neixin's reviews
189 reviews

i enjoyed this installment a bit more than the first one, mostly because i really liked how effortlessly martha wells wove in themes of agency, and caring for others as an active choice. also ART was such a great addition; its dynamic with murderbot is just so charming and fun! part of me wants to give it a higher rating but same as with all systems red, i was very tempted to skim most of the techy explanations…and there were quite a few of them. i still read it in two sittings though, so i clearly had a blast, my tragicomic lack of patience for the sci part of scifi notwithstanding.

very clever and fun! i would’ve loved it more had it been either shorter or more character-focused but i overall really enjoyed it. also, the audiobook narrator absolutely ate!!

what an ambitious start to a series! i have to applaud lyons for her ability to toss nearly every fantasy trope imaginable into the mix and somehow miraculously end up with something that doesn’t feel Far Too Excessive. she clearly has an excellent grasp of the story she wants to tell, and she knows how and when to reveal pieces of it to the reader. i’m also absolutely enamored with the structure —a story told through two alternating perspectives, starting at different points in the timeline, within a story within a document, with footnotes. i’ve seen other reviews call it unnecessary and distracting but i found it to be such a fun, unique, and effective way to tell this story.

i really liked a lot of the characters but i do wish i got to know some of them better…which is an admittedly unfair criticism because there’s four more whole books where i’m sure my wishes will be granted. so i guess this is more of a me-struggling-with-series issue rather than an issue with the book itself, since it did a good job intriguing me enough to continue onto the second book.

the one actual criticism i have is that a lot of the peoples that appear throughout the story are described in very simplistic ways that i can’t help but side-eye. that said, given that the story is clearly focused in part on imperialism, i’m willing to give lyons the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was done with the intention of getting challenged later in the series. for now though, i have to question the need for it.

what a fun little novella <3 the dynamic between murderbot and the humans it totally doesn’t care about except yes it does is so charming and sweet and was definitely the highlight for me. i also enjoyed the comedy a lot, and thought it was balanced with the tension of the plot really well. the only thing holding me back from giving it a higher rating is that my brain did shut down whenever there was any kind of techy explanation. which is fully on me. i actually don’t think those parts are objectively too long or difficult to understand, it’s just that i personally either struggle to grasp them, don’t find them interesting, or both, and that did occasionally pull me out of the story.

i’m really liking it but i’m struggling to read the physical copy bc of my wrist issues </3 i’ll come back to it in a different format later for sure though!

i’m in awe that an anthology that includes so many writers and translators, and such a wide range of stories managed to be so consistently fantastic. in awe, i tell u!

of course, there were some stories i loved more than others, but there wasn’t a single story i disliked, which has literally never happened to me with an anthology before. i wish i could review each story but i’m having a flareup (</3) so instead, i’m gonna group them by how much i enjoyed them (they’re not ranked within the categories though, i’m just listing them in the order they appear in the collection). i might go back and add individual reviews later.

i also enjoyed the essays a lot. part of me wishes they’d been longer but i also don’t think that that necessarily would’ve worked for this collection; it’s just that i could read a lot more of these authors’ thoughts on translation and gender. my one real nitpick (and it’s a criticism i always have whenever bl gets brought up in nonfiction) is that ni’s essay net novels and the “she era”: how internet novels opened the door for female readers and writers in china presents danmei only from the angle of providing a space for female audiences to explore their desires, without touching on how frequently this leads to the fetishization of gay men…granted, that wasn’t the focus of the essay, and i’m admittedly more sensitive to this than your average reader because i’ve read, written and translated a frankly ridiculous amount of nonfiction about bl, and more nuanced takes of the genre are disappointingly few and far between. hence it being just a nitpick, but one i did have to rant about for a second. the rest of the essay was very informative though, or a great overview if the topic is one you’re already familiar with. my favorite essays were definitely yilin wang’s translation as retelling: an approach to translating gu shi’s “to procure jade” and ling chen’s “the name of the dragon”, and emily xueni jin’s is there such a thing as feminine quietness? a cognitive linguistics perspective, both of which offered really great views on different aspects of translation in succinct bite-sized chunks. not that i would’ve complained if they’d been longer.

(thrashing on the floor bawling my eyes out) it’s about the LOVE

this hooked me instantly with an introduction of the protagonist as a lively, flirty scribe (who sucks at math!! a woman after my own dyscalculic heart), and then immediately lost me with its breakneck pace that refused to linger on literally anything. i wasn’t confused—if that had been the case, i probably would’ve been intrigued enough to keep going—but i certainly couldn’t bring myself to care about a damn thing. 

i’ve also seen multiple reviews point out that this seems to be a world with only women in it which….i’m not saying it can’t be done well, but i am saying that, as a nonbinary reader, i don’t find it particularly fun or quirky which is clearly the tone this story’s going for.