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booitsnathalie's reviews
99 reviews
BLAME! MASTER EDITION 5 by Tsutomu Nihei, Melissa Tanaka, 弐瓶 勉
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Violence
BLAME! MASTER EDITION 4 by Tsutomu Nihei, Melissa Tanaka, 弐瓶 勉
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Every volume feels like a step down from the last. Amazed there are still two more volumes to go. Equally amazed that this series may truly have zero themes, just lots of facts that I cannot begin to care about. So disappointing how little focus is given to the outrageous monster designs or fight scenes. Why would you draw a face that gross and only show it once???
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore
BLAME! MASTER EDITION 3 by Tsutomu Nihei, Melissa Tanaka, 弐瓶 勉
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
The Employees by Olga Ravn
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
A frustratingly vague but often haunting epistolary short story. I wasn't anticipating it to hew so closely to videogame emails and SCP entries, but I'll give it credit for being thematically richer than most of the shockbait horror it structurally parallels.
Ideas about the bodies of dehumanized (in more ways than one) workers in a future capitalist state are woven in without the didactic brutality so much contemporary scifi relies on. Characters cannot see outside the demands of the company anymore than readers can materialize the absent interviewer. Both are invisible absolutes, acknowledged but dismissed because who has time when you're working 12 hour shifts (to say nothing or the cosmic horror leaking from this cargo...).
I felt rather listless by the end of this. Even with the introduction of an honest to god plot in the third act it retains the abstract, nonlinear structure (it was not surprising to learn the author is primarily a poet). Certain passages were striking enough to overcome the otherwise formless collage of interviews, but I am glad it was only a scarce 125 pages.
Ideas about the bodies of dehumanized (in more ways than one) workers in a future capitalist state are woven in without the didactic brutality so much contemporary scifi relies on. Characters cannot see outside the demands of the company anymore than readers can materialize the absent interviewer. Both are invisible absolutes, acknowledged but dismissed because who has time when you're working 12 hour shifts (to say nothing or the cosmic horror leaking from this cargo...).
I felt rather listless by the end of this. Even with the introduction of an honest to god plot in the third act it retains the abstract, nonlinear structure (it was not surprising to learn the author is primarily a poet). Certain passages were striking enough to overcome the otherwise formless collage of interviews, but I am glad it was only a scarce 125 pages.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
BLAME! MASTER EDITION 2 by Tsutomu Nihei, Melissa Tanaka, 弐瓶 勉
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Violence
How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm
reflective
medium-paced
2.5
Perhaps I took the title too literally, but it was disappointing to discover how little of this book is concerned with articulating actual tactics for violent climate resistance. It is predominantly an argument for the necessity of violence, a position I agree with having bought a book called "How To Blow Up A Pipeline," but which ends up feeling as late and ineffectual as the doomerism that spurred writing it.
The last chapter dedicated to rebuking climate defeatism is the most engaging (if shockingly bleak). It seems an altogether more difficult challenge to pull people back from the ledge of accepted annihilation, which Malm does a commendable (if brief) job of. I just can't help feeling like I am no closer to actualizing any of the goals that have been hazely waved before me. The anger and restlessness is already here, what's left is the difficult task of directing it.
The last chapter dedicated to rebuking climate defeatism is the most engaging (if shockingly bleak). It seems an altogether more difficult challenge to pull people back from the ledge of accepted annihilation, which Malm does a commendable (if brief) job of. I just can't help feeling like I am no closer to actualizing any of the goals that have been hazely waved before me. The anger and restlessness is already here, what's left is the difficult task of directing it.
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Grotesque queer horror of the most beautiful and trashy variety. It is so rare to find something that so bluntly captures the trans experience, trans survival, love and gore wrapped in a scrapnel coated blanket. It is uncompromising, at times bordering on cruel, the accumulation of a thousand daily tragedies spilling out over a ceaseless apocalypse.
Within that pain are the pockets of hope that sustain us. The relationships and messy connections and bitter loyalty of communities continually rebuilding themselves because nobody else is going to save them. It is an uncertain future, but a future all the same.
Within that pain are the pockets of hope that sustain us. The relationships and messy connections and bitter loyalty of communities continually rebuilding themselves because nobody else is going to save them. It is an uncertain future, but a future all the same.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Deadnaming, Fatphobia, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Racism and Slavery
Minor: Animal death, Eating disorder, and Self harm
BLAME! MASTER EDITION 1 by Tsutomu Nihei, Melissa Tanaka, 弐瓶 勉
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, and Blood
Moderate: Gun violence
The City & the City by China Miéville
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Just wrapped it up. It's a very good detective novel though I think it's political allegory sort of falls apart by the end (or at least to the wayside). Lands in a disappointing ambiguity about the role of police and borders, seeing them as both fully artificial and hostile but also necessary because the alternative is total anarchy. I maybe expected something a bit more given Mielville's clear interest in leftist politics, but it was really closer to a Dan Brown novel but where the conspiracy is actually just a sad man with something to prove.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia and Gaslighting
Minor: Gun violence and Sexual assault