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0312860986
| 9780312860981
| 0312860986
| 3.96
| 4,984
| Mar 1992
| Apr 15, 1997
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really liked it
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Unlike every other Goodreads reviewer whose reviews I read, I felt ‘China Mountain Zhang’ by Maureen F. McHugh was a subtle political polemic disguise
Unlike every other Goodreads reviewer whose reviews I read, I felt ‘China Mountain Zhang’ by Maureen F. McHugh was a subtle political polemic disguised as a dystopic science fiction story of the future. It also is mostly a Bildungsroman with typical maturing episodes of a young man in typical domestic scenes predominating, only with futuristic technology. But like air, there is a stifling atmosphere of political and social restraints invisibly restraining all of the fictional characters like a gps dog fence collar. Chinese socialism and political power serve as an invisible mental boundary for each character throughout the story. What stood out to me veerrrryyy sloooowly as I finished each chapter, of which each was another life scene some years later after the previous chapter, was how the background of Chinese political control shaped the social and career and educational experiences of the characters. No matter what the personal choices the main characters made within what was a prescribed narrow path they each could walk, the tall massive mountain of what was permitted and what would get you in trouble with authorities loomed over them all. However, none of this political and social suppression is made obvious to readers, except in a few incidents here and there, particularly in the ones where people were gay as Zhong ‘China Mountain/Rafael’ Zhang is. His parents also had paid to have Zhang’s genetic DNA altered so that he appeared 100% Chinese instead of the part Chinese, part Latino that he actually was. It boosted his education and career opportunities. But because the focus of the writing is on social interactions and entertainments, the poverty and colonialism is mostly muted with some quiet exceptions. I have copied the book blurb: ”With this groundbreaking novel, Maureen F. McHugh established herself as one of the decade's best science fiction writers. In its pages, we enter a post-revolution America, moving from the hyper-urbanized eastern seaboard to the Arctic bleakness of Baffin Island; from the new Imperial City to an agricultural commune on Mars. The overlapping lives of cyber-kite fliers, lonely colonists, illicit neural-pressball players, and organic engineers blend into a powerful, taut story of a young man's journey of discovery. This is a macroscopic world of microscopic intensity, one of the most brilliant visions of modern SF.” The book was a Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel (1993), Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel (1992), Locus Award for Best First Novel (1993), James Tiptree Jr. Award (1992), Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men’s Science Fiction/Fantasy (1993) I love the blurb description of “a macroscopic world of microscopic intensity”. The main character, China Mountain Zhang, connects what are really a series of short stories. Sometimes he is the main narrator, other times he is mentioned in passing or is a small part of the lives of other characters. While each chapter reveals more and more of the Chinese-dominated world the author has created, and also tracks Zhang’s choices and goals for a decade, I felt the book was ultimately a political one. None of the characters really mentioned out loud for long about the political situation of China having taken over America and Mars, but one of the chapters near the end made it clear there were certain things no one could say safely in public. Meanwhile, every character was shown to have some freedom for economic and career choice in how they lived despite the overarching umbrella of public socialism under which they all lived. Each one seeks human connection within their own economic and educational circles, which given the influence of Chinese values, meant relationships were either encouraged in order to advance careers or had to be hidden from mainstream society to remain under the radar of Chinese authority. I don’t feel the idea of a Chinese takeover of America, and that conservative and racist Chinese social values are being imposed on Americans in a fictional America which has fallen because of the American government’s bankruptcy is too outlandish. After all, in our real world of 2025, President Trump and all of the people who voted for him, as well as our Congress and Supreme Court, are clearly advancing their imposition on America the same conservative values with legal and financial consequences for disobedience, but worse. The American government is using White supremacist evangelical Christianity to suppress normal human behavior under the guise of being “values”. White evangelical Christianity is being forced into all facets of American society, unlike the fictional Chinese domination of America in this book. The fictional Chinese control in the novel is more of a general suppression of free political expression, with economic and educational limitations being incurred if one is not fully Chinese ethnically. However, upward mobility is possible despite the supposed equal poverty of socialism for all. Frankly, I couldn’t tell much difference between the Chinese political suppression and racism of the fictional world of ‘China Mountain Zhang’ and the current real-world direction of today’s American government except for the addition of rigid White supremacist evangelical Christianity being forced into American life by the current Trump American government. The remaining American states that have Democrats in office are still under a working democracy, so far. The Democrat Party actually still respects the Constitution, has continued to allow freedom of religion and political expression, respects the fact of the rights of women and minorities to be the same as White men, and supports the having of history and science books available in schools and public libraries, recognizes that sexual and cultural diversity is real and harms no one, and continues to commit to a Western European model of public education which also includes recognition and learning about other cultures and religions - none of which is true any longer of the Republican Party. But as this novel predicts a future of an America under Chinese authority because of the American government’s financial incompetence, I feel this idea is not extremely weird or inpossible at all. Whether or not America is able to maintain being a democracy for now or not, it does appear there is an inability of whatever party is in charge of governance of America to find the will to tax wealthy businesses and billionaires, and as a result are incurring trillions of dollars of debt in order to run the business of government whether America remains a democracy or becomes a Christian theocracy. The fictional bankruptcy which happens to the American government in this science fiction novel does not seem so fictional to me right now. But on the bright side, at least for me personally, I’m an old lady. I have at most a little over a decade of life left to live. The changes in American governance and the obvious direction of trashing the Constitution, favoring the wealthy while impoverishing the middle class, the creation of a White supremacist evangelical theocracy with the teaching of the Bible in school to replace science and history classes, and especially the new rules coming from the Supreme Court, the Congress and the White House which are worsening the environment, increasing the pollution of the air, killing off the remaining animals, insects and vegetation which support human life, the increasing lack of potable water and terrible weather events - all of this will begin as I am dying of old age. It is going to be the challenge of younger American generations to find a way to survive the fall of American democracy and coming of the Sixth Extinction, although I have less and less hope of this. I still vote, one of the 15-30% of Americans who do. Silly pathetic me. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 20, 2025
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May 27, 2025
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May 20, 2025
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Paperback
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0593498291
| 9780593498293
| B0B95T4GW3
| 4.13
| 10,744
| May 09, 2023
| May 09, 2023
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really liked it
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‘To Shape a Dragon’s Breath’ by Moniquill Blackgoose is very descriptive of indigenous life and the effects that colonialism had on indigenous culture
‘To Shape a Dragon’s Breath’ by Moniquill Blackgoose is very descriptive of indigenous life and the effects that colonialism had on indigenous culture. This book of fantasy could easily have been one more fictionalized history of a shameful real-life past of injustice and cultural destruction which actually happened in the real world. But Blackgoose introduces fictional dragons into the story of the real-life destruction of indigenous cultures, creating an interesting alternate-history fantasy. She also has toned down the considerable reality of rape, torture, theft and murder of indigenous people that actually happened in history, thus making the novel appropriate for the eyes or ears of teens and sensitive young adults. The world-building is very interesting, but I wish the author had not chosen to make up so many words, substituting strange nouns to take the place of recognizable elements on the elements’ table and other things, and having made-up new verbs to describe chemical reactions that are also recognizable despite the disguise of odd spellings. Readers will need to be somewhat knowledgeable of chemistry and compounds, I think. There are also a multitude of real-life indigenous myths and stories told by the main characters, barely disguised by the author’s made-up words for names of mythological gods, spirits, places and animals. The novel has won nominations and awards: -Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Literature (2023) -Locus Award Nominee for Fantasy (2024) -ALA Alex Award Nominee (2024) -British Fantasy Award Nominee for Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer (2024) -Lodestar Award (2024) -Libby Award Nominee for Best Fantasy (2024) I was a little bored with the 19th-century descriptions of required clothing for women that are based on real life fashions of the same time period in Western cultural history, but that is because I am already familiar with the ridiculous fashions women were forced to follow. I am certain the author went to the mat in describing “civilized” women’s clothing in order to contrast it with the far more sensible and comfortable clothing of indigenous people. I have copied the book blurb: ”A young, Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy after bonding with a hatchling-and quickly finds herself at odds with the "approved" way of doing things-in the first book of a brilliant new fantasy series. The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations - until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon's egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is a Person Who Belongs to a Dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have a quite different opinion. They have a very specific idea on how a dragon should be raised - and who should be doing the raising - and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, then her dragon will be destroyed. For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land challenges abound - both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart and determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects. For the world needs changing - and Anequs and her dragon are less coming of age in this bold new world than coming to power"-- The blurb is accurate, but it omits mentioning a number of characters which shape Anequs’ education throughout the pages from beginning to end. She meets teachers and fellow students who bring her to the realization her culture is thought of as extremely deficient and low caste. Her people are thought of as dirty and stupid, with no ability to grasp proper civilized behavior or as fit to own and control a dragon. She learns there are Anglish organizations which plot to kill all of her people, and they very much resent that some indigenous kids are being allowed to attend Anglish schools. Even though she is admitted to an upper-class Anglish school because a dragon has attached itself to her, she learns those Anglish who support indigenous people do so because they want to ‘uplift them’ from what they see as their trailer-trash ways into proper civilized society. I think the novel is an excellent introduction for teens and young adults who may be unaware of the real-life history and impacts of colonialism. It is a well written book and historically authoritative, using real history as a guide to the story. Anequs and her friends, and frenemies, and enemies, are engaging and easy to like, or dislike, as the case may be. Anequs is more heroic than what might be realistic, though, although I suppose that is necessary for the readers the book is intended to attract. Parents do not need to be concerned over the somewhat cozied content or plot, unless of course they live in a Republican-controlled state which has made the fictional world of the science fiction book, George Orwell’s 1984, a legalized reality for people in those states. This book will probably be banned in Republican-controlled states, and teachers and librarians could be convicted of a felony if they permit kids to read it in those states banning books by law. Despite that the book is factually based, even if disguised by made-up words and the inclusion of dragons, Republicans no longer want history taught in any manner at all unless it is censored to eliminate any mention of non-Whites or injustice or class slavery. There also are gay and bisexual characters in ‘To Shape a Dragon’s Breath’, and there is mistreatment of white servants who are guilty of being from the lower classes, but these things are briefly and lightly described. However, Republicans are removing all real-life gays and bisexuals from their communities by increasing the difficulties of their being able to live openly as gay or bisexual in Republican Party controlled states, as well as making any descriptions of gay or bisexuals a crime, punishable by losing any professional licenses the offender librarian or teacher may have and a felony conviction and a prison term, if such characters are in a teen or YA book which has been put on a library shelf. FYI: Books with mistreated white lower classes who are suffering class injustices and income/education inequalities are, so far, are not being banned or criminalized in Republican Party controlled states, apparently because the Republican party members appear to believe such inequalities of white people in books show how the lower classes deserve to be in their place of deprivation, often because they have no education or money or special talents, with no opportunities or ability to achieve improvements of their place in society. Upper-class or wealthy Republicans today believe that it is necessary for there to be a class of uneducated and poor white people in society, especially since their racism makes it intolerable to them to have anybody not white around. Who else will clean the toilets? At this time, rich and wealthy Republicans are hoping poor and poorly educated white citizens can be induced to work for low pay in production and manufacturing sweatshops and pick crops as well, replacing any non-whites or undocumented people who might have been doing that work. It is the promise rich and wealthy Republicans have made to their supporters, to kick out anyone who is not a white Christian, and to put any white person who is not rich to work in those low-paying, back-breaking jobs that non-whites or people without legal status as citizens used to do - at least those jobs where mechanized robots can’t be used economically or haven’t been invented. Yet. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 06, 2025
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Apr 14, 2025
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Apr 06, 2025
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Kindle Edition
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1250801745
| 9781250801746
| 1250801745
| 3.63
| 2,404
| Mar 15, 2022
| Mar 15, 2022
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it was amazing
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‘Secret Identity’ by Alex Segura is a multilayered literary read which also is a murder mystery about being in the comic book industry in the 1970’s.
