Reviews and Comments

el dang Locked account

eldang@outside.ofa.dog

Joined 1 year, 6 months ago

Also @eldang@weirder.earth

I'm currently the coordinator of the #SFFBookClub so a lot of what I'm reading is suggestions from there.

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Splendour, Misery, and Possibilities (Paperback, 2018, Haymarket Books) No rating

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was created in a surge of revolutionary self-determination that …

This is a topic I've been interested in since visiting Zagreb a few years after its war ended, and wondered about how different its 20th century built environment felt from other recently-Communist places I'd visited. I wasn't there very long and one can only read so much into the shapes of buildings, so it's always just been a sort of "hrm, I ought to learn if there's any there there" sort of thing at the back of my mind. So when @loshmi@social.coop posted social.coop/@loshmi/113568017088684018 I figured this book could be a way for me to find out.

wants to read White Identity Politics by Ashley Jardina

White Identity Politics (Paperback, 2019, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press) No rating

Referenced by Tressie McMillan Cottom in a recent article; the thesis seems to be that whiteness as an identity is a powerful political force distinct from and in addition to out-group hatred. I'm not sure I understand what it means for a dominant group's identity politics to operate distinct from hatred of the Other, and if this reference had come from an author I respect less I might dismiss the idea, but given the context I want to learn more and try to understand it.

The Other Wind (Paperback, 2003, Gollancz) 4 stars

Perfect resolution to one of my favourite series

5 stars

Not only in the story itself, but also the pacing and atmosphere make this a perfect resolution to a series I've been slowly reading for something like 10 years. The circle feels satisfyingly complete, and I probably will start again with A Wizard Of Earthsea sooner or later.

For Times Such As These (Paperback, 2024, Wayne State University Press) 3 stars

A revolutionary guide to Jewish practice rooted in social justice, feminism, and queer liberation.

This …

Some good food for thought, but also somehow too much lecture and too much "exercise for the reader" at once

3 stars

I love the idea of this book, and I probably will continue referring to it each month, but I also found the execution a bit disappointing. The authors seem inconsistent on whether they're writing a 101 type introduction or an overview for people who just need some prompts and reminders.

The introduction tries to be a comprehensive survey of what we might concisely call modern social justice Judaism, but ends up being very long and kind of repetitive. It might be interesting for someone newer to that scene--might even have been revelatory for me 15 years ago--but it felt like well trodden ground to me.

The month by month description of festivals and rituals feels the most useful to me, though in this section I keep wanting more detail. The poems and illuminations that start each month in this section are also a delight.

There's a second month by month …

Counterweight (Hardcover, 2023, Pantheon) 3 stars

Some potential, didn't work for me as a whole

2 stars

I found this book frustrating because it kept being just interesting enough to keep me reading, but never really seemed to develop the potentially more interesting of its ideas, and ultimately felt like a lot of SFF / cyberpunk cliches thrown into a pot and not quite stirred enough to become a whole.

[#SFFBookClub September; I am slowly catching up on reviews]

Thyme Travellers (2024, Fernwood Publishing Co., Ltd.) 5 stars

Thyme Travellers collects fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora’s best voices in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction …

Brutal, beautiful, necessary

5 stars

A very powerful and varied collection, in which not one story misses the mark. They range from direct explorations of the brutality of invasion and occupation, through some elegiac expressions of exile and loss, through to stories that aren't even particularly about current conditions, and work unusually well together for such a diverse set. I'll be looking for more work from the majority of these authors.

Circe (Hardcover, 2018, Little, Brown and Company) 5 stars

The daring, dazzling, and highly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Song …

Wonderful slow read that works much better for me than its source material does

5 stars

I never found this book a page turner, but I loved it from start to finish. Miller's writing is beautiful, and the character she turns Circe into is a wonderfully biting commentator on the affairs of gods and men alike. What she does with this story feels at once very true to the Homeric tradition--in that everything she adds is woven into the mesh of stories that previously existed--and a clearly intentional addressing of the most frustrating things about the old stories. She isn't kind to the macho man heroes of old, but does make them much more interesting, believable characters. In particular the "here's what happened after" she does to the Odyssey deals with everything I find frustrating about that story in a very effective way.

The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

Content warning Ending spoilers

The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

The biggest thing I'm noticing on re-reading this is how the early parts of Fetter's left felt in my memory like they took up a lot more of the book than they actually do. I think this is skillful writing by Chandrasekera - he packs a lot of worldbuilding into the first few chapters without it ever feeling like Worldbuilding, it's just richly drawn background to this one guy's story.