The style is probably my favourite aspect of this excellent book. Each of the six stories on which it is built could be a novella in its own right. Each is different, beautifully written, captivating, horrible, funny, deeply weird. It's the Canterbury Tales in space, yes, but also it's heartbreaking, sexy, political. It's aged really well. It's very hetero, but honestly it's also a tiny bit camp. The only thing I have to say against this book is the cliffhanger ending, but Simmons clearly has so much more time to spend in this incredible world, so I can't really hold that against him.
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doing tiny goods.
i build open source software, write about anti-capitalist utopias, and am working on a video game called teen witch tactics.
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2025 Reading Goal
80% complete! lown has read 12 of 15 books.
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lown reviewed Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos) by Dan Simmons (Hyperion Cantos)
lown wants to read The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw

The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw
Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies through the years of a long, dangerous career with the …
lown rated Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos): 5 stars

Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos) by Dan Simmons (Hyperion Cantos)
lown finished reading Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos) by Dan Simmons (Hyperion Cantos)
lown rated Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager: 3 stars

Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager by Kory Kogon
No project management training? No problem!
In today’s workplace, employees are routinely expected to coordinate and manage projects. Yet, chances …
lown finished reading Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager by Kory Kogon

Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager by Kory Kogon
No project management training? No problem!
In today’s workplace, employees are routinely expected to coordinate and manage projects. Yet, chances …
lown rated It's Not a Bloody Trend: 4 stars
lown finished reading It's Not a Bloody Trend by Kat Brown
lown started reading It's Not a Bloody Trend by Kat Brown
lown rated The Chrysalids: 4 stars

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (Penguin books)
This book is about a post apocalyptic world returned back to the times of the horse and carriage seen through …
lown finished reading The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (Penguin books)
lown wants to read Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell
lown reviewed The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
A Hot, Hot Mess
3 stars
This book combined some passionate, fascinating research into 1890s Chicago, womens' liberation and feminist movements; a horrible, deeply affecting, deeply real story about growing up a 90s suburban punk in an abusive family; the realities of being a minority scientist in a poorly-respected field in the 2020s; and a surprising amount of truly gruesome murder.
These streams all have very different vibes, and yet they are - sort of successfully - held together in a somewhat uneven sf plot where time machines are anchored into the Earth's rock, have been familiar to us for thousands of years, and are firmly woven into human history.
I was frequently left feeling a bit frustrated because Newitz's enthusiasm for particular historical subjects made the plot jump around wildly, leaving big holes where I felt a sense of realism, of grounding, of human connection was really missing. The sections about Beth, the 90s suburban …
This book combined some passionate, fascinating research into 1890s Chicago, womens' liberation and feminist movements; a horrible, deeply affecting, deeply real story about growing up a 90s suburban punk in an abusive family; the realities of being a minority scientist in a poorly-respected field in the 2020s; and a surprising amount of truly gruesome murder.
These streams all have very different vibes, and yet they are - sort of successfully - held together in a somewhat uneven sf plot where time machines are anchored into the Earth's rock, have been familiar to us for thousands of years, and are firmly woven into human history.
I was frequently left feeling a bit frustrated because Newitz's enthusiasm for particular historical subjects made the plot jump around wildly, leaving big holes where I felt a sense of realism, of grounding, of human connection was really missing. The sections about Beth, the 90s suburban punk, were by far and away my favourites, I think because there was very little zany time travel adventure in them. I loved her with all my heart. I was rooting for her so fucking hard.
I loved whole bits of this book and was desperate for so much more from other sections. But what really hurt the most - what has made this book ironically, awfully prescient - was that the world for women and queer people that Newitz creates in her final pages, published in 2019, is a world which is already being taken away from women and queer people in 2025. Her message - that we have to fight the forces of misogyny, abuse, control, and violence constantly and at every stage in our timeline - is ever more true because unlike in this book, we don't have time machines to help our past selves rewrite history. We've only got today, and the bad timeline is coming back.
lown finished reading The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
The Future of Another Timeline is a 2019 science-fiction novel by Annalee Newitz. The feminist time-travel adventure follows Tess, a …