that kind of things is never going to catch my interest the way actual plot will. And the writing style wasn't amusing or clever, things that could have made up for that lack. Also, there is a huge focus on family and motherhood, which also aren't really my things in fiction.
Basically, this was a perfectly fine book which could be great for someone else.
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
Okay, so, this book was not AT ALL what I was Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
Okay, so, this book was not AT ALL what I was expecting going in, based on the blurb. If you are expecting emotional good times and characters to identify with ala Murderbot, stop expecting that.
Our main character, Uncharles, goes on a sort of picaresque philosophical journey of What Does It Mean to Be Alive, with each section of the book being an ode/homage to a different classic (mostly sff) author: Agatha Christie, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Luis Borges, and Dante Alighieri. Each section of the book has a different feel, and I liked some a lot more than others. The first section, Christie (spelled KR15-T bc robots) plays like a farce, as our main character murders his master but has no memory of it, and his programming and that of the other robots turns the whole situation into one of ridiculous proportions as they attempt to follow commands that make no sense.
Oh, and by the way, this is a world in which humans are vanishingly rare, as they seem to have turned over all their thinking, duties, and tasks to robots, and then as far as I can tell, disappeared.
All in all, Adrian Tchaikovsky continues to be weird and creative and I will continue reading his strange books as long as he keeps writing them, but I do prefer to have an emotional attachment to the characters I'm reading about, and because Uncharles is not yet a Real Boy for most of this novel, I had a really hard time with that and kept wanting to be reading something else.
Note: The audiobook is read by the author, and his voice is bAnAnAs. He does such a great job, he should just narrate all of his audiobooks from now on.
Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the audio ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
Another banger from Ira Levin. I didn't Thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the audio ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
Another banger from Ira Levin. I didn't love it quite as much as Rosemary's Baby, but you can clearly tell that this dude could write, and was waaay ahead of his time. And the actual book is much more subtle and impressive than its pop culture residue would have you believe. (Don't even get me started on the bastardization that is the 2004 film. Now that I've read the book, I hate that movie even more.)
It's the early 1970s and our main character is Joanna Eberhart, a photographer who has just moved to a pretty little town called Stepford with her husband and two kids. At first she's loving her new community, and even makes a couple of friends, but soon it becomes clear that all the other housewives (or hausfraus as they call them) are eerily similar in very disturbing ways. They are all obsessed with cleaning their houses, never socialize with other women, and have large breasts and trim waists. They are unfailingly sweet and polite, so Joanna holds no ire for them, but she is concerned nonetheless. Her concern morphs into distress when her friends suddenly seem to change into Stepford wives as well*, and she is sure that the Men's Association (which didn't exist until six or seven years prior) are responsible for what's going on with Stepford's women (the wives of course; no one cares about the children or the elderly).
*One friend, Bobbie, is initially described as messy, with a large bottom and dirty toes, and she is infamously haphazard with her housekeeping and mothering skills, so when she changes it's a huge red flag for Joanna.
The commentary here, that men (even ones that previously professed to be okay with—even proud of—their wives' ambitions, achievements, and personhood) would rather murder their wives and replace them with robots than have to rethink their view of women as inferior beings. There is a scene in here where in hindsight Joanna's husband has clearly just found out about what will happen to his wife soon, and his reaction is truly disgusting. I wish Joanna would have burned the house down with him inside it.
I'm giving this four stars because I'm unsure how I feel about the ending and its implications. It feels very decisive and right for the 1970s, but I would be interested to see if Levin had written it today, what he could have come up with instead.
(The new audiobook, narrated by January LaVoy, with the Peter Straub afterward narrated by Grover Gardner, was a great listen, and I highly recommend it.)
This was weird and fun! The whole thing is told in transcripts of Slack chats, and though we don't use Slack at my workplace, I've been told it is an This was weird and fun! The whole thing is told in transcripts of Slack chats, and though we don't use Slack at my workplace, I've been told it is an eerily accurate satirization of that kind of communication. It was also really, really quick to read. Kasulke is a talented guy, to use such a limited format in such varying ways. You get a lot of emotions out of this one: love, fear, humor, existential crises, horniness, like, you name it. It's versatile! But I think that's a testament to the author. A less skilled writer would have made a total hash of this format.
The main plot here is that our MC gets somehow uploaded to Slack and can't get out. He first has to convince his coworkers that he is in fact trapped, which is an uphill battle, and of course this leads to some ribbing on WFH (work from home) culture. Also, I found it delightful how the author didn't neglect real world logistics, even if poor Deepu got the brunt of the nastiness of that (although it didn't seem to have affected him long term judging by how everything ends up--I would think twice about dating that particular body).
