mars2k's Reviews (226)

The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene

3.0

challenging medium-paced

I don’t agree with all of MacCormack’s conclusions – or even the premises those conclusions are drawn from – but she offers, at the very least, food for thought. She does have a tendency to veer off into tangents, though. The book could have benefitted from more focus on ahumanism and what exactly that means. I wanted to learn more about the categories of “human” and “animal” and what they represent.

The author isn’t afraid of controversy. She tackles taboo subjects and her arguments are generally quite convincing, or at least nuanced. At first, her defence of cannibalism seemed to contradict her earlier weaponisation of the term against meat eaters, but a second look at her argument that it “is not against nature; it is against the law” reveals a more interesting angle: MacCormack is showing us that our eating habits are shaped by the societies in which we live. If we apply this lens to meat consumption, we see that the lines we draw between what is food and what it is unthinkable to eat are just that, lines we draw. They aren’t natural distinctions, they are societal. And, as such, our attitudes and behaviours can change. What is normal today (eg: the meat industry) may one day be seen as monstrous. There is no reason to simply take it for granted.

On a related note, while I understand the usage of terms like “cannibalism” and “murder” when talking about the killing of nonhuman animals for meat, I do think invoking the holocaust is another matter entirely, and I did wince when the author defended the practice by pointing out that a couple of Jewish scholars have done so.
The discussion of overpopulation also made me a little wary. Take this quote, for example: “Yes there are too many humans to sustain the planet, but the moment we need to decide who reproduces and who doesn’t, we enter dubious moral territory.” She does note that eugenics is “dubious moral territory” which is an understatement but at least she recognises that there are ethical issues to be considered. That’s good. But then what’s this about “the moment we need to decide who reproduces and who doesn’t”? Do we “need” to do that? I don’t think overpopulation is nearly as pressing a matter as some people make it out to be – we have the resources to feed and house everyone, it’s just that those resources aren’t effectively distributed (largely due to capitalism). I don’t know... I feel like any line of thinking that starts by taking an ecofascist talking point at face value is going to lead to some pretty rancid philosophy.

Towards the end of introduction, establishing the tone of the book proper, MacCormack states the following: “Like many manifesti, the tone of this manifesto oscillates between the colloquial, the academic and also the hopeful (perhaps even delusional) and the angry. The reader is invited to read with similarly inconsistent intensities.” This quote holds true. I remember enjoying the chapter “Occulture: Secular spirituality” as it spiralled into crazed ramblings about “Leviathan and other cunts.” That was a lot of fun. And while I do appreciate this tongue-in-cheek attitude, I also recognise it as potentially dangerous, especially when talking about highly sensitive subjects like eugenics. It can function as something of a Get Out of Jail Free card – she’s deadly serious but, at the same time, it’s just a bit of fun and it’s not meant to be taken too seriously. MacCormack wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants her animal rights manifesto to be silly and solemn and accessible and provocative all at once. That is difficult to pull off and, despite an admirable effort, I don’t think she entirely succeeded.

The Ahuman Manifesto is an odd book. I’m not sure what I was expecting and I’m not sure what to make of what I read either. It was interesting, I suppose, but I don’t think I’d recommend it. Three stars, just about.

Content Warnings

adventurous mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

A strong anthology with a nice mix of styles. Some personal favourites: “Point Pleasant Owls” by e jackson, “Winslow Junction” by AGLENNCO, “Cracks in the Ice” by Sarah Webb, “Shepherd” by Ann Xu, and “Heritage” by Ashanti Fortson.

Content Warnings

Omnia Sunt Communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism

Massimo De Angelis, Massimo de Angelis

2.5

slow-paced

Omnia Sunt Communia is dense, dry, boring. It somehow feels both over-explanatory and poorly explained – De Angelis doesn’t do a very good job of explaining what he means by terms like “commons” and “commoning,” which are kind of the crux of the book. The diagrams make things more confusing rather than less. The author also presupposes the reader’s familiarity with various economists and philosophers, some of whom I’d never heard of let alone read their works. At first I was frantically looking up unfamiliar concepts and trying to make sense of them; as the book went on, however, I stopped caring and just accepted the fact I wouldn’t understand half of what was said.

I don’t know... It’s not a bad book per se but I feel like I didn’t get much from it. Hopefully someone else will enjoy it more than I did.