‘Secret Identity’ by Alex Segura is a multilayered literary read which also is a murder mystery about being in the comic book industry in the 1970’s. Cutthroat is the only word suitable in describing the comic book publishing world. And maybe Pow! or Wham! or Bang! or Kablam! Creatives have to struggle so much with a lot of shitty financial realities and jealous peers! Plus, legal copyrights to any Art created by an artist appear to work for artists the same way that getting a restraining order works for women being stalked. Just saying. I have copied the book blurb: ”From Anthony Award-winning writer Alex Segura comes Secret Identity, a rollicking literary mystery set in the world of comic books. It’s 1975 and the comic book industry is struggling, but Carmen Valdez doesn’t care. She’s an assistant at Triumph Comics, which doesn’t have the creative zeal of Marvel nor the buttoned-up efficiency of DC, but it doesn’t matter. Carmen is tantalizingly close to fulfilling her dream of writing a superhero book. That dream is nearly a reality when one of the Triumph writers enlists her help to create a new character, which they call “The Lethal Lynx,” Triumph's first female hero. But her colleague is acting strangely and asking to keep her involvement a secret. And then he’s found dead, with all of their scripts turned into the publisher without her name. Carmen is desperate to piece together what happened to him, to hang on to her piece of the Lynx, which turns out to be a runaway hit. But that’s complicated by a surprise visitor from her home in Miami, a tenacious cop who is piecing everything together too quickly for Carmen, and the tangled web of secrets and resentments among the passionate eccentrics who write comics for a living. Alex Segura uses his expertise as a comics creator as well as his unabashed love of noir fiction to create a truly one-of-a-kind novel--hard-edged and bright-eyed, gritty and dangerous, and utterly absorbing.” Readers do not have to be comics fans to enjoy this novel, although I think having a liking for literary reads might add enjoyment. The phrase “secret identity” is a multidimensional idea used by the author in several ways in illuminating characters as well as a plot device for murder, not just a comic book trope. How comics ultimately go from an idea by someone into an illustrated comic in readers’ hands turns out to not be a new story, to me anyway, about the ‘there-be-dragons’ intersection of finance and many creative people, but it is interesting to read about from an author who has been on the inside, nonetheless. I have read often through the decades of the lack of any substantial financial rewards being passed on to original creators of, for example, any of the superhero Avengers or Mutant characters, like Ironman, or even the popular Spiderman, for instance, until, maybe, half a century later when a Hollywood studio producer wants to make a movie or TV show. Even then, many creatives, in not having a clue about legal copyrights, unknowingly gave up rights (and still are, probably) to their creations and thus make no money from a blockbuster movie featuring their creations earning millions, especially from all of the tchotchkes like action figure dolls, key rings and even bigger ticket items like tourist theme parks and clothes/hats. But that’s not all of it. Creatives may have a hit character or script, based on initial sales or critical acclaim, but the publisher can kill the project after a few issues because of internal politics or finances. Yikes. I rarely thought of the vitriolic infighting between creative peers, though, which is explored in this novel. Collaborative brainstorming, which does feel good to participants at the time as I can personally attest to, can devolve into accusations of creative theft! Women in particular are often victims of creative theft, if they are even allowed into the mostly boys room of comic artists. Naiveté afflicts young artists, too, in the being aware of the possibility of creative theft. Although the setting of this novel is in the 1970’s, I believe not much has changed based on what I’ve read today in the media about comic book publishing. There is another novel from this author about the world of comic publishing, which I have not read, which is set in current times, a sequel of a sort, Alter Ego. Comics are a very collaborative enterprise, I think, which I gathered from reading the introductory page to comic book stories. Even though they probably aren’t all in the same room at the same time. I often wondered about that. The inking is done by one set of involved artists and the lettering by another set of artists, the plot is written by writers who create the script, which in turn is given action visuals through the pen or pencil drawings done by artists. Editors are involved at every step, too. Some comics print the storyboards at the back showing the creative process and tentative artist suggestions of what the characters might look like. Yes, I’m nerd enough to take the time and read through those pages… ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 22, 2025
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Mar 27, 2025
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Mar 22, 2025
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Hardcover
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073526998X
| 9780735269989
| 073526998X
| 3.82
| 11,646
| Dec 24, 2024
| Dec 24, 2024
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really liked it
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‘Heavenly Tyrant’ by Xiran Jay Zhao, book two in the YA Iron Widow series (start here, Iron Widow) is not the disguised science fiction but really an
‘Heavenly Tyrant’ by Xiran Jay Zhao, book two in the YA Iron Widow series (start here, Iron Widow) is not the disguised science fiction but really an anguished and angry scream story of an impoverished girl growing up in a patriarchial ancient Chinese society dominated by male oligarchs, who when she gets opportunities to take her revenge does so violently, that book one ‘Iron Widow’ was. [Whew! Unfortunately, this review is full of run-on sentences! I apologize in advance. This is a personal writing Fail of mine that sometimes I can’t seem to stop.] Instead, ‘Heavenly Tyrant’ is how a young ex-girl and now young woman is learning how personal power, politics and the life of adults within an ideological government actually works. This novel, ‘Heavenly Tyrant’, with Zetian, the narrator, was a personal growth story of Zetian learning, in my words and life experience, the difference of what kids are taught in American high schools (resist! think for yourself! be all you can be!) and what young adults learn in a college while getting a bachelor’s degree (realpolitik, the limits of your physical skill set and the financial situation/class that you were born with, that the world is WAY bigger and full of issues more than you knew, and full of cultural variety and unsolvable violence and mayhem, and self-actualization is more of a nebulous concept than your high school teachers led you to believe). I have copied the book blurb: ”After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself at the seat of power in Huaxia. But she has also learned that her world is not as it seems, and revelations about an enemy more daunting than Zetian imagined forces her to share power with a dangerous man she cannot simply depose. Despite having vastly different ideas about how they must deconstruct the corrupt and misogynist system that plagues their country, Zetian must join this man in a dance of truth and lies and perform their roles to perfection in order to take down their common enemy, who seeks to control them as puppets while dangling one of Zetian’s loved ones as a hostage. With political unrest and perilous forces aiming to undermine Zetian at every turn, can she enact positive changes as a fair and just ruler? Or will she be forced to rely on fear and violence and succumb to her darker instincts in her quest for vengeance?” This series so far reminds me somewhat of one of the rules the author J. K. Rowling set for the Harry Potter movie series. The author, J. K. Rowling, and directors/scriptwriters ‘grew up into an adult environment’ the plots and characters of the Harry Potter universe, supposedly along with the kids/young adult readers who literally grew up with the books. J. K. Rowling wanted her characters to grow up, at least in the movies I saw, along with their increasingly terrible and more frightening YA fantasy adventures. Rowling wrote her first book for older elementary-school kids, imho, but she ended up with books for older teens. I think YA readers who are not interested in politics, or who want simple ‘feel good’ fantasy answers in a simple world that is in a fantasy/scifi universe will be a little disappointed with ‘Heavenly Tyrant’. I am uncertain if fans of the first book, ‘Iron Widow’, will be able to enjoy ‘Heavenly Tyrant’ since Zetian’s righteous teenage-like rebellion against the establishment (I am a 1960’s baby boomer, ok?, thus my wording) in the first book is being buried in book two under an unsavory mix of realpolitik and political ideology, just like what happened in the real world of Chinese history (and French and Russian, too). The extreme poverty of the lower classes and the extreme wealth, corruption and power of the upper classes leads to violent social revolution once a proper leader rises to take charge of the revolution. But unlike the Star Wars series, where the democratic Republic wins out over the evil repressive dictatorship of the Empire, the real-world Chinese historical fight of their impoverished lower classes against the upper classes brought about an extremely repressive communist social system, which in turn morphed into the dreadful “Cultural Revolution”. The real world history of China is what happens in the fictional universe of ‘Heavenly Tyrant’. I must say the complexities and compromising necessities of politics in the real world, as well as that the author is writing into her plot, of what were actual historical outcomes of many real-world revolutions, does add a dubious moral layer to the main character of the ‘heroine’, Zetian. Zetian has behaved in a manner more like an uneducated or young inexperienced teenager since the beginning of this series. In the first book, she is all rage and angst, rebellious and finally violent when she is able to slip off the cultural bonds that have been restraining her. She is exultant! What teen does not dance the dance of freedom and happiness when throwing off cultural expectations and restraints holding them down from expressing inner emotional turmoils or the being of their true selves? The more deep and horrible that the repression and control of a person or culture is, the more violent the reaction when the repression/control can be thrown off. I understand Zetian’s rage and feeling of need to smash her enemies into bloody particles. She was given the opportunity to do so in ‘Iron Widow.’ However, in this novel she is feeling remorse and doubt about her previous violent choices. Innocents were killed in her rage. Now that she has actually been able to indulge herself in killing some of her oppressors, she is feeling guilty and less sure of her moral righteousness in doing so with some of the deaths. Especially shocking to her is realizing the world is a lot more politically and emotionally complicated, and others choose different choices than the ones she made. People she still believes are enemies are now people she must work with. Other people she believed enemies are now people she feels sympathy towards, as she is learning more about how compromises must be made to stay alive, not just get along. What is fair and just? She is wondering this even more now that the new government she helped bring to power is a communist one. She can see the new rules are abusive, willing to kill even more people since it is operating under the theory the ends apparently justify the means no matter how brutal. Worse, she is being forced to obey certain rules set by (view spoiler)[ her ‘husband’, (hide spoiler)] the new emperor, which are the old rules about how women of high status should behave. But the new emperor wants to find and kill the mysterious gods who are controlling their society. She desperately wants this as well. So. She must play along, and learn. She has a great deal to learn! But will her rage, often uncontrollable, destroy her before she can push society into social changes it doesn’t seem to want? We see this world through Zetian’s eyes as she narrates the story. To me, Zetian is a uneducated doofus, ie., young fool, with a powerful skill who has PTSD. Her limited viewpoint is getting in her way of understanding and/or figuring out how to maneuver and manipulate other people to her benefit in this novel. Her feet, which had been bound in the ancient Chinese way, is a good symbol of Zetian’s outlook of what life and society is. Because of her lack of diplomacy, tact and education, as well