Book Reviews

Tea Drinker Reading Inheritor three years after the first two books, I had to reassemble Cherry’s political map from fragments. Like Bren, I often didn’t understand what was happening. What holds the book together is the widening field of conflict. On the human side, factions maneuver against each other. On the atevi side, rival interests circle the center. The multilateral tension gives the novel its energy. No single antagonist dominates. Instead, power shifts through conversation, protocol, and small missteps. ...

Last week was at my college alma mater, and I was surprised at the memories that came back to me. The campus was permeated with fear and self criticism, bad memories of asking for a loan, opening a bank account with a $50 paycheck, or thinking about how to spend the last $4. What I forgot was the wild ambitions, of foundj a club, gettingperfectgrades, the compulsive gap to live in a fantasy world since incremental progress was itself depressing. Of mice and men nails this reality of being poor. Thinly sirprisj g part is how hard it is to see the reality when you are in it. ...

Author: Paul Thomas Anderson Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Completed: January 1, 2025 Last edited time: January 2, 2026 12:43 PM Status: Reviewed Type: Film What was it that made that movie so good? It had a cultural element, looking head on at the immigrant situation to paint a dystopia that is not far from our own. The vision of an alternate America haunts. The theme of being a dad, being a better self to protect one’s daughter, that also hits hard. The few lines, about biological vs genetic father, about parenting in a way that is different than peers, and the cinematic moments of being caught, of discovering that the time is now, of what it would mean to be paranoid against the US government.

Author: CJ Cherryh Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Completed: January 1, 2025 Last edited time: February 17, 2026 3:39 PM Status: Reviewed Type: Book Diplomacy, in spaaaaaaace Diplomatic crises have been resolved planet-side, so there’s nowhere to go but up. Precursor shifts the setting but not the governing concern. Cherryh remains focused on diplomacy as process rather than event, this time filtered through a claustrophobic space faring human civilization and its political consequences. She has some views on the engineering and mechanics involved, but mostly leaves them unexplored. (too bad) ...

Re-org-er Want to see how power al-Sharaa drove in victory to Damascus, or how a CEO reclaims a stalled culture transformation? Skip the nonfiction. Read Pretender! (But certainly don’t read this if you haven’t read the proceeding 7 novels) This is the second leg of Bren Cameron’s long logistics return. Destroyer was apex tech: shuttles, starships, and Skyfall. This one drops to trains, buses, biplanes. 1917. ...

Author: Joe Abercrombie Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Completed: January 1, 2025 Last edited time: January 11, 2026 7:41 AM Status: Reviewed Type: Book Cards on the Table The Devils sits halfway between the grimdark First Law trilogy and the gamified chaos of Dungeon Crawler Carl. It may have been deliberate and more popular, but is not entirely to my taste. The book leans hard on the found-family dynamic. The result is serviceable cohesion rather than earned intimacy. With a large ensemble, the book prioritizes interesting combinations of characters over sustained attention to any one of them. That tradeoff makes sense in a long-running series; it’s harder to pull off cleanly in a single novel. The focus fragments, and no single arc quite takes hold. ...

Not a new message, but a more first principles approach to Chinese international policy. A new author on China to keep tabs on.

Can a single book be responsible for a book slump? The Good Life is my argument for yes. Over the years, I’ve found the way to keep reading is to make sure I have multiple different streams of books. My main streams are as follows: The fiction book - Trashy, zero effort, likely just another space opera. The easy non-fiction book. Probably written in the last 5 years, history about a person, company or phenomenon. ...

**In this Familiar Multiverse ** Infinity Gate and Echo of Worlds present a familiar concept if you’ve read other multiverse stories, like Dark Matter or The Long Earth. There’s a macguffin that allows stepping into a different dimension. Some of these dimensions are imperceptibly different, while others are completely alien. I enjoyed the multiversal play and while the premise was worn, the characters and pacing were enough to keep me going. ...

A Predictable End… of the World Not nearly as interesting as Sea of Rust. Especially for those that have read Sea of Rust, there’s little point in this book. The hope would be one about near-future tactics, but that is something that books like The Last Soldier covered in more detail. The transformation from nanny into tactical paranoid bot seemed interesting but underdeveloped.