Content Warnings

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

Dean Spade

5.0

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

“Activism and mutual aid shouldn’t feel like a hobby—it should feel like living in alignment with our hopes for the world and with our passions. It should enliven us.”

Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid is an extraordinarily useful guide. It’s accessible, digestible, and more helpful than I can put into words. Despite its brevity, it offers a far better explanation of the concept than Kropotkin’s famous book of the same name, and it goes on to identify common pitfalls and give advice on how to avoid them, introduce the consensus process, and offer a few suggestions on how to mitigate conflict and burnout.

A vital resource for those new to mutual aid and activism, as well as those who have been involved for a while – we all have room to improve, and this book is full of good insights and prompts.

Content Warnings

Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories

Michael Thomas Taylor, Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn

3.0

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

Others of My Kind is a valuable resource, but something has to be said about the fact that most of its authors are cis. They may be well-read and well-intentioned but that doesn’t change the fact that this research comes from a disconnected perspective of outsiders looking in, with all information passing through a Cis Filter™ before it reaches the page. It’s a little hypocritical of them to declare the need to engage with trans people themselves not only the cis academics who study transness, seemingly without recognising that they are the cis academics who study transness.
I think the best way to exemplify the cisness of this book is this: it talks a lot about trans people taking the time to educate cis people, including their doctors, and they frame this as a wonderful kindness that we ("we") ought to be grateful for, rather than actually reckoning with the fact that trans people are expected to be well-spoken experts and ambassadors who will perform emotional labour at the drop of a hat, else we be denied basic rights like access to healthcare.

The sources are scant. That’s something that can’t be helped, but it does result in an unavoidably patchy history. Some of the figures in this book are known only from photographs; for others, no photographs are known to exist. The authors have made a commendable effort to collect as much information as possible on their subjects, but there will always be gaps. And I’d be lying if I said that’s not frustrating.

As for the writing, it’s... fine? It’s fine. It’s pretty repetitive, chapters are interrupted (often mid-sentence) by biographical inserts, and there’s some awkward phrasing here and there. All of these issues could have been lessened with tighter editing. I think the final chapter (“Historicizing Transgender Terminology”) probably should have been the first – to me it makes more sense to open with your statement of intent and your clarifications and disclaimers than it does to end on that note. The book also could have benefited from a more chronological structure. Jumping back and forth across the Atlantic is one thing, but jumping back and forth temporally as well makes the whole thing rather disorienting.

Despite its flaws, however, I am glad this book exists. I did learn a thing or two about early 20th century trans culture, and about pioneering trans individuals of the era. And for that, I think Others of My Kind was worthwhile.

Content Warnings

Salt Magic

Hope Larson, Rebecca Mock

4.0

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Salt Magic is a short but sweet tale about growing up and overcoming the desire to stay young forever. I adored the protagonist, Vonceil, from the very beginning – she has such a strong personality and it’s impossible not to root for her.

I bought this book for its stunning cover. The artwork inside isn’t quite as beautiful, but it’s expressive and full of character. It’s clear that a great deal of care has gone into the designs – from the characters to the architecture to the props and vehicles. It’s a well-crafted graphic novel all round :)

Content Warnings

The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison

4.0

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I suppose I’ll start with a note on this book’s use of language: I found the grammar easy to understand, but the vocabulary not so much – unwieldy words like “Nazhmorhathvereise” and “Untheileneise’meire” disrupted my reading, and there are a lot of characters with confusingly similar names. The worldbuilding could have done with a little more depth, I think, though I do appreciate the steampunk flavour (clocks are a recurrent motif, and airships are prominent too). The story is largely confined to imperial palaces, so we don’t get to see the intricacies of everyday life in the Ethuveraz – rather, we learn about court etiquette and the inner workings of the government, which isn’t for everyone.

Maia, the protagonist, is by far the most fleshed-out character. He doesn’t have a lot of influence on the direction of the plot but, at the same time, his thoughts and feelings are the focus of the story. This book is something of a Maia character study.

