User Profile

I don't know why this one is the lowest scored of the four, it has everything! The story of Coke, Salas, and the drama of the courtroom near the end all added so much to the story. And all at a quarter of the length of the Power Broker, it was a perfect book, I think.

Well written and presented. It covers a lot of different topics, climate change, urban planning, coastal ecology, and social science. Xia describes with a refreshing clarity and emphasis on the reality/scale of the situation at just the right spots.

Alternative title: "Calfiornia: a state so blinded by property values and cars it cannot comprehend planetary systems."

a kaleidoscope of wild events with great writing

One of the best books I've ever read, and probably my biggest reading achievement.

I loved the way it was written. It filled in a lot of gaps about (US) urban planning/politics that I think were important. It's definitely a sobering look at how things "get done"... and if I read it at a different time I think it would have been too frustrating to finish.

Chapters 39 and 40 are I think the most impactful for me. The fact that they all knew none of this was working and still kept at expanding highways just really shows how nothing has changed and that this whole "traffic planning" is a farce and had no basis in reality to begin with. Maybe the externalities/costs are too abstract, idk anymore.

Thanks for nothin, Moses.

Great read! Nice length, enjoyed the characters and the challenges they faced. The perspective on the Monitor corps and the internal thought process about them felt realistic and relatable.

It was so refreshing to read a sci-fi book that wasn't just "war/capitalism...but in space!!"

Another great read. It's relatively short but doesn't feel like anything is lost. The glimpses of League power and the Athshe societies felt really awe inspiring.

The whole "Hainish" universe is so cool! I love the different perspectives.

Great size and more immediately relevant to me. I'm trying to unravel the hold "productivity" has on me and this was a grounding and helpful read in that aspect. There were some parts that were UK specific, but this combined with "you deserve a tech union" has opened my eyes to how technology is not the only solution to everything that it says it is, and that these issues transcend "industries" and have existed in them for a long, long time.

A really good read. Keeps things concise and to the point.

It also had interesting perspectives on technology's role in the world that helped put my confused feelings into words, as well as reassuring my anxious brain about the tech industry's commonly toxic work expectations.