Technical nonfiction and spec fiction. She/her. Melbourne, Australia. Generation X. Admin of Outside of a Dog. BDFL of Hometown (Mastodon) instance Old Mermaid Town (@futzle@old.mermaid.town). Avatar image is of a book that my dog tried to put on their inside.
My rating scale: ★ = I didn't care for it and probably didn't finish it; ★★ = It didn't inspire but I might have finished it anyway; ★★★ = It was fine; ★★★★ = I enjoyed it; ★★★★★ = I couldn't put it down.
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"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring …
Having an epiphany: I suspect this book deeply resonates with a lot of people I follow on the Fediverse, because I can see a lot of you in Murderbot in how you react to social situations.
"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring …
Taking a break from the pile of blokey sf dead-tree book pile to try out this acclaimed series.
Critics have compared the engrossing space operas of Peter F. Hamilton to the classic sagas …
Nope, it is not grabbing me. Stopping at page 120 of 1138 (!). It feels like older, straight-man-written sf of the 1970s, not from its actual 2002. I’d probably have devoured this as a youngster but now my expectations are higher.
This richly illustrated book discusses non-Euclidean geometry and the hyperbolic plane in an accessible way. …
A well-targeted birthday present. Not a pattern book, but contains history, geometry, and strategies for making your own crochet that just won't lie flat.
A well-targeted birthday present. Not a pattern book, but contains history, geometry, and strategies for making your own crochet that just won't lie flat.
Critics have compared the engrossing space operas of Peter F. Hamilton to the classic sagas of such sf giants as …
A most peculiar story, if you can call it that. It’s more a series of vignettes about some quite dysfunctional people. Coupland lets slip ever so quietly that he knows a great deal about technology. I suspect more than I do.
I know Doug Coupland from his earlier nonfiction work such as Souvenir of Canada. Guess I’m about to find out what his fiction is like.
The Mimicking of Known Successes presents a cozy Holmesian murder mystery and sapphic romance, set on Jupiter, by Malka Older, …
Content warning Plot elements
I’ll come right out and say it: blackface is a central part of this story. This novel is from 1934 when white people didn’t blink at blacking up and performing music as “n****r minstrels”. There’s simply no way to edit this story to exclude this fact without greatly changing the story.
I’ve only read Jeeves short stories to now; this is the first novel (and Wodehouse’s first Jeeves novel too). It hangs together, the plot is clever and of course Jeeves saves the day. Satisfying, but hold your nose.
Oh my, this appears to be an edition with the n-word in it intact; wasn’t expecting that at all.
It’s not grabbing me. The Lena character is insufferable and shallow and irritating. The diary excerpts are especially cringeworthy.
I don’t know if it’s Palmer trying to write women or something else, because there’s only one other woman in the book and she is a very minor character.
Putting it down.
Psychopaths, at one extreme, process reality in a way that is denuded of emotional content; often, killer psychopaths admit they don't really feel emotion, but instead "act" emotion. Great novelists, by contrast, process reality by a process of self-glorifying self-fictification. Computer geeks, by further contrast, break down their lives into a series of tasks and challenges; it gives them huge self-confidence, but little emotional competence.
— Debatable Space by Philip Palmer (Page 81)
The first person in this part of the book is, herself, something of a psychopath.
