Reviews and Comments

Heard a lot of good things from this book!

The idea of a “ship of Theseus” disposable human is engaging, but the book doesn’t do it justice. It’s a short read, not without its entertaining moments, but I don’t think I’ll be curious enough to read what’s bound to come next.

La langue pseudo-moyenâgeuse déployée par l’auteur peut paraître comme un gimmick au premier abord, mais elle est fluide et divertissante. Le mythe de Jeanne d’Arc est égratigné avec brio et références moultes, il y a du Pratchett dans l’esprit, mais aussi du Douglas Addams et même une grosse louchée de Lovecraft. Une excellente surprise, lue rapidement, que je conseille à toutes les personnes qui aiment être diverties par la lecture.

I liked it because it was well written and short. Longer would have been boring, shorter would have cut too much. I wonder how the author's experience during the pandemic influenced the Last Book Tour Before the End of the World chapter (at least one discussion in the book was real—but from 2015). I liked this book very much, but I liked Station Eleven better, hence the 4 stars.

Three successive stories, told in interwoven chapters. Three visions of what Maya culture was, is and could be. One tale could be read like mesoamerican fantasy, one like contemporary magical realism and one like the best kind of utopian science fiction.

Featuring an alien invasion, time travel hijinx, a bank robbery and a crew of interesting characters.

Born in an empire modelled after a 19th century European power, a journalist is embedded with colonizing troops. Instead of covering a campaign of subjugation of unorganized villages, he discovers an anarchist confederation of people and communities, and joins up their fight agains the invader.

Killjoy's utopia is of course not a blueprint, but a demonstration that it is possible to imagine how an anarchist society could work. Imagining utopias, showing anarchism in practice, is important. Kim Stanley Robinson (who provides a praise on the backcover) has written many times about how dystopias are all well and fine, but utopias are more relevant to our time of crises. How to act for a better world, if you've never encountered ideas of better worlds in media and litterature?

It's a short read, and you won't regret it.

The way language is commoditized is a good allegory for imperial plunder. The central debate (violence or non-violence?) can also be applied to current affairs, like the fight for a livable planet.