Reviews and Comments

Walter Rodney's book is dense but very readable. It's an excellent education for someone who may not have learned much about the history of Africa. It makes a strong case that the problems of development that face the people of Africa were created by foreign imperialism and exploitation, not something fundamentally wrong or backward in Africa.

The African people were doing just fine before Europeans arrived with ships and guns and proceeded to extract African wealth, goods, mineral resources, and people for hundreds of years. In the 20th century the people of Africa managed to educate and organize themselves and push out colonial governments, but there's a lot to recover from and still much work to do.

Some things to be aware of: The book was first published in 1972, so it's somewhat dated. The history is still relevant of course, but I do wonder what more the author would have had to say later if he hadn't been assassinated. Also the book is written from a Marxist perspective, and so throughout the book there is an implication that socialist states are the solution. A whole lot less capitalism would almost certainly be an improvement, but depending on how you feel about the history of socialist states, the enthusiasm for the state might seem excessive. I could not agree with the author's assertion that only capitalist states engage in imperialism.

In summary, it's an excellent history lesson, and I suggest reading with a filter for "written from a Marxist perspective from over 50 years ago."

Becky Chambers shows us a hopeful future. Sure, the world she creates still has familiar problems like bigotry, exploitation, and war. But most of the characters we see are fairly open minded, diverse, emotionally intelligent, and culturally sensitive.

I really started to appreciate the book more about 2/3 of the way through. All the world building and character development of the beginning finally led up to some interesting social commentary and ethical questions, as well as some queer bits. At one point we meet a character who had to pretend to be something they weren't to survive in their society, until they were able to escape to get treatment to fully become what they knew they were inside. Which seemed like an obvious trans metaphor to me.

I love how the book ends with an open ethical question that the author doesn't resolve for us. We only get to see a bit of the aftermath, but she leaves it to the reader to decide what was right.

A warning, this book is primarily driven by character interaction and world building, not narrative and plot. From what I've heard that turned some people off. I loved it though.

I was intrigued to hear of this novel where every printed copy is a unique variation. Would the flow of the novel suffer? Would the seams show? Would it feel contrived? Is it just gimmick?

I'm happy to report that the experiment turned out very well, at least in my copy generated from seed #44346. If I had read the novel with no context I wouldn't have guessed it was assembled from text variations.

It's a horror novel, creepy not gory. Well maybe some variations get gory, I don't know. (hmm, this is hard to review)

It's also gay coming of age story. The narrator is a gay college student in the 1990s, with an unrequited crush on his best friend. He eventually works through that... after a series of horrifying events. I think it's likely that element exists in all versions of the book.

And the uniqueness of every book copy? Not a gimmick. It ties into the story the author wanted to tell. Aaron Reed did a magnificent job. I'll probably read another version of the book some day.