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matthewmincher

matthewmincher@bookwyrm.social

Joined 11 months, 1 week ago

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matthewmincher's books

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2025 Reading Goal

40% complete! matthewmincher has read 21 of 52 books.

Ken Liu: The Paper Menagerie (2016, Gallery / Saga Press) 4 stars

A publishing event: Bestselling author Ken Liu selects his award-winning science fiction and fantasy tales …

Mixed bag

3 stars

Introduced to Ken Liu through his translation of the Three Body Problem

Some great stories, some less so. Thematically centered on writing and passing on of thought.

I really enjoyed State Change where your soul is a physical object - imagine His Dark Materials but inanimate objects not animals.

The man who ended history was interesting, but was just too long and repetitive. Not to take anything away from the brutality of history where unit 731 is concerned of course.

I don't think this really worked as an audiobook, I wish I'd picked up a paper copy.

William Gibson, William F. Gibson: Neuromancer (2017, Orion Publishing Group, Limited) 4 stars

Neuromancer is a 1984 science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson. Considered one of …

Timeless

4 stars

I've somehow never really read any cyberpunk type sci-fi. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

Mindblowing also was how much of an influence this book has been on the genre, and how many of the concepts were so ahead of Gibson's time.

The story was relatively basic, but given everything else I don't think you can complain. I'd love to have read this when I was younger before so many of the tropes in the book were plastered everywhere.

I think I'll try some other classic sci-fis that are often mentioned in the same breath as Neuromancer soon.

Will Durant: Fallen Leaves (Paperback, 2015, Simon & Schuster) 4 stars

Praised as a “revelatory” book by “The Wall Street Journal,” this is the last and …

More people should leave last words

3 stars

This was interesting. It would be nice if more people of different walks of life left their condensed wisdom towards the end.

Jarring to see the progressive views on race with the regressive views on women.

Robert Macfarlane: The Old Ways (Hardcover, 2012, Hamish Hamilton) 4 stars

Following the tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast ancient …

Lyrical

5 stars

I really enjoyed this. I especially enjoyed the Minch featuring quite heavily. Part of me likes to imagine some ancient lineage to that area - that's my delusion and I'm sticking to it.

Didn't expect the trip to Palestine or Tibet but they were well done. An expertly written book with some amazing passages that were almost poetic.

The book focuses on walking, the land, and the history both of those things connect you to. Parts of it reminded me of Tolkien's writing style.

This feels like a wintery book to be read in low light, not in summer with sunlight streaming through the window.

"For him, as for so many other people, the mind was a landscape of a kind and walking a means of crossing it."