juliette_dunn's reviews
456 reviews

This book is so frequently mentioned among the greats of sci fi, so I had to read it. Unfortunately, I wasn't too captivated. I appreciate the epic scope, as the story spans hundreds of years of a civilization. But with neither interesting characters, prose, nor plot events, my  enjoyment while reading it was lukewarm. So much of it was a flat character existing to come up with an economic or political scheme, carrying it out, and then skipping ahead once more.

The most rewarding aspect of the book to me was seeing a conception of the future so inevitably set in its time, with an understanding of fuel and technology that is laughable now but made sense back then.  

The central concept of psychohistory was also interesting, as so much of history has been told with individual focused narratives. Foundation doesn't make an all-or-nothing case on free will vs fate, but rather positions free will as being true of individuals while the longer span of human history is simultaneously much less malleable. This view of history and society, and the outrage as people reacted to it made for the most compelling segments. The focus on ethical considerations for the future, knowing that society will regress many years past your lifetime but working for the best utilitarian outcome for many generations beyond, shows a forethought and scope real societies haven't offered, and it's interesting to see a group which does value this, working within the constraints and desires of their own time while always attempting to keep their more epic goal at the center.

So, a book with a good premise, but not all that entertaining to actually read, just a bunch of segments of dry political maneuvering.

This book aims to give hope to a reader depressed about the state of the world, and serve as a critique of the ways leftists tend to underrecognize their accomplishments. I am mixed on how good it did its job.

Solnit makes correct observations about the tendency on the left to take nothing but a full socialist revolution as a success, and to downplay or even actively trash on forms of incremental progress. These forms of incremental progress often form the essential basis for something bigger, but the overly defeatist attitude leads to people doing away with them and thus never making progress at all.

This part of the book is very important and relevant. Activist burnout is a major problem, and it is often caused by people feeling so demoralized over the vastness of the issues they face, and the lack of what they feel is meaningful progress.

My issues with the book comes from the praise of methods of activism which I believe are actually a hindrance to progress. Solnit holds up activism for the sake of activism, regardless of efficacy. Her view that as long as people tried and felt happy with community, then the action was valuable. While I don't disagree that joy and community are essential to prevent burnout, this attitude that treats all activism as equal regardless of efficacy becomes absurd when you realize we're talking about people's lives.

All activism is not equal, and we can't blanket praise anything that involves positive emotions. So much of the problem in activism today is the lack of organization and the emphasis on feel-good moments of passion. Everyone marches together, but then where do they go from there?

Leadership should be questioned, yes, but spontaneous acts and lack of structure are not what's going to create the bulk of progress, and the author's unquestioning assertion that this is what we should be encouraging because it feels good is irresponsible.

A lot of her examples of successful activist movements also don't ring so hopeful now, which is a consequence of the book being published quite a bit ago. The author can't be blamed for not knowing what the results would be. Though it is frustrating to see her cite attempts to get people terrified of GMOs as successful activism, as anti-GMO is entirely anti-scientific and a waste of time when real issues of food injustice could be being fought. Her other examples tended to be small-scale gestures that didn't end up succeeding and in many cases the issues have gotten worse.

Again, I don't want to discount Solnit's belief in the power of small-scale gestures and community. Sometimes these things make a difference in ways we never could have predicted. But to use them as reasons to hope and encourage this sort of activism as enough when we are seeing the consistent failures of the left to make meaningful progress or organization even when passionate about an issue, doesn't actually give a reason to hope for these issues.

But I do agree with her message around acknowledging and celebrating incremental change, and understanding activism will be an eternal struggle, not something that is ever going to be won by some single grand revolution that we all must wait for.

Now this was incredible, and I aim to read Chiang's other short stories as soon as possible. Not one of these stories was bad. Some of them seemed to resemble Black Mirror or Twilight Zone-esque scenarios, but the ultimate messages sent were a twist upon that sort of story in a great way. For example, one of the stories deals with a new technology capable of recording every memory with perfect, objective accuracy. This concept was used in Black Mirror, to, predictably, highlight why this would be terrible and relationship ruining.

Chiang brings up this issue but also questions our assumptions about technology that alters the mind as inherently bad, and takes a nuanced approach which showcases the ways in which it could  be a new stage of human evolution, not good or evil, just something entirely different.

He creates similar nuance in most of these, not taking a strongly pro or anti tech stance, but a view which explores both of these potentials. It's refreshing after story after story which slams us over the head with the evils of technology.

The longest story, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, was a novella and was unafraid to venture into the strange and controversial. What starts as a straightforward story about the commodification of sentient digital pets takes a philosophical dive into the nature of free will, autonomy, and sexuality. The story approaches wildly contentious areas and many would find it appalling, but it is no doubt interesting and bold in its thoughts. It also makes for some wonderful satire, as the digital creatures aim to register as legal corporations, given that this would ensure them far more rights to life and personhood than would be granted to even the most beloved of non-human creatures, the dog. 

The stories I didn't talk about were all wonderful as well, this was a wonderful collection of science fiction which uses the genre to explore the emotional and cultural impact rather than any hard technology. Chiang is brilliant as a writer.

This is labeled as a retelling, but unlike a lot of retellings that switch the setting, Carmilla follows the exact same setting and characters as the original, only with an explicitly reciprocated romance.

I love the clear respect the author had to the original text, with many of its scenes and phrasings reused for this story. But it never becomes redundant, rather a great addition to the original that gives Carmilla and Laura the development they deserve.