This wasn't bad, but it could have been so much better. I think I just really don't gel with this author. I read a short story from her that one year This wasn't bad, but it could have been so much better. I think I just really don't gel with this author. I read a short story from her that one year I voted for the Hugos and it turned me off so hard from her stuff. She seemed like the kind of author who was more interested in being artsy and impressive than in telling a good story. Those kinds of authors and I usually butt heads. So when this book was chosen for December's Illumicrate, I almost skipped my first box (I try to give all the authors a go, otherwise what's the point of a subscription box). But strong reviews persuaded me to give her stuff one more chance. And like I said, I didn't hate it. It just left me wanting.
The premise here is that in some far future timeline, potentially in another galaxy or universe, who knows (maybe not even the author!), A.I. has advanced enough to become truly sapient, and A.I.s (in this instance A.I. ships) are considered real people and members of families, and can even marry and have children. Our main characters are XÃch Si (a scavenger captured by pirates) and Rice Fish (a sentient ship, the widow of the Red Scholar, leader of the Red Banner pirates). Rice Fish offers to marry XÃch Si for protection in exchange for her help proving who killed her wife (because she's good at technology? I would argue it's more important that she's an outsider, but this is never mentioned). The fate of the pirate consortium seems to be at stake. There's lots of weird pirate politics and XÃch Si is very conflicted about liking Rice Fish and feeling safe, between knowing these people she's getting to know regularly perform violence and steal at best, kill at worst, innocent people to maintain their own safety and wealth.
This book needed to be at least two hundred pages longer. Everything, from the worldbuilding to the character relationships, needed more development and explanation. The best way I can describe this author's style is that it's a painting in word form. We get the surface level version of everything, the visual, and then you as the reader seem to be responsible for extrapolating the rest, just as if you were looking at a piece of art. How does the technology work? Do they have FTL? What is the overlay (seriously, could you have even tried to explain this, author?) We get no wider context for the universe this takes place in, which I guess is fine, but I like that context. I'm not usually satisfied by sci-fi that holds off the big picture.
The real killer was the relationships, though, and in particular the romance between the two main characters. This book takes place over a month, and after basically a week, the two are in love with each other after like, what, four interactions?? And barely speaking to one another. At least that we see. We do not see them fall in love, and I barely got an inkling of why they were attracted to each other, even by the end. Because of that, this read perilously close to instalove. The sci-fi pirate plot was definitely the strongest element in the book, but even that could have been expanded. We don't see any of the stuff I wanted to see, including important moments where characters change their minds or make decisions. Again, it's assumed.
And lastly, there are some cultural considerations to be made in any sci-fi or fantasy book because other cultures are foreign, even made up ones, and especially here, with a culture that seems to be based on Vietnamese culture. Still, there is only so much leeway you can be expected to give. This book was written in English for an English-speaking audience, so when characters go from calling each other "Big Sis" and "Little Sis" one second to fucking each other the next, I'm gonna get uncomfortable. The least this author could have done is written those terms in Vietnamese so I'm not getting weird incest vibes.
So yeah, this author is not for me, but at least I know that definitively now! It's a shame, though, because some of the ideas she was working with were really interesting. The way she used them in her story, though, just made me frustrated, so I will be moving on!...more
Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
DNF @ 20%
I'm sorry, I can't listen to thirteen more Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
DNF @ 20%
I'm sorry, I can't listen to thirteen more hours of this. Life is too short. What's really frustrating is that this could have been SO GOOD. The pieces were all there. I actually really liked the writing, and the narrator was doing a great job bringing the characters to life. The concept was also really frickin' cool. It's very clear the author spent a lot of time building up this world. But complex and well thought out worldbuilding isn't enough if your readers literally do not know what is going on in your plot. I was so lost by the time I finally threw the towel in. I had the character dynamics, but there was nothing given to us to be able to understand even the basics of this world and how it operated.
I don't think I'll be giving this book another go in hard copy, but I would read from this author again when she's done with this series because her actual writing was very intriguing, even as I had zero idea what was happening in the book.
Thanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
This was an enjoyable mystery/sci-fi/thriller set inThanks to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
This was an enjoyable mystery/sci-fi/thriller set in space. It doesn't do anything new to the genre (really of either mystery or sci-fi) but it is a good example of both kinds of stories, and it has likable characters you want to root for. It's also pretty queer! Only people who have uteruses are allowed on the mission to colonize another planet, because space/fuel limitations mean not that many people can go, and they need everyone who does to be able to give birth while on board. It plays with ideas I've seen in sci-fi before, A.I. and perception, virtual reality, near-environmental collapse Earth, societal fractures that carry through to space, friendship, and sabotage.
