patlo's Reviews (1.32k)

Probably my favorite book by this author, and the others are also five stars. A fantastic relationship drama with twist and turn after twist and turn, and great relation and character dynamics. Love in the time of climate collapse. 10% into this one and I ordered my own print copy to put on the shelf and reread.

Weird trippy wild dystopian AI thriller. Arkady Martine is an amazing writer and storyteller.

This is a DEEEEP dive into the history of the Luddite movement, and it does a great job of resetting our misconceptions about what that actually means (HINT: It's not "fear of technology", it's "concern that technology is used to enrich the owner class at the expense of the working class").

LOTS of facts, details, story, names. LOTS. I skimmed quite a bit. It's a good setup, and the later sections that investigate the themes of the Luddites/Ludd/Luddism in modern technology context of gig work and LLM/AI, that was really good. Repetitive at times, but good. 

It's a worthwhile read, but you may need to assemble your own impacts from all the data presented.

Interesting idea, and intriguing characters in the beginning, but I found that over time I wasn’t very well attached to them and didn’t feel the story building. Kinda corny in places. Liked it, didn’t love it. Bonus points, the author read the audiobook and does a wonderful job.