The story does not shy away from or try to lighten Carmilla's darkness, she is still a sinister vampire who lures girls to their deaths. Carmilla is not a mere misunderstood victim, but against the social oppression of the time, her dark and bloody life has an appeal in its freedom, and you can see why Laura is tempted by it.

It's a difficult task to retell such a classic, but Simper did it more than well.

The vampire story before Dracula, and the origin of the lesbian vampire trope. The vampire Carmilla comes to stay with a young woman named Laura and her father, feeding on Laura at night while quickly developing a romantic obsession.

I was surprised how textually explicit the romance was, given this was published in 1872. As I understand it, the author was able to get away with this given it is connected to Carmilla's supernatural hunger, rather than an ordinary romance. Still, the direct scenes of them kissing and the poetic declarations of love were surprising, and welcome. 

This is a very short book, and that was to its detriment. I greatly delighted in everything up until the end, of the gradual worsening of the supernatural as Laura continues to deny what's going on. But then it is all sent to a rushed conclusion in which new characters take over the narrative and leave the central focus abandoned. Despite Laura being the first person narrator, we get hardly any of her thoughts after the reveal that Carmilla is a vampire, save for a few sentences at the very end. 

Does she feel angry at the betrayal? Was it hard for her to admit it was true? Or did she in some way know all along, and was partly okay with it? Was she relieved when Carmilla died? Sad? We don't know. We can only guess, because her introspection is near entirely done away with.

That said, it's still a good book, and quite a fast read. I am glad I read it.

This was a very important read on how politics of deference have taken over left-wing spaces and work to our detriment. "Identity politics" have become such a nebulous buzzword, far from the original definition laid out by the Combahee River Collective. 

Táíwò shows how the mainstream establishment has taken identity politics and transformed it into something complacent and anti-revolutionary, in the same manner that it has watered down countless revolutionary moments to absorb them back into a state of complacency.

Táíwò illustrates how seemingly good concepts such as "the most marginalized person should be the one we listen to" end up becoming useless and keeping us in continual circles of all-talk and no action. It is a dead-end to speak of the most marginalized person in the room, given how many don't have the ability to be in the room at all.

Deference to someone based purely on identity, and the inevitable competition to weigh identities against each other to see who is most oppressed, is antithetical to meaningful dialogue and progress. 

Activist groups end up spending all their energy and resources making sure their narrow spaces are considered safe, and devote no attention to transforming the world outside. What good is it if the activist space itself practices proper deference, when no networking or action is broadened from it? We are left with isolated safe spaces that do nothing to lift up the marginalized or truly ensure everyone's voices are heard, only servicing those who are able to exist and talk in these small circles.

The book is quite brief and could have gone more in-depth, but it's a great read as an introduction to the problem of what identity politics has become, and how it can be brought back into the original, radical intentions laid out by the Combahee River Collective.

Very mixed feelings on this book. Its explanation of the neurodiversity paradigm, the double empathy problem, and the like are extremely valuable and necessary. However, in furthering the social model of disability, the author does something that many advocates do which I’ve never felt is the right approach, which is to imply ALL struggles that autistic people face are down to social stigma and lack of accommodations.

That may be true for some, but this kind of advocacy always dismisses the autistic people with very high support needs who are genuinely limited in ways that can’t be fixed with accommodations. People who struggle to perform essential tasks like eating and drinking, and will need lifelong assistance. That is a disability that isn’t just down to social stigma, it will always be a struggle, though it can absolutely be accommodated better with access to resources. 

Even in the author’s example of the social model of disability we can see the issue, and the shying away from admitting any inherent disability, which shouldn’t be something shameful at all. She talks about how a wheelchair user will be far less limited in a society that is designed to be wheelchair accessible. Absolutely true. But this doesn’t erase that there are still things a wheelchair user will always be limited in.

Some parts of the social model are illustrated well, such a dyslexia not being the detriment it is in a pre-literate society. Certain limitations only become apparent and therefore are noted as disabilities when a society requires them to be done. This can also work in reverse, such as glasses becoming so common place that poor vision is rarely acknowledged as being a disability at all.

But feels that in insisting on EVERYTHING being down to social stigma, the rhetoric ends up being to the detriment of disability acceptance. Disability can be inherently limiting, and that is okay. 

All of these experiences are very nuanced and context-dependent, and differ from individual to individual. Which is my fundamental issue with some of this book. The author is very passionate, and (rightfully) angry at an ableist world. But in some of that anger, she asserts little possibility for nuance. She continually reiterates how everyone who doesn’t adhere to her defined paradigm is an “autisticphobic bigot.” 

In some points, it’s true, but when she insists on exact adherence to language and beliefs in all manners, and any differing opinion is chalked up to ableist indoctrination, it leads no room for important discussions. Which is terrible for something as vast and complicated as disability and how people experience it.

A lot of this book has great value, and the author’s work on the neurodiversity paradigm and the concept of neuroqueer are certainly important. I just wish she didn’t get so aggressively rigid and dismissive of any other experience besides what is the experience of lower support needs autistic people, and allowed for the nuance and acceptance of context and opinion she readily grants in her discussions of being neuroqueer, and accomodations people may need. 

These discussions and explanations around adapting society around the individual needs of neurodivergent people instead of forcing them to adapt to neurotypical standards is where the book excels. It even includes the acknowledgement of how sometimes accomodations contradict, and people have to find ways to work around it, something I notice a lot of activists fail to acknowledge, as even people with the same neurotype can have vastly different needs.