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Phil in SF

kingrat@sfba.club

Joined 1 year, 6 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

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Success! Phil in SF has read 31 of 28 books.

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Doug Allshouse, David L. Nelson: San Bruno Mountain (Paperback, 2022, Heyday)

San Bruno Mountain, located in the center of the San Francisco Bay Area, is a …

Lovely guide to a biodiversity hotspot in our backyard

This book describes the plants (and some other things like geology and animals) of San Bruno Mountain, a park nestled between San Francisco, San Francisco Airport, and Daly City. San Bruno Mountain contains more species than most pieces of land its size and features diverse microclimates, for example from the foggy west to the drier parts near the bay, or from shaded canyons to exposed mountaintops.

This book is up to date, contains beautiful photographs, and great information on what is found on the mountain.

reviewed Everywhere You Look by Liv Constantine (Never Tell Collection, #1)

Liv Constantine: Everywhere You Look (EBook, 2024, Amazon Original Stories)

All it takes is one shocking revelation on a New York street for a woman …

Flat & uncreative

Jade's life has been unraveling since her father died a decade ago. A rare illness causes her to drop out of medical school track. A breakup with a shitty self-help guru leaves Jade effectively homeless. And then, Jade sees her father through the window of a restaurant on her annual pilgrimage to New York City to remember him. Could her father be alive?

Cardboard-thin caricatures for the characters in this story, and card-board thin machinations comprise the plot, and the last third of the book is exposition on what really happened and that's done in a flat and uncreative fashion.

Charlie Jane Anders: The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model (EBook, 2010, Tor.com)

Jon and Toku travel the universe suspended in Interdream, only waking up to check up …

We are the product of aliens

A pair of aliens show up to Earth expecting a planet where humans have killed each other off and they can harvest all the leftovers. The incredulity of the aliens toward the still living humans reminds me a bit of They're Made of Out of Meat by Terry Bisson.

Carolyn Ives Gilman: Arkfall (EBook, 2010, Phoenix Pick)

Humans live deep within an apparently lifeless planet covered by massive ice sheets. Having to …

Exploring a water planet

Osaji feels stifled by life on Benn, a water planet where humans live in biological arks that float beneath the surface and which supply their needs in the water environment. Benn is very polite, and people are not adventurous. Jack Halliday is an offworlder stuck on Benn for some reason which I've forgotten, and he feels even more stifled.

A disaster strikes the cluster of arks, and Osaji, her grandmother Mota, and Jack find themselves on a disconnected ark outside the protected gulf where everyone lives. They get to go on an adventures, reconcile their differing viewpoints on life, and along the way get to view the unknown life that populates the wilder parts of the Bennite ocean that noone has ever encountered.

Solid hard-SF novella. Everyone has a personality, even if they are a bit archetypical. Fun imagining of a human society and its biological support that could be …

Lois McMaster Bujold: Shards of Honor (EBook, 2018, Spectrum Literary Agency)

When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, …

Beside her, Pilot Officer Parnell adjusted the leads and cannulas to his headset and settled more comfortably into his padded chair, ready for the neurological control of the upcoming wormhole jump.

Shards of Honor by  (Vorkosigan Saga, #1) (37%)

new vocabulary: cannula

a thin tube inserted into a vein or body cavity to administer medication, drain off fluid, or insert a surgical instrument.

Lois McMaster Bujold: Shards of Honor (EBook, 2018, Spectrum Literary Agency)

When Cordelia Naismith and her survey crew are attacked by a renegade group from Barrayar, …

The earth still breathed a comfortable warmth from the heat of the afternoon, and the stream purled softly in the stillness.

Shards of Honor by  (Vorkosigan Saga, #1) (17%)

new vocabulary: purl

(of a stream) Flow with a swirling motion and babbling sound

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Margarita Montimore: Oona Out of Order (2020, Flatiron)

A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in …

A premise that actually pays off

Right away I realised that this was not my usual type of book, and if I'd actually read the entire jacket before before starting, I probably would not have given it a shot. But I'm glad I did.

The protagonist has all the hallmarks of being one of these unrelatable characters that has all these gifts (beauty, wealth, normativity) while still feeling sorry for themselves, but if I was ever annoyed at Oona it was because the writer wanted me to be, and even then it didn't last for long.

The characters are so fun and physically present. The chapters/sections are a nice, medium length. The plot moves along at a great pace, and each "leap" brings about an exciting paradigm shift that has you excited to keep reading.

I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but if the premise sounds tantalising to you, you should at least read until the …