Exploring and supporting Community Informatics and Youth Power for just futures.
Loving hard sci-fi, queer & BIPOC-authored sci-fi, abolition and abolitionist futures, Afrofuturism, Solarpunk, cooperativism, pedagogy, social change.
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“My aim is to get you to read a book by Karl Marx called Capital, …
Finished reading the 350 page companion to Volume 1 of Capital. Not sure I'll make it through Volumes 2 and 3, and definitely not now... So marking this one done too.
Brilliant, powerful fantasy story. Will look for more from thie author. More than my preferred amount of physical descriptions of violence.
An old but very solid and mostly comprehensible reading of Lacan's works.
The first volume of a political treatise that changed the world
One of the most …
Wow! A 6 month project, a little bit nearly every day, reading David Harvey's a Companion to Capital at every step of the way. Finished it today and can hardly believe it.
This book hardly needs my review. But I started reading it because I felt like I'd missed a critical part of an education I should have gotten, perhaps in high school or college. I'd read bits of it in college. Would the journey be worth it for most? I'm not really sure it is. For me though, it was a project I'd long wanted to take on and I'm glad I did and made it through. The Harvey companion book is a must for getting the most out of it.
It’s thirty years from now. We’re making progress, mitigating climate change, slowly but surely. But …
While some sold it as "solarpunk," I'm not sure it fits this genre. Brooks, the "hero" character, is emotionally complex, but eternally falls on optimism. And his comrades generally seem to share an upbeat nature. Near future southern California is hot, plagued by fires, and dealing with the fallout of MAGA racists and their "plut", cryptocurrency allies, a broader swath of "decent people", and the leftist activists that are trying to create change in the face of climate catastrophe that leaves many internally displaced persons. A few characters add some political complexity, but there's an overall "us vs them" equation that lays the foundation for the book. It reads like a few others of Doctorow's books (Walkaway in mind), where there's a constant back and forth between positive, hopeful movement, and reactionary destruction. It shares with other solarpunk (1) a lot of talk about solar and carbon neutral or negative …
While some sold it as "solarpunk," I'm not sure it fits this genre. Brooks, the "hero" character, is emotionally complex, but eternally falls on optimism. And his comrades generally seem to share an upbeat nature. Near future southern California is hot, plagued by fires, and dealing with the fallout of MAGA racists and their "plut", cryptocurrency allies, a broader swath of "decent people", and the leftist activists that are trying to create change in the face of climate catastrophe that leaves many internally displaced persons. A few characters add some political complexity, but there's an overall "us vs them" equation that lays the foundation for the book. It reads like a few others of Doctorow's books (Walkaway in mind), where there's a constant back and forth between positive, hopeful movement, and reactionary destruction. It shares with other solarpunk (1) a lot of talk about solar and carbon neutral or negative technologies, and (2) a general optimism in the face of difficult climate situations. Unlike much other solarpunk, this isn't a further off future, where significant transformation has changed political, social and cultural grounds. It is instead a near future, where the political debates remain (realistically, I think) in relatively similar terrain. Unlike "The Ministry for the Future", Doctorow doesn't get lost in scalar storytelling ranging from micro to macro transformation. Instead, the focus is on the change that could be made at a small level, in one place, by a group of committed activists. I think the book is meant to leave you hopeful, and I can see how it could do. However, unlike The Ministry for the Future, Becky Chambers' novels, or other Solarpunk, this book feels like it lands solidly in more realistic science fiction. It was a rich romp with some fun ideas (I love the notion that AI combined with open source does something useful and makes it possible for lay people to collectively redesign neighborhoods and communities) and, I think, a decent read on near future politics. And, as I often do, I find myself appreciating Doctorow's political bent, including his thorough investigations into "plut" culture and the cryptocurrency political hellscape.
Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in this defiantly joyful …
A beautiful, lovely, sweet, musical book.
Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.
Following the events in …
Loving this series... and wish there was more!
In the tradition of modern fairy tales like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Naomi Novik’s …
Still processing and don't want to give any spoilers, but a fictional exploration of intergenerational trauma as an embodied force, and an inquiry into the question: how does one heal, if healing isn't only one's own to do.
The wandering Cleric Chih returns home to the Singing Hills Abbey for the first time …
A lovely continuation of this series of short novellas. I continue to appreciate the evolving, sweet world of the main characters and the stories and experiences they encounter.
Only took nearly the whole year. Like many KSR books, it took work to get through. I can't decide if the work was worth it, but there's a tremendous amount in it. An exploration of the possibilities of Utopian political economy, starting afresh on a new plan, but in a constant dialectic with the past in the present - a desperate Earth. Just read Frederic Jameson's "An American Utopia" which references this old series. I wonder if I'll make it through the other two.
Check out the Smart Brown Girl Book Club syllabus: sbgbookclub.org/products/september-22-general-track-syllabus-fevered-star-part-1
After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) …
Loved this second book in the series. Explore this ecoutopian world, including its politics and economy. It's gentle and loving.
Great and complicating review in LA Review of Books: lareviewofbooks.org/article/feeling-solarpunk-on-becky-chamberss-monk-and-robot-series/
This book tries to construct a concept of "digital feudalism". It offers 3 areas that define this concept and traces each through the book, but for me at least, failed to connect the three in a compelling way. I think to argue that we are in a new digitally driven form of feudalism requires work that I didn't understand the author to have done. This seems more like a popular reading book, but I think to those audiences, the feudalism part will be even more unclear, and the sub concepts only partly explained.
Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes …
A fun and cozy queer narrative set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, but with a move into non-violence, solving problems through honesty/care, a love story, and so on. Takes place IN a cozy setting and leaves you feeling like you've curled up by the fire in winter. You quickly come to trust that, though there IS tension and danger, you, like the characters, will find ways through that don't toss you back into the violence of traditional D&D problem solving. A fun book, even if you aren't into D&D.
An incredible and deeply relevant book that involves time travel, making sense of changing timelines, and so on - lots of nerdery for any sci fi fan. But perhaps most key - a deeply touching reminder of the ways that small actions may have tremendous ripple effects as time passes.