Charming novella. Think I would have appreciated it more at 14 than I do now, but definitely a fun afternoon read.
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Mostly scifi and fantasy, but also a fair amount of natural history with a smattering of political economy and other non-fiction.
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torin rated Hollow Kingdom: 2 stars
torin reviewed The Fell by Sarah Moss
torin rated Dual Citizens: 3 stars
Review of 'William Gibson Neuromancer Collection 4 Books Bundle' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Re-read this in 2022 after nearly 20 years. It felt less cool and more annoying this time. All the characters were trying to be so cool & badass that it was hard to follow what was going on. The first time I read this I felt like the characters were just reticent and mysterious. This go round they just felt thin.
Interesting how physical the conception of cyberspace is in this book. Case makes a big deal of how he's leaving meatspace behind, doesn't care about his body. But every metaphor of cyberspace is physical, 3d - the way it looks, the way you move through it. Our internet is much more disembodying than this cyberspace. Don't even need to "jack in" - just a few minutes scrolling on your phone and you've all but forgotten your body exists.
It's also deeply unclear why cyberspace even exists, what the point …
Re-read this in 2022 after nearly 20 years. It felt less cool and more annoying this time. All the characters were trying to be so cool & badass that it was hard to follow what was going on. The first time I read this I felt like the characters were just reticent and mysterious. This go round they just felt thin.
Interesting how physical the conception of cyberspace is in this book. Case makes a big deal of how he's leaving meatspace behind, doesn't care about his body. But every metaphor of cyberspace is physical, 3d - the way it looks, the way you move through it. Our internet is much more disembodying than this cyberspace. Don't even need to "jack in" - just a few minutes scrolling on your phone and you've all but forgotten your body exists.
It's also deeply unclear why cyberspace even exists, what the point and function of it is, especially compared to the internet.
Also, for a world run by corporations, public transit is in remarkably good order.
torin rated The Goblin Emperor: 4 stars
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (The Goblin Emperor, #1)
A vividly imagined fantasy of court intrigue and dark magics in a steampunk-inflected world, by a brilliant young talent
The …
torin rated The Steerswoman: 4 stars
The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein
The Steerswoman is the first novel in the Steerswoman series. Steerswomen, and a very few Steersmen, are members of an …
torin rated The Outskirter's Secret: 4 stars
The Outskirter's Secret by Rosemary Kirstein
342, [1] p. : 18 cm
torin rated The lost steersman: 4 stars
torin rated The language of power: 3 stars
torin rated A Deadly Education: 5 stars
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik (The Scholomance, #1)
A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) …
torin reviewed The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard
Review of 'The Hands of the Emperor' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Really enjoyed the beginning of this book, but quite annoyed and exasperated by the end. Only Cliopher gets any real fleshing out in the whole book and the book is a real hagiography of that character, complete with sermons from our saint. Confuses status and power and is embarrassingly obsessed with status.
It was gentle and kind, though, and well written enough to carry me through the whole book!
torin reviewed Into the Broken Lands by Tanya Huff
torin rated A Darker Shade of Magic: 3 stars
A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab (Shades of Magic, #1)
STEP INTO A UNIVERSE OF DARING ADVENTURE, THRILLING POWER, AND MULTIPLE LONDONS.
Kell is one of the last travelers--magicians with …