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Tak!

Tak@reading.taks.garden

Joined 1 year, 7 months ago

I like to read

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

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Space Dragons: Luxorian's Crew (EBook, 2024, Witch Key Fiction) 4 stars

Luxorian is a dragon without a rider, and that's a problem.

Since ancient times, dragons …

Space Dragons: Luxorian's Crew

5 stars

Space Dragons: Luxorian's Crew is first and foremost a novella about space dragons, or at least one particular space dragon.

However, it is also about recovering from abusive relationships, building a family, doing and being more than others believe you can, and thriving in a universe where everything is built for beings of different sizes, shapes, and abilities.

If any of this resonates with you, or even if you're just in the mood for a wonderfully-written, bite-sized space opera, go and read Space Dragons: Luxorian's Crew! Space Dragons!

Dirt Town (2022, Macmillan Publishers Limited) 4 stars

When twelve-year-old Esther disappears on the way home from school in a small town in …

Dirt Town

4 stars

This is a novel so Australian that it goes from Milo to "no worries" to lamington in the course of a single paragraph.

Apart from that, it's kind of a typical crime novel following the investigation of a young teenage girl's disappearance.

The most interesting thing it does, in my opinion, is, among the chapters following various characters' viewpoints, adding "we" chapters that are meant to be kind of a combined viewpoint of the town's kids.

The Mimicking of Known Successes (Hardcover, 2023, Tordotcom) 4 stars

The Mimicking of Known Successes presents a cozy Holmesian murder mystery and sapphic romance, set …

Death of the Author (William Morrow) No rating

The future of storytelling is here.

Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing …

My forthcoming novel DEATH OF THE AUTHOR (Jan 2025) is about death, disability, ability, the complexity of culture, immigrants & the next generations, machines, AI, gun ownership, creative writing, the space race, so much more. At its heart, it's about the power of STORYTELLING. And it has a hell of an ending.

mas.to/@nnedi/113255839459890691

reviewed Navola

Navola (2024, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group) 5 stars

"You must be as sharp as a stilettotore’s dagger and as subtle as a fish …

Navola

5 stars

What a rollercoaster!

Navola could not be more different than Bacigalupi's excellent despairpunk scifi, with the exception that it is also excellent.

Counterweight (Hardcover, 2023, Pantheon) 3 stars

Counterweight

4 stars

Counterweight is a nearish-future scifi thriller set on the island of Patusan, which I have just learned today has a long literary legacy.

The plot follows an unnamed employee of the LK Corporation as he attempts to unravel a series of events revolving around the world's first space elevator, erected by LK on Patusan. I enjoyed the originality of the setting, but I found the whole thing fairly convoluted and somewhat difficult to follow.

The dystopian corporation-state future where having a literal worm implanted in your brain is a condition of employment is becoming all too plausible at this point.

#SFFBookClub

The Sleeping Car Porter (Paperback, 2022, Coach House Books) 4 stars

When a mudslide strands a train, Baxter, a queer Black sleeping car porter, must contend …

The Sleeping Car Porter

4 stars

The Sleeping Car Porter is kind of an ensemble farce with subtle paranormal elements, experienced through a porter for a sleeping car on a transcontinental voyage across Canada.

The porter is a gay (or bi?) black man in Canada in the 1920s, and there's a strong focus on the various aggressions and disadvantages he's exposed to in light of that.

Weird and enjoyable.