Reviews and Comments

Monstrilio is one of those books about people's relationships, and how their choices affect the shape of their lives, that reviews well in The Atlantic, except it happens to contain a monster.

@picklish@weirder.earth recommended me this on a prompt of "I want to read new weird things" and it did not disappoint.

I like that the author didn't try to rationalize a suspension of disbelief about anything that happens - he was like "none of the characters know what's going on and neither will you".

Each section is from a different character's perspective, which is a fairly common mechanic, but each section covers an entire phase of the characters' lives, so there will be like a decade where we don't know what's happening in the relationship between two characters because neither of them has the mic.

Great space horror that has a classic vibe yet doesn't get all tropey

The framing of "point fives" is particularly thought-provoking given the steadily increasing number of news reports of llm-induced psychosis

#SFFBookClub

It's my birthday! A fantastic gift would be if you read and reviewd my debut YA science fiction 'issues' novel from NetGalley!

www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/753642

wandering.shop/users/adriabailton/statuses/115650336746532727

After the Revolution is kind of a mashup of The Last Girl Scout and Dogs of War, with a hint of Handmaid's Tale. Honestly, if you haven't read any of those, go read them first and then come back.

The premise is that the US has dissolved into a handful of warring nation states (what's happening in the rest of the world? who knows or cares), at least one of which is a christian fundamentalist oligarchy, and the story follows a handful of people in the conflict between that and the Republic of Texas.

It's an engaging read, if not always an easy one. I feel like some of the characters' progression arcs (Sasha) were inconsistent and handwavy. The House of Miriam situation felt almost naively mild in comparison to what would actually happen to those people in that situation, but on the other hand I don't want to read about the more realistic scenario, so maybe it's a wash.

content warnings: implied rape, graphic and excessive violence, suicide, graphic and excessive drug abuse

I really like the way that Interference takes the themes from its predecessor and extends them in different directions, without just being like "and this is the next thing that happened to all the same characters".

I particularly enjoyed the way she wove in the contingent from Earth - it reminded me strongly of the later books in the Planetfall series.

New humans, new life forms, new explorations - it builds a great new story on the foundation laid in Semiosis.

I appreciate that this one had an even more self-sufficient Pleiti, as well as exploring Mossa's fallibility. (I swear I'm not anti-Mossa, I just prefer the "two complementary equals helping people together" dynamic to the "superhuman investigator with sheltered everywoman sidekick" dynamic.)

This one felt more fast-paced and dynamic to me than Imposition, although I suspect that an objective examination would probably reveal that there isn't a significant difference.