I did think it was interesting that we were following Asuka, the mission's only Alternate, who does odd jobs because she doesn't have a specific purpose on the crew. We get flashbacks from her early life as well to give context to what's going on in the ship in present day. I didn't like them at first, but when it came time for her to go to the training academy to prepare for the mission, they started to really intrigue me. I also didn't see the reveal of who tried to blow up the ship coming. Yume Kitasei did a good job throwing out so many red herrings and confusing things that it was a true surprise when the answer was revealed (though I'm sure readers who like to figure these things out ahead of time could have done so).
I will definitely read more from this author! The book was immensely readable (and the audio version was good) and I'm excited to see what she can do in future books....more
This was very sweet and a little bit unhinged, which I of course always appreciate. This is actually a bit more in line with Klune's self-published stThis was very sweet and a little bit unhinged, which I of course always appreciate. This is actually a bit more in line with Klune's self-published stuff, with darker themes and humor with a little more of an edge to it. I am REALLY curious to know what the original story in this book looked like; he's vague in the end notes but apparently somebody told him the world wasn't ready for it (????) and things were changed up pretty heavily.
There are some light premise/plot spoilers below, so proceed accordingly.
This is a loose retelling of the original Pinocchio story by Carlo Collodi. I've never actually read that version, only seen the Disney movie many times as a kid (and once as an adult—still terrifying), but even so the players are there, and the themes (what makes someone a "real boy?" aka a person) are pretty on point as well. I enjoyed those aspects of the story, but Klune takes it further than that, and all my favorite stuff in the book came from that. I also thought he used the idea of puppets in a pretty subtle way, which was a bit of a change for him. Usually he makes his subtext text, which is dangerous because that can easily turn into schmoopsiness, which is the reason I have not given his previous two standalones five stars. I am using the word "which" too much.
Part of the reason this is my favorite of his books that I've read is that the darker elements and themes balanced out his tendency towards schmoop. The story is set in a future world where humans created robots, and the robots decided humanity was a very bad idea and killed us all. My "the robots will kill us all" Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ shelf has never been more apt.
The very end of the book felt a little bereft of stakes (maybe this is the part he changed?). The (view spoiler)[love interest/important-character-gets-amnesia-but-don't-worry-he'll-recover-by-the-end storyline is not one that has ever really worked for me, and the many times I've seen it in pop culture and books has only reinforced that. I'm still salty about the finale of Chuck. (hide spoiler)]. But I loved Victor and his relationship with his father, Gio. I love poor, tortured Hap. I loved the buddy comedy that was Nurse Ratched and Rambo. I love that Victor is ace!
I think this might be one that I eventually bump up to five stars.
This wasn't nearly as good as Way Station, which I read back in 2020 and gave five stars, but I still had a good time with it and will continue my proThis wasn't nearly as good as Way Station, which I read back in 2020 and gave five stars, but I still had a good time with it and will continue my project of collecting all of Simak's books in their vintage janky paperback editions.
Special Deliverance was once of the last books Simak published before his death, and it does bear the hallmarks of a later work in his career, with a revisiting of themes, and a bit of tiredness in sections of the plot (something that feels obvious to me, having read only a book published early in his career before this). But it's also got a unique and kooky premise that made it an interesting reading experience. So far in my journey to read classic sf authors, Simak remains the only one whose books I genuinely enjoy, as opposed to reading them and finding them intellectually interesting but devoid of emotional interest for me, which is what has happened so for with my forays into Heinlein, Asimov, Bester, Bradbury, Clarke, Dick, and Walter M. Miller, Jr; coughcough you will notice the lack of women coughcough. Of the authors listed, I liked Philip K. Dick the best but that's because he wrote wackadoo shit, and that's always an entertaining time.
Simak stands apart for me because he wrote about human kindness and the future of humanity in a way that had a hopeful bent rather than a cynical one. And at least so far (knock on wood) his books have had the least amount of weird sexism and gender fuckery of any of the authors I listed above. He also had an incredibly imagination, finding the incredibly in very mundane things.
Apparently this book isn't very well beloved in his body of work, but I had a good time with it, and unless I come across a stinker that totally turns me off, I will be reading much more from him.
Don't go into this expecting any sort of whodunnit, the book doesn't care about that. What it does care about doing is creeping you out with the eerie nature of technology and how just its sheer existence makes questioning everything else about reality a slippery slope.
I was left mostly unsatisfied by this novella, but that's the way the author wants it, I think. And the atmosphere is so thick it nearly makes up for any answers you don't get.
