Reviews and Comments

This is my first “PM Press Outspoken Authors” book, and the first thing I will say is that it is a delightful object, physically. A high-quality, compact paperback.

The title story is sort of a cross between cyberpunk and solarpunk, but more in the spirit of cyberpunk, I’d say. It’s well-written and fast paced, with a lot of intriguing concepts. I didn’t love the protagonist, but he was interesting.

The speech/essay, “Creativity vs. Copyright”, is my favorite part of this book. Doctorow is spot on in his analysis of copyright, DRM and vendor lock-in.

I also quite enjoyed the interview by Terry Bisson that rounds out this volume.

This book very much continues the feminist exploration begun in A Room of One’s Own, this time with the framing device of a response to a letter asking for help preventing war (the book was written a year before the beginning of World War II). There is a lot of information, and a number of interesting ideas are presented here. Overall, though, I found it a more difficult and less focused book than Room. Certainly still worth reading.

This book is absolutely delightful! Thirteen year old Tara gets jumped a grade and starts high school immediately after seventh grade. She experiences anxiety, confusion, excitement, happiness and more. She has a wonderful family and a remarkable imagination. But how will it all end…?

There are monsters and there are (AI) sentient spaceships. If that gets your attention, read it, and don’t ask too many questions. It’s quite engaging, with a very unusual found family.

This is a lovely book about things like solitude and connection, trusting oneself and trusting others, family misunderstandings and forgiveness. Also: magic, gardening, cooking and a few talking plants.

I generally prefer novels to short stories, and might have skipped over this entry in the Earthsea series if I wasn't reading all of them with a group. So, I'm glad that I am reading them with a group, because I really enjoyed this book, and think that it is an essential part of the series.

I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, but there were none that I disliked at all. Overall, they very much enriched my understanding of Earthsea.

One of the things that is fascinating to me about reading this series is that I can see Le Guin growing as a writer. In particular, I see her developing the confidence to write realistic female characters, rather than the unsatisfying female characters which I think is what she felt she had to write in her earliest books (when she included female characters at all).

Booksellers, magic, history, mythology, the 1980s, London, art, architecture…this book truly has an embarrassment of riches. Thoroughly entertaining!

This was my second time reading this. The first time was long ago in school—from which I remembered the general premise, the fact that I liked it, and little else. This time I read it with a reading group. The other members of this group drew my attention to aspects of, and ambiguities in, the book that I might otherwise have missed. It’s a book with a lot of interesting and powerful ideas to ponder. It is also a very entertaining and often funny book. Well worth reading for its place in the history of women’s literature, for its exploration of the history of women in (Western) society, and for its analysis of, and ponderings on, literature in general.

Ursula Le Guin has long been one of my favorite authors. The Dispossessed is quite possibly my favorite science fiction novel. However, I have never been satisfied with how she wrote women. I recall being troubled by her treatment of the female characters in some books, such as The Lathe of Heaven, and puzzled by the almost complete absence of female characters in others.

In Tehanu I am finally satisfied. This is a book about women, and they are fully developed characters who are not filtered through the lens of Le Guin’s concept of the male gaze. And what excellent, complex characters they are. A very fine book.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable book. The main character, Xandri, is a very likeable character who happens to be autistic. She reminds me a bit of October Daye. The characters and their relationships are a big part of the appeal of this book for me. I also appreciate the overarching themes of not othering people--whether those people are neurodivergent humans or non-human beings. The book is a bit more militaristic than I'm really comfortable with, but that's the only significant complaint I would have.

This can be a difficult book. It is largely congruent with my world view, yet even so there were times that I had to stop and engage with ideas that I felt resistance to. It is a hopeful book, which is certainly what we need right now, but, yeah, it's not an easy book.

This book was a lot of fun. I love the found family aspect, and the descriptions of the teas were interesting. I will certainly read the sequel.