Welcome to Litsy!

I‘m starting to feel almost a little uncomfortable with how all the spec fic I‘m reading has eerie concordance with the realities of the current moment. This is essentially a first contact story but there‘s a lot of things to unpack about personal autonomy and symbiosis with the environment.

Today in I always have a book: waiting for the concert to start.

Work is closed due to a power outage so I have a suddenly completely free weekend. Feels like a good day to not make the bed and read with the doggo.

I‘m enjoying the tagged so far but I am not in love with the size of the font lol. Both my current reads make me feel old with failing eyesight.
#DogsOfLitsy

#BookReport
I had an absolute stellar reading week. I don't think I've done this much reading since the height of the pando. Everything I read was a pick which was also nice.

#WeeklyForecast
This week my goal is to finish up the tagged as it's the last of my library stack. Then I'll make the final push for the Nantucket book. After that who knows?

Starting this while I‘m on break at work. It‘s the April pick for my book club.

I wanted to like this but it just didn't click. The weirdness of extraterrestrial life was fine. The extra weirdness of aliens trying to punt humans from their habitat out of the goodness of their heart (?) was meh. The thing that killed it for me though was the glib character narrative and the fact some everyday persons with an infant are allowed to make first contact is just... No. Not buying it. The blurb read great, the story not so much.

Those pronouns and their rapid changes give me whiplash. And the two women are about to go to a party and need to tread that pronoun-minefield extra carefully.

Earlier in the book: 'sie' and 'hie' and 'hes'

"Pronouns are 'e' and 'em' and 'eir,'.... 'Tha,' 'thon,' 'thos'..."

Later on " 'hoi,' 'hom,' and 'hos' " are added.

In this near-future first contact story, the organizational realism of Contact meets the gender & interspecies sexuality of Becky Chambers meets the social change & eco-philosophy of Emergent Strategy 🤯 This book was a little more of a challenge than a pleasure to read for me but personally I would never count that against ambitious solarpunk with decentralized decision-making, climate remediation, polyamory, and matriarchal dual-species aliens.

This book has a lot about first contact politics, near-future ways to cope with climatic change, and mothers changing the world for the better while carrying their babies around in slings and changing diapers too. The aliens are also extremely well fleshed out. It was original and different. I like when the first contact situation with its politics and conflicts is so well fleshed out.

It's so lovely!!! I need more books like this!

A first-contact story set in a near-future world where megacorporations have been exiled to man-made islands, nation states are in decline, and a network of communities devoted to restoring and maintaining the world's watersheds do their best to work toward a sustainable future. A hopeful contrast to my usual steady diet of dystopias, this novel focuses on the connections that make us stronger, and the work it takes to forge them.