I had a hard time with the end of this book because, well, I read most of it on Sunday (which was simchat torah) and then turned the news back on on October 8th and, well, you know.
That's not the book's fault. It did make the battle scenes and the question of just fighting rather more difficult than I think the book expected them to be.
Up until that point it was a really fun and well done adaptation of a legend in a way that felt both like it was very clearly paying homage and also doing its own thing. But Huang is just a really enjoyable writer and has a gift for fight scenes (which makes sense) in a way that makes for a cinematic reading experience. I don't picture things, but I could imagine being a person who did while reading this book.

This book may hold the record for most time passed between purchase and reading. And it may be unfair to judge a book I bought in 2012 that was written in 2007 by 2023 standards. Specifically the predictions about the far flung future of 2020s. Oh you sweet summer child.
I'm torn because the research Wolf presents in this book is absolutely fascinating and the worries that this book presents about reading and the kind of thinking it allows...I mean, she talks about Socrates and then does the Socrates thing "this time my fears for new media are FOUNDED!"
But on what? I feel like I have become very skeptical about arguments around the nature of media consumption that are about form rather than content. But also the entire rise and fall of Twitter happened between when this book was written and when I read it so IDK anymore.

This was a good book to listen to when the world feels like it's ending even if it was not what I expected. (Although I did get some very interesting resources about what I was actually interested in...namely the nonexistence of fish.)
Miller is a consummate RadioLab performer and the audiobook really captures the way she structures her stories and slowly builds up the weight of knowledge while looking for meaning.
It was, though, the book I needed in the moment when I was reading it.

I'm always down for a good locked space ship and the mystery part was definitely my favorite part of the story, even if it was not precisely a whodunnit. It was definitely a story about value and values and what we do with the world we are given and the one we take.
It was both good and also it's not a book that is staying with me and, I mean, many books don't.

It's been a while since I got hit straight with a "WTF did I just read?" but Basu absolutely manages. Every scene in this book is gloriously drawn from the big analysis of how normal life would look on a overheated planet under constant surveillance to the ways that people just...peop.
It never quite came together for me the way I wished it would and I think some of that is that I want my stories to feel more like endings than beginnings and some of that is the absolute Snow Crash of an ending (I nearly called it a Diamond Age, but it's not THAT bad).

I appreciate that the reviews for this book are basically of two kinds. 1) This is a beautiful and intricate look at space opera and choices and relationships. and 2) Lesbians in space!
Both are good. And de Bodard really does a gorgeous job with the romance aspect of it and weaving back and forth between how two traumatized people (ish) find their ways to each other.
And I do wonder if this book is also falling into the "queer desire is the revolutionary force" trap that Isaac and Alexis talk about on their podcast (called, naturally, Wizards versus Lesbians). Despite the absence of gender seeming to matter in the book (replaced by affiliation), the transgressive relationship is still meant to overturn the status quo and it does, but not entirely in a way that feels actually revolutionary. Trying to escape the trap of feeding your hungry child by taking the food from someone else's hands...and yet I'm not sure the book succeeds.
This is the danger of being serious: no one faults the monarchy in sff because we all know it's a silly construct meant to gratify wish fulfillment. But to interrogate piracy is to interrogate the rest of the system of commerce and de Bodard can't DO that and have a happy ending.
She has it both ways (ish) by keeping the conflict of morals out of the happiness of the ending: the love story is the resolution, not the satisfying revolution because it can't be. Which is sort of the wiz-les point (Wizards versus Lesbians is a great name for a podcast, but can the fans call themselves Les Wizerables?) - when queer desire and revolution stand in for one another, the successful conclusion of the love story stands in for the successful revolution. 
On the other hand, there's a sequel so we'll see where this goes!

This book was very cute and very clever in its understanding of academia and it also felt...weirdly paced. That might have been me reading it in the interstices of Yom Kippur, but I also felt like the way that things happened didn't fully come together. But also it was fun and silly/serious in the way that stories about the fae ought to be.

I appreciate Okorafor so much when she's furious in her fiction and this book, in particular, contains so much rage and frustration and also, the end was stunning in how everything drew together.
This book's relationship to disability fascinates me in its focus on prejudice and augmentation of power and the trap of it. There's a lot to unpack here and this book is another one of those "I wish I could read this in a class".

In news that surprises no one, a Karen Lord book is "it's complicated".
Because her work always is. It's weird and doing interesting things and thinking about what it means to be in community and to need community and to care for others and what you can ask of them and yourself and I really need to do a trilogy reread because I feel like the fact that it's been a long time since I've read either The Best of All Possible Worlds ore The Galaxy Game.
And Lord always rewards a rereads so I'm looking forward to that.

I love Amina as a character; she's hilarious and fun and her voice comes through so strongly. And the adventure is wild and the audiobook is wonderfully narrated and also...she's one of the best representations of a ba'al teshuva (mutatis mutandis) that I have seen in fiction.