Reviews and Comments

The first third or half of this novel is close to perfect, an expertly judged ratcheting of stakes and tension that hooks the reader and draws you in. Appreciated the sensory, embodied descriptions, rooted in a specific set of experiences, and a particular viewpoint. Beyond that halfway point, as the complexity increases, it gets a harder to keep on top of all the moving parts, interested parties, and newly-discovered information. Dramatic set pieces are compelling on their own terms, but feel detached from the bigger picture, with bursts of action and mystery-solving unfolding on seperate planes, only sometimes intersecting.

Some violence, unpleasant in parts, lingering after the book is closed and put away. The use of setting and worldbuilding is striking, effectively depicting a near-future fragmentation. And whatever my quibbles, VanderMeer sticks the landing.

Strange hingeing of 20th-century kitchen sink (well, coconut plantation) Indian family drama and post-national (satirical? allegorical?) science fiction. Both parts are memorable anad emotionally compelling, with strongly written characters—but the parallel narratives feel disconnected, disconcerting in their tonal difference; at least until the novel's closing sections.

It proved impossible, too, not to read the narrative against the light and shade of our own recent history; ghosts of Jobs' turtleneck and Musk's Neuralink experiments, factors external to the narrative, but which trouble Vara's efforts to sustain a suspension of disbelief. The plot and ending might have landed better had she not stuck so close to the biographies of our own pantheon of amoral tech titans; a clean cut-and-paste swapping in the tituar King Rao, whose (nationality and caste) difference isn't, it turns out, enough to make a difference.

Great book. The authors clearly care a great deal about the practice of teaching, or do a good job of advocating for critical generosity, collaboration, improvisation, and alliance in the classroom. At the same time, holding a relatively tight focus on the syllabus as a document and design for student work made the whole thing feel more manageable. I particularly valued the chapters on classtime, reading lists, and the sounds of learning.

Engaging contemporary update on a 19th-century scientific romance, with more in common with something by Verne or Wells than much of contemporary genre fiction. Extremely didactic, but strong characters, and a well-told story. Curious about how well it'll date, being so tightly coupled to current-day concerns around AI, environmentalism, etc.

Enjoyed this city-book by architect and author William Firebrace, which struck a good balance of first-hand observations and detail, speculation, and historical context. Interesting and highly readable, with some compelling one-liners and turns of phrase, would recommend.

A massive improvement (or, at least, more relevant to my interests) than Harreld's more general, survey-style Companion. Still somewhat dry, but enjoyed the chapters on the Hansa's 'small world' social network, strategies for handling difference, and the root of its decline in 'lock-in' and institutional path dependencies — which seem to have wider, transhistorical importance, and could be fruitfully applied to other, contemporary cases.

Chris Beausang: 'The acclaim [Adrian] Duncan’s works have secured to date has in large part to do with how unique themes such as state-formation and infrastructure are … I am totally unaware of any other work in which the ambivalence of being a technocrat in a specific post-revolutionary context is treated with this level of seriousness.'

aonchiallach.github.io/posts/duncan_lobachevsky/

Long and uneven, and I'm not sure if the overarching academic handbook x multiverse frame works as well as the editors intended, but there are several chapters that stand out, justifying the rest of the edited volume on their merits alone. Besides, it's rare enough to see anyone grappling with the possible contours of the 22nd century that the volume deserves a reparatory reading; one sensitive to its utility, generative potential, and (to my mind, effective) use of the future anterior.

Took a lot from the chapters on post-asteroid global society, Latin American degrowthers, physical twins, and neo-Carthaginian core-periphery relations – and the editors' concluding reflections provide a lot of seeds and insights to take away and build upon.

(Disclaimer: It may help to have a working knowledge of the field of international relations.)

100 or so pages in, but/and this speculative international relations handbook is already one of the strangest things I've ever read.