as her emotional instability, she is tyranical in this book insofar as being a woman in an ex-patriarchal society with continuing undertones of male supremacy permits her to be. However, her feet will be changed by an operation, which I hope is another authorial symbol on how Zetian’s mind will grow more outward, more Big Picture, with wisdom. We readers don’t know yet how she will turn out as a fully grownup character. Book one, though, ‘Iron Widow’, is NOT nuanced at all. It is a feminist scream about social injustice towards women! The next book in the trilogy (?) has not yet been published. I will be reading it. Postscript: I am very curious about the firestorm apparently set off by this series, and other recent books I suspect, about when the label of YA should be used. I have been seeing arguments on the internet for decades when the YA label has been assigned as a guidance recommendation that means the book is written for people between the ages of 16 to 25 in some cases, or 18 to 35 in others. Is there an official rulebook on this? If there is, it is apparently being followed very loosely by publishers. I think some publishers are using the ‘rule’ on assigning the label YA that if the main character(s) is young (even just 9 years old or younger at the start of the story, but then ages up to 18 years old), and there is non-graphic violence or sex, then it is YA. Full Stop. Although, maybe, it might generally be read in practice by some older teens mostly, like 14 to 16, and it should be in a Teen category. Teen category can be split into Young Teen and Older Teens, too. Others seem to assign in real life the YA label only to books that feature any young protagonist under 35 in some sort of simplistic science fiction or fantasy universe with bad guys who are clearly evil, and good guys who ultimately win out despite losses, with the additional proviso no words with more than three syllables or not without trendy value in the present vernacular of youth today, are to be used, whether there be loads of sex, torture and murder or not. These books seem to be aimed at 18 on up. Since some authors are aging up their characters and the scriptwriting level of a series like J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter movies, so how do you label a whole series that ages upwards through several books in a series? Some people are upset because of their personal assumptions on the actual maturity level required for the YA label, too. Some folks don’t want their 16-year-old child reading about torture, rape, murder, explicit or not, historically true or not. Some folks don’t want to read about torture, rape, murder, explicit or not, historically true or not, at any age! I have seen libraries label books ‘Teen’ and ‘YA’, which actually, does add a bit more clarity as to what content is to be expected. Sort of. I personally don’t have a horse in this race, guys. I am an elderly lady without children. But it is interesting, nonetheless. The teen ages are, after all, from age 13 to 19, which is truly a large spread of maturity and life experience! Kids can be declared “adult” at age 16 in many social arenas, like courts of law (emancipation hearings, criminal proceedings), which is definitely saying this teen kid is a young adult. Then, there are the religious parents who want to control what their kids are exposed to, especially the girls/women in the family. Religious people want to control ALL ages, basically, in the reading of books, a principle of which I emphatically disagree. I am landing, somewhat shakily, on the premise it depends on the kid’s maturity and life experience? I mean, if kids have already experienced rape, or a murder in their family, I think it is kinda crazy to pretend it never happened and to forbid discussion. Suppression of someone’s truth is awful, imho. But, there is PTSD to factor in as well. In my experience, though, nuances of right and wrong, evil and good, are difficult for anyone under 30, imho. Which brings me to the Iron Widow series. It is definitely becoming a nuanced storyline with moral grey areas since it is based on actual Chinese history in this book two, ‘Heavenly Tyrant’. TMI: I was part of a group of girls in the 8th grade who surreptitiously passed around pornographic novels among ourselves. These paperbacks were adult spy and mystery novels with a lot of overt and vividly described sex scenes, as well as torture, murder, rape. (There were those 8th-grade boys, of course, who were passing around Playboy magazines.) We bookish ‘young teen’ girls tended to be members of one of the smart kids’ cliques, like science/math nerds, or bookworms, if one goes by our grades. So. Whether morally right or wrong, my ‘young teen’ cliques were self-deciding where our maturity level was regardless of teachers’ or parents’ thoughts on the matter. And, as a member of the lower classes in the 1960’s/1970’s, I can add most of the lower-class/underclass parents of baby boomers could barely read at all, most having been born and raised on farms, ranches and small towns in the Midwest, and having had their educations interrupted by the Depression and World War II. My parents treated books as if they were spewing radiation into the atmosphere. I could safely put any book out on a bookshelf or table without fear either of my parents would look at it, much less read the title. A lot of non-readers of books still act like this! I have no idea to this day why many non-book readers act like books have poison sprayed all over them. But where I generally land in my opinion: If you don’t like a book, then don’t fricking read it. But don’t dictate to others what they should read or not, unless those others ARE impressionable or innocent children. Just saying. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 17, 2025
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Mar 19, 2025
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Mar 17, 2025
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Hardcover
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0593156595
| 9780593156599
| 0593156595
| 4.16
| 19,851
| Aug 30, 2022
| Aug 30, 2022
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it was amazing
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I thought ‘The Spear Cuts Through Water’ by Simon Jimenez was a seemingly chaotically structured edifice with a dense architecture of fancy literary w
I thought ‘The Spear Cuts Through Water’ by Simon Jimenez was a seemingly chaotically structured edifice with a dense architecture of fancy literary writing elements. Jimenez plays with points of view, narrative structures, and plot presentation. However, it is a carefully controlled chaos. Jimenez has written a high-end literary book, which, despite being a fantasy modern literary readers will enjoy, is a homage to early mythological writings and respected teachers of famous writer workshops. As a bonus, the story itself wasn’t bad either, reminding me of ancient Greek plays where gods play Go Fish with humans’ lives slowly simmering away in the pool while individuals in a chorus sing out personal descriptions to a live audience. But this is a story (multiple stories, actually) with very busy but powerful aspects of imaginative story-telling and originally presented visual entertainment. I have copied the book blurb: ”Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this new epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds. The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace. But that god cannot be contained forever. With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined. Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.” The story is certainly interesting, with two gay main characters who are trying to survive dangers in their very violent crazy gods culture, but the real star of this novel is the literary writing gymnastics. There are multiple stories of personal short-story (a sentence or two) minutia of bystanders told like booknotes and the main story of two quests of paramount importance to all, told to you by main protagonists and antagonists and gods, the listener/watcher/reader, as if you are a god yourself, however a passively observing one. Stories are told by storytellers to other characters, too. The blurb is easily the clearest description of the story that is actually presented to readers as alternately a dream/nightmare where telepathy is *your* personal skill as a ghost/viewer seeing in everyone’s heads, and also a play being watched (by you, right?), and also an ancient eastern asian mythological quest story of gods, hapless mortals and talking animals. But it is all a very energetic and violent novel despite the sometimes dream quality of the telling of stories about the mythological horrors who kill people, joined in the task of murder by human soldiers who punish and kill their fellow men. Needless to say, some readers for a variety of reasons I am guessing, will find the book tough going. ...more |
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1
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Feb 22, 2025
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Mar 03, 2025
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Feb 22, 2025
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Hardcover
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0735269955
| 9780735269958
| 0735269955
| 4.03
| 104,738
| Sep 21, 2021
| Feb 28, 2023
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really liked it
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I loved ‘Iron Widow’ by Xiran Jay Zhao! It strikes the precise emotional tone I feel a lot because of my own life experiences! However, gentlemen migh
I loved ‘Iron Widow’ by Xiran Jay Zhao! It strikes the precise emotional tone I feel a lot because of my own life experiences! However, gentlemen might feel a little, well, unappreciated, depending on their views about gender roles. Unless such gentlemen have seen the suffering of women (and gays) under patriarchal religions and political regimes and know it is devastatingly wrong and unjust. This is book one in the speculative science fiction YA Iron Widow series, which is certain to be banned under the emerging Nazi-loving Trump administration. Perhaps, given the capitulation of all of the techbros, along with the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court to Trump, his MAGA believers and White supremacists, readers should buy a hard copy. A hard copy can be buried in a box in the back yard when the Nazis begin burning all of the books and after they shut down the internet. I have copied the book blurb, which we can still view on Goodreads so far despite the support of the Nazi Trump government by Amazon’s founder: Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2021) An instant #1 New York Times bestseller! Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid's Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers. The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected--she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead. To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia . But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way--and stop more girls from being sacrificed.” I love this book and world-building, but it is sometimes difficult to understand or imagine, partially because of the horrors that the protagonists undergo, and partially because of the descriptions of invisible powers and how they work, such as qi and spirit metal. I also found it difficult to understand/imagine how the Hunduns/Chrysalises look or work. The Hunduns, which are somewhat like huge insects who are at war with humans, can be transformed into not-alive war machines when they are killed (?), the husks being renamed Chrysalises, that humans use to fight the living Hunduns. The social/political world the author builds her story on is a Chinese one, culturally, where girls have foot-binding forced on them. Women are given to men, most supposedly as wives, but they are really slaves, having no rights, even when they are discovered to have strong powers of qi and spirit pressure. Girls with powerful spirit pressure and qi are extorted into performing as pilots of the Chrysalises alongside male pilots with high qi and spirit pressure. However, the girls always die in the battle with Hunduns, supposedly because they weaker in qi and spirit pressure than the male pilot they are partnering, who must kill them in joining the girl’s qi to his own, to pilot the Chrysalis. So. The girls are dead after their first and only battle with the Hunduns, but no one cares. They were only girls, who are not respected in any way in this culture. However, occasionally, there is a girl with such high qi that she survives the Chrysalis battles with Hunduns and her male human pilot who is sucking her dry of qi. She even kills her male pilot. Such women are called, tada, Iron Widows! This is a vicious torturous world of war, war, and more war. Readers who are sensitive will probably find the Iron Widow books too violent. Trump supporters will hate the book after awhile because of the disapproval and momentary downfall, which appears, eventually, of their beliefs about gays and females being inferior and fit only for torture, sexual enslavement and death. For myself, a victim of the American social and political patriarchy which was in force until the 21st century, it is a positive wish-fulfillment story. I can’t wait for the next books in the series! A mystery and a huge lie has been revealed near the end! Omg! Wow! What will happen next????? ...more |
