Tak! commented on Those Beyond the Wall by Micaiah Johnson
Faced with a coming apocalypse, a woman must reckon with her past to solve a …
The #SFFBookClub pick for February 2025
Reviews and Comments
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Non-bookposting: @Tak@glitch.taks.garden
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Tak! commented on House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky
City-by-city, kingdom-by-kingdom, the Palleseen have sworn to bring Perfection and Correctness to an imperfect world. …
Latrine digger named Pirisytes
Tak! reviewed Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican …
Silver Nitrate
4 stars
This one takes a while to get going - after several chapters, I was convinced that this was going to be a slice-of-life novel about the glory days of the mexican movie industry as seen from the 90s. (Which it is not (I mean, it is, but there's also more))
It reminds me quite a lot of The Skeleton Key(2005), in a good way.
Good characters; fun, creepy, twisty plot; unique setting.
Tak! reviewed Blade of Dream by Daniel Abraham
Blade of Dream (2023, Orbit)
Blade of Dream
4 stars
Blade of Dream is a very good sequel to Age of Ash. Instead of continuing the events from the previous book, it tells the story of different characters during the same time period. There are only a few points where events overlap, so it doesn't give that "ugh, I'm just reading a different flavor of the same story again" feeling that you can get from this approach.
I found it especially interesting that one of the main characters in Blade of Dream was a very marginal character in Age of Ash that one of the narrative characters had dismissed as a silly girl with no real agency (and thus the reader implicitly seeing her that way as well), and seeing the stark contrast here.
Tak! wants to read Empire of Silence (Sun Eater) by Christopher Ruocchio
Based on the company it keeps hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/113766219774899936
Tak! reviewed The West Passage by Jared Pechaček
When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey …
The West Passage
4 stars
This is eldritch horror without the Cthulhu. It is weird and obscure and extremely obsessed with architectural minutiae. It rambles quite a bit in the middle, but that's honestly consistent with the tone of the world.
Tak! commented on The West Passage by Jared Pechaček
When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey …
I feel like I don't know enough about architecture to read this book
Tak! commented on The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older
Investigator Mossa and Scholar Pleiti reunite to solve a brand-new mystery in the follow-up to …
So pleased to see THE IMPOSITION OF UNNECESSARY OBSTACLES on this Esquire list of the best SFF of 2024 💜💙💜 especially for a sequel, it's an amazing honor!
www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g60078949/best-sci-fi-books-2024/
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
5 stars
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is a deeply dark yet eventually hopeful look at the continuation of current societal structures into space.
Tak! reviewed The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei
Yume Kitasei's The Deep Sky is an enthralling sci fi thriller debut about a mission …
The Deep Sky
4 stars
A great combination scifi thriller / space whodunit. It's much more Serious than The Stardust Grail, but explores some similar themes, e.g. betrayal and loss.
Tak! reviewed Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon
War machines and AI gods run amok in The Archive Undying, national bestseller Emma Mieko …
The Archive Undying
4 stars
The Archive Undying is a kind of postapocalyptic fantasy kaiju novel that (d?)evolves into a philosophical treatise on the nature of the self. It's entertaining and extremely well written, but I got plot twist exhaustion after a while.
Tak! commented on The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …
The #SFFBookClub pick for December 2024
Tak! reviewed Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei
Save one world. Doom her own.
From the acclaimed author of The Deep Sky comes …
The Stardust Grail
4 stars
A story about friendship, betrayal, and the aftereffects of colonization (in space!) with heists.
The aliens are alien, there's some interesting exploration of wormholes and first contact dynamics, and the action is engaging and unpredictable.
Tak! commented on Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (duplicate)
From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella …
COVER REVEAL! It's my next book, "Automatic Noodle," a cozy, near-future story about a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen who take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot, and start making tasty hand-pulled noodles. Set in San Francisco after a horrible war, this is about rebuilding and finding love after political disaster.
Coming 8.5.25! Please pre-order! us.macmillan.com/books/9781250357465/automaticnoodle > Art by Eric Nyquist Design by Christine Foltzer
Tak! commented on The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
This is the story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing …
Rereading this with L for the first time since learning danish: Oh haha, he named the bear guy Beorn