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David Bremner Locked account

bremner@book.dansmonorage.blue

Joined 2 years, 4 months ago

computer scientist, mathematician, photographer, human. Debian Developer, Notmuch Maintainer, scuba diver

Much of my "reading" these days is actually audiobooks while walking.

FediMain: bremner@mathstodon.xyz

bremner@bookwyrm.social is also me. Trying a smaller instance to see if the delays are less maddening.

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reviewed Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham

Age of Ash (2022, Orbit) 4 stars

From New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author Daniel Abraham, co-author of The Expanse …

Almost magical realism with some interesting twists

4 stars

This book shares with many fantasy novels a roughly early modern European setting and main characters who are poor, somewhat principled criminals living on the margins of that setting (the latter also reminds me a bit of the author's portrayal of the economically marginalized in the Expanse as well) . There is an aspect of systematic racism in the world, where the poor people just happen to be be one ethnic minority and live on one side of the river. By magical realism I mean that while magical elements are important, the plot is mainly about more mundane things that might get nudged one way or the other by magic (or by luck). All of this is well and good (if not especially unusual in contemporary fantasy), but what made the book a bit more interesting for me was the way it played with the ideas of hero/antihero/main-character/supporting-character in interesting …

reviewed Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Nettle & Bone (Hardcover, 2022, Tor Books) 4 stars

After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the …

Like a fairy tale that characters in a T. Kingfisher novel might tell each other.

4 stars

That's it, that's the whole review.

If you like T. Kingfisher, you will like this book. It starts off a bit grim, but by the end it felt like a cozy tale of cold blooded vengeance.

reviewed Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Who Fears Death (Paperback, 2011, DAW) 5 stars

Born into post-apocalyptic Africa to a mother who was raped after the slaughter of her …

powerful and important

5 stars

I finished this some time ago, but I still can't really do it justice in a review. Some of the themes and world-building (and even one of the characters!) is shared with the later novel Noor, but this novel is somehow more elemental. For me the two most powerful themes were the codification of hatred as religion and how sex and reproductive biology inform politics (in the small).

Content warnings: pervasive misogyny, sexual violence, and racism play important roles in the plot.

reviewed The Babylon Eye by Masha du Toit

The Babylon Eye (EBook, 2016, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform) 5 stars

Elke Veraart is in prison. She used to be an eco-terrorist, hunting down poachers to …

cyberpunk detective with a modern sensibility, plus dogs

4 stars

Somehow this reminds me of the "Recovery Man" books by Kristine Katherine Rusch. A lone detective fights for the underdog (literal dog in this case), fighting against corporate interests in a high tech setting with aliens. The aliens here are quite relatable, rather than implacable, but they still hold most of the cards. By modern sensibility I mean little things like the protagonist is lesbian, but nobody makes a big deal out of it, including her.