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AndySoc1al

AndySoc1al@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 6 months ago

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Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (Paperback, 2018, Orion Publishing Co) 4 stars

[Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website][1]: The Left Hand of Darkness by …

Classic of Science Fiction and Gender

5 stars

I see why this is considered a classic of speculative fiction, and don't know why it took me decades to get around to reading it. The story and ideas clearly influenced entire generations of modern writers.

It's even better on a re-read years later.

Jeff Gordinier: X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking (2008) 4 stars

Slightly Dated, Ultimately Hopeful

4 stars

Very much a piece of its time, this book is equal parts disheartening and uplifting. Sure, Gen X got screwed in the demographic lottery, and the Boomers seem intent on never letting go of the levers of power, but we have Nirvana. Written in 2007, Barack Obama is not yet elected, but Gordinier is very tired of the Bush era, and not terribly fond of looking back at the Clinton Administration either.

The optimism Gordinier views some of the Web 2.0 innovations with is downright adorable in retrospect. YouTube and Pandora and Meetup as forces of change and liberation? It's hard to recognize now. Gen Z is looking pretty energetic though.

reviewed The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab (Threads of Power, #1)

V. E. Schwab: The Fragile Threads of Power (Hardcover, Titan Books) 4 stars

Seven years have passed since the doors between the worlds were sealed. Seven years since …

Book FOUR of a previous Trilogy

3 stars

While the book held a good story, it also held a lot of padding. Calling this "book 1" of a series is wildly misleading, as it is clearly a sequel to a previous series (the Shades of Magic). In an effort to relieve the reader of the need to finish the earlier books, The Fragile Threads of Power is overloaded with exposition in the form of multiple layers of flashbacks. Perhaps this would have worked better as Shades of Magic book 4, instead. At least then the reader would have assumed they'd need some familiarity with the previous work, and the author could have trimmed about half of the verbiage from this tome.

OK, that out of the way - it's an interesting concept, with the four parallel "worlds" with different magical strengths. Many of the characters are interesting, particularly Tes, but most of the named characters have some intriguing …

Aaron Trammell: Privilege of Play (2023, New York University Press) 4 stars

Tabletop Nerd Love

4 stars

If you're a massive tabletop gaming nerd, this may be a book you're interested in. It is a bit dry, and structured much more like a doctoral thesis than a pop culture book. But, it is exactly what it says on the tin - a brief history of hobby games and how they relate to race and gender.