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Antonis reads

lamnatos@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 3 months ago

Just reading along.

Also found on Mastodon at @lamnatos@mastodon.xyz

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reviewed Lilith's brood by Octavia E. Butler (Xenogenesis, #Omnibus)

Octavia E. Butler: Lilith's brood (Paperback, 2000, Aspect/Warner Books)

Wraps its tentacle around your neck

I read through it much faster than I expected. It really gripped me and I kept on reading page after page.

I'm torn between recognizing the Human Contradiction as being so painfully true and on the other hand also sympathizing with the Resisters. Argh, what to do, what to choose!

If you're looking for a truly alien concept this is your book. It takes mastery to mesh the alien with the human and weave a coherent and relatable story.

reviewed Busy Doing Nothing by Rekka Bellum

Rekka Bellum, Devine Lu Linvega: Busy Doing Nothing (EBook)

We are artist and sailors, and have been living, and working from our sailboat since …

Felt really true

Initially it seems like a plain captain's log. Through the repetition of each day's routine and how these days might look similar but end up being single stories themselves, a journey's description emerges from all those details. It's as true as it gets and I really appreciated that, it humbled me to read about these peoples' lives.

reviewed Diaspora by Greg Egan

Greg Egan: Diaspora (2008, Gollancz)

It is the end of the thirtieth century and humanity has divided into three. The …

SciFi can't get harder than this

No rating

I've seen it described as "diamond-hard SciFi", it might even be an understatement. It starts off being confusingly abstract. After ~15% it gets more coherent, slightly more corporeal, though never entirely so.

Even through its abstract and detached universe, it revolves around modern issues of reality, subjectivity of perception and even memetic reality bubbles.

There's a lot to get from this, provided you can keep your mind clear enough to absorb the weirdness of it all.

reviewed The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (A Bantam spectra book)

Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age (Paperback, 2000, Spectra)

The story of an engineer who creates a device to raise a girl capable of …

Plotty

Quite a thick plot, lots of characters, many plot twists and more world-building in a single book than you can shake your nanobots at. Also, if you're interested in a fictionalized primer (ha!) on Turing machines, this is the book you're looking for.

reviewed Inversions by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #6)

Iain M. Banks: Inversions (Paperback, 2007, Pocket)

In the winter palace, the King’s new physician has more enemies than she at first …

The series outlier

Possibly the single book from the series (from the ones I've read up to now) that relies in the reader having read the ones before it.

reviewed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Susanna Clarke: Piranesi (2020, Bloomsbury Publishing)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an …

Multilayered, mysterious & delightful

I'm a big sucker for mysterious spaces and Piranesi delivers in spades. Characters are very interesting too, the story's theme resonates as well.

reviewed Excession by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #5)

Iain M. Banks: Excession (Paperback, 1997, Orbit)

Two and a half millennia ago, the artifact appeared in a remote corner of space, …

Didn't mesh with the audio narrator

I know it's not fair to the book itself, but I struggled to finish this one because the narrator's voice did not agree with my ears. It's quite interesting overall, a bit complex but I think necessarily so given the topic.