Wednesday Reading Meme April 17 2024
Apr. 17th, 2024 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitewithfishPersonal life stuff: ACL surgery went well! I was on two crutches until earlier this week, when I have been granted license for ONE crutch and a brace.
What I’ve Read:
Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed – Hugo Nominee for Best Graphic Novel (originally published in Arabic in 2017) – Compassionate and cutting – this book is the stories of four people connected by three wishes, sold from a kiosk on the street of Cairo in 2017. It’s more scifi than magical realism – the wishes are licensed and registered and possessing one gets at least one character in major legal trouble – but the book is very interested in showing us an intimate portrait of the person who holds the wish and what they would use it for. I loved each of these characters – they are given space to show depth and contradictions and to grapple with the potential impact each wish represents to their future. I read it broken up by each person’s story, and it is excellent writing that reinforces the fascinating look the author is showing us of this version of modern Egypt. There’s hard look at wealth inequality, there’s conflict around religious ethics, there’s someone facing the end of their life and making peace with their choices – it’s really good stuff and I really enjoyed it.
What I’m Reading:
The Darkness Outside Us – about 30% - slightly horror? gay! Maybe some romance?
City of Miracles – Robert Jackson Bennett - Xing Book Club - I’ll probably technically finish this before midnight, but I didn’t finish it in time for book club.
Soulstar - CL Polk -static
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York– Robert Caro – about 23% - No movement
The 99% Invisible podcast has special episodes on the chapters along this schedule, which I am trying to keep up with:
Reading schedule under the cut
Episode 3 — March 15 — Chapters 11 through 15 – done!
Episode 4 — April 19 — Chapters 16 through 20
Episode 5 — May 17 — Chapters 21 through 24
Episode 6 — June 21 — Chapters 25 through 26
Episode 7 — July 19 — Chapters 27 through 32
Episode 8 — August 16 — Chapters 33 through 34
Episode 9 — September 20 — Chapters 35 through 38
Episode 10 — October 18 — Chapters 39 through 41
Episode 11 — November 15 — Chapters 42 through 46
Episode 12 — December 20 — Chapters 47 through 50
Fellowship of the Ring – JRR Tolkien – 17% -static
What I’ll Read Next:
Children of Time (Xing book club)
Hugo Nominees:
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
Bea Wolf
Saga, Vol. 11
The Witches of World War II
Translation State
Some Desperate Glory
Starter Villain
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
The Saint of Bright Doors
“Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition”
“Ivy, Angelica, Bay”
“On the Fox Roads”
“One Man’s Treasure”
“The Year Without Sunshine”
I AM AI
Rose/House
“Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet”
The Mimicking of Known Successes
Mammoths at the Gates
Thornhedge
“Seeds of Mercury”
The Culture: The Drawings
A City on Mars
A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller,
All These Worlds: Reviews & Essays
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
“Answerless Journey” / 没有答案的航程, 韩松,
“The Sound of Children Screaming”
“How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub”
“The Mausoleum’s Children”
What I’ve Read:
Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed – Hugo Nominee for Best Graphic Novel (originally published in Arabic in 2017) – Compassionate and cutting – this book is the stories of four people connected by three wishes, sold from a kiosk on the street of Cairo in 2017. It’s more scifi than magical realism – the wishes are licensed and registered and possessing one gets at least one character in major legal trouble – but the book is very interested in showing us an intimate portrait of the person who holds the wish and what they would use it for. I loved each of these characters – they are given space to show depth and contradictions and to grapple with the potential impact each wish represents to their future. I read it broken up by each person’s story, and it is excellent writing that reinforces the fascinating look the author is showing us of this version of modern Egypt. There’s hard look at wealth inequality, there’s conflict around religious ethics, there’s someone facing the end of their life and making peace with their choices – it’s really good stuff and I really enjoyed it.
What I’m Reading:
The Darkness Outside Us – about 30% - slightly horror? gay! Maybe some romance?