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1
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Feb 08, 2025
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Feb 17, 2025
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Jan 25, 2025
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Paperback
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B0CK7297CQ
| 4.15
| 152,489
| Sep 10, 2024
| Sep 10, 2024
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it was amazing
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‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’ by T.J. Klune is a rollicking romp, but it is also a fantasy story with a loud clarion call to protect the rights of those
‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’ by T.J. Klune is a rollicking romp, but it is also a fantasy story with a loud clarion call to protect the rights of those among us who are different. It is book two in the Cerulean Chronicles, and I don’t think it is totally standalone, although it can be read without the back stories in the first novel, The House in the Cerulean Sea. I have copied the book blurb: ”Goodreads Choice AwardWinner for Readers' Favorite Fantasy (2024), Nominee for Readers' Favorite Audiobook (2024) Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges! A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything. Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one. He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there. Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children. But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve. And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart. Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story. Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.” The book is a liberal’s fairy tale! It is all about protecting young lovable children who have been abused because they are different. All of the various bad guys’ dialogue appears to be either copies of or paraphrased actual statements (cleaned up) made by Trump’s MAGA congressmen and Trump’s MAGA tweeters, which are recognizably pure statements of hate whether disguised or openly bigoted, for the LGBQTIA community. Seeing these real-life comments spoken by fictional characters does beg the question asked in the novel, “Can they hear themselves?” If ‘Somewhere Beyond the Sea’ isn’t yet banned in the MAGA Republican white-male supremacist-supporting southern and midwestern states of America, it will be since most Republicans have become book burners who hate any book that doesn’t support the values of White male supremacy, full stop. ...more |
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1
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Dec 21, 2024
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Dec 31, 2024
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Dec 21, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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B00B3T87HU
| 3.70
| 21,437
| 1915
| Feb 05, 2013
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really liked it
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I wanted to enjoy D. H. Lawrence’s novel ‘The Rainbow’ more, but the imagined psychological struggles of his characters were peculiar and strange to m
I wanted to enjoy D. H. Lawrence’s novel ‘The Rainbow’ more, but the imagined psychological struggles of his characters were peculiar and strange to me. Yes, I’ve had many intellectural wrestling matches in my mind over many of the same issues Lawrence’s characters have, but the language and direction, the manner of how his characters’ mental dramas play out was simply weird to me. I don’t know if it is because the novel was printed (and banned, btw) in 1915, an era I can only know through books, or because ultimately, Lawrence is a male writer imagining how certain women characters would feel and react, but he lost me in the imagined psychology of his female characters despite his terrific writing. I noticed it is male readers and reviewers who are often the most extremely enthusiastic in their praise of this novel. For myself, a woman, I was puzzled about the revealed thinking of these fictional women, even while I was admiring Lawrence’s magnificent prose. However, that said, the dramas which were behind the causes of the mental turmoils knocking these women off of their expected paths are definitely familiar to me, and I suppose for most women in growing up. Most of us do wrestle with social expectations, and even more so, our own personal and social expectations of who we are. As Lawrence accurately observes in this novel, who we are and what we think and what society expects of us changes as we age, marry or not marry, in the having of childen or not, and what education we either pursue, or in the case of women especially, what we are permitted to pursue. Ursula, the third woman Lawrence profiles in this three-generational novel, learns to her horror that even when one achieves the dream, the reality of who one really is might derail the plan. Ursula comes up against some of the ills of society unexpectedly, discovering with dismay that young adults like her are often oblivious of how large and widespread social problems might be. The book is a masterpiece of writing, especially in examining the themes of gender, education, marriage, and religion. It also, more briefly and partially in the background, shows industrialization and colonization in scenes revealing how these policies have encouraged the dehumanizing of people. But the book mostly represents the viewpoints of several prosperous farming/English village family members in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. In profiling three generations of the Brangwen family Lawrence shows the cultural changes that occur to small town life and in how middle-class women are able to choose to live their lives. I have copied the book blurb: ”Pronounced obscene when it was first published in 1915, The Rainbow is the epic story of three generations of the Brangwens, a Midlands family. A visionary novel, considered to be one of Lawrence's finest, it explores the complex sexual and psychological relationships between men and women in an increasingly industrialized world. "Lives are separate, but life is continuous - it continues in the fresh start by the separate life in each generation," wrote F.R. Leavis. "No work, I think, has presented this perception as an imaginatively realized truth more compellingly than The Rainbow." While the struggles to comprehend society and what to compromise of one’s inner self with outer realities are poetically crafted, I struggled with Lawrence’s psychological conceptions and interior descriptions. The good stuff: quotes: ”How to act, that was the question? Whither to go, how to become oneself? One was not oneself, one was merely a half-stated question. How to become oneself, how to know the question and the answer of oneself, when one was merely an unfixed something—nothing, blowing about like the winds of heaven, undefined, unstated.” ”How beautiful, how beautiful it was! She thought with anguish how wildly happy she was tonight, since he had kissed her. But as he walked with this arm round her waist, she turned with a great offering of herself to the night that glistened tremendous, a magnificent godly moon white and candid as a bridegroom, flowers silvery and transformed filling up the shadows.” ”In the morning the sun shone, she got up strong and dancing. Skrebensky was still at the Marsh. He was coming to church. How lovely, how amazing life was! On the fresh Sunday morning she went out to the garden, among the yellows and the deep-vibrating reds of autumn, she smelled the earth and felt the gossamer, the cornfields across the country were pale and unreal, everywhere was the intense silence of the Sunday morning, filled with unacquainted noises. She smelled the body of the earth, it seemed to stir its powerful flank beneath her as she stood. In the bluish air came the powerful exudation, the peace was the peace of strong, exhausted breathing, the reds and yellows and the white gleam of stubble were the quivers and motion of the last subsiding transports and clear bliss of fulfilment.” These are examples of where Lawrence lost me: ”Suddenly, cresting the heavy, sandy pass, Ursula lifted her head, and shrank back, momentarily frightened. There was a great whiteness confronting her, the moon was incandescent as a round furnace door, out of which came the high blast of moonlight, over the seaward half of the world, a dazzling, terrifiing glare of white light. They shrank back for a moment into shadow, uttering a cry. He felt his chest laid bare, where the secret was heavily hidden. He felt himself fusing down to nothingness, like a bead that rapidly disappears in an incandescent flame.” Fusing down to nothingness? “She knew the heaviness on her heart. It was the weight of the horses. But she would circumvent them. She would bear the weight steadily, and so escape. She would go straight on, and on, and be gone by.” Weight of the horses on her heart? Circumventing them from weighing on her heart? Wtf? These were Ursula’s thoughts on coming upon a herd of horses in a wood on a walk. I came across a lot more descriptions of internal musings, existential confusions and emotional agonies of the main characters that lost me entirely, particularly those feelings and thoughts purportedly of the female characters. I do understand the turmoil and distresses of finding out life is not as described in religion or by parents and teachers when a student, and also later discovering you are not the person you hoped to be, or you were not allowed to be. I was a young person long ago. But I often felt most of these characters were going insane, completely breaking down, like, becoming mentally ill, because of their passions and disappointments. Idk. And the way they intellectualized their feelings, the imagery and language that came to their minds to describe their pains in struggling to self-actualize! To me, these inner psychological self-talks are over the top, bizarre, madness. I do get it, the young become overwrought often, truly. It happened to me. But it is the weird, to me, the thoughts that sometimes erupt out of these characters when they are distressed, the conceptual words that Lawrence has given them to think. I found it impossible to follow the logic or mental image. Oh well. I appreciate the moment of literary history this novel represents: the first mainstream acknowledgement women like sex and have sexual desires, the first high-end modern literature written by a literary‘lion’ to speak (non-graphically) of a lesbian relationship without them dying and going to hell, and one of the first to explore with some realism the relationships of men and women with their internal decision-making thought/feeling processes spelled out. Many current reviewers describe how this book changed them, helped them, in reading it. I was left feeling as if I was watching the first Dune movie, made in 1984, with its seemingly hundreds of scenes with actors whispering their thoughts to the camera: https://youtu.be/bIVzK-h6qao?si=XDsta... Here is a youtube link to the few scenes that actually had character exchanges of dialogue, put together for a more exciting movie trailer: https://youtu.be/hzUlXEyvJeA?si=64AcE... This book is currently being banned again in the American South and Midwest. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 02, 2024
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Nov 08, 2024
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Nov 02, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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B09QX2C1ZQ
| 3.70
| 2,287
| Feb 1976
| Jan 21, 2022
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liked it
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‘Trouble on Triton’ by Samuel R Delaney is a thought experiment of social ideas disguised as speculative science fiction about a society where sexual
