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Gwenfar

Gwenfar@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years ago

Masto #SFFBookClub

Mastodon: kith.kitchen/@GwenfarsGarden (gardening and food) rage.love/@GwenfarsGarden (MECFS, politics, colouring, and general musings)

Twitter: twitter.com/GwenfarsGarden Website: www.gwenfarsgarden.info/ Pronouns: they/them

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Gwenfar's books

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Ursula K. Le Guin: The Word for World is Forest (Hardcover, 2010, Tor / Science Fiction Book Club, Tor Science Fiction Book Club) 4 stars

Centuries in the future, Terrans have established a logging colony & military base named “New …

Learning nonviolence

3 stars

I don't generally enjoy science fiction, and although I do love Ursula le Guin's theory and ideas I have never managed to finish any of her books before this one. Her writing is good, but I find that science fiction often gets too tied up in hammering home its analogies without remembering to tell a good story. The Word for World is Forest does not have this problem.

Ostensibly, this is a novel about two races of human. The first are Terrans (from Earth) who have landed on a distant planet and are cutting down its rich forested surface because there is no wood left on Earth. The other are Athsheans, who are colonised, enslaved in all but name, and are being forced to live their lives in a "terran" way by sleeping at night and working in the daytime, for example. The book weaves in the injustices of settler …

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reviewed Kindred by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Rebecca Wragg Sykes: Kindred (Paperback, 2022, Bloomsbury Sigma) 4 stars

Bringing life to Neanderthals in a way I've never previously experienced.

5 stars

Have been reading this as an audiobook, and I have learned so much, but my favourite thing is that all humans alive today have something like 3% Neanderthal DNA.

The author is also the narrator and they have brought Neanderthals to life in a way no-one has ever done before, in my experience. She talks about knapping quite a bit, coz it's an important technology, and I was amazed that I found it so engaging. I knew stone tools were very hard to make (I did 1st year archaeology at Uni and it's one of the first things they get you to try to do), but the complexity and different types of tools and the knowledge behind them, was breathtaking.

The author gives the Neanderthals a thinking, breathing, presence, and you get to learn about their world and the challenges they faced, using the latest discoveries and the new insights …

Nnedi Okorafor: Lagoon (Paperback, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd) 4 stars

When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most …

Content warning Does reference some later chapters.

Nnedi Okorafor: Lagoon (Paperback, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd) 4 stars

When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most …

Starts well, but then...

3 stars

Content warning Does reference some later chapters.

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Nnedi Okorafor: Lagoon (Paperback, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd) 4 stars

When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most …

So much potential

2 stars

Content warning Whole book spoilers