Reviews and Comments

Loved Summer Fun so much! Excited to read more by Thornton!

Very obviously a webcomic only loosely adapted to a serialized format. Pacing suffers, but it was alright.

Really excellent! I was a little skeptical going in, because I'm not a huge fan of the knights + dragons + witches kind of fantasy, and I'm certainly not a fan of romance plots, but it's just an excellently written book. The magic system is unique and serves the themes of the book beautifully, and the world building is captivating. It runs a little lengthy, but that can be forgiven. I think anyone interested in designing magic systems or fantasy worlds should be taking note.

I forgot to mark this as finished! It's really good! If you liked Roaming, I'd recommend this

They kinda sniped me with that subject. Book made specifically to get me

is this the first time im reading a solarpunk book on books.solarpunk.moe?

This didn't really connect with me, to be honest. I often found that the rules and tools that characters resolved challenges with felt unclear, or they'd resolve a puzzle / clue in a way that just didn't feel right. It ends up with the characters not really feeling as clever as the book wants you to believe that they are. Basically I had trouble keeping up keyfabe.

It's also a little hard to avoid the fact that the author is really really insistent that the AI that all the characters make use of (and which the main character specializes in) is a direct descendant of LLMs. Repeatedly. And in ways you can't really ignore. But also rarely actually addresses what the consequences of this might look like in any manor other than offhand.

There's definitely still some good parts, and several scenes really are clever, but I just don't think it resounded with me.

I went into this expecting goofy comedy dunking on incels (and was looking forward to it), but was delighted to find fleshed out characters and nuance?? and also goofy comedy dunking on incels.

Recommended for almost anybody tbh. It's a short novel and it's engaging right from the start. A delightful experience.

I cried a little,,

Short stories don't normally move me that much, but three for three these were touching, and the final story is really really moving.

Mwah mwah mwah!! Keeps the energy from The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion going without faltering! Go read TLWStL right now, then read this if you like it!

Not as heart pounding as Gearbreakers nor as tearjerking as Pet, but still a really good YA novel! The world building and magic system are both excellent, and it's got Margaret Killjoy's signature commentaries on power, in a new light for its new form.

I'd recommend for anyone into YA fantasy, though probably not more broadly than that.

This is one of those books that's been hugely influential on modern leftist discourse, and you'll probably recognize a lot of its tenets if you read it. I think it's best treated as a 101 on reciprocity, the gift economy, animism, and indigenous worldviews.

If you do read this book, I strongly recommend AGAINST trying to read it cover-to-cover. Pick a couple chapters you think are interesting and read them. Read something else. If you liked it the first time around, come back and read a few more chapters.

A couple of chapters I liked: - Learning the Grammar of Animacy ― A really cool look on the embeding of animist worldviews into indigenous language - The Consolation of Water Lilies ― A little philosophically boring, but a very cool plant metaphor - Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass ― An excellent anecdote exploring the importance of braiding new worldviews and ways of knowing into science. Also an excellent primer on Kimmerer's philosophies of reciprocity - The Sacred and the Superfund ― Philosophies of relationship to land