Reviews and Comments

emmadilemma

emmadilemma@book.dansmonorage.blue

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

YA and paranoia, mainly. Can't Speak French but pretend to read French books anyway. Also: polyglot.city/@pootriarch / eldritch.cafe/@pootriarch

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Weapons of math destruction (Paperback, 2016, Allen Lane) 4 stars

A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern …

Truthful and maddening

3 stars

Through no fault of the author's, I learned little but became angry. The concepts in this book, wrapped up in the tidy and accurate WMD moniker, are ones I've read about at length. She provides concrete examples and receipts. I just ended up with incrementally more knowledge but substantially more rage.

Translation State (2023, Orbit) 5 stars

The mystery of a missing translator sets three lives on a collision course that will …

Author Talk with Ann Leckie - 11/28/2023, zoom (registration info below)

Enjoy an exclusive conversation with critically acclaimed science fiction author Ann Leckie. Ann will discuss her new novel Translation State and answer questions about her writing process. Attendees will also have a chance to submit questions to the author.

@ann_leckie@mastodon.annleckie.com is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel Ancillary Justice. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Date: Thursday, September 28, 2023 Time: 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm (Pacific Time presumed, sponsored by Mountain View, Calif., public library) Register at: mountainview.libcal.com/event/10946845

Other MV Library Sci-Fi September events: mountainview.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/?t=d&q=sci-fi%20september&cid=8800&cal=8800&inc=0

commented on Lost Places by Sarah Pinsker

Lost Places (2023, Small Beer Press) No rating

and just like that, it's about new york, grounded in geography and action but – you realize only at the end – unmoored from time. i know more about these faces and places than some of my friends. staying at the algonquin was a bucket-list item i satisfied as covid began to recede. i kept checking my phone as jazz tunes were named. but i'm no historian, and the fluidity of time snuck up on me.

'we now take liberties with the script', @sarahpinsker@wandering.shop wrote at the start, just before putting an f-bomb in george gershwin's mouth. it would take a year of research, the year she probably spent, to determine exactly what those liberties were. it's a lot easier to just let it envelop you, like the tickling of ivories up an air shaft on a hot day.

commented on Weapons of math destruction by Cathy O'Neil

Weapons of math destruction (Paperback, 2016, Allen Lane) 4 stars

A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern …

it is disconcerting how often the author, in 2016, tries to warn us of a hideous future dystopia that has turned out markedly worse than what she must have thought was chicken-little talk. much like walking through tomorrowland today.