To jedno z większych pozytywnych zaskoczeń. A w sumie nie powinno, bo klimat kryminalnych książek pani Kańtoch bardzo mi odpowiada, ale tutaj wszystko jest tak pięknie zrównoważone, a napięcie tak odczuwalne przez całą powieść, że mogę powiedzieć, iż nie odczuwałem nudy od pierwszej, do ostatniej strony. Bardzo polecam.
Missoula: Rape and The Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer had been on my TBR since 2015, a couple years before the Me Too movement kicked off. I'm so glad this book surfaced in my reading rotation. I'm only about a fifth of the way through and am transfixed by so much: the horror and trauma these young women experienced, juxtaposed with such stoic narration and brilliant writing. I hate it and I can't stop listening. #Bookstodon#FridayReads#AmReading#Books@bookstodon
This evening we'll light 8 candels in our Hanukkah Mennora's.
On this occasion I've decided to highlight the 8 books that made an impression on me in the past year.
Emissaries from the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro
Adam-Troy Castro is such a catchy name, I was sure I've read somehting by him before, but apparently this was by firs Adam-Troy Castro novel.
Emissaries from the Dead is a novel about the interaction between humanity and a god like AI taking place on a cylindrical space station / artificial world.
In places it echoes John Varley's, Titan.
It is an engaging murder investigation and no one is entirely innocent.
But ultimately it is a study of free will in an unjust universe.
How would capitalism react to fines placed on causing extinction?
I was impressed by Beauman's understanding that you don't need to be evil to participate in the ecology's destruction. The extinction industry arseholes aren't competent or smart, just indifferent and greedy.
Making the main arsehole a bumbling Australian was a stroke of genius. especially In the audiobook, that accent makes him friendly and nonthreatening. Otherwise the tension between him and Karin would have been unbearable.
There is allot of info dumping here. I know it's not considered good writing, and it was noticeable but it didn't bother me too much and I guess it helped keep the novel short witch I appreciate.
A debut author has lost her book deal after she admitted to "review bombing" competitors on Goodreads, largely targeting women of color. In a letter posted to X, Cait Corrain blamed her behavior on mental-health struggles and addiction. Here's more from the Mary Sue.
@tutwilly
The review star rating banner is done on arithmetic mean, rather than median, and as such, a bunch of 1-star ratings with have an outsized effect on the mean, and pull the rating down far more than you might think. When purchasing decisions and the algorithm suggestions hinge on fractions of a point, those 1-star reviews could break the deal and have large effects on purchasing.
@forpeterssake@bookstodon I kept in mind that it's a novel Austen didn't finish so S1 was not going to be as Austen-esque as I wanted. BUT, taking Austen out of the picture, and thinking of it as just a period piece, I really enjoyed it!
Currently in the middle of this dystopian science fiction novel, written by Mary Shelley and set at the end of 21st century. It's 2090's but the flavour is quite 19th-century-ish: people are still using carriages and there's conflict Greece-Turkey, as if we were still in 1919.
Have you read it? #bookstodon@bookstodon
@bookstodon
I really can't recommend Gordon Doherty's Empires of Bronze series enough - it's written really well and he clearly has done his research. What's really fascinating is that the story is ultimately a sad one - the Sea Peoples essentially end up wiping out most Bronze Age civs (other than the Egyptians), but the story has a hopeful ending. The author also does a great job of separating fact from fiction.
@chiraag@bookstodon Harry Turtledove (aka Harry Turteltaub) has a series (one title is Over the Wine-Dark Sea) called Hellenic Traders. The 4 books center around cousins Menedemos and Sostratos who work as seaborne traders in the years following the death of Alexander the Great (after classical Greece). The series is notable for a high degree of historical accuracy. I found them engrossing and full of nitty-gritty details about their life.
@MonarchLady@chiraag@bookstodon Harry's latest novel is WAGES OF SIN. It's about what life would be like if AIDS struck the world in the early 1500 instead of the 1980s. Can't wait to read it.
I've finished: The Stranger Times by C.K. McDonnell
It was recommended to me here on Mastodon' though I don't remember by who.
I hadn't heard of C.K. McDonnell before and am glad to have found such a talented comedy writer.
The Stranger Times is over the top sitcom urban fantasy.
There aren't many good funny fantasy writers. Many try to hard and it shows. McDonnell's characters go all the way across the line into caricature, thus avoiding the uncanny valley between the real and the absurd.
@mycotropic@Princejvstin@CoraBuhlert@bookstodon I watched a few episodes of Logan's Run before the podcast, nad it seemed pretty good for that era of TV science fiction! And I loved Logan's Run back then; haven't rewatched.
I’d actually forgotten, up until this very moment, that they ever even MADE a series out of Logan’s Run — though I watched the hell out of that show when it first aired. Memories come flooding… @TrishEM@mycotropic@Princejvstin@CoraBuhlert@bookstodon
Now that I'm back on the writing track, realizing I'm 12K into a story I was thinking about aiming toward Kindle #vella On one hand, that still might be a good idea to try and introduce more readers to my Musimagium world. On the other... maybe I should just release it normally when it gets longer.
I did just get a bonus though and I can't tell if I had any reads at all or not.