@[email protected] OMG thank you! I haven't seen those but I'm so ready to read them!!
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Exploring and supporting Community Informatics and Youth Power for just futures.
Loving hard sci-fi, queer & BIPOC-authored sci-fi, abolition and abolitionist futures, Afrofuturism, Solarpunk, cooperativism, pedagogy, social change.
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finktank's books
2024 Reading Goal
42% complete! finktank has read 19 of 45 books.
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finktank started reading In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a …
finktank finished reading Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adrian Tchaikovsky
The astonishing sequel to Children of Time, the award-winning novel of humanity’s battle for survival on a terraformed planet.
Thousands …
finktank finished reading The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow
finktank replied to radio-appears's status
finktank started reading The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow
finktank finished reading The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin
finktank started reading Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura
finktank finished reading A Companion to Marx’s Capital by David Harvey
finktank finished reading Lacan by Malcolm Bowie
finktank wants to read Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura
finktank finished reading Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1 by Ernest Mandel
Wow! A 6 month project, a little bit nearly every day, reading David Harvey's a Companion to Capital at every step of the way. Finished it today and can hardly believe it.
This book hardly needs my review. But I started reading it because I felt like I'd missed a critical part of an education I should have gotten, perhaps in high school or college. I'd read bits of it in college. Would the journey be worth it for most? I'm not really sure it is. For me though, it was a project I'd long wanted to take on and I'm glad I did and made it through. The Harvey companion book is a must for getting the most out of it.
finktank reviewed The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow
Meaningful and engaging exploration of near future climate activism
4 stars
While some sold it as "solarpunk," I'm not sure it fits this genre. Brooks, the "hero" character, is emotionally complex, but eternally falls on optimism. And his comrades generally seem to share an upbeat nature. Near future southern California is hot, plagued by fires, and dealing with the fallout of MAGA racists and their "plut", cryptocurrency allies, a broader swath of "decent people", and the leftist activists that are trying to create change in the face of climate catastrophe that leaves many internally displaced persons. A few characters add some political complexity, but there's an overall "us vs them" equation that lays the foundation for the book. It reads like a few others of Doctorow's books (Walkaway in mind), where there's a constant back and forth between positive, hopeful movement, and reactionary destruction. It shares with other solarpunk (1) a lot of talk about solar and carbon neutral or negative …
While some sold it as "solarpunk," I'm not sure it fits this genre. Brooks, the "hero" character, is emotionally complex, but eternally falls on optimism. And his comrades generally seem to share an upbeat nature. Near future southern California is hot, plagued by fires, and dealing with the fallout of MAGA racists and their "plut", cryptocurrency allies, a broader swath of "decent people", and the leftist activists that are trying to create change in the face of climate catastrophe that leaves many internally displaced persons. A few characters add some political complexity, but there's an overall "us vs them" equation that lays the foundation for the book. It reads like a few others of Doctorow's books (Walkaway in mind), where there's a constant back and forth between positive, hopeful movement, and reactionary destruction. It shares with other solarpunk (1) a lot of talk about solar and carbon neutral or negative technologies, and (2) a general optimism in the face of difficult climate situations. Unlike much other solarpunk, this isn't a further off future, where significant transformation has changed political, social and cultural grounds. It is instead a near future, where the political debates remain (realistically, I think) in relatively similar terrain. Unlike "The Ministry for the Future", Doctorow doesn't get lost in scalar storytelling ranging from micro to macro transformation. Instead, the focus is on the change that could be made at a small level, in one place, by a group of committed activists. I think the book is meant to leave you hopeful, and I can see how it could do. However, unlike The Ministry for the Future, Becky Chambers' novels, or other Solarpunk, this book feels like it lands solidly in more realistic science fiction. It was a rich romp with some fun ideas (I love the notion that AI combined with open source does something useful and makes it possible for lay people to collectively redesign neighborhoods and communities) and, I think, a decent read on near future politics. And, as I often do, I find myself appreciating Doctorow's political bent, including his thorough investigations into "plut" culture and the cryptocurrency political hellscape.