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Sally Strange

SallyStrange@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 10 months ago

Interests: climate, science, sci-fi, fantasy, LGBTQIA+, history, anarchism, anti-racism, labor politics

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Sally Strange's books

Currently Reading (View all 7)

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Bob the Drag Queen: Harriet Tubman : Live in Concert (2025, Gallery Books)

Intentional, and entertaining

This was well written and well read by the author. It defines its characters well. And makes them rise out of the page. It knows what it wants to do, it gets to the business of doing it, but doesnt get to heavy on the way of getting there.

A really affecting story of race, queerness, history, and freeing one's self.

CW: US-South slavery, queer outing, alcoholism

#Books #Bookstodon

reviewed Blood Trials by N. E. Davenport (The Blood Gift Duology, #1)

N. E. Davenport: Blood Trials (2022, HarperCollins Publishers)

Blending fantasy and science fiction, N. E. Davenport's fast-paced, action-packed debut kicks off a duology …

Sci-fantasy with heavy-handed social commentary

I wanted to like this book more. A brash young woman challenging racism and sexism while trying to simultaneously conceal and learn to use secret goddess-given powers? Advanced technology along with gods and goddesses answering prayers or creating monsters? Sounds great in theory. The problems arise with the execution.

First, the protagonist, Ikenna, is exceptionally dense. OK, she's grieving the unexpected death of her grandfather, but that's no excuse to simply take the word of the very first person who suggests that his death wasn't accidental as to who the responsible parties might be and fixate on murdering those people for the first 2/3 of the book. She repeatedly misses obvious clues that she's being played. I am not one of those people who solves mysteries ahead of the conclusion of a mystery book, but even I could see it coming. She trusts and distrusts completely and suddenly, based on …

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John Bradshaw, Sarah Ellis: The Trainable Cat: A Practical Guide to Making Life Happier for You and Your Cat (2017, Basic Books)

if you want to show your cat who's boss, read this book and then get a dog

Somewhat drily written, not to the extent of an academic paper but long sentences and some with semicolons, so this was a long bit by bit read for me. The authors are anti-indoor cat (which I gather is the general sentiment in England, but maybe living by an LA freeway will change your mind) and, somewhat interestingly but kind of bothers me, propose more selective breeding for cats to tone done their hunting instincts. Admittedly, they are experts who cite a lot of research (and point out the lack of some, e.g. with the accusations that cats are decimating endangered species), have actually trained their cats in a non-forceful manner that respects their independent and paranoid natures (the elaborate training prescriptions may have you thinking might as well get a dog instead), and obviously love their cats. I could have used this book two cats ago, and if I break …

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reviewed Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Tlotlo Tsamaase: Womb City (2024, Kensington Publishing Corporation)

This genre-bending Africanfuturist horror novel blends The Handmaid’s Tale with Get Out in an adrenaline-packed, …

Disturbing, excellent story

Content warning Graphic Murder, Death, Misogyny Moderate Rape, Sexual assault, Miscarriage Minor Incest, Trafficking, Sexual violence

commented on Blood Trials by N. E. Davenport (The Blood Gift Duology, #1)

N. E. Davenport: Blood Trials (2022, HarperCollins Publishers)

Blending fantasy and science fiction, N. E. Davenport's fast-paced, action-packed debut kicks off a duology …

I have started listening to this book at 1.5x speed, something I rarely do, because although Ikenna is irritating as fuck in her rashness and inability to catch on when people are manipulating her, I still want to find out whether she chooses to stick with the bigoted republic in which she was raised, whose rulers killed her grandfather, or do the sensible thing and defect to the substitute family who were reaching out to her and offering her support as well as an escape hatch.

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Octavia E. Butler: Parable of the Sower (Paperback, 2000, Warner Books)

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful …

Hard to put down. And hard to pick up again.

It's certainly not a fun book, but it's extremely engaging, despite the bleakness of the slow-apocalypse setting and story.

What makes this apocalypse so horrifying, and the story so engaging, is how matter-of-fact Lauren is in describing everything in her diary. It's the world she grew up in, so it's normal to her, though she can see clearly even at 14 that it's unsustainable. There's a sharp generational divide between those who remember what things were like before, but all that is just history to her.

Lauren's present is hopeless and brutal, but her diary doesn't linger on the ever-present brutality like a horror novel would. She acknowledges it, of course, but she's focused on how to survive it so she can build something better.

The setting resonates so well today in part because the societal fears of the 1980s that Butler was extrapolating from are the same fears that …

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Frantz Fanon: Wretched of the Earth (2001, Penguin Books)

The Wretched of the Earth (French: Les Damnés de la Terre) is a 1961 book …

These reflections on violence have made us realize the frequent discrepancy between the cadres of the nationalist party and the masses, and the way they are out of step with each other. In any union or political organization there is a traditional gap between the masses who demand an immediate, unconditional improve-ment of their situation, and the cadres who, gauging the difficulties likely to be created by employers, put a restraint on their demands. Hence the oft-remarked tenacious discontent of the masses with regard to the cadres. After a day of demonstrations, while the cadres are celebrating victory, the masses well and truly get the feeling they have been betrayed. It is the repeated dem-onstrations for their rights and the repeated labor disputes that politicize the masses. A politically informed union official is someone who knows that a local dispute is not a crucial con-frontation between him and management. [...] The creation of nationalist parties in the colonized countries is contemporary with the birth of an intellectual and business elite.

Wretched of the Earth by  (Page 63)

(...as a counter balance to the question of established representation...)

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Kaliane Bradley: The Ministry of Time (Hardcover, 2024, Simon & Schuster)

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and …

The time-travel project was the first time in history that any person had been brought out of their time and into their far future. In this sense, the predicament of the expats was unique. But the rhythms of loss and asylum, exodus and loneliness, roll like floods across human history. I'd seen it happen in my own life.

The Ministry of Time by 

Michel Nieva: Dengue Boy (2025, Serpent's Tail Limited) No rating

Close to Cronenberg and deeply indebted to Kafka, this gaucho-punk novel offers an explosive interpretation …

Another interesting book from my local library's expanding collection.

If you're someone who, like me, is constantly searching for new books to read, I urge you to sign up for your local library's newsletter. Mine divides it by subject so I get a bi-weekly list of new sci-fi and fantasy titles.

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Brit Bennett: The Vanishing Half (Hardcover, Riverhead Books)

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a …

I promise it's good

I went into this book knowing absolutely nothing about it besides that a friend had recommended it.

That worked so well for me, I hesitate to tell you anything besides:

it grabbed me pretty fast and then I hustled through and finished the book in two days.

I cried for these characters.

Strong recommend

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