Drunk on All Your Strange New Words | 
pickAbsolutely zoomed through this one. Not in a 'want to get it over with way', but a 'can't put it down' way. I had my reservations about Lydia's life choices at the start, but her edging outside the social niceties and the rules primes her to take on the rollicking plot that develops. 1/?
Robotswithpersonality 2/? I would have been happy enough to explore the permutations of the life of a translator and the alien she worked for when it involved telepathy in the world of art, culture, literature, the notion of a New York keeping its reputation as a hub for such things even while climate change necessitates further isolation with sea walls and creates economic crises in other parts of the globe, 2mo
Robotswithpersonality 3/? how media filters might work in the future and smart glasses would function amidst increased media use and a probable surveillance state. And then there's a MURDER and the idea of how humans might negatively perceive or portray an alien species was something else we got to delve into, with a brief detour into death and religion among extraterrestrials, 2mo
Robotswithpersonality 4/? and then we went from talking heads to action, in a way I should have seen coming but delighted me regardless, and reminded me strongly of a memorable section of Die Hard 3. 😉 Looking back there are just the right amount of details sprinkled among the text to make both the reveals feel like a surprise but not fabricated out the blue. I love it when you can tell the author didn't go for a cheap shock, they put the work in to make clever. 2mo
Robotswithpersonality 5/5 I am glad for the pacing and size of this novel, the right amount of world-building vs dialogue vs plot; I could also happily see another book written in this world, I'd even like to see what new trouble Lydia can get up to. 😁 Great writing. I will definitely be looking into my library holdings for Robson's backlist. 2mo
