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. I make a lot of Bookwyrm lists. 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.
An intense, intimate and first-of-its-kind look at the world of human smuggling in Latin America, …
incredible, grim and vibrant.
5 stars
Even more than I was hoping for, a thoroughly humanizing personal and anthropological narrative closely following several young Hondurans over several recent years in their own experiences of migration up and down Mexico, the relentless gang violence and poverty causing them to be stateless human smugglers, the shrinking space between state enforcement and cartel consolidation for less violent less exploitative routes.
Angel Dare, who runs a talent agency for porn stars, gets set up on a shoot, shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car, and manages to escape. On the run from the bad guys and the cops, she turns the tables and starts tracking down the perpetrators.
Simple premise. Heroine who doesn't let bad situations overcome her.
Now I know a lot more about the history of Tesla defects
No rating
Took me a while to finish this, partly because it's a steady stream of what a bunch of bs comes out of Tesla and Musk, but also I'm reading the ebook which is filled with links to the sources, which generally is a good thing and shows how well this book has been researched and not just a diatribe, but it means half the time when I swipe to next page I jump to the bibliography.
Overall, it buttresses my existing anti-Elon disposition (and the book predates the antics of the past year) with a lot more detail about things that went wrong or were lied about and got people killed, and filled in some company background which I didn't know or had forgotten from Ashlee Vance's Musk bio, which I have trashed a bit recently because seems to have tied his career to profiling Musk, but fair's fair, this …
Took me a while to finish this, partly because it's a steady stream of what a bunch of bs comes out of Tesla and Musk, but also I'm reading the ebook which is filled with links to the sources, which generally is a good thing and shows how well this book has been researched and not just a diatribe, but it means half the time when I swipe to next page I jump to the bibliography.
Overall, it buttresses my existing anti-Elon disposition (and the book predates the antics of the past year) with a lot more detail about things that went wrong or were lied about and got people killed, and filled in some company background which I didn't know or had forgotten from Ashlee Vance's Musk bio, which I have trashed a bit recently because seems to have tied his career to profiling Musk, but fair's fair, this book does rely heavily on Vance's material (minus the stuff about his relationships because who cares about that except when gets sued by his exes).
The book gets a bit shaky talking when referencing both the Silicon Valley software industry and traditional auto industries, portraying their "best" practices as things that actually happen and not aspirational (or bureaucratically buzzwordable), and there's an analogy to the Blackberry keyboard which I found mystifying but reminded me I wish I still had one. Plus that's one of the few tech companies I can think of that I used to admire that hasn't turned evil as far as I know (perhaps not a coincidence, Canadian).
I read this book on a blind rec from a friend, and it turned out to be a delightful romance book.
It's about learning to find joy again after the grief of loss. It's about Feyi learning to believe her art (and herself) is good enough. It's about the different ways people can love each other and be friends with each other.
Also, it's a hashtag bi4bi age gap romance where Feyi falls for the sexy bisexual Michelin chef father of the guy friend she's not quite dating. Needless to say, it's messy, but it feels believably and justifiably so.
Walter Mosley's talent knows no bounds. Inside a Silver Box continues to explore the cosmic …
Why?
2 stars
Ronnie Bottoms kills Lorraine Fell and stuffs her body under some rocks in Central Park, which is also where a mysterious all-powerful alien box is. Lorraine talks the box into letting her convince Ronnie to bring her back to life. She has to possess Ma Lin, a former South Vietnam soldier who took care of enemies of the state, because he sits next to Ronnie. Ronnie then returns to Central Park, digs up Lorraine's body, and by the power of the Silver Box, brings Lorraine back to life. They spend the night in a hotel where Lorraine tries to fuck her murderer (and would be rapist) but he can't get it up. Then they are jailed because Lorraine has been missing and they used her credit card. After a bit of being roughed up by the cops, a lawyer hired by the Silver Box springs Lorraine and Ronnie.
And at …
Ronnie Bottoms kills Lorraine Fell and stuffs her body under some rocks in Central Park, which is also where a mysterious all-powerful alien box is. Lorraine talks the box into letting her convince Ronnie to bring her back to life. She has to possess Ma Lin, a former South Vietnam soldier who took care of enemies of the state, because he sits next to Ronnie. Ronnie then returns to Central Park, digs up Lorraine's body, and by the power of the Silver Box, brings Lorraine back to life. They spend the night in a hotel where Lorraine tries to fuck her murderer (and would be rapist) but he can't get it up. Then they are jailed because Lorraine has been missing and they used her credit card. After a bit of being roughed up by the cops, a lawyer hired by the Silver Box springs Lorraine and Ronnie.
And at this point they are all transported somewhere else in the galaxy where Ronnie (yes Ronnie the wanna be rapist) explains that Ma Lin now contains a molecule of an intergalactic race called the Laz and the Silver Box, tells Lorraine and Ronnie their quest is to save earth from the Laz molecule.
Yes. That is the story so far. I'm sure there's a reason why all of this is set up this way, but I am not willing to read through to the end to find out because it sure as hell won't be worth it.
The five Odyssey grads who make up The Homeless Moon join together like a piecemeal …
Five Odyssey grads put out a chapbook
3 stars
Construction-Paper Moon by Michael J. DeLuca
A comet knocks the moon out of Earth's orbit, and a decade or two later affects a father's relationship with his daughter who is too young to remember the moon.
Impracticable Dreams by Jason S. Ridler
A comic's best material comes from purging into a bottomless hat, but he's so empty now he may not be able to get enough material in time to hit the big-time with an agent who is to be in his audience tomorrow.
Colonized by Scott H. Andrews
What if the Chinese colonized America and Anglos were the immigrants who didn't fit in with the majority?
The Recurrence of Orpheus by Erin Hoffman
Whoosh. This went so far over my head I don't know what it is.
Welcome to Foreign Lands by Justin Howe
A man journeys to the land on the inside of Earth's crust and participates in …
Construction-Paper Moon by Michael J. DeLuca
A comet knocks the moon out of Earth's orbit, and a decade or two later affects a father's relationship with his daughter who is too young to remember the moon.
Impracticable Dreams by Jason S. Ridler
A comic's best material comes from purging into a bottomless hat, but he's so empty now he may not be able to get enough material in time to hit the big-time with an agent who is to be in his audience tomorrow.
Colonized by Scott H. Andrews
What if the Chinese colonized America and Anglos were the immigrants who didn't fit in with the majority?
The Recurrence of Orpheus by Erin Hoffman
Whoosh. This went so far over my head I don't know what it is.
Welcome to Foreign Lands by Justin Howe
A man journeys to the land on the inside of Earth's crust and participates in a societal ritual that brings him to feel at home inside, rather than on the surface world.
Not a bad little chapbook of stories, even if I didn't get the one at all. The Homeless Moon chapbook PDF is available free from the authors' web site, and is Creative Commons licensed.