I’ve seen other reviewers both fawningly and disparagingly call Maia a cinnamon roll who can do no wrong, but I don’t read him that way at all. In fact, Maia can be pretty awful at times. He crashes a funeral to make a point, with little to no regard for the mourners he’s intruding on. He bullies a messenger boy and then feels bad about it, not because he hurt the boy’s feelings but because doing so made him look bad. He has absolutely zero sympathy for a girl who, in his words, “let herself be bullied” and actually punishes her for it. Truly awful. But, in a way, these flaws make him a more compelling character. Maia is a young man struggling not only with unexpected responsibilities, but also with his past. For years he had been the victim of severe abuse, but now he has a great deal of power and doesn’t know what to do with it. The instincts he developed in order to survive and cope aren’t fit for this new situation he finds himself in, and so he ends up lashing out simply because he can, and fretting over others’ opinions of him because he fears their judgement. He straddles the line between being likeable and unlikeable, but I can’t say he isn’t sympathetic.

And while I’m discussing Maia’s moral failings, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that he’s an emperor with dozens of servants tending to his every need while, in the background, children die in workhouses. Which brings me to this book’s politics.

Here we see that common fantasy trope that all the world needs is a Good Monarch™ to set things straight, unlike those Bad Monarchs who do evil. The good are good and the bad are bad, and power in the hands of a good man can only be a good thing. Blah blah blah. I don’t buy it. And there are characters in the book who don’t buy it either.

One of the major antagonistic forces is a group of radicals – terrorists – who assassinated the previous emperor and now have their sights set on Maia. They are motivated by an ideal called “Universal Ascendance” wherein “no man holds power over any other,” which is apparently “a cloud-fancy” at odds with human nature (or elf/goblin nature, I guess). The less radical adherents of this ideology believe in the perpetual accumulation of power which thereby facilitates ascension to godhood (a real-world analogue could be capitalism, perhaps?) but of course it’s the leftists who are wicked and insane. I’m not saying they’re right to plant bombs but they are right to oppose the emperor.

Towards the end of the book the threat is declared over simply because it’s time to wrap things up. It’s a pretty clumsy conclusion that doesn’t make any sense in-universe. But I suppose it’s not important. Like I said, this is an exploration of Maia’s character more than anything else. The plot (if you can call it that) is secondary.

Considering I’ve spent so long picking apart The Goblin Emperor’s flaws and shortcomings, you may be surprised to hear that I did enjoy the book. It’s well-written, it’s compelling, and though there are some aspects which irked me, it’s a good book overall. Though the story isn’t great and the political assertions are dubious, I appreciate Maia so much I can’t bear to give this book a low rating. I probably won’t read the rest of the trilogy, but I don’t regret reading this.

Content Warnings

Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology

David Graeber

5.0

challenging funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

“This is a history which has largely yet to be written, but there are glimmerings.”

What a great little book! It’s nice and short, well formatted, and accessible. I was instantly hooked. And now, after finishing it, I feel inspired. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology is astonishingly thoughtful and thought-provoking for such a quick read.

There are a few subjects on which Graeber could have said more. For example, towards the end of the book, he talks about identity politics. He chooses to focus on the ways in which people are categorised from the outside, with labels (eg: Black) being applied to demographics and signifying how members of that group should behave and be treated; he doesn’t discuss how identities can be used as unifying elements, as tools for political organisation (as in communities of vulnerability). While I do think this is something of an oversight, I don’t think of it as a failure. After all, this book is one of “fragments.” Of course there are going to be gaps or areas which invite more nuanced analysis than a hundred-page book can offer. Graeber seems to be more interested in asking questions than answering them fully – and not only is that okay, that’s kind of the point. He encourages us to think for ourselves rather than seeking instruction from authority.

I highly recommend this book. You’ll probably get more out of it if you’re at least somewhat familiar with anarchism already, but you don’t need to be well read in leftist literature.

Content Warnings

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Peter Kropotkin, Peter Kropotkin

3.0

challenging hopeful informative slow-paced

The premise of Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is simple: cooperation is just as significant as competition – if not more so – in ensuring that a species or community thrives. It is a response to social Darwinism, not only as a counter to those regressive “survival of the fittest” ideas, but also as a mirror, in the sense that Kropotkin uses scientific evidence and appeals to nature to grant his philosophy legitimacy, just as those proponents of eugenics and laissez-faire capitalism do. Kropotkin, conscious that his ideas may be dismissed as utopian, makes a point to present them in a very matter-of-fact, common-sense way. He provides countless examples of mutual aid in action in the animal kingdom and in human societies from ancient past to (then-)present. Though this list of anecdotes is kind of tedious and more cursory than I’d like, it is undeniably accessible – far more accessible than, say, Marx, whose writing is riddled with equations and tables of economic statistics.

