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Ell

cincodenada@bookwyrm.cincodenada.com

Joined 5 years, 2 months ago

Admin of bookwyrm.cincodenada.com, as you might expect. Endlessly curious engineer; something approaching, say, genderqueer. Third rhyme with dactyl feet: it goes here.

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Ell's books

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Ted Chiang: Exhalation (Hardcover, 2019, Knopf)

Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity’s oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could …

Review of 'Exhalation' on 'Goodreads'

Some really solid speculative fiction. The good stories are really good (Omphalos, Exhalation, Software Objects, Anxiety), and the collection as a whole was great.

T. Kingfisher: Minor Mage (Paperback, 2019, Argyll Productions)

Oliver was a very minor mage. His familiar reminded him of this several times a …

Review of 'Minor Mage' on 'Goodreads'

Delightful, thoughtful, and wonderfully written. I adored this tale of a boy and his wise armadillo friend, full of heart and life and sarcastic cingulates. It's a tale of growth, struggling to find your footing in this messy world of morality, and learning to trust advice of those who have your best interests at heart, even as you have to learn things for yourself sometimes too.

Which is why I wholeheartedly agree with the author that it's a kids' book - it's just a kids' book that believes kids are people and treats them like they are. The world needs more kids' books like this one, I think.

Yoon Ha Lee: Dragon Pearl (Hardcover, 2019, Rick Riordan Presents)

THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD MIN comes from a long line of fox spirits. But you'd never know it …

Review of 'Dragon Pearl' on 'Goodreads'

I'll preface this by saying it's been a while since I've read much YA, and this book feels very YA, so...I'm not sure how to evaluate it well!

My last few books have included Broken Earth, Too Like the Lightning, and Machineries of Empire. Those are, uh, extremely different books and hardly a fair comparison, but that's my context.

So this book felt very linear, like I was just kinda on rails, with some twists and turns, but never really concerned that it wasn't gonna work out. Despite the galactic and personal fates in play, it never really felt particularly high-stakes to me.

I also recently read Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, and this felt more in that vein, altho perhaps lighter still. Here it kinda felt like we just floated around making friends and resolving the obstacles as they came without much effort. It's very much a …