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Phil in SF

kingrat@sfba.club

Joined 2 years 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. 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.

2025 In The Books

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Success! Phil in SF has read 65 of 28 books.

reviewed Choke Hold by Christa Faust (Angel Dare, #2)

Christa Faust: Choke Hold (EBook, 2011, Hard Case Crime)

Angel Dare went into Witness Protection to escape her past—not as a porn star, but …

Morally flexible heroine

After the story of Money Shot, Angel Dare is supposed to be in witness protection, but they didn't protect her enough, so she's on the run trying to hide. On the run, she stumbles into another hit on her ex Thick Vic and his son Cody. Because of her fondness for Vic, she helps Cody. The entire story about her and Cody is orthogonal to her story, except that she's trying to lie low for her own protection. Angel is quite willing to dispense with morals about sex, truth and the sanctity of life to survive, or help Cody survive.

@Tuhnsoo@bookwyrm.social Loved the first two books, hated this one. Will write reviews for the last two later today. But the short version is the first two have a main character that is morally flexible (while understanding what morals she wants to have), and takes her opportunities. The third book she's lost most of her agency and is swept along from scene to scene, and those scenes are jarringly disconnected as well.

avatar for kingrat Phil in SF boosted
Becky Chambers: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (AudiobookFormat, 2018, Hodderscape, Hodder & Stoughton, Booktrack Holding)

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack …

Kindness in Space

I enjoyed this thoroughly and don't think I've ever read anything else which so aptly weaves relatable examples of how to be kind into an engaging story. That said, it's not just a story which is a container for giving examples of #kindness. The worldbuilding seems quite strong and consistent to me and reminded me favorably of Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought, right down to the way data streams are presented, but containing a lot more admirable behavior.

I listened to the #Booktrack edition, which gave the audiobook a pleasantly cinematic feel. Some of the choices for background music didn't really seem to fit, but in most cases the production was nicely done, especially the sound effects.

quoted The Get Off by Christa Faust (Angel Dare, #3)

Christa Faust: The Get Off (EBook, 2025, Hard Case Crime)

Tagged as a cop killer when a mission of vengeance goes wrong, Angel Dare finds …

I didn't like who I had become, this weak, sniveling problem for other people to solve and I wanted to make somebody, anybody, pay.

The Get Off by  (Angel Dare, #3) (39%)

OK, so the character gets why I am annoyed. Thankfully, sounds like Faust has a redemption arc coming.

commented on The Get Off by Christa Faust (Angel Dare, #3)

Christa Faust: The Get Off (EBook, 2025, Hard Case Crime)

Tagged as a cop killer when a mission of vengeance goes wrong, Angel Dare finds …

The vibe so far on this book is nowhere near as good as the first two books. It's not just Angel Dare on the run. it's Angel Dare pregnant and turning tricks and no criminals even after her. Cops are, because the author had her kill a rando cop about 5 pages in. I'm in through the end, but without improvement I'm going to rate this a lot lower.

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reviewed The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters (The Last Policeman, #1)

Ben H. Winters: The Last Policeman (EBook, 2012, Quirk Books)

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?

Detective …

Top crime/sf crossover

On the SF side, this is a story of people who know that Earth has only months left (an asteroid is on a collision course with the planet). What do you do? Go bucket list? Throw yourself in front of a bus? Carry on as if little has changed? The societal changes are perhaps less unique in SF, but this is still excellently done. It's not a complete collapse, but a lot of changes (rationing, corporate collapse) matter. There's cults and cabals and ... it's all great!

On the crime novel side, the apparent suicide that kicks off the novel is the kind of simple case that cops actually deal with, not the complicated serial killings of a Jo Nesbø novel or many people have motives Knives Out movie. The bad guys are not mustache-twirlers. The newly promoted detective actually investigates, somewhat amateurishly due to his lack of experience, but …

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reviewed Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn (The Bannerless Saga, #1)

Carrie Vaughn: Bannerless (Paperback, 2017, John Joseph Adams Books)

A mysterious murder in a dystopian future leads a novice investigator to question what she’s …

Excellent story and characters

An engaging story about life a generations or so after our modern civilization collapses. Good chapters about Enid growing up help flesh out the society and Enid's rule as an investigator. The story was so good that I stayed up very late to read it all in one sitting.

Charles Duhigg: Supercommunicators (AudiobookFormat, 2024, Books on Tape)

Come inside a jury room as one juror leads a starkly divided room to consensus. …

Not awful overview of some techniques people use to communicate well

Despite my critical comments, I think this is a largely positive book detailing some techniques of good communication. However, it's really not a how-to. The rough outline for each technique goes: anecdote about a communication breakdown, review of research about a technique, anecdote about someone who is good at it (a supercommunicator), and a cursory, hand-wavey things you might want to try section. The overviews/reviews of research are the best part. The how-to is too general to be of real use.

And to repeat my comments in the review itself, the author tends to glorify good communication itself, rather than as a means toward an end. That is readily apparent in the sections on communicating about race & identity, where the author never really identifies that racism, sexism and other issues related to identity are the real problem, not just that communication about them is fraught.

His information on communication …