Read
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Through the Wall
Finished
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Axiom's End
Finished
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Snowflakes
Finished
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A Queen in Hiding
Finished
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Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations about Race
Finished
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Please See Us
Finished
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The End of Policing
Finished
Honestly surprised at how moderate it felt. With such a bold title I expected more extreme stances. But it seemed pretty levelheaded and a lot of its points were not specifically related to abolition, but more to the problems faced and the things needed to fix the problem even partially. One could easily read this book and come away with a strong advocacy for reform, rather than abolition. But all the points combined certainly paint a picture of a situation that is very hard to fully address with reform (and in fact it points out a lot of the ways attempts at reform fail). Quick read, full of good (if depressing) examples of the problem we face. Recommended most for people who are new to these issues.
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The Rage of Dragons
Finished
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The Flight Attendant
Finished
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A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe
Finished
I would expect that I’d have enjoyed this more than I did. It was fun enough and relatively novel, magic and sci-fi in an interesting blend, but I found myself regularly losing interest.
The audiobook is frustrating because at least one character is clearly written as British (or whatever fantasy world equates to British here), with obvious Britishism regularly injected into the dialog—at one point they even pointedly express confusion about “the can” before realizing it means “the loo”—and yet the reader read every character with the same bland and indistinguishable American accent. For such a dynamic and colorful world, the reading was pretty blah. It may have contributed to my disinterest. It wasn’t outright BAD reading but it wasn’t very good either and ignoring obvious speech pattern cues is annoying.
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Black Nowhere
Finished
Honestly from a pure entertainment standpoint, I enjoyed this just fine. It’s like average pop music—it hits a lot of familiar notes and wraps up quickly. And that’s really a lot of what I look for in a book like this, so I was preparing to give this a three or a four.
But it’s apparently some kind of love letter to libertarianism by the end?
This is Lisa Tanchik book one, but it’s Nate Fallon’s book and despite Lisa having lost a sister to drugs, it spends zero time examining Fallon’s bullshit justifications, and ends with a little Rand-ian soliloquy offering one final justification for his actions. It’s a bummer because it’s a moderately fun cyber-thriller that could have had something interesting to say without much effort.
Fallon didn’t have to be a cartoon villain; taking apart the things that at first made the character sympathetic would’ve been more interesting than simply making him bad, but the book opts for neither.
Obviously, there are moments that the book realizes (and quickly sweeps aside) the real, negative consequences of his actions. And at times I think the author intended to go further there? A few conversations he has weakly imply a deeper criticism. But it never goes anywhere, and on the balance, the book appears to be more reverent than anything.
And also Lisa Tanchik is in this book for some length of time, I guess?
I read this book because Charlie Jane Anders, whose work I’ve really enjoyed, recommended its sequel. And to be truthful, I still might pick that up at some point. But I’m kind of surprised at the recommendation, in retrospect.
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The Name of All Things
Finished
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Come Tumbling Down
Finished
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The Red Hunter
Finished
Pretty predictable at a certain point, but overall enjoyable.
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Children of Ruin
Finished