Chipping Away at Mt. TBR, Spooky Season Edition —Book 2/31...more
“You don’t have to have a reason to be tired. You don’t have to earn rest or comfort. You’re allowed to just be."
Still cozy aspirational goodness, and“You don’t have to have a reason to be tired. You don’t have to earn rest or comfort. You’re allowed to just be."
Still cozy aspirational goodness, and more friendship this time. Also yet another book I should have reviewed much closer to finishing, as my memory of it has grown a little thin. The feelings I got from it remain pretty strong, however. I actually feel like I need to re-read both of these books and take my time, really savor them.
This book picks up pretty much where the first one left off, with Dex and Mosscap heading to civilization. The two main threads are Dex's continuing identity crisis, as they search for meaning, or whatever it is they are searching for (they aren't sure themselves); and Mosscap's adventures in meeting humanity, most of which goes incredibly well. People are very excited to meet a robot, for the most part, and through Mosscap experiencing them for the first time, we also get to see what this society looks like, and Dex gets a taste of some new perspective.
That's really all I can say right now without a re-read, but I hope there are more books in this series, at least one more but I hope more than that.
[4.5 stars]
Chipping Away at Mt. TBR, July 2022—Book 26/31...more
Still not as good as the first Lady Janie book. A lot of this made no sense, and anachronisms were flying around willy-nilly, but I had a good time.
MyStill not as good as the first Lady Janie book. A lot of this made no sense, and anachronisms were flying around willy-nilly, but I had a good time.
My Imaginary Mary is what you get when you mix light fantasy (there are fairies! and Mary Godwin (Shelley) is one! (different kind of fairy than you'd expect)), alternate history (what if Mary met Ada Lovelace?), and a truly ridiculous sensibility (they invent the name Peter Pan for some reason?) with egregious unconcern for historical accuracy.
The plot kicks off when Mary attends a show (? they call it something else in the book) by a dirtbag scientist who seems to be attempting to reanimate the corpse of frogs by electrifying them. Mostly this just means there are a lot of crispy dead frogs, but when Mary accidentally brings one of the frogs back to life for real—in front of the audience, though they don't know it was her—she makes herself a target. Meanwhile, Ada Lovelace (daughter of Lord Byron) is also an inventor/scientist, and she has created an automaton. When the two girls meet and become friends, one thing leads to another and whoops, PAN is a real boy now.
The whole point of this series is to give famous historical women better stories, to fix history, but I find myself wishing here that it was less fantastical, and that they would have fixed history for Mary Shelley in a more realistic way. This is probably unfair of me, because it feels a lot like wanting it to just be a different type of book.
Worth noting, the real Mary Shelley lived a messy, complicated life, and this book de-complicates her in a way that is semi-troubling. Yes, it's YA, but maybe don't write about a messy young woman if you don't want to write about a messy young woman. And as much as I personally think Percy Shelley and Lord Byron were terrible people, they also caricaturize them, as well.
I downloaded this in 2021 for the Read Harder Challenge but never read it, and no longer remember the challenge I downloaded it for, but I managed to I downloaded this in 2021 for the Read Harder Challenge but never read it, and no longer remember the challenge I downloaded it for, but I managed to make it fit perfectly into this year's Read Harder. Efficiency!
The issue itself after all of that was a bit of disappointment. I'm noting here at the top that the five-star rating is solely for "The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer, a 8,000~ word novelette that won the Hugo in 2018, a win that is absolutely deserved. I suppose reading this was worth it for me to confirm my suspicion that subscriptions to literary magazines would be a waste of money for me (especially when I can just read the best of the year compilations instead). I hated the first story in here so much that it nearly put me off the whole thing. But I had heard that "The Secret Life of Bots" was great so I pushed through. And OMG, yes, I loved it!
So let's just talk about it. I'm not going to say much because it is so short, but it's a sci-fi/space opera story set in the future and told half in the POV of a decommissioned Bot (9) that is suddenly reactivated after a very long time and put to work getting the ship ready for an intense and unexpected mission. We also get scenes from the crew, a much needed counterpoint to the Bot POV. I liked both POVs, though. I liked the whole story, as you can see. I don't normally care for short stories, so this is a big deal! But it's really not a huge time investment, and you will have a good time.
is a link to "The Secret Life of Bots," so you don't have to buy the full issue. And is a link to the sequel, "Bots of the Lost Ark," which I just learned about yesterday! And have not read yet, but will be very soon.
