Reviews and Comments

This is the sort of near-future sci-fi that's really just one fictional innovation away from the world it was written in, and clearly used as a lens to look at ourselves. It follows one very relatable family and their challenges in adapting--and in some ways being unable to adapt--to a wave of fast social change. I identified strongly enough with each of the main characters in some way that each of their crises broke my heart a little.

The ending wrapped things up a little too neatly and I found that particularly disappointing because it broke the easy belieavability of the rest of the book. But the rest was so good that I can't hold it against book or author.

I read this book a few months ago with the #SFFBookClub. The setting and imagery are still haunting me, but I found the writing itself sort of clumsy, to the point that while actually reading it diminished the impact, much of which came later as I digested the ideas of the book.

This is a quick, fun read that's full of hackneyed themes but made a welcome palate cleanser between some quite heavy books.

Cresswell is a recovering academic geographer, whose poetry is deeply rooted in appreciation of places, particularly London where he lived at the time he wrote this collection. And yet some of the poems I found the most affecting were about the non-places of airports and travel. All in all a wonderful collection.

The first section of this book was hard going because it seemed to be hitting the allegory bat a bit too hard, but it was worth slogging through because once the basic premise was set up Johnson went all kinds of unexpected places with it and the story really took off.

bookwyrm.social/user/eldang/review/26069

I love how this book takes on heavy themes of racism and ostracism with a light but never insubstantial touch. It also contains the best skewering I've yet to read of Portland/Seattle "right-on" but clueless middle-class white culture. I found the resolution at the end a little too quick, as is common in YA books, but I appreciated how it left more complexity and ambiguity at the end than is usual for YA.

This is a strong second book in the series, which doesn't feel quite as rich as Black Tides but does advance the story nicely and draws Mokoya more fully than she had a chance to be drawn in Black Tides.[return][return]Note that Tor markets this as a co-first book in the series, but I think it's much better to start with The Black Tides of Heaven. I read this with a book club who hadn't all read Black Tides yet, and many of us ended up putting this one aside to read that first, and enjoying this one more after.

Delightful book that explains a lot about the shape and formation of Vancouver Island, and ties it all in to very specific notes on about 20 locations that are easy to visit.

A fun read, especially when actually following the chapter guideline of one per day through the month of October, with the story getting darker and weirder as the days get shorter.