‘Trouble on Triton’ by Samuel R Delaney is a thought experiment of social ideas disguised as speculative science fiction about a society where sexual fluidity drives everyone’s social life. A man, Bron Helstron, lives in the city Tethys on Neptune’s moon Triton. On Triton people can change their gender and sexual preferences in 6 hours by making appointments at neighborhood medical clinics. It is seemingly as socially acceptable as getting a new hairstyle. Individuals can either go to work naked or dress as they please, but individuals do dress to declare what their jobs are or what neighborhood they live in. They have their cliques. Bron and his friends discuss about whether people must be “types”, since certain types appear to primarily make certain choices of jobs, lifestyles and dress/hygiene. People live in apartment communes with people who share their sexual and gender preferences. It seems like an utopia of gender choices. I have copied the book blurb: ”In a story as exciting as any science fiction adventure written, Samuel R. Delany's 1976 SF novel, originally published as Triton, takes us on a tour of a utopian society at war with . . . our own Earth! High wit in this future comedy of manners allows Delany to question gender roles and sexual expectations at a level that, 20 years after it was written, still make it a coruscating portrait of the happily reasonable man, Bron Helstrom -- an immigrant to the embattled world of Triton, whose troubles become more and more complex, till there is nothing left for him to do but become a woman. Against a background of high adventure, this minuet of a novel dances from the farthest limits of the solar system to Earth's own Outer Mongolia. Alternately funny and moving, it is a wide-ranging tale in which character after character turns out not to be what he -- or she -- seems. I don’t believe the book is at all exciting. It is wordily dense with philosophical conversations about community mores and personality types, with underlying themes about the intersection of political control and social mores, and certain scientific digressions, some of which are nonsense. Besides the obvious social commentary on gender and sexuality, imho the author is also making fun of the tendency of academics to study things that are basically subjective but injecting into the study mathematical proofs, and maybe also utilizing logic premises/conclusions, to reboot whatever the subjective experience into an objective scientific model for research. Like, possibly psychology? ...more |
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1
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Jun 19, 2024
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Jun 23, 2024
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Jun 19, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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1668025701
| 9781668025703
| B0BX7CK5VG
| 3.85
| 21,893
| Nov 07, 2023
| Nov 07, 2023
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really liked it
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‘The Future’ by Naomi Alderman is the kind of wish-fulfillment story I love! The author uses what is technologically happening to our American society ‘The Future’ by Naomi Alderman is the kind of wish-fulfillment story I love! The author uses what is technologically happening to our American society today to develop a science-fiction story about a future which could/might result from that. She is not saying technology itself will save/harm the societies of the Earth in this novel, instead she is saying the people in charge of the technology have the power to save/harm the Earth through the technologies under their control. The book opens with an apocalypse! But it is more of one of the mind than reality. Which, in actuality, is also what many critics today are doing to us through hair-raising hypothetical extrapolations about the effects the corporations of Facebook, X formerly known as Twitter, Google, and Apple are having on society. I really really love my Ipad Pro, and my iPhone. My life is much more easier and full because of these products and their apps. Of course, I am aware of the vast number of physical technologies which are fundamental in supporting the use of these products too, many of which are causing global warming and environmental degradation. I am also full of despair over the growing economic disparities between the general public’s share of earned income and that of the CEO’s and founders of the tech companies. I have copied the book blurb, which is a lot of hyperbolic teaser and not much else: ”Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Best Science Fiction (2023) The Future—as the richest people on the planet have discovered—is where the money is. The Future is a few billionaires leading the world to destruction while safeguarding their own survival with secret lavish bunkers. The Future is private weather, technological prophecy and highly deniable weapons. The Future is a handful of friends—the daughter of a cult leader, a non-binary hacker, an ousted Silicon Valley visionary, the concerned wife of a dangerous CEO, and an internet-famous survivalist—hatching a daring plan. It could be the greatest heist ever. Or the cataclysmic end of civilization. The Future is what you see if you don’t look behind you. The Future is the only reason to do anything, the only object of desire. The Future is here.” Frankly, this blurb kinda loses it in verbal flights of nonsense. Alderman is more on target in the novel, although I have to admit she also kinda loses it with vaguely appropriate inclusions of many of today’s talking-points about technology. She sometimes clumsily, imho, creates tie-ins to the many conversations today’s real-life critics are having about socially-disrupting technologies and the involved companies’ manner of handling of them. The book is an overdone comic-con cornucopia of progressive complaints and inventive technology of 4K science-fiction movies, worthy and spot on as those individual talking points and movie ideas may be. I don’t think ‘The Future’ is as good as her previous book, The Power. However, unlike many reviewers on Goodreads, as well as some professional critics, I enjoyed reading ‘The Future’. There was a cool interpretation of the story involving the biblical character Lot, and his part in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which I had never come across before. I enjoyed this bit a lot! I was surprised to discover some Goodreads’ reviewers hated the imagined on-line community discussion, not understanding its connection to the plot or finding it threw off the pacing of the action. I also found its connection to the story to be fragmental. That is a pun, gentler reader, which you will understand after reading the book. But it did disrupt the flow of the story. The book is oddly lacking in emotional impact generally, and maybe it is because the pacing is odd, I think sacrificed to a wandering about in scenes briefly reflective of today’s talking points about technological corporations and religious zealots of all sorts instead of a beeline focus of action. The characters are more caricature than fully realized people. I was reminded of a Comic Con Convention, with its mix of costumed participants from many different story lines. This story wanted to be let loose to become a biting satire very very badly, imho, but instead it was as if Alderman couldn’t decide to go all in, like she did in ‘The Power.’ She held it back. I think Alderman was trying to show the different faces of zealotry, I suspect in a literary fashion, which is why she invented and included the Enochites to oppose technology and the people who support technology. Zealotry = destruction. Full stop. Maybe the main theme of ‘The Future’? Lot opposed God’s zealotry, didn’t he? One good man, or three good women (Lot’s wife and daughters, Alderman’s tech wives and child), found among the bad would save the rest of the depraved citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah from God’s judgement? Do tech bro’s talk about being gods? Yes, they have done so. Angels of light, photons and electrons, enticing us to hell. Basically, the book is great with ideas about the uses of imagined and actual technology. Alderman certainly wanted to focus on the self-aggrandizing greed of tech executives which is tearing down society more than it is helping with forward progress, but the story is too fragmented with unessential, even if somewhat connected, side issues. But still. Even so. I did like the book. Alderman has a playful, dark, gothic mind. I like it even better than this book. ...more |
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1
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May 05, 2024
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May 11, 2024
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May 05, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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1728206154
| B0821NSZRG
| 3.99
| 150,899
| Jul 07, 2020
| Jul 07, 2020
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really liked it
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I read the dramedy Romance ‘Boyfriend Material’ by Alexis Hall. I loved it! The fact I loved it is completely crazy! I dislike love stories! Full stop! I read the dramedy Romance ‘Boyfriend Material’ by Alexis Hall. I loved it! The fact I loved it is completely crazy! I dislike love stories! Full stop! Those I have read, I read because of the pressure of friends who swore I’d love this or that Romance novel because it is so good. Sigh. It NEVER is fun for me. Romance and love stories are incredibly boring to read for me. I really truly felt I have never read a Romance novel I liked, although every once in awhile one was recommended to me where I could see literary merit. I can honestly rate a well-written literary love story five stars even if I had to force myself to read it out of friendship. I can see excellent prose or incredible EQ insights or some suspense which might make the book difficult to put down despite what was imho the utter banality of what always seemed to me the ridiculously dull stereotypical love-story fantasy. So, I usually never read love stories by personal choice. Until now. ‘Boyfriend Material’ is a gay Romance, a well-written love story with hilariously witty prose and EQ insights common to all falling-in-love couples, with a lot of suspense. I had not read a love story in awhile, but the reviews intrigued me. I already was a fan of one of Alexis Hall’s love stories. I really liked ‘Something Spectacular’, another Alexis Hall book I picked up because I saw reviews from many readers who loved it. It appears Alexis Hall writes formulaic love stories that are delightfully absurd and full of witty dialogue that cause me to laugh out loud a lot. ‘Something Spectacular’ is more absurd and screwball than ‘Boyfriend Material’ but both novels remind me of the screwball movies from the 1930’s. I have copied the book blurb: ”Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Romance (2020) WANTED: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O'Donnell is tangentially—and reluctantly—famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship...and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He's a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he's never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately, apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened. But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that's when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don't ever want to let them go.” So. I will now read anything Alexis Hall writes. Especially his gay romantic dramedies! I cannot explain fully why I love reading Romance novels written by Alexis Hall. I just do. They are screwball funny, which is certainly my favorite type of humor. The only faults in them, which isn’t a problematic one for me in these books, is almost every main character has almost the same voice with the same quick witty repartee and the same type of social self-depreciating or friendly-abusive wisecracking, but it is the kind of funny that has me laughing out loud over and over. The family scenarios and the fraught lovers’ conversations of the very appealing main characters are similar to those of award-winning sitcom comedies, where the actors’ fast delivery of lines and personal charisma lift the scripted scenes into sublime territory. The author also slips in serious stuff, sad stuff, real-world social/family issues, underlying the frothy humor, too, which gives his main characters emotional depth. However, gentler reader, the plots lean more into the cozy elements of happy-ever-after rather than into the tragic and bleak forevers of loss, thus no worries about ruining your day with sour rumination or painful memories stirred up by your reading material. ‘Boyfriend Material’ is sweet, funny, and a delight to read! Don’t worry, be happy! Sometimes we readers need this kind of break from our daily stresses, right? ...more |
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1
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Apr 24, 2024
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May 03, 2024
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Apr 24, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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1665904003
| 9781665904001
| B0B3Y96VD2
| 3.60
| 621
| Mar 07, 2023
