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Phil in SF

kingrat@sfba.club

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

aka @kingrat@sfba.social. I'm following a lot of bookwyrm accounts, since that seems to be the only way to get reviews from larger servers to this small server. Also, I will like & boost a lot of reviews that come across my feed. I will follow most bookwyrm accounts back if they review & comment. Social reading should be social.

2024 In The Books

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Phil in SF's books

To Read (View all 5)

Currently Reading

2025 Reading Goal

82% complete! Phil in SF has read 23 of 28 books.

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Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson: Abundance (2025, Simon & Schuster) 3 stars

Surprisingly superficial for something so researched

3 stars

Giving this 3 stars instead of 2 because reading it seems useful to keep abreast of The Discourse, and it was a reasonably quick read (I reserve 1 star for "didn't want to waste time to finish this").

Despite all the footnotes and references, this book has the superficial vibe of the early Internet "Let's make more Progress with Technology and then we will have Luxury for Everyone!" manifestos, but applied more broadly to also housing, energy production and some nebulous "innovation". It's hard to take seriously as a stance in 2025.

I hope it spurs more conversation and deeper thinking about these themes, but I fear its lack of thoughtfulness about trade-offs might take us in an even worse direction.

reviewed Small Wars by Lee Child (Jack Reacher, #19.5)

Lee Child: Small Wars (EBook, 2015, Delacorte) 3 stars

The telex is brief and to the point: One active-duty personnel found shot to death …

Jack and Joe Reacher together

3 stars

Joe Reacher interrupts the drive of a promising officer in War Plans. When she stops her car, Joe Reacher executes her.

Jack Reacher is briefly assigned a post where he has to oversee the investigation of who killed the officer. Something is fishy when the local cops nab a recluse with no military background and claim it's a robbery gone wrong.

Will he ever figure out it was his brother? Yes. Yes he will because he's Reacher. He's a pure distillation of competence porn.

Hope Jahren: Lab Girl (EBook, 2016, Vintage) 4 stars

An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime …

Interesting

4 stars

Interesting memoir from paleobotanist Hope Jahren. She intersperses short chapters on plant life with vignettes from her life and career. Interesting because she clearly imparts a love for science as well as relates the shittiness of being a scientist. Other than when she identified the minerals that make up opal as the same mineral used by a tree to create nearly impervious seeds, Jahren does not dwell on the actual scientific process she's pursuing. It's mostly the tedium of creating things needed for experiments, the unfortunate discarding of specimens she tried to smuggle out of Ireland from an impromptu collection, and similar tales from being a scientist. I got a great sense of what her life as a scientist is like, but very few details of the actual science. I'm not sure how I feel about that, as I wasn't quite prepared for it. Extremely well written.

reviewed Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts (The Vandy Myrick Mysteries, #1)

Delia Pitts: Trouble in Queenstown (AudiobookFormat, 2024, Macmillan Audio) 2 stars

With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery …

Starts interesting but gets increasingly more dumb

2 stars

Evander Myrick is the daughter of revered Queenstown police officer Evander Myrick, now a resident in a memory care facility. She's a former police officer herself, now starting a private investigations business. She's hired to find out if the wife of the mayor's nephew is cheating on him. She's wants the job because the mayor's connections will get her business for years to come. Just as she's about to report that nothing much is happening, the wife is murdered and the nephew has killed the murderer.

The villains are mustache-twirlers. They are also intent on monologuing their crimes to Evander. She is intent on not fucking recording them when they monologue. Or even investigating. Of course, neither are the police. So the big baddy is going to get away with it!

But then, the Lex Luthor of Queenstown inexplicably decides to make a run for it even though they are …

finished reading Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts (The Vandy Myrick Mysteries, #1)

Delia Pitts: Trouble in Queenstown (AudiobookFormat, 2024, Macmillan Audio) 2 stars

With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery …

Starts off promising but gets progressively worse with every chapter, until at the end I wonder if any of the professional reviewers who rated this so highly actually finished it.

commented on Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts (The Vandy Myrick Mysteries, #1)

Delia Pitts: Trouble in Queenstown (AudiobookFormat, 2024, Macmillan Audio) 2 stars

With Trouble in Queenstown, Delia Pitts introduces private investigator Vandy Myrick in a powerful mystery …

ugh. the author is doing the thing in 1st person where we don't get to hear the important thoughts that would reveal information. just the protagonist's side thoughts.

"i knew that fragrance. I'd smelled it on two different women. one must have given the perfume to the other. i got the message contained in this coat. a communication meant for me alone from an adversary i hadn't realized i was fighting."

reviewed Crossed Genres Issue 21 by Crossed Genres (Crossed Genres 2.0, #21)

Crossed Genres: Crossed Genres Issue 21 (EBook, 2014, Crossed Genres) 2 stars

  • The Semaphore Society by Kate Heartfield
  • Slippery Slope by Holly Schofield
  • Good Numbers by Nadya …

Wooden stories

2 stars

The Semaphore Society imagines a world where people who cannot communicate easily with "normal" (for want of a better word) people due to such maladies as lock-in syndrome find an online community where they communicate with each other through drawing. Good premise. Uninteresting plot.

Slippery Slope imagines a universe where body parts can be replaced & upgraded and sees how this plays out on a school playground where a bully can beat up another kid and steal their tongue (for instance). It ends with some overwrought hand-wringing from a bullied kid who turns the tables.

Good Numbers explores the concept that employed people might be expected to be good at their jobs and have "good numbers". Yes, capitalism expects people to be productive for the benefit of others. This doesn't have anything particularly interesting to say about it.

Ren Hutchings: Under Fortunate Stars (EBook, 2022, Solaris) 5 stars

Fleeing the final days of the generations-long war with the alien Felen, smuggler Jereth Keeven’s …

Fun time-traveling how-dunnit

4 stars

152 years ago an unlikely event that ends a war between humans and alien Felen. Five people unconnected to the human government show up as the Felen besiege the center of human government with the first person able to communicate with the Felen, and negotiate a peace. Now, the crew of science research vessel Gallion finds itself in a time rift with the crew of the Jonah bearing the "Fortunate Five" who negotiated the peace. The crew has to get themselves and the Jonah out of the rift without changing their timeline.

Despite a lot of disasters thrown into the way of the cast, it never really feels like they won't succeed. The real question is going to be how they will succeed, with preserving the timeline or without? Ensemble of characters most of which are fleshed out well enough, though their backstories do lean a bit on how trauma …

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Nancy Kress: Beggars in Spain (Paperback, 2004, Eos) 2 stars

In a world where the slightest edge can mean the difference between success and failure, …

Mostly point-missing, sometimes interesting

2 stars

Content warning Spoilers for the whole novel — this is more of a discussion than a review.