Man did I enjoy this more than I expected to. It was an impulse buy – thanks Barnes and Noble for the “buy two get the third free” deals that always get me to buy books I might not otherwise … damn your siren song! – and it just seemed like the kind of book that could easily be dry and bloodless. I’ve read too many dystopias that veer into freshman philosophy territory, derailed by how terrible everything is and how humanity is doomed to […]
“If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely f*cked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around.”
3.5 stars The Water Knife is compelling mostly in its premise: the American southwest — featuring primarily California, Arizona, Nevada, and southern Colorado — is basically bone dry. To sustain their urban populations, these states have employed muscle to go on and off the book and secure water rights, which are primarily proprietary channels drawing from the low but still flowing Colorado River. In the wake of decades of sustained drought, those cities and states that haven’t come out on top of the pile are […]
An epic fantasy anthology, cherry-picked from other sources.
This was a pretty great anthology. I was probably destined to like it because it’s pretty hard for me to dislike most kinds of fantasy. This is also different than some anthologies because the editor didn’t commission pieces for this book, but collected them from other already published sources. I sampled a lot of authors I’ve been meaning to try for some time, although I’m annoyed that some of the stories occur halfway through a series or something like that. If you like Epic fantasy […]
Caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea…
Target: Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1) Profile: Speculative Fiction, Young Adult There is a gritty reality to Paolo Bacigalupi’s work. A grim straightforwardness that crushes the optimism older SF styles. On its own, this same honesty produces brilliantly brutal speculative fiction, like Windup Girl. But there is a necessary optimism to Young Adult literature that is at odds with Bacigalupi’s tone. Ship Breaker lives in artificial space between two styles, carving out its own literary niche, but at the same time feeling discordant and incomplete. And yet, it […]