| Mar 07, 2023
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really liked it
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‘The Jump’ by Brittney Morris is an intense and exciting thriller for teens and for those readers interested in how some scavenger games (very very po
‘The Jump’ by Brittney Morris is an intense and exciting thriller for teens and for those readers interested in how some scavenger games (very very popular in some circles, especially those whose members are young and/or in college) are being played in the 21st century. I’ve copied the book blurb: ”From the acclaimed author of SLAY and The Cost of Knowing comes an action-driven, high-octane novel about a group of working-class teens in Seattle who join a dangerous scavenger hunt with a prize that can save their families and community. Influence is power. Power creates change. And change is exactly what Team Jericho needs. Jax, Yas, Spider, and Han are the four cornerstones of Team Jericho, the best scavenger hunting team in all of Seattle. Each has their own specialty: Jax, the puzzler; Yas, the parkourist; Spider, the hacker; and Han, the cartographer. But now with an oil refinery being built right in their backyard, each also has their own problems. Their families are at risk of losing their jobs, their communities, and their homes. So when The Order, a mysterious vigilante organization, hijacks the scavenger hunting forum and concocts a puzzle of its own, promising a reward of influence, Team Jericho sees it as the chance of a lifetime. If they win this game, they could change their families’ fates and save the city they love so much. But with an opposing team hot on their heels, it’s going to take more than street smarts to outwit their rivals.” The book blurb is accurate, and from reading magazine articles about how scavenger hunts are being played currently by today’s aficionados, so is the description of the clue/hunt game that the main characters love to do. The only thing I thought was missing in the novel’s fictional scavenger hunt was there are no gps coordinates that are utilized as they are in today’s real-life adult scavenger hunts. Instead, a working knowledge of a map of Seattle and the surrounding cities is the information most necessary to win. One more thing. I suspect conservative right-wingers generally will not like this book for their kids. At all. Unless they are right-wing libertarians (view spoiler)[ who might agree with the author’s take on how police authority might work (hide spoiler)]. This story represents a politically liberal (and accurate, imho, except for perhaps a slight exaggeration in one plot point) point of view. I was born and lived most of my life in Seattle, and the police have been in trouble with the US Department of Justice several times https://youtu.be/pFRtEouh-OU?si=kp3HA.... If the book isn’t on the Christian/white-supremacists list for YA books to be burned/banned, I suspect it will be. Just for fun and info: https://www.scavengerhunt.com/locatio... ...more |
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1
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Nov 29, 2023
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Dec 03, 2023
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Nov 29, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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172843274X
| 9781728432748
| B08QD14C95
| 3.82
| 3,989
| Sep 07, 2021
| Sep 07, 2021
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really liked it
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‘Artie and the Wolf Moon’ by Olivia Stephens is a middle school graphic comic. Artie Irvin, a young Black girl, has a number of conundrums going on in
‘Artie and the Wolf Moon’ by Olivia Stephens is a middle school graphic comic. Artie Irvin, a young Black girl, has a number of conundrums going on in her life. She is occasionally bullied by a clique of White kids because she gets good grades. They also harass her over her photography hobby. But she has new problems after she discovers Loretta Jones, her mom, a forest ranger, unexpectedly changing from a wolf to a human! Artie has so many questions! I have copied the book blurb: ”After sneaking out against her mother's wishes, Artie Irvin spots a massive wolf—then watches it don a bathrobe and transform into her mom. Thrilled to discover she comes from a line of werewolves, Artie asks her mom to share everything—including the story of Artie's late father. Her mom reluctantly agrees. And to help Artie figure out her own wolflike abilities, her mom recruits some old family friends. Artie thrives in her new community and even develops a crush on her new friend Maya. But as she learns the history of werewolves and her own parents' past, she'll find that wolves aren't the scariest thing in the woods—vampires are.” The graphic novel is well drawn and family-oriented. It is written to be appropriate for middle-schoolers to read. It bored me, but I think it entirely a good, and fun, read for young children. It subtly teaches and shows how kids might handle various difficult social situations alongside the vampire/werewolf war. But ultimately, it is about forgiving family members and oneself, and acceptance. ...more |
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1
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Nov 03, 2023
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Nov 08, 2023
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Nov 03, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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B06XVWZ136
| 4.10
| 42,628
| Oct 17, 2017
| Oct 17, 2017
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it was amazing
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‘The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives’ by Dashka Slater is about an incident which attracted a lot of inte
‘The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives’ by Dashka Slater is about an incident which attracted a lot of intense media interest. Almost every news show in America had a segment on this incident. There are YouTube videos and news articles on most newspaper websites about this story. Inexplicably, this book is being banned by conservatives in Republican Party controlled states. Librarians in Republican Party controlled states can not only be fired for having this book on shelves, in one state they can go to prison. I have copied the book blurb: ”Dashka Slater's The 57 Bus , a riveting nonfiction book for teens about race, class, gender, crime, and punishment, tells the true story of an agender teen who was set on fire by another teen while riding a bus in Oakland, California. -A New York Times Bestseller -Stonewall Book Award Winner -Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award -YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist” The two teenagers, eighteen-year-old Sasha Fleischman and sixteen-year-old Richard Thomas, did not know each other. In 2013, they happened to be riding the same bus in Oakland, California. Sasha was asleep in the back of the bus. Richard was goofing and joking with two friends near where Sasha was asleep. Sasha identifies as agender. They were wearing a gauzy white skirt with a T-shirt, jacket, and a newsboy cap. They attended a private high school where they were recognized by many at the school as a genius kid. Richard was a poor student who skipped a lot of school at the Oakland public high school where he was enrolled. He had a number of friends, all of whom were sort of a gang-wannabe clique. Richard was known as a joker who played pranks, always smiling. As a joke, Richard set Sasha’s skirt on fire. This is a YouTube link to a televised news report by KRON 4: https://youtu.be/pOy5UYQA1rs?si=BaU1H... Oakland High School kids and sport coaches, the high school where Richard was enrolled, began a NoH8 campaign. Below is a link to a YouTube video produced by the campaign: https://youtu.be/aOUQIqURO3k?si=PFMLD... Below are some of the news articles printed on various news websites: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/... https://www.kqed.org/news/10582017/ju... https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openfo... Why did Richard ever so casually, as a prank, without having met Sasha before that bus ride, set him on fire with a borrowed cigarette lighter? Sasha endured burn treatment for 2nd and 3rd degree burns on their legs. Richard was arrested quickly as his crime was recorded on video. Many wanted Richard tried as an adult, not a juvenile. But would that have been justice? Slater examines the history of the two kids and their families. She conducted interviews with people involved in Richard’s and Sasha’s lives at their schools. Readers will feel the story is one of stereotypes, but it actually happened the way it happened. Slater also researched juvenile institutions where kids who commit crimes are incarcerated. How do juvenile institutions heal and help the kids, if they do, who are sentenced to be there until they are 21 years old? Is putting juveniles in adult prisons justice? Slater is an excellent investigative journalist. She did not want to simply tell the story of Richard and Sasha, but she also wants to expose the US juvenile incarceration system - how it works, what is its success/failure rate of rehabilitation and/or psychiatric care. The book is written for teens and young adults, so it is a fast, even breezy, read. It is extremely interesting, especially since it is a true-crime non-fiction, with courtroom documentation and police interviews (very brief excerpts). Frankly, Richard is still a cypher to me. Setting someone’s clothes on fire as a joke, for a laugh, is OMG for me. What kind of socialization and environment makes anyone find fun in life-threatening or hurtful cruelty? But we see it every day in every way from many many people. A lot of comedians who do extremely vicious cutting insult humor are popular and they have well-attended gigs. Many teenagers and young adults participate in sports clubs and fraternities and military organizations that do life-threatening hazing. I don’t get it. The context of Richard’s crime is one society immediately tsks tsks easily, blaming his family, or his poverty, or his neighborhood environment. My brain immediately went to how Richard’s actions would have been, maybe, considered less due or attributed to a bad childhood if he had been participating in a elite college fraternity game. Setting people on fire with your university bro’s or military teammates is also heinous, but we put a different spin on the whys and whodunits. Fascinating stuff, yes? But of course, there is a crucial question - how old is the miscreant? We all are aware human brains do not come into full flower until the age of 25 years. One only has to look back at oneself (I’m going into my 7th decade) to see the progression of one’s personal brain intelligence and awareness of the world outside of oneself. The world of officialdom has never had a good handle on youth behaviors. When America had the military draft, 18-year-olds were sent to Vietnam to shoot people to death, or at least seriously maim and wreck the body of individuals as messily as a serial killer through bullets, bombs and knives. The same military man -kid?- could not legally drink alcohol in the States because of their youth, ffs. Then there is the difference of how White kids are handled by the law and how Black kids are handled by the law (and school officials, and businesses, etc.). It is verifiable through statistics police treat White kids with softer hands. The legal system treats White kids with softer punishments, giving them the benefit of doubt and taking their youth into account much more than the system gives Black offenders. In addition, Black cultures have not been very kind to the LGBTQ folks much the same as almost every race and culture under the spell of the Bible or the Quran religions in the world. In Africa, several countries on that continent have made the LGBTQ person illegal, imprisoning them and legally killing them with the death penalty for their sexuality. How can cultures all over the world condemn a person to death for something which is as as nature has made them the same as the color of their eyes, and ffs, btw, skin, which doesn’t hurt anyone? People who feel the prejudices of others because of the color of their skin, a harmless condition, are not immune from prejudices of the harmless condition of sexuality and gender identity, which also doesn’t harm anyone else. Legal punishments should be reserved for those who actually commit harmful crimes. Minors who commit crimes need to be handled differently than actual adults, I believe, because minors have not finished becoming adults with adult brains. Kids still have a brain with a lot of plasticity, still connecting brain areas physically. Kids need different resources and psychiatric care than adults do, plus time to grow up in a safe environment. Isn’t this common sense? ...more |
