seaweed's reviews
28 reviews

works every time. parallels parallel. mirrors mirror. complexities of identity working on all the layers. resistance can't be futile. wonderful pacing. love when stories respect their readers and let them think. 

For a book about catholic robots there was not enough robots or explanation on why out of all religions they chose catholicism (other religions are mentioned once). What it is does have is a lot of surprising concepts that do not fit the story being told, and resort to functioning as weak plot devices. Paper thin character writing and pages that have not known an editor. Divine intervention as return to the cultural hegemony. 

one of the most science fiction books ever. 
tale of religious space travel, narrative construction, ethical dilemmas, late night wikipedia binges, and gay nerds. 
experience is greatly elevated if the reader finds themselves a homestuck.

very strong young adult writing. "welcome to the freak squad"

seventy two letters is truly a crazy story. if you want to take a look into the history of science and understand the phrase "you wish for mankind to proliferate through nomenclature", give it a shot.

the other stories felt less impactful, even though the narrators were doing an incredible job (abby craden??? hello???). several of them are about insecurities regarding intelligence, and after finding out that chiang has a degree in comp sci, I am not surprised.

the narrator goes so hard to sell the beautiful and nasty spiraling prose. in a way, you'd need to listen in a cycle to understand it, and I would gladly try. 

everything about this book works so well. 
don't be too quick to judge any murderers because you could be potentially siding with abusers!!! chaos girlfriends fans unite!!!/s

Even though I agree with many of theses, the way they were presented turned me into a hate reader after the second half. There are passages in this book where this comfortable middle class author considers herself "on the edge of society" for not wearing shoes in the backyard of her spacious suburban home or calling trees "she" (#feminism). 

Also, the citation apparatus? Atrocious. Considering the author refers to a different text 3 times a paragraph, one bibliography at the end is not sufficient. If you ever expect people to fact check - or hell, even to learn more about the things you're writing, you'd need to at least do a list of references once a chapter. It's not like she is against footnotes, even, but mostly uses them for mid-tier jokes. 

AND she cites Susan Simard's TED talk instead of literally anything????? Yeah, if you were hoping to learn something about science, look the other way. 

THE book to bridge the gap between marxism, ecology and the current state of the world. it is about mushrooms, yes, but also about people, history and the material conditions that got it here. extremely worthwhile and readable 

young adult writing, meaning 0 respect for the reader's ability to process and/or retain information