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enne📚 commented on Power to Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács

Bogi Takács: Power to Yield and Other Stories (2023, Broken Eye Books)

Power to Yield is a collection of speculative tales exploring gender identity, neurodivergence, and religion …

I added this to the SFFBookClub poll for the month of January because I super enjoyed it.

If you don't know about it, the SFFBookClub is our informal fediverse science fiction and fantasy book club. I figure that folks from bookwyrm probably might be more interested in reading and talking about books so I wanted to post this here as well. We vote, read a book together, and then discuss via the #SFFBookClub hashtag over the course of the month. Take a look if any of these books sound interesting to you and you want to read along with others.

See: weirder.earth/@picklish/113660284130610947 for January poll

See: sffbookclub.eatgod.org/ for more general details

Tak! reviewed The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain

5 stars

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is a deeply dark yet eventually hopeful look at the continuation of current societal structures into space.

#SFFBookClub

Tak! quoted The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …

He spoke with an odd accent, intelligible but mushy, as if he held a small object in his mouth.

— The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Ah, space danish

#SFFBookClub

Tak! quoted The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …

The woman woke to the crackling of her anklet and knew the boy had come upstairs. She leaned toward her clock: the numbers glowed 06:00. The stars outside the window were growing pale. She would not sleep again now.

— The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

my every single morning

#SFFBookClub

Tak! quoted The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Sofia Samatar: The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain (EBook, 2024, Tor Publishing Group)

The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …

The boy was taken upstairs without warning, unprotesting as he had been through all the changes in his seventeen years, the shifts from cell to cell each time he outgrew the bolt on his ankle and the Doctor came to exchange it for a larger one, an operation performed with a tool the Hold people called the Mallet, which jarred the whole leg and sometimes made the blood spray from the anklebone, and caused a sense of queasiness and superstitious awe in the boy, who would glimpse, for the instant during which the bolt and chain were removed, the shiny and alien-looking patch of underexposed skin on his leg which, according to the prophet, housed the seat of the soul.

— The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

That … is quite the #OpeningSentence

#SFFBookClub

Tak! commented on The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …

The #SFFBookClub pick for December 2024

Tak! commented on Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer

Angélica Gorodischer: Kalpa Imperial (2003, Small Beer Press)

No rating

«Oh, sí, mis buenas gentes, sí, ya lo creo que sí. Se puede vivir en …

The #SFFBookClub pick for October 2024

Tak! reviewed Counterweight by Anton Hur

Counterweight

4 stars

Counterweight is a nearish-future scifi thriller set on the island of Patusan, which I have just learned today has a long literary legacy.

The plot follows an unnamed employee of the LK Corporation as he attempts to unravel a series of events revolving around the world's first space elevator, erected by LK on Patusan. I enjoyed the originality of the setting, but I found the whole thing fairly convoluted and somewhat difficult to follow.

The dystopian corporation-state future where having a literal worm implanted in your brain is a condition of employment is becoming all too plausible at this point.

#SFFBookClub

Tak! quoted Counterweight by Anton Hur

“Your mother is going to be a star,” said the man in the gray uniform.

— Counterweight by Anton Hur, Djuna

#OpeningSentence #SFFBookClub

Tak! commented on Counterweight by Anton Hur

The #SFFBookClub selection for September 2024

Tak! commented on The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Vajra Chandrasekera: The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

The #SFFBookClub pick for August 2024

Tak! reviewed Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

"A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small …

Moon of the Crusted Snow

4 stars

Content warning plot discussion

This reads like a parable of the european takeover of the americas, except that the natives realized their mistake (just) in time this time around.

There wasn't much scifi or fantasy, except for the implied apocalypse that happened out of frame.

I was constantly frustrated with the characters for not being more proactive about stuff like: checking what happened with the power, being suspicious of Scott, following up on Scott after multiple red flags, etc. - but maybe I'm having unrealistic expectations about characters who don't know they're in a story.

I liked the strong themes of community and mutual support, even in the face of (imo realistic) uneven participation.

Overall a good read, I enjoyed it.

#SFFBookClub

Tak! quoted Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

"A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small …

A crack echoed through the boreal landscape, a momentary chaos in the still afternoon air.

— Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

#OpeningSentence #SFFBookClub

Tak! commented on Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

"A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small …

The July 2024 #SFFBookClub pick

Tak! reviewed David Mogo by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

Suyi Davies Okungbowa: David Mogo (Paperback, 2019, Abaddon)

Nigerian God-Punk - a powerful and atmospheric urban fantasy set in Lagos.

Since the Orisha …

David Mogo: Godhunter

4 stars

In a lot of ways, this reminds me of the Akata series, but for adults - Nigerian setting, making friends and enemies with supernatural entities, Nsibidi script as magic writing, etc. (This is not a criticism of the Akata series, I love them.)

The setting was the best part of this for me - I enjoyed postapocalyptic, god-ravaged Lagos.

I appreciate that David is imperfect and fallible - he makes mistakes, fails, etc., and it has real consequences for him.

The first section (book? sub-book?) was my favorite, followed by the second - as the story progressed, I felt like it kept getting progressively more frantic and less coherent.

Overall, I enjoyed it, though, and I'm looking forward to more.

#SFFBookClub