Read Harder Challenge: Read a new-to-you literary magazine (print or digital)....more
I love Murderbot and I hope that I always will. What I love about these stories beyond the immediate appeal of an out**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 13/30
I love Murderbot and I hope that I always will. What I love about these stories beyond the immediate appeal of an outwardly misanthropic and antisocial being fighting its own feelings and personhood, is that as they go on, Wells seems to be showing that Murderbot is not just a one story kind of murder-construct (aka not that at all), but one that can play around in different genres. No one will convince me that the full-length novel was not her way of giving Murderbot a romance novel plot. And this one is a murder mystery!
This actually takes place in between the original four novellas and the novel, while Murderbot is getting acquainted with Preservation Station (and it's getting acquainted with Murderbot). We've got a dead body (which Murderbot insists on calling "the dead human"), red herrings, missing refugees, malfunctioning bots, and possible betrayals. I very much enjoyed seeing Murderbot play the role of reluctant detective, which is complicated by the Station security and investigators not trusting Murderbot at all. (There's a truly hilarious moment where Station security asks Murderbot to identify its name on the digital ID they all have, and Dr. Mensah and company are like . . . I don't think that's a good idea, y'all, because having a person identified as "Murderbot" is not immediately comforting to anyone.)
Not bumping up to a full five stars on this one just because I really want to reserve that rating for when I have all the feelings, and this was really just more of a fun blorp (a word Murderbot uses to great effect in this novella).
Like quite a few people at this point (enough that Tor published a full-length novel), I'm enchanted by the world Cla**30 Books in 30 Days** Book 10/30
Like quite a few people at this point (enough that Tor published a full-length novel), I'm enchanted by the world Clark has created in this series, which so far consists of this novella and a short story, as well as the novel (that I'll be getting to next month). There's something special about the atmosphere Clark creates when he's writing about 1912 alt-history Cairo, not to mention he's pretty great with characters (I liked both Hamed and Fatma as narrators, and both stories have great audio productions as well). I would looooove to this as a high quality animated series.
This is a world where magical beings like jinn live and work alongside humans. They entered the world about fifty years before, sharply diverging it from ours. They helped liberate Egypt from colionialism, for starters, and they seem to be big on equal rights for all beings, which means that things like women getting the vote (a subplot here) and entering the workforce happened a lot earlier. Both stories so far have focused on agents of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, which helps mediate between the human world and the world of magic. What gets the plot going here is that a tram car seems to be haunted; it's a pretty straightforward title, here. Agent Hamed is teamed with newby agent Onsi, and they jaunt all over Cairo trying to figure out how to get this mysterious being out of the tram car.
What impresses me most about these books is how easily the world of the book springs to life in my mind. The way he creates the world with a truly small amount of page-time is so interesting. I can't wait to see what he does with a full novel, and some room to really go for it....more
". . . the robots left the factories and departed for the wilderness."
"Before long, Dex was no longer nursing something as simple as an odd fancy f
". . . the robots left the factories and departed for the wilderness."
"Before long, Dex was no longer nursing something as simple as an odd fancy for a faraway insect. The itch had spread into every aspect of their life. When they looked up at the skyscrapers, they no longer marveled at their height but despaired at their density--endless stacks of humanity, packed in so close that the vines that covered their engineered casein frames could lock tendrils with one another. The intense feeling of containment within the City became intolerable. Dex wanted to inhabit a place that spread not up but out."
Mostly, this was so lovely. It feels slightly unresolved, but that's because it's going to be a series of novellas not a standalone. I can't wait for more. I very well might come back here and bump this up to five stars in the future.
Sibling Dex, a monk, is our main character. The book takes place on the moon of Panga several hundred years after the Robot Awakening, when all robots mysteriously and spontaneously gained sentience. The events that followed, which included all robots leaving human civilization to go into the wilderness, prompted humanity to collectively change their ways. Now, humans live in harmony with nature in eco-friendly buildings with eco-friendly agriculture and infrastructure. The events of the novella (and series) are set in motion when Dex has a quarter-life crisis of some sort and decides they want to become a tea monk, and travel in a cozy little wagon and basically comfort people as their job. (I now want to live in this world and be a tea monk.) After years of doing this new job very well, Dex gets restless again and decides to head to the wilderness, where humans seldom go. This is where he meets Splendid Speckled Mosscap, aka Mosscap, a robot.
This is a spiritual, meditative little novella, with an edge of mischievous to it. Dex is soul-searching, a process very foreign to Mosscap. Both of them are impulsive people, feeling they are over their heads. Despite their differences, they start to become friends. The page length doesn't leave much room to develop their relationship, but we get to know the world very well, and Dex, and this is all clearly set-up for their future adventures. I am very much okay with that.
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