Reviews and Comments

recommended by Jason Lemieux

Picked at the Denver airport Tattered cover

I’m surprised to discover Kara Swisher now, a sign of how little I partake of media coverage of the world I live and work in. This book gave me new perspective on my own lived experience of the tech world. It’s clearly through a very Swisher-colored lens, but I enjoy her swagger and could learn from her example to act on my assessments, imperfect as they may be.

This is a character driven story in a dystopian, desert inspired multiverse. I liked the characters and it holds together well for the most part. For a multiverse premise the world(s) felt too small to me, which serves the story but maybe diminishes the mood. I really like the mysterious liminal space as a character in itself, which tempts me to continue the series.

Heard a nice review on Postcards from the Wind.

A satisfying and thought-provoking second installment.

The strangest mashup of history and futuristic sci-fi I've read. Chock full of philosophy, ethics, religion, gender, and politics with some supernatural forces thrown in like a potent catalyst. Fascination trumps plausibility, but the historical references insist that we consider what worlds our ideas might conceive.

Sadly this was my last Octavia Butler novel, but it did not disappoint. Her penetrating use of the supernatural to explore human power dynamics is riveting, uncomfortable, and diverse.

I was a little turned off by the title, fearing a book full of "shredder bro" lingo. There is some, but it's written from a more humble place than I expected, and is full of advice that could improve my time in the mountains on a split board. I've never been into snowboarding movies, I know Jeremy Jones mostly through his nonprofit Protect Our Winters. There's only a bit about that, though the importance of climate change is given due weight. The content feels a little jumbled up, but comes across as sincere and reflects a lot of experience that is worth passing on.

I really liked this. There's enough historical detail to be convincing, and enough "reimagining" to ignite curiosity.

Murderbot just has near infinite potential as a character. It's multiprocessing nature makes the stories complex but so rich, I feel like starting the whole series again now to pick up the bits I missed.

Starts out as an amnesia plot thriller, which can be interesting but won't hold my interest without adding something else. It then gets into the characters and climate theme which it does well and thoughtfully. There's a little sci-fi woven in but it doesn't overreach, and works to provoke thoughts about what climate migration may look like.

The conceit - are plants using us more effectively than we use them? - still works over 20 years later. The stories still feel relevant even if they have since taken some unexpected turns. An interesting contrast to Camille Dungy's "Soil", but as a non-gardener they both have my admiration.

I don't relate to these characters quite as well as the Murderbot crew, but they did get me in the end. The story just gives them a giant, wondrous playground.

I enjoyed this story for young adults while also appreciating how Le Guin weaves some deeper themes into something that appears a little formulaic at first. Savoring how one by one the mainstream expectations are broken, especially considering what those expectations would have been in 1968, made it an appealing read.