User Profile

Shift acts as the prequel to Wool, filling in the background and lore around the events and the world.

And that's it's function.

And I find 50% of this book engaging, 50% of this book ... dull. Really dull. And it might be the opposite for some people. I enjoyed the primary plot involving the politics and Congress and following that group, but I honestly couldn't give a smurf about the other residents for this book.

Having some sense of where this book was likely to go, the other plot lines felt really irrelevant, and just a carrier to get back to the main plot. I would have been happy with a few hundred pages less.

My history says this is the second read through, and I swear I only remember less than half from the first time. Let's see if any more sticks.

Cory Doctorow's Red Team Blues introduces Martin Hench, a middle aged, one last job before retirement forensic accountant who gets wrapped up in a job gone bad involving cryptocurrency, digital keys, trust and the mafia.

As someone with one foot in this space, it's an accessible read, that rings more true than most media I see in this space. I like Martin Hench, and he feels very ... familiar in lots of ways. I know Cory has written more Martin Hench stories since, and I can see the longevity and space for development in the character.

The treatment of tech is good, and I hope that Cory writes in such a way that new readers will find it accessible enough. If not, light googling should fill in the blanks. It's arguably easier to pick up from a standing start than a John le Carré.

Great story, great fun. Highly enjoyable.

Bought as a gift, I had no expectations beyond the blurb.

Al Hess provides an insider view to being an autistic queer during an apocolypse. That's about as close to an accurate description as I think I can manage. From sensory issues, to relationships, to food, to other queer people in a small town, to things going ... sideways on all fronts, Al Hess has managed to pull a novel together that's pretty amazing.

Each character is very fully developed, no one is a trope, although tropes are exploited. The main story twists well, as Denver is not just working through a world ending scenario, but their relationships with the people and town around them.

Despite being my last book of the year, one of my favourites.

This is a collection of essays from Aaron's blog, spanning from the early 1970s through to the 2010s, detailing the evolution of text games, from early terminal based games through to online games and interactive art.

This goes beyond a collection of blog articles. Each individual essay was already well crafted, but these have been edited, expanded, annotated, and turned in to a cohesive history. This is really a comphrehensive history of text gaming. Exploring genres that I didn't expect to see, I took my time with this in both hardcover and e-book format, and took notes as I went for games that I had no idea about and have built up a nice comprehensive list of new games I want to explore. Aaron's knowledge and enthusiasm is infectious, and he's spent real time getting to know each game, and somehow turning building a narrative over the entire book.

I picked this up from a charity book stall in a supermarket. I had no expectations.

What I got was a thoroughly detailed history and commentary of the working class, it's political power, how it's been treated by those with power, and when things and have gone well and poorly.

It's staggeringly good. I've spent a few months on it, because it's needed real attention to digest. If you have an interest in class and politics, and you're especially curious about how politicians and those with power treat the working class, and the effect it has had, this book delivers.

In 2008 Luciano Garbati created "Medusa with the Head of Perseus", and a modern version of the Medusa myth was lodged in minds, of a defiant strong woman taking revenge on her agressors.

That's not the Medusa myth Natalie Haynes tells.

Natalie tells the story of Medusa the victim, who did nothing wrong except exist and was tormented, tortured and then killed. Even after death, she's still a weapon, used by a cowardly mortal who solves all his problems with death. The Gods have done nothing but do what Gods do, which is use her as a pawn for her entire existence.

This is not a triumpant story, it's a story about the roles women play in society, and their relationships with Gods and men.

@ukscone@fosstodon.org Well I had no idea that was a thing, but I do now. That's on the list for some quiet time.

Walkaway embaces the idea of non compliance and co-operation, building a better future by leaving the trappings of capitalism behind. It's distinctly post-capitalist novel, which makes a strong effort to embrace anarchist ideals. Some of those ideals extend beyond the now, and a lot of the ideas are really quite big. It also presents some really uncomfortable questions and ideas, that don't necessarily sit easily. Walkaway starts on the idea of walking away from objects and things, but gradually starts exploring the idea of walking away from your own identity. I'm not entirely sure if some of those questions were intentional, but they left me pondering for days at the end of the book.

Well done.