sci-fi // non-fiction // communism
@isoughtajam@sfba.social gautamjoshi.com
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In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful …
Wow, bleak from the get go but thoroughly engaging. Can't wait to get further in this classic for the first time.
Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds …
Content warning plot reveal
I was skeptical about Duarte's teenage daughter Teresa becoming a first person character, and Corey's ability to write that convincingly, but they've managed to make her compelling without being creepy. It's a rare feat by male sci-fi writers. I'm only ~30% through but this is already less pithy than the last one while also getting back to the formula of clever problem solving and interesting character development.
In the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their …
I've harbored a feeling for a while that the pithy dialogue in these books could easily become smarmy. It smacks of the linear descent in Aaron Sorkin's writing from A Few Good Men, one of the greatest movies ever made, to The Newsroom, which is a festering turd of a TV series. It hasn't gotten that bad with this series but the writers better get their act together in the next novel.
For the first time in this book series it felt I was being primed for a sequel at the cost of the current storyline. And that feels a bit exploitative.
Ah well, the need for closure in fictional universes is one of my addictions so I'll shove on hoping that the next one is worth it.
A reflection on prison industrial complex abolition and a vision for collective liberation from organizer …
I have never seen and related to a leftist organizer's outlook on people so thoroughly as Kaba in the section entitled "Hope Is a Discipline":
"You can just care for yourself and your community in tandem, and that can actually be much more healthy for you, by the way. Because all this internalized reflection is not good for people. Yes, think about yourself, reflect on your practice, okay. But then you need to test it in the world; you’ve got to be with people. That’s important. And I hate people! So I say that as somebody who actually is really antisocial. [Wilson and Sonenstein laugh]
I don’t want to socialize in that kind of way, but I do want to be social with other folks as it relates to collectivizing care.”
The State and Revolution (1917) is a book by Vladimir Lenin describing the role of …
Half way through this classic for the first time and the common refrains I hear from Trotskyists in my life finally have some meaningful context behind them. I'll need time to digest but I feel like I finally understand the rationale that seemed quite arbitrary before. More complete review to follow!