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I also really enjoyed volume 2. However, I should point out to others that, unlike the first volume, it contains a horror element. But I enjoyed the ride and the new alliances. Oh, and unlike in the last book, I was more attached to the human characters.

The epilogue is somewhat strange but optimistic. That's why I read sci-fi!

... sind schwarze Löcher deshalb, weil alle sie interessant finden, meint die Autorin. Ich kann ihr da nicht widersprechen. Das Buch ist unterhaltsam und verständlich geschrieben. Die von der Autorin angefertigten Illustrationen passen wunderbar dazu und auch die farbig gedruckten Photos sind toll. Ich kann jedem an Astronomie/ Astrophysik interessierten Menschen dieses Buch nur wärmstens empfehlen.

If you've never read King before, you should probably steer clear of this book until then. But if you have, the beginning and ending are definitely worth reading. I should mention that I didn't read the book for the writing tips. You can probably find more suitable ones for that cause, I think. The middle section (which is the main part) reminded me a bit of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. You learn to paint like Ross, but do you also learn to find your own style? In any case, the anecdotes from King's life are pure gold.

CWs for drugs, murder, suicide.

First there were two generation ships. Then somebody blew up Titania, leaving Olympia to continue the journey alone.

Oichi survived by accident - she couldn't get her preferred job a a scientist on Titania due to class-based discrimination, so she emigrated to Olympia. Fortunately she has implants given to her by her father before he died. She thinks they just provide her access to her father's immense music library, but they do so much more, including opening her up to communication with mysterious non-human intelligences. Then again, is she even human...?

A compelling space adventure with distinct noir mystery tones.

"I don't believe in safe spaces. They don't exist. I do, however, believe in dangerous stories" Sounds great, I'm in.

Tell Me I'm Worthless is a gritty horror story that kind of devolves into a disturbing stream of consciousness while simultaneously being an analysis of the persistence of populist fascism in England. It follows Alice and Ila, two friends+ living through the fallout of surviving a shared traumatic event. There's a lot going on here.

content warnings: rape, explicit and severe transphobia, literal Nazi themes/imagery, extreme violence

Natürlich überspitzt, aber definitiv zum Denken anregend. Mit vielen der genannten Vorurteile sehe ich mich selbst heute noch immer wieder konfrontiert. Ein paar positive Beispiele hätten aber sicher nicht geschadet.

This book has a number of flaws but it does one thing well - the author is very inventive in creating a zoo of fantastic/magical animals. Those passages describing the animals, their behaviour and their enclosures are the best part of the book. She also seems to be rather knowledgable about the work behind the scenes of a zoo. If you're in any part critical of zoos, though, this book would be very frustrating. The only criticism is only presented once and is rather superficial. I appreciate the effort of the author to make the protagonist someone with anxiety but unfortunately, she comes off as rather annoying and also immature for someone her age for about half of the book. There thankfully is some character growth eventually. The pace picks up at around the halfway mark and while the mystery turns out to be somewhat predictable in the end, I enjoyed the book overall. Objectively, it only merits 3 stars but it felt more like 4, so I'll settle at 3.5.

I really like the way that Interference takes the themes from its predecessor and extends them in different directions, without just being like "and this is the next thing that happened to all the same characters".

I particularly enjoyed the way she wove in the contingent from Earth - it reminded me strongly of the later books in the Planetfall series.

New humans, new life forms, new explorations - it builds a great new story on the foundation laid in Semiosis.