A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
Do you know hat time of the year it is? Yes, the Hugo nominees are out! And I’ve signed myself up again to read as many of them as possible. Going down the Best Novel list, I have already read Gideon the Ninth – which I reviewed here – and I loved the hell out of it. But now voting is going to be a bit complicated because A Memory Called Empire is another excellent, if tonally different, addition to the shortlist. And I’ll […]
The Cold War Politics of Genetic Research: An Introduction to the Lysenko Affair by William deJong-Lambert
At the start of this year, I decided to focus a bit more on reviewing history books – more so than I had been previously. Come February and a couple of Twitter and media storms down the track, and I decided to revise this a little. I have no intention to stop focusing on history, but where I can, I’m going to try and dip into more into the history of science and bioethics. It’s 2020, and I’m sorry, I am going to get […]
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett
Yeah, Robert Jackson Bennett is back! I originally had a delayed love his previous trilogy, The Divine Cities; but a re-read of the first book ended up setting me straight, and by the end, I was loving it. So the news that his latest book, Foundryside, is also the first of a trilogy piqued my interest. would there be a delayed response this time around? Or will it be a winner from the get-go? Part of the charm of The Divine Cities was the melding of divine magics […]
Wow, did I ever drop the ball on time management over the Christmas break! This is a belated and very big thank you for Rebecca for last years book exchange, who sent me a copy of Albert Camus’ The Outsider (Which I’m just starting), and a very sweet bilingual copy of The Little Prince. The latter has given me ideas, honestly – perhaps I should look into bilingual books in Spanish as well? As awkward as it is, I […]
The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Everything of Ann Leckie’s that I have read previously – which is basically every novel she’s published – has been in one form or another, a kind of Space Opera. While Provenance may have had more of a political bent than the more military-minded Imperial Radch books, Ann Leckie has positively been cemented into my mind as very much an ’In Spaaace’ kind of author. Her first fantasy novel – The Raven Tower – has changed this. Leckie has delivered something that is very, very […]
A Brief History of Indonesia: Sultans, Spices, and Tsunamis: The Incredible Story of Southeast Asia's Largest Nation by Tim Hannigan
As an Australian, I have long lamented the fact that we see ourselves as on the periphery of South East Asia rather than an integral part of the region. And while we spend our time at school mostly learning about the history of the ‘Anglosphere’, we seem to have very little curiosity about our neighbours – and this is rather disappointing. After reading This Earth of Mankind late last year, I realised that there were considerable gaps in my own knowledge of Indonesia, who […]