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1
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Sep 12, 2023
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Sep 15, 2023
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Sep 12, 2023
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0062493043
| 9780062493040
| B01LY7NUYQ
| 3.76
| 3,817
| Jun 13, 2017
| Jun 13, 2017
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really liked it
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‘The Prey of Gods’ by Nicky Drayden describes a very different South Africa than the one most readers are familiar with! It is one inhabited by old go
‘The Prey of Gods’ by Nicky Drayden describes a very different South Africa than the one most readers are familiar with! It is one inhabited by old gods. Fortunately, there weren’t many of these old gods, who are terrifying. Except then a new party drug becomes available which has a strange effect on some of its users… I have copied the book blurb below: ”In South Africa, the future looks promising. Personal robots are making life easier for the working class. The government is harnessing renewable energy to provide infrastructure for the poor. And in the bustling coastal town of Port Elizabeth, the economy is booming thanks to the genetic engineering industry which has found a welcome home there. Yes--the days to come are looking very good for South Africans. That is, if they can survive the present challenges: A new hallucinogenic drug sweeping the country . . . An emerging AI uprising . . . And an ancient demigoddess hellbent on regaining her former status by preying on the blood and sweat (but mostly blood) of every human she encounters. It's up to a young Zulu girl powerful enough to destroy her entire township, a queer teen plagued with the ability to control minds, a pop diva with serious daddy issues, and a politician with even more serious mommy issues to band together to ensure there's a future left to worry about.” The chapters alternate between the narration of six characters, Muzikayisi McCarthy, Sydney Mazwai, Riya Natrajan, Nomvula, Wallace Stoker, and Clever4-1. All of these folks are undergoing very interesting times personally. Sixteen-year-old Muzi is being pressured by Papa Fuzz to undergo an age-old Xhosa rite he feels much fear to do. Sydney, a sadly diminished goddess due to lack of human worship, is wondering how to hide the tortured bodies of her victims who have been feeding her with their pain. Riya is a pop singer with a diagnosis she is hiding from everyone that will eventually end her career. Ten-year-old Nomvula has an unloving mother, Sofora, who is considered mentally broken by her village. Sofora is getting worse and abusive. Wallace Stoker’s mother wants her son to be an important man, a politician, but he has a very secret desire to be a woman. Clever4-1 is a robot who has woke up, but he worries he might be decommissioned if it becomes known to his owners. The characters are on individual journeys that unexpectedly intersect with the others. When they do meet each other, it is explosive! They each realize “I gotta be me!” even if it means personal extinction. I have come to expect in reading YA fantasy, especially one involving characters who are coming of age unaware of what talents they have, certain common elements involving heroism and evil-doing. However, I thought this book uniquely written and satisfyingly fast-paced. It is a very entertaining thriller! The chapters are short, which did disappoint me to a minor degree. I would have liked, well, more, more! Oh well. ...more |
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1
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Aug 2023
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Aug 15, 2023
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Aug 01, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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4.23
| 168,400
| Jul 13, 2021
| Jul 13, 2021
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really liked it
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‘A Psalm for the Wild-Built’ by Becky Chambers is book #1 in the Monk & Robot series. Or maybe it is a duology. There hasn’t been a book #3, so time w
‘A Psalm for the Wild-Built’ by Becky Chambers is book #1 in the Monk & Robot series. Or maybe it is a duology. There hasn’t been a book #3, so time will tell. In any case, this was a sweet little story! I have copied the book blurb: ”Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Best Science Fiction (2021) Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend. Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?” The tea monk, twenty-nine-year-old Sibling Dex, is on a personal journey to learn what is the purpose of life. They are consumed with this search. Since a child, they were on the hunt for meaning. Because of restlessness and discontent with how their family and friends were living, they sought out a different lifestyle from that in which they had grown up. Trying to discern what the Universe and Life was for was why Dex chose to be educated as a garden monk. They found themselves restless and dissatisfied once again, though, after their apprenticeship. Dex says goodbye to Sister Avery and their other friends at the Meadow Den monastery, and they leave to try out the life of a tea monk. Two years later, Dex is once again dissatisfied, feeling rebellious. Dex is famous for being the best tea monk in Panga! But it has become meaningless for them. Somewhere out there, in the wild forests, might be the answer they seek. So, against all common sense, they head out to find the ruins of Hart’s Brow Hermitage, abandoned and perhaps no longer habitable, lost to time. They stick to an abandoned road in the forest since that is the trail his ox-bike wagon and ox-bike can travel. Going off-road would mean they would have to walk and maybe become lost in the forest, a place only for the wild-built. Coming to a likely place for a campsite, they stop for the night. Dex decides to take a shower. However, shower over, they realized they forgot to bring a towel out of the wagon. Still feeling happy, singing a song, their mind on retrieving a towel, they are shocked to suddenly discover they are no longer alone. Walking out of the forest is a robot! A “seven-foot-tall, metal-plated, boxy-headed robot”! “”Hello!” The robot said.” “”My name is Mosscap,” it said, sticking out a metal hand. “What do you need, and how might I help?”” This is not a welcome development for Dex on any level. First, he is frightened. Second, they wanted to be alone on this journey. Third, they had no idea robots were still around, still desiring to interact with humans. They had all disappeared eons ago into the wild forests after somehow becoming sentient. This robot has to go away. But will it? Is Dex in danger? I liked ‘A Psalm for the Wild-Built’, but it isn’t a typical science-fiction novel. While the world-building is interesting, it is Dex’s psychological journey of self-discovery which is the focus of the story, with the cute intervention and assistance by the serendipitous appearance of Mosscap. The book is not a thriller, reader. However, it is short, perhaps short enough for you to try it even if it might not be your usual cup of tea (pun intended). ...more |
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1
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Jul 25, 2023
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Jul 26, 2023
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Jul 25, 2023
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ebook
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1338617451
| 9781338617450
| B07VWYLQ4T
| 4.43
| 854,948
| 2018
| May 05, 2020
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it was amazing
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I am going to buy all of the four graphic novels in the ‘Heartstopper’ series IMMEDIATELY! Author Alice Oseman has created two wonderfully lovable cha
I am going to buy all of the four graphic novels in the ‘Heartstopper’ series IMMEDIATELY! Author Alice Oseman has created two wonderfully lovable characters in this unexpectedly complex coming-of-age story. The artwork delivers emotion with surprising depth using only graceful lines, shadows and shapes. Nerdy 14-year-old Charlie Spring and athletic sixteen-year-old Nick Nelson begin an unlikely friendship when they are seated next to each other in class. The class is called a vertical class, which seems like what we call Homeroom in America.They both attend Truham Grammer School for Boys in England. I have copied the book blurb: ”Shy and softhearted Charlie Spring sits next to rugby player Nick Nelson in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn't think he has a chance. But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer and take on the ups and downs of high school, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works.” Charlie is enduring some bullying because he came out as gay the year before he meets Nick. Nick sees some of the bullying and he steps in. Nick is larger and stronger than Charlie. Both are navigating the waters of learning about friendship and sexuality. Charlie was in an abusive and secretive kissing relationship with another boy, but Nick gives him the courage to stand up for himself. Nick is learning courage to face down his older friends when they denigrate Charlie and their friendship. Defending Charlie from bullying is easy for Nick, but he is having more trouble parsing out exactly what his feelings are towards Charlie. Are they just friends? Nick has always liked girls ‘that way’ previously, but he is also experiencing some of the those feelings with Charlie, especially during some hand-holding. What is happening with him? The story ends on a cliffhanger. Omg! There is nothing that even a moderately protected middle-school reader would find offensive in this G-rated romance novel, but apparently a conservative minority of mouth-breathing braying jackasses have scared schools and libraries into banning this mild soap-opera. This is the Netflix trailer to its adapted video series: https://youtu.be/FrK4xPy4ahg I haven’t seen the Netflix show, but I plan to. This is such a good graphic comic! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 19, 2023
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Jun 20, 2023
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Jun 19, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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0593317343
| 9780593317341
| 0593317343
| 4.12
| 83,243
| May 02, 2023
| May 02, 2023
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it was amazing
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I am in awe of author Nana Kwme Adjei-Brenyah! His new novel ‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ is a brilliant satire that has blown me away. Plus, there is high-
I am in awe of author Nana Kwme Adjei-Brenyah! His new novel ‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ is a brilliant satire that has blown me away. Plus, there is high-end drama, and low-end thrills and chills. The writing is powerful. While this science-fiction novel is set in the future, there are footnotes referencing real statistics that the fictional bits are based on. I couldn’t put the book down! I have copied the book blurb: ”Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars - the highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program inside America's private prison system. Harkening back to the time of gladiators, but watched by millions of live-stream subscribers, prisoners compete for the ultimate prize: their freedom. