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Sally Strange

SallyStrange@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 8 months ago

Interests: climate, science, sci-fi, fantasy, LGBTQIA+, history, anarchism, anti-racism, labor politics

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Sally Strange's books

Currently Reading (View all 5)

reviewed The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem: The Arrest (2020, Ecco Press, Ecco) 4 stars

Scifi novel about the production and consumption of scifi stories

5 stars

It was both fascinating and frustrating in parts. In the end, the fascination came out ahead.

Fascinating: thinking about how a small town self-governs without a formal government. There was a mayor in East Tinderwick Maine, where all the action takes place, before technology stopped working (in an event called "the Arrest," hence the name of the book), but she just stopped being the mayor and started making baskets (or something, I forget) instead. The town is on a peninsula, and they have an uneasy bargain with a group of semi-nomadic folks who accept their food in return for keeping outsiders from invading.

Frustrating: the main character, Journeyman. He's in Maine because he was visiting his sister when the Arrest happened. Before that, he was living in LA working as a writer, but only ever on other people's scripts and ideas. He is perpetually ignorant, indecisive, drifting and weightless. He …

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Yoko Ogawa: The Memory Police (Paperback, 2020, Penguin Random House) 4 stars

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance.

On an unnamed island off …

The politics of deleting and disappearing

No rating

The concept of this book was probably more interesting to me than the narrative itself, but the way it deals with the policing of memory is interesting, especially when that process leads to its logical end.

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Ada Palmer (duplicate): Inventing the Renaissance (Hardcover, 2025, Head of Zeus) 4 stars

The Renaissance is one of the most studied and celebrated eras of history. Spanning the …

Witty and somehow relatable

5 stars

It feels kind of weird to suggest that a book about how history has kind of invented this period in time called the Renaissance is relatable, but this book ended up being extremely relatable. I ended up listening to the audiobook (a whopping 30-hour beast) and regularly found myself smiling and chuckling along as I did my daily commute even though I knew and still mostly nothing about the time period or really anything about Italy. I genuinely had never heard of most of the people who were talked about in this book, which I think is a pretty clear indication about how interestingly the information is laid out--though it would certainly be a nightmare for anyone who requires events in time to be explained in chronological order.

More than that though, I think what was really great about this book and something I wasn't expecting was about how hopeful …

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Kim Stanley Robinson: The Ministry for the Future (Paperback, 2021, Orbit) 4 stars

Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the …

Not Solarpunk

3 stars

I'd thought this one might be solarpunk. It most definitely is not that style, much more old-school, hard-SF. And it is full-on dystopian in the beginning. (The first chapter is traumatically good.)

But the rest of the book was like an economics lecture to me. Never hit emotionally. Plus, some of the solutions didn't seem plausible, so it was hard to see the characters as experts.

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A. D. Sui: The Dragonfly Gambit (Paperback, 2024, Neon Hemlock Press) 4 stars

Nearly ten years after Inez Kato sustained a career-ending injury during a military exercise gone …

The Dragonfly Gambit

5 stars

A delightful gay science fiction novella about a carefully planned revenge against an empire. I read this because it's a nominee for the Nebula best novella this year.

Enemies to lovers tropes aren't always my thing, but it works for me here. Both sides personally have reasons to be attracted to the other, but aren't betraying their values because they each feel like they're using the other to their own ends. Moreover, this dynamic feeds into the larger double-crosses and secret-keeping going on.

This book went from good to great right at the stinger at the end of chapter seven, when the layers of deception start to peel back. I won't spoil the line directly, but chef's kiss.

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Kay Chronister: Desert Creatures (2022, Erewhon Books) 5 stars

In a world that has become treacherous and desiccated, Magdala has always had to fight …

Flawless storytelling; one of my favorite cli-fi books so far

5 stars

Correction: The exiled Vegas priest is actually named Arturo.

Long ago, the earth's rains turned poisonous. Thus, the only places where humanity survives (barely) are in the deserts. The people who dwell in the North American desert west of the Mississippi call it "the Remainder." This is where Magdala is born.

But the desert also sickens and kills its occupants. Madgala must survive thirst, hunger, animal predators, human predators, and "stuffed men": those who've succumbed to the sickness and become one with the desert and its creatures. The sexual violence of human predators is dealt with realistically but not gratuitously. Although the author's vision of the future is dark, it's also shot through with threads of hope and rumors of miracles.

People who liked Rebecca Roanhorse's "Sixth World" series will love this. "Poetic precision" is a good phrase for the storytelling. In this world, there are still a few road …