A being of word given flesh who loves rats, trees, and escaping the hellworld of ecocidal capitalism in which she lives - when she's not plotting its decimation and replacement.
This link opens in a pop-up window
Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological …
pretty white and institutional but otherwise it's fine ig
Midway through her career, Le Guin embarked on one of her most detailed, impressive literary …
Two words: holy fuck.
AAAA!
It's rare that I read poetry, but yesterday I stumbled across Grolier Book Shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I popped in and had a look around, and I picked up and read a bit from this book. It blew me away; I bought it; and this morning I read it cover-to-cover.
Wow.
It manages to capture the ephemeral eternity of love with the knowledge that it will end in a beautiful, consuming, compelling narrative framed as night-time wondering while a lover sleeps.
It's transcendent.
It's been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, …
I was pretty frustrated by some early sociopolitical commentary in this book, particularly along racial lines, but that lessened immensely after a couple chapters. It's still dripping with imperial core pretention and high academic elitism. Still, the story has some fun beats, the setting - when it stops being imminently self-congratulatory and Liberal - raises some interesting questions, and the analysis of weaknesses in electoral democracy demonstrates a material experience and theoretical familiarity that would be expected of a storyteller with the author's background. The story really picks up about halfway through; until then it's a bit of a slog. All in all, I wouldn't advise buying the book, but if you have access to it and no compelling reads besides, you could do much worse.
All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of …
From time to time, humanity is gifted the formation of a writer of such unimaginable capability and spirit that their work may reorient our past and reshape our future. Science fiction has had no shortage of such writers: Verne, Asimov, Le Guin, to name only a few — and now Tesh.
While this is her debut novel, it is obvious that Emily Tesh has refined her craft for much longer than the writing of one novel. This book is a finely-wrought masterwork with the precision and efficiency of Traviss, the soul and insight of Le Guin, and a creativity and compassion all her own. I cannot wait to delve into her prior work and to see what she creates next.
Heed the content warning at the beginning of this book, though it's not as bad as it could be. But if you have any interest in antifascist military sci-fi, in …
From time to time, humanity is gifted the formation of a writer of such unimaginable capability and spirit that their work may reorient our past and reshape our future. Science fiction has had no shortage of such writers: Verne, Asimov, Le Guin, to name only a few — and now Tesh.
While this is her debut novel, it is obvious that Emily Tesh has refined her craft for much longer than the writing of one novel. This book is a finely-wrought masterwork with the precision and efficiency of Traviss, the soul and insight of Le Guin, and a creativity and compassion all her own. I cannot wait to delve into her prior work and to see what she creates next.
Heed the content warning at the beginning of this book, though it's not as bad as it could be. But if you have any interest in antifascist military sci-fi, in what it means to fight injustice in a hopeless world, or just a good damn book, give it a read.
And if, by some twist of fate, Emily Tesh ever reads this review: thank you. I didn't even realize there was still a Gaea inside me, and now I know what to do about it.
Investigator Mossa and Scholar Pleiti reunite to solve a brand-new mystery in the follow-up to …
i love oblivious lesbians
The Mimicking of Known Successes presents a cozy Holmesian murder mystery and sapphic romance, set …
thank you autistic butches; thank you autistic fems; thank you sapphics of all kinds
"Igniting a long-overdue dialogue about how the legacy of racial injustice and white supremacy plays …
This is an important book for anyone following a dharma tradition in the US, whether or not they consider themselves radical. As is so often the case in these traditions, this book doesn't offer ready-made, neatly-packaged answers; rather, it raises some deeply significant questions and offers some tools to engage with them.
Something strange is happening in sleepy subterranean Tombtown. Necromancers are disappearing. The crypt is changing. …
Even better than the first one, somehow; and truer.
There’s no grounds for murder. There’s no ground at all.
The people exploring and exploiting …
Damn.
A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired …
This is a very good book, but do be warned that Chapter 21 describes the Nanjing Massacre in all its horrific detail - only the names of the combatants and city are changed.
A Librarians-and-Necromancy Fantasy with Small Town Charm in a City of the Dead
The others believe in blood and bone. …
Shori is a mystery. Found alone in the woods, she appears to be a little …
I just finished this book, and it was good. I plan to read everything else Butler wrote, too, in time, so I'll reserve comments on her broader writing and personality for when I feel like I know them a bit better. She was a self-described hermit who seems to have shared many of my mental struggles, so I suspect we'll get along fine.
The writing in Fledgling felt a bit sparse and rudimentary, which is apparently a mark of her style. It reminds me of Carver's poetry a bit. I haven't made up my mind on whether I like it in fiction yet, but I certainly liked Fledgling. It's the kind of vampire story I think I've always longed for, one where vampires aren't predators but simply beings with different lifeways, who are as capable of harm as they are of helping, and whose long memories and lifetimes have led …
I just finished this book, and it was good. I plan to read everything else Butler wrote, too, in time, so I'll reserve comments on her broader writing and personality for when I feel like I know them a bit better. She was a self-described hermit who seems to have shared many of my mental struggles, so I suspect we'll get along fine.
The writing in Fledgling felt a bit sparse and rudimentary, which is apparently a mark of her style. It reminds me of Carver's poetry a bit. I haven't made up my mind on whether I like it in fiction yet, but I certainly liked Fledgling. It's the kind of vampire story I think I've always longed for, one where vampires aren't predators but simply beings with different lifeways, who are as capable of harm as they are of helping, and whose long memories and lifetimes have led them to develop more cooperative than dominating ways of being. This is what I would like to believe long-lived people would be like, given enough history to learn from.
Early on reading the book, I commented elsewhere that I feel like the characters aren't well-developed. They feel like two-dimensional prop pieces for the story more than living beings. Other books I like well enough have a similar vibe, though, especially in science fiction (thinking here particularly of Asimov's Foundation series), and I don't mind it much because the story is so good anyway.
Ultimately I'd say, read it if you haven't. Butler is a legend for a reason. And if you like vampire stories, this is the best I've read so far.
"Enfant, quand je m'efforçais de m'exprimer dans un langage châtié, j'avais l'impression de me jeter dans le vide. Une de …