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A bit like "Stranger In A Strange Land" but for a US american journalist visiting "Ecotopia". The book is alternating between reports written by the main character for his newspaper and his diary entries. Thus its a mix between the "reportable" things and his personal escapades.

Especially the diary entries read a bit like some wishful thinking by Ernest Callenbach; but some of the reports are also revealing the age of the book in their attempt to show how wonderfully advanced Ecotopia is.

I wouldn't recommend attempting to read it for entertainment. If you seek somewhat solarpunk ideas, there might be something here, but I seriously hope there are better books around.

I guess this is then "cozy mystery" territory? It’s an entertaining detour from textbook programming language learning. Like a bowl of crisps and watching something on TV.

Conan being Conan, monsters being monstrous, and women are there to be frightened (at best). Also, world-building is making up as many names as possible in as few pages as possible.

I don’t know what I expected. It’s of its time and it shows.

Some of the monsters are interesting though.

@danielk@astrodon.social I assume you meant the Necronomicon and not the 3-part anthology "Three Body Problem" (:

That said, there are some good ones in there, but get ready to switch to something different in between.

Reading along with the Strange Studies of Strange Stories podcast; that's bound to cause jumping between anthologies of short stories.