Ian Brown started reading Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Inheriting your mysterious uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might imagine.
Sure, there …
Looking forward to this. Need a brain-floss book.
Reviews and Comments
XML apologist. Erlang enthusiast. Currently JVMs & Performance stuff at Netflix. Previously JVMs & performative stuff at Twitter. He/him.
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Ian Brown started reading Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz
Acclaimed Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz presents a groundbreaking social history of the internet—revealing how …
Looking forward to starting @taylorlorenz@mastodon.social's new book.
Ian Brown started reading Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
A rather compelling read so far.
Ian Brown started reading Dust by Hugh Howey
Here we go again. Not sure I am emotionally ready for a return to this universe.
Ian Brown started reading Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
I am reading this not to understand Elon Musk. I don't give a shit what made him a damaged human, bigot, and all around dickhead. I just want to read the parts about the Twitter takeover and the aftermath.
Ian Brown reviewed The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore
Grim, full of death and disappointment,
4 stars
Tough to read many of these. Children, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers...so many meet a sad end. Also wild to see the accepted practices of the world at the turn of the century. Worth a read, but buckle up and brace yourself for a rough go.
Ian Brown finished reading The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore
Pretty grim...stories from another age, full of death and disappointment.
Ian Brown rated Stowaway to Mars: 3 stars
Ian Brown started reading Stowaway to Mars by John Wyndham
For the Wyndham!
Ian Brown reviewed The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
From science fiction visionary Annalee Newitz comes The Terraformers, a sweeping, uplifting, and illuminating exploration …
.@annaleen@wandering.shop's epic tale of #enshittification on a geologic time scale.
4 stars
A really wonderful take on colonization and identity. Fast paced and full of some truly original takes on technology and the balances (and imbalances) of power resulting from the dynamics of capitalism in a seemingly post-scarcity era.
Who owns the land? What is intelligence and what rights (if any) does intelligence deserve? What if naked mole rats could talk and what if Miyazaki's catbus was part of an anarchist collective that lived under an active volcano?
These and many other questions are wrestled with in the this light and heavy sci-fi gem.
Ian Brown started reading The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
From science fiction visionary Annalee Newitz comes The Terraformers, a sweeping, uplifting, and illuminating exploration …
SCIFI FTW
Ian Brown reviewed Shift by Hugh Howey
Shift happens.
4 stars
Content warning Mild ones, really, but maybe read the book first.
Not quite as compelling as the first, but man, still a mind-bender. Mild spoiler here is it does travel into the past. One of the things that makes "Wool" so good is it is entirely in the future. That provides the prose some latitude and that can help make or break a book when it starts to get into the awkward drama around social mechanics and institutions we are already familiar with. Anyway, before you read this write down the Silo numbers from wool, and the names of the key characters. Also don't look up anything online because spoilers abound.
Ian Brown reviewed The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
I needed that!
5 stars
Holy smokes! This was such a fun read by @scalzi@mastodon.social. Funny as hell, and with barely any tears. Maybe even no tears if you are a desiccated and empty shell like so many of us these days. Anyway, this book is brain-floss perfection, full of laughs and wit. The auther, per the note at the end, wrote this in 2021 after COVID and January 6th and writer's block and at least one existential crisis. Coincidentally I read this book after a week of the family and I, hundreds of miles from home and alledgedly on vacation, dealing with our second trip through COVID. I'd also just ripped through the first two books of Hugh Howey's "Silo" series ("Wool" & "Shift") while in the grips of the virus. Those are pretty heavy reads, and a mild fever only added to the emotional weight. This book was the perfect antidote to …
Holy smokes! This was such a fun read by @scalzi@mastodon.social. Funny as hell, and with barely any tears. Maybe even no tears if you are a desiccated and empty shell like so many of us these days. Anyway, this book is brain-floss perfection, full of laughs and wit. The auther, per the note at the end, wrote this in 2021 after COVID and January 6th and writer's block and at least one existential crisis. Coincidentally I read this book after a week of the family and I, hundreds of miles from home and alledgedly on vacation, dealing with our second trip through COVID. I'd also just ripped through the first two books of Hugh Howey's "Silo" series ("Wool" & "Shift") while in the grips of the virus. Those are pretty heavy reads, and a mild fever only added to the emotional weight. This book was the perfect antidote to wherever the fuck my head was at after all of that, and a great way to use one of the few remaining days of our "vacation". Anyway, what I am trying to say is that this a wonderfully written, fast-moving, fun-as-heck rip of a read.
You will love it. Probably.
Ian Brown started reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Figured I need a break from the Wool/Silo universe for a day or two.
Ian Brown started reading Shift by Hugh Howey
Here we go!