Despite being an anarchist and therefore very mindful of hierarchy and injustice, Kropotkin does have his blind spots and shortcomings (as do we all). On many occasions Kropotkin would celebrate the solidarity and benevolence of a given group, then casually mention something horrific like women being taken as spoils of war. It’s unclear, in these instances, what his intention is. Does he just not recognise how fucked up this is? Is he trying to make a point about humans being capable of both good and evil? It’s jarring either way, and odd because one of the things I admired in The Conquest of Bread was his consideration of women.

He is somewhat critical of racism, though obviously not as critical as he could be. Throughout the book, Kropotkin uses several terms which today would be considered racial slurs, though he does often put “savage” in quotes, presumably to demonstrate his disapproval of the phrase. He is sceptical of certain claims made about indigenous peoples – he argues that cannibalism emerges in times of scarcity, that “eye for an eye” conceptions of justice are just as prevalent in Western Europe as they are in native tribes, and so on. He also notes that much of what we supposedly know about these tribes comes from the observations of genocidal colonisers. That said, he does agree that the Khoekhoen (not the word he used) are “filthy” and “occupy one of the lowest degrees on the human scale.” He also seems to take empire and colonisation for granted, and his sociological analysis is decidedly Eurocentric.

I don’t think Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is as good as The Conquest of Bread, personally, even though a lot of people say it’s better. I can say this much: I appreciate what Kropotkin was going for.

Content Warnings

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic

Daisy Butcher

3.5

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844) – 4.0☆

Evil Roots is off to a strong start. Hawthorne isn’t secretive about his influences (namely the story of Adam and Eve, Dante’s Inferno, and some Indian legends about poisonous maidens), but it’s the way he subverts these tales rather than simply retelling them that makes this story engaging and unique.

The American’s Tale by Arthur Conan Doyle (1880) – 2.5☆

Doyle floats the idea of a flytrap large enough to eat humans but doesn’t really do anything with it. Pretty forgettable.

Carnivorine by Lucy H Hooper (1889) – 3.5☆

Okay so the monster in this story is pretty goofy but the concept behind it is so good. I love the combination of science and mythology, though the premise is a little too fantastical to be convincing science fiction.

The Giant Wistaria by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1891) – 3.0☆

A sad beginning and a sad end, with some cute banter in the middle. Not nearly as enthralling as The Yellow Wallpaper, unfortunately. The titular wisteria isn’t particularly relevant to the story, so it feels like a bit of a reach to claim this as an example of “botanical gothic.”

The Flowering of the Strange Orchid by H G Wells (1894) – 3.0☆

Could have done without the racism.

The Guardian of Mystery Island by Edmond Nolcini (1896) – 2.5☆

I don’t know, I just found this story really uninteresting.

The Ash Tree by M R James (1904) – 3.0☆

It’s fine? It’s very similar to The Giant Wistaria in a lot of ways, and, likewise, it’s not quite what I was hoping for.

A Vine on a House by Ambrose Bierce (1905) – 4.5☆

Concise!

Professor Jonkin’s Cannibal Plant by Howard R Garis (1905) – 3.5☆

Perfectly serviceable, if a little silly. I’m not surprised that this author went on to write for children; his somewhat whimsical tone is probably better suited to bedtime storybooks about bunny rabbits than it is to horror stories about insatiable pitcher plants.

The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson (1906) – 3.5☆

This story deals with a fungus rather than a plant, but I suppose that’s still botanical – or at least botany-adjacent. The setup is promising but the tension is completely dissipated when the narrative shifts to an expositional monologue.

The Pavilion by Edith Nesbit (1915) – 3.5☆

A little underwhelming but certainly not bad.

The Green Death by H C McNeile (1920) – 3.0☆

A murder mystery with a twist. Quaint 1920s phrases, not-so-quaint glorification of colonialism.

The Woman of the Wood by Abraham Merritt (1926) – 4.0☆

Beautiful. Haunting. Mentions breasts a lot. The protagonist is a WWI veteran who was clearly very deeply affected by his experiences. His trauma relating to violence is explored, but so is his philosophy and outlook; he conceives of everything – including deforestation – in terms of war. Surprisingly nuanced characterisation for a short story.

The Moaning Lily by Emma Vane (1935) – 4.5☆

Evocative imagery, a straightforward plot, and a nice amount of body horror. Vane doesn’t overcomplicate things. A satisfying conclusion to the collection.

Content Warnings

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