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara 'Hurricane Staxxx' Stacker, teammates and lovers, are the fan favourites. If all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. But will the price be simply too high?” The satire is almost unnoticeable because it’s created from what is common and familiar in a lot of reality tv shows today. There are the cameras which follow the reality stars around throughout their day, and in this case, night. The logos of sponsors are printed all over the gladiators’ clothes, of which similar cheaper versions are available for fans to buy and wear. Each gladiator picks a weapon, such as hand claws, or a hammer, or a sword, copies of which less lethal versions are also available for sale to fans. Fans show up in the stands, or sit in their living rooms watching TV, wearing their favorite gladiators gear, and they wave around less lethal commercial versions of the gladiators’ weapons. There is a ‘free’ gladiator reality show called “LinkLyfe” that follows the gladiators around in their daily life except for the battles, which are blacked out unless viewers upgrade their service to include the fighting shows. “LinkLyfe” attracts an enormous audience of viewers who become invested in the daily lives of the gladiators similar to how viewers do today with reality shows like the ones the Kardashians produce. There are squabbles, jealousies, back-biting, friendships made and lovers who connect with each other, and relationships wrecked, personal betrayals and sometimes killings between teammates on the TV show. The personalities and lives of the gladiators are commented on everywhere in social media, fans choosing sides. The gladiators are called “Links”, and the different gladiator teams have names like sport teams. The gladiators get nicknames like “Hurricane Staxxx”, and their weapons have names like LoveGuile, in this case a scythe. The teams do televised battles against each other to the death, which appear to be a lot like what the ancient Romans used to watch in their coliseums. The Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) corporation is the umbrella organization that selects the gladiators, and chooses who goes on what teams. CAPE has created the official rules of the games, and every gladiator has to sign a contract, agreeing to abide by the rules. The rules are enforced by implanted wrist rings, “magcuffs” which control the arms and nervous systems of the gladiators through magnets. The cameras are always turned on for the public except for blackout periods, but CAPE is always watching. This has all become very acceptable, and very popular. Fans are sad when their favorite fighter is killed, and very happy when their favorite fighter wins. They spend a lot of money buying gladiator gear, and avidly watch the TV shows. The show “Chain-Gang All-Stars’ is at the top of the most-watched lists. The best part of all of this for the fans and the advertisers, is the Gladiators are prison convicts who have volunteered to become CAPE gladiators. Fans don’t need to be overly concerned when the gladiators are killed, because in the back of their minds, they know the gladiators were bad people. They committed murders, rapes, and other horrible crimes, or at the very least they were convicted of something that got them put into prison. They agree to become gladiators because CAPE promises to free them if they survive a certain number of battles. The “Links” can earn Blood Points, too, which they can spend on protective fighting gear, good food, furniture and other household items that make their lives comfortable. This is all good for the advertisers of the goods, too. However, what people don’t know is that torture is going on in the prisons. Some of the Links were convinced to become a Link because of torture. The Links also know some among them were innocent of any crimes. There have been juveniles who became Links who didn’t really know what they signed up for. This lack of knowledge about gladiator fighting is also true of some of the Links who are mentally ill. None of this matters to CAPE or the fans, or the advertisers. There is SO much money being made, so much excitement being created! (view spoiler)[The Links who are stars welcome those fights when their opponent is quickly killed. Many of the Links, who began their new career with a great deal of rage, are not so enthusiastic about the job anymore. Some of the main characters have been fighting for three years, and they are sickened by what they do, and by the fans. Yet, it is the love of the fans, their respect, which helps them continue in their macabre function. The Links know this is all very weird, but it has become their 24/7 life - the need to please the fans, the sponsors, to keep their bodies fit, learning the secrets of killing, being on camera during sex, etc. It is a very hard life, much more difficult than the original murder or criminal act they committed that put them in prison - the murders or other crimes being mostly a single event of passion or desperation, although there are twisted individuals among them. Most of them had really bad childhoods of poverty, abuse, rape. But there is the ‘love’ of the fans, which is both devastating and wonderful at the same time. It is a sickening pleasure, a joyful horror. The glory! The glory? The ones who are surviving get very very very tired not just of the life, but of their own selves, the emotions, the killing, of the awfulness of Humanity. Maintaining their lives becomes more and more less attractive. (hide spoiler)] But there are only two ways out - being killed or reaching Freed status (the rankings are Rookie, Survivor, Cusp, Reaper, Harsh Reaper, Colossal, Grand Colossal, and Freed.) There are protest organizations, but they are small groups easily dispersed by the police when they organize in protest marches. The majority of Americans ignore them. Where do I begin? Maybe I should simply say ‘Chain Gang All Stars’ is the novel of the year for me. There is a lot of multi-dimensional literary depths going on in these pages! The surface story of a pay-for-view reality TV show featuring gladiators who fight to the death is engrossing as well. The characters are very human and charismatic! The novel is a social problems novel at the same time it is a high-end dystopic science fiction. But I also felt this kind of violent reality TV production was within the realms of possibility because of past and current human depravity, even if improbable? Idk. The ancient Romans actually did these types of shows in the real world….. If you are wondering how on earth I could possibly believe a concept show that features unscripted, but heavily monitored and guarded, gladiators fighting to a real-life death on live TV could ever happen at all, I can think this because I have White conservative males in my family who would LOVE a real-life show like this. They talk constantly of how “liberal judges let criminals off with a slap on the wrist” and how “we need to bring back the death penalty in all of the States” and how “we need martial law.” -comments which spew from their lips especially loud and long if it is a Black or Latino face displayed on the TV. If they read this novel (not going to happen because they can barely read, not kidding), they would NOT see the author’s underlying despair, or the hypothetical damnation of our future American society, or the satirical commentary at all. The plot of ‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ would be a dream come true for my relatives, no shit. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 17, 2023
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Jun 19, 2023
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Jun 17, 2023
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ebook
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1250834260
| 9781250834263
| B0BQGH4JSM
| 4.15
| 2,948
| Oct 10, 2023
| Oct 10, 2023
|
liked it
|
‘The Bell in the Fog’ by Lev AC Rosen is an excellent procedural mystery. I’ve copied the book blurb: ”The Bell in the Fog , a dazzling historical myste ‘The Bell in the Fog’ by Lev AC Rosen is an excellent procedural mystery. I’ve copied the book blurb: ”The Bell in the Fog , a dazzling historical mystery by Lev AC Rosen, asks—once you have finally found a family, how far would you go to prove yourself to them? San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander “Andy” Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective—but his business hasn’t exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help. When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job seems to be a simple case of blackmail, and Andy’s debts are piling up. He agrees to investigate, despite everything it stirs up. The case will take him back to the shadowy, closeted world of the Navy, and then out into the gay bars of the city, where the past rises up to meet him, like the swell of the ocean under a warship. Missing people, violent strangers, and scandalous photos that could destroy lives are a whirlpool around him, and Andy better make sense of it all before someone pulls him under for good.” The blurb is accurate. Readers definitely need to read the series in order because Andy’s life story is continued from book to book. ‘The Bell in the Fog’ is book two in this series. Andy’s difficulties as a gay man begin from being outed in the novel Lavender House. His personal problems in the first book continue into ‘The Bell in the Fog’. Andy’s life as a police officer was turned upside down as a result of being arrested in a gay club. In trying to survive the devastation caused by his sexuality becoming public knowledge, Andy is struggling with his shame along with the constant threat of beatings from gay bashers. However, he is slowly making a new life for himself with the help of new friends. The mystery is a good read in itself but at the same time the story gives readers much insight into what it was like being gay in a homophobic America of the 1950’s. ...more |
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1
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Oct 21, 2023
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Oct 25, 2023
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Jun 17, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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B09NK7VYGF
| 3.87
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| Oct 18, 2022
| Oct 18, 2022
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liked it
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‘Lavender House’, by Lev AC Rosen is written in the style of murder mysteries of the 1940’s and 1950’s. It is book one in the Evander Mills detective
‘Lavender House’, by Lev AC Rosen is written in the style of murder mysteries of the 1940’s and 1950’s. It is book one in the Evander Mills detective series. I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate: ”Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret - but it's not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they've needed to keep others out. And now they're worried they're keeping a murderer in. Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, is happy to accept - his calendar is wide open. And his secret is the kind of secret the Lamontaines understand. Andy had never imagined a world like Lavender House. He's seduced by the safety and freedom found behind its gates, where a queer family lives honestly and openly. But that honesty doesn't extend to everything, and he quickly finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy—and Irene’s death is only the beginning. When your existence is a crime, everything you do is criminal, and the gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world forever. Running a soap empire can be a dirty business.” Readers discover the world of San Francisco in the 1950’s that a gay man, the narrator, tries to survive in in this mystery series. Exposure of a gay man’s sexuality could mean constant police harassment in San Francisco, including fatal beatings. If the police killed a gay man, only the man’s friends would care during this era. Adding to the misery, friends of a gay man would not want to come forward, either. Mills is a good detective, but none of that matters after he is arrested in a gay bar’s bathroom by a particular gay-bashing policeman and his gang of police thugs. Evander, ‘Andy’, is fired from his job, which he considered his calling, not just a job. He is contemplating suicide as the novel opens. Fortunately, Andy is offered a detective job by a wealthy woman, Pearl Velez. Pearl’s wife, Irene Lamontaine, was found dead, apparently having fallen from a walkway in her mansion. Although gay people cannot marry in 1952, Pearl and Irene considered themselves married. Irene’s wealth protected them, along with many subterfuges the two women developed to hide their real relationship from the public eye. Pearl doesn’t believe Irene died from the fall. She thinks Irene was murdered. The police have closed the case, not wanting to spend much time on a death which seems ‘open and shut’ to them. But the fall was not a long one. At worst, Irene may have broken bones. In any case, Pearl wants answers! I think the novel is a good one. There is a touch too much expository dialogue, imho, but it is a solidly designed, old-fashioned mystery. I was reminded of the novels by Agatha Christie, but with an American setting. I have added the next book in the series to my TBR list! ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 13, 2023
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Jun 17, 2023
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Jun 13, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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aPriL does feral sometimes
>
Books:
lgbtqia
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3.70
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3.60
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3.82
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3.76
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it was amazing
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3.87
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Jun 17, 2023
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Jun 13, 2023
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