I have #mecfs so I have a lot of time for reading, mostly #fantasy and #SciFi but I'm happy to dip into nearly anything.
Ratings: 1 star: I didn't like it 2 stars: it was okay 3 stars: I liked it 4 stars: I really liked it 5 stars: it was brilliant
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It’s footy season in Melbourne, and Helen Garner is following her grandson’s under-16s team. She …
The author shadows her grandson's under-16 Aussie Rules team for a season. A glimpse from the boundary line of boys on the cusp on manhood, the solidarity of teammates, the strange spiritual appeal of sport. Wonderfully written & absorbing, but it's still just footy and Melburnians are weird.
A worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Watership Down is one of the most beloved …
The trials & adventures of rabbits setting up a new warren: strange cultures, claw-biting escapades and the terror of war. Similar to Wind in the Willows but the anthropomorphism is weaker and the characters less vibrant. It's just as misogynistic: does are thought of as mere 'breeding stock', though worth fighting over. Drags along though it builds to a decent climax.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a Gothic novella by Scottish author …
When our baser urges are allowed to run free, they end up dominating. Disturbing, even if the 'science' is a bit amusing.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published …
By day Ogata Shingo, an elderly Tokyo businessman, is troubled by small failures of memory. …
In post-war Japan, an aging man grapples ineffectually with the autumn of his life, the failure of his children's marriages, and his slightly inappropriate relationship with his daughter-in-law. Calmly mellow & unfocussed, much like old age might be.
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In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one …
A few aspects of the story will strike 21st century readers as quaint, naive, or dated. For example the reliance on hypnosis as a foolproof method of making people dream whatever you want them to dream. However, this is a minor quibble, and the overall story arc is truly haunting, thought-provoking, and unsettling. It's sweet and beautiful in places, too. No wonder it's a classic.
In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one …
A man's dreams shape reality, and his therapist uses him as a tool to fix the wrongs in the world. But if utopia lacks free will, diversity & creativity, is it still utopia?
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What will the fracturing of the United States look like? After the Revolution is an …
Excellent transhumanist post-apocalypse sci fi adventuring, reckless and fucked up in all senses of the phrase, but also a meditation on trauma and how we cope with it. Worth checking out for the following:
-Rolling Fuck, a mobile city full of posthumans who are mostly high out of their minds -the Big Bad being really awful Christian supremacists -the awful Christian supremacists getting their fucking asses kicked from here to high heaven. Or hell, more likely.
Technically that's a spoiler, but that outcome is something of a foregone conclusion. The truly interesting parts of the plot are about how the people on the "right" side, if there is such a thing, try to prevent themselves from turning into monsters in their fight to stay free, and how they deal with it when they kinda turn into monsters anyway.
One point deducted only because the writing is a bit stiff in …
Excellent transhumanist post-apocalypse sci fi adventuring, reckless and fucked up in all senses of the phrase, but also a meditation on trauma and how we cope with it. Worth checking out for the following:
-Rolling Fuck, a mobile city full of posthumans who are mostly high out of their minds -the Big Bad being really awful Christian supremacists -the awful Christian supremacists getting their fucking asses kicked from here to high heaven. Or hell, more likely.
Technically that's a spoiler, but that outcome is something of a foregone conclusion. The truly interesting parts of the plot are about how the people on the "right" side, if there is such a thing, try to prevent themselves from turning into monsters in their fight to stay free, and how they deal with it when they kinda turn into monsters anyway.
One point deducted only because the writing is a bit stiff in places; the ideas and the story are fantastic but high literature it is not.
How did life come about, how does it work, how does it seemingly defy entropy, and what has information theory & quantum mechanics got to do with it? Doesn't quite manage the clearest explanations, leaving me on the cusp of comprehension, but then the underlying concepts are at the forefront of human knowledge. Life, even in its simplest forms, is amazing and incredibly improbable.
Pride and Prejudice is a romance novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The …
Long-time viewer (BBC only, thank you), but first-time reader (well, listener), and it did not disappoint. If anything the Bennetts are even nuttier. Love Lizzie's snark, and the frission with D'Arcy is frustratingly delectable. Really doesn't work as a #SleepStory though!
downtosleep.podbean.com/e/pride-and-prejudice-audiobook-part-1-down-to-sleep-122/
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This comes at a time when I am thinking about the very same thing: how much, throughout my life—in friendships, in groups, in romantic relationships—have I been myself?
… and just how much did I conform to expectations? And was it necessary in order to have these relationships at all, or more because I was conditioned to, or …?
At 39, I have to ask myself: who even am I? What's “me” in this pleasant persona I've built?
It is not little, I'm not saying that. But coming to terms with all the harm having to mask did is no small task.
A doomed romance in early 20th century Japan. Interminably slow, with frequent tangential digressions into philosophy and description. Nearly gave up but something finally happened 100 pages in. The climax verges on the tragi-comic, but it's mostly just brooding & hopeless. I was intrigued by the nobleman who is so elegant that problems solve themselves, hence effortlessly maintaining said elegance.
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Originally I gave this 4 stars because of the implausibility of some of the scifi details, such as the translator symbiont. But reflecting on it, I was like, "that really isn't the point, and it's not any worse than the Babel fish." So, I'm giving this a perfect rating for being smutty romance that actually made me laugh and root for the protagonists to prevail in their conflicts.
MC is a wildlife biologist, out on the savannah, studying meerkats. Suddenly she gets attacked by a lion! But then neon-colored bird-like aliens abduct them both! And then she and the lion (whom she names Toto) make friends and escape from the bird aliens, only to crash land on a planet full of dinosaurs as well as sexy goat-man aliens. The sex is pretty hot, but there's a t-rex chasing them as well as a villain they have to fight. The whole …
Originally I gave this 4 stars because of the implausibility of some of the scifi details, such as the translator symbiont. But reflecting on it, I was like, "that really isn't the point, and it's not any worse than the Babel fish." So, I'm giving this a perfect rating for being smutty romance that actually made me laugh and root for the protagonists to prevail in their conflicts.
MC is a wildlife biologist, out on the savannah, studying meerkats. Suddenly she gets attacked by a lion! But then neon-colored bird-like aliens abduct them both! And then she and the lion (whom she names Toto) make friends and escape from the bird aliens, only to crash land on a planet full of dinosaurs as well as sexy goat-man aliens. The sex is pretty hot, but there's a t-rex chasing them as well as a villain they have to fight. The whole thing is entertaining as hell. I just wish that Toto the lion got more air time. His character was hilarious. I would love to read a spinoff novel about his adventures with his sabertooth queen.
As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide …
A lonely witch finds family & love when she is sought out to tutor three young witchy girls. A cosy romantic fantasy. Some enlivening characters and fun use of magic. Very 'House by the Cerulean Sea'.
Two sisters deal with the aging of their estranged parents, the mother psychopathically unhinged and the father cowed & abused. Morbidly fascinating but scattered and purposeless.