City of Miracles – Robert Jackson Bennett - Xing Book Club - I’ll probably technically finish this before midnight, but I didn’t finish it in time for book club.
Soulstar - CL Polk -static
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York– Robert Caro – about 23% - No movement
The 99% Invisible podcast has special episodes on the chapters along this schedule, which I am trying to keep up with:
Reading schedule under the cut
Episode 3 — March 15 — Chapters 11 through 15 – done!
Episode 4 — April 19 — Chapters 16 through 20
Episode 5 — May 17 — Chapters 21 through 24
Episode 6 — June 21 — Chapters 25 through 26
Episode 7 — July 19 — Chapters 27 through 32
Episode 8 — August 16 — Chapters 33 through 34
Episode 9 — September 20 — Chapters 35 through 38
Episode 10 — October 18 — Chapters 39 through 41
Episode 11 — November 15 — Chapters 42 through 46
Episode 12 — December 20 — Chapters 47 through 50
Fellowship of the Ring – JRR Tolkien – 17% -static
What I’ll Read Next:
Children of Time (Xing book club)
Hugo Nominees:
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
Bea Wolf
Saga, Vol. 11
The Witches of World War II
Translation State
Some Desperate Glory
Starter Villain
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
The Saint of Bright Doors
“Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition”
“Ivy, Angelica, Bay”
“On the Fox Roads”
“One Man’s Treasure”
“The Year Without Sunshine”
I AM AI
Rose/House
“Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet”
The Mimicking of Known Successes
Mammoths at the Gates
Thornhedge
“Seeds of Mercury”
The Culture: The Drawings
A City on Mars
A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller,
All These Worlds: Reviews & Essays
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
“Answerless Journey” / 没有答案的航程, 韩松,
“The Sound of Children Screaming”
“How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub”
“The Mausoleum’s Children”
no subject
Date: 2024-04-18 02:22 am (UTC)-the computer is cloning them and that why they reboot with only their backup memories and no recollection of the launch.
-they have rebelled against the computer before (hence the random blood inside the computer) and it wiped their memories
-his sister has been dead the whole time and the recordings are all fake or out date
-it's all a cusk experiment
-earth died and they are the last people and stuck there in space
-aliens are playing with their minds
-they are both androids!
I need to finish my book club book and then I am coming back to this!
no subject
Date: 2024-04-18 02:27 am (UTC)I'm curious to see what you think when you get back to it.
SPOILERS IN DISCUSSION
Date: 2024-04-22 07:22 pm (UTC)(spoilers now!)
In terms of what I thought of the book - I found the second half, after the twist, was really fun and it felt like the stakes were truly life and death - you can actually give real consequences to character's choices when they can really die!
I found the variations on the romance to be really fascinating thing to focus - the version of Kodiak that snaps and has a breakdown felt like an important look at his character; see, even the strongest people can breakdown under stress!
I felt the ending was surprisingly hopeful, and answered a lot of my questions about how they were supposed to survive on this new planet after Earth is destroyed.
I think there were some elements that were set up that I found... not bad? But it felt like the author was not as interested in them as I was. The way that the clones who got to get old handled the situation with OS, for instance. It wasn't a bad solution to have the OS change its priorities when they reduced the total number of clones down to one spare set, but, well, it felt like the novel had set up a good horror premise there and didn't want to deliver on it bc it would end the story too early.
In some ways, this was a great exploration of what happens in a story where you CAN have multiple endings for the same set of characters, and I really enjoyed that even if I could have liked to give some of the later clone iterations a bit more time and space to see how their stories played out. It was experimental and I am really glad I read it without the spoilers.
Re: SPOILERS IN DISCUSSION
Date: 2024-04-22 07:45 pm (UTC)I also found it really neat how each set of clones approached things differently, and came up with different solutions etc to what was going on. It really kept the tension going. All-in all I found it to be a very neat little story!