I specify "definitive" because it opens with a military raid on what I believe is a civilian sector which I think is already a war crime on its own but it gets messy trying to figure out where exactly something like that "happens" so I figured the part where he kills a civilian non-combatant was just easier all around to count
Starship Troopers is definitely very fashy but one of the weaknesses of the writing is that I genuinely can't tell how much of the fascism I'm meant to agree with
As I go on I see that the fascism in this book is simply different from what I expected; based on the movie, I expected the book to be nothing but OO-RAH jarhead nonsense but it is actually much subtler and much smarter than that; this is a learned fascism, a fascism that has read, understood, and discarded a great many philosophical arguments on how a society should or should not be organized. It doesn't just assume that military service is good on its own, it formulates very strong arguments for that position and presents them well. It's honestly a very fascinating book, even if I disagree with every word of it.
And, god dammit, but Heinlein really did know how to write
Starship Troopers is complete! I had a lot of thoughts about this one
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e364cba3-5e96-42b3-ae1f-d420a943dbed
Happy February! Here are my reading stats for January. That was 8 books over the month averaging 3 days to complete.
A Canticle for Leibowitz is complete! A new high-water mark for the Hugo awards has been set.
Holy fuck this book is beautiful.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8a3a0c8d-90e5-49b9-988b-fdf942590e1b
Moving swiftly along to Stranger In A Strange Land
I'm really looking forward to this one; I've enjoyed Heinlein so far and this one has a Reputation
I finally finished Stranger In A Strange Land!
Gentle reader, this book Fucking Sucks!
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8da7c6e3-ece5-4410-a3c7-885d14b729f1
Philip K Dick fans read the following with caution
I thought The Man in the High Castle was really really bad
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/80ee3d00-3b8e-4a56-b8e9-12fe20ff7016
Got through Way Station in "one" day!
Subjectively it was two days because I went to sleep but by the calendar it was only one!
We're firmly in the era of Cold War Sci-Fi now
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/fdd6c32f-63de-4297-bd23-19f04785eb84
New review coming up!
The Wanderer was the worst garbage I've read so far, EVEN WORSE than The Forever Machine, which at least had the grace to be short and stupid enough to make fun of.
I have no idea how this one ever won a Hugo unless it was just because Leiber kept dropping references to Burroughs and Heinlein.
Not even sexy catgirl aliens could save this mess.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/117721f2-3b1b-412f-93a5-b926d91faec9
Dune is finished! Are you expecting me to play the contrarian, say it's overhyped, not worth the reputation it's garnered over the decades?
TOO BAD IT'S THE FIRST 5-STAR OF THE HUGOS
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/95c7dfa4-c812-4fa4-8b3f-fbaf24d2ac2f
Next after Dune is Roger Zelazny's This Immortal and it was
Fine
:|
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/319e03ea-91ab-4af5-9bd1-6d454b678ce4
A friend of mine told me that This Immortal was functionally a warm-up for Zelazny before Lord of Light and, yeah, he was correct. This book was incredible.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/53087c0b-f8c3-4f30-81cd-500d7221b9ae
Me: Iunno, I'm just really worried about the state of publishing right now, it seems like the market for truly interesting books is shrinking as publishers continue to encourage writers to churn out worse and worse slop in order to chase tiktok trends
Roger Zelazny: I know what you mean, buddy, do you want to read a genre-defying mythological epic with extremely stylized and ornamented prose about a war in heaven about it?
Me: You know, Roger, I really think I do
At long last
I am free of Heinlein
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/bcf374a3-c70c-4579-897d-b950d7986625
Stand of Zanzibar is behind me! I read 550 pages and they were very full, very interesting pages that were definitely trying to say SOMETHING
But god knows if I know what
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/39e3db32-e21d-4def-bb84-9228134ea66a
This was a tough one. I feel like I'm committing sacrilege by rating The Left Hand of Darkness less than a 4 but it just didn't quite come together for me the way it clearly has for a lot of others.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/ed670474-e4e2-4a26-bad8-9d73fe7a7bb4
There are so many reviews on Storygraph giving it 5 stars and talking about how much it moved them and honestly I'm super happy those people had those experiences
If anything, I'm upset that I didn't
I finished Larry Nivens' Ringworld.
I want to go back to Ursula Le Guin
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e2329ed5-d68c-4f9d-8672-2e549ab7f25b
I will say this about To Your Scattered Bodies Go: it was a DAMN sight better than Ringworld
Sadly, that bar is in Hell
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/29e8778c-b2b4-4c4a-a6b9-89543bc9cd08
The Gods Themselves is a book that starts really strongly and has a lot to say about the processes of Doing Science but then takes a long detour to explore alien gender politics in a way that completely destroys the pacing and momentum of the story and then fails to recover
As cool as it is to see nonbinary genders and nonmonogamous systems being explored in a 70s sci-fi novel, this was not the book to be doing that exploration
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/5bc04b42-539b-4864-b12d-f63256f8fe90
Finally Rendezvoused with Rama
It was okay
Cool ideas, a fun exploration of a Strange Thing, but I would've liked to see an actual plot in this novel
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/dde57d46-a5fb-4b66-8ecd-98846ac3de85
The Dispossessed had everything I had hoped to find in Left Hand of Darkness and so much more
Fantastic novel
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/b08055fd-dd7a-4862-8cfb-86f958f617d1
Short review for The Forever War. Maybe because I just finished a bike ride and I'm still recovering from that, but I just couldn't find a lot to say about it
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/8c891f1e-d099-4241-aec9-4f8d25cf0c6c
Where Late The Sweet Birds sang was not good!
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/2893dd49-df13-4684-a225-7ad6fdf615ae
I'm not even sure the book deserved a 2 tbh
Gateway had way too much Freud for me to fully enjoy it, but given the time it came out, I can see how that would've been seen as a strength when it was new
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/f0eb9b94-780e-4352-ba34-6279304ec746
Dreamsnake was one of those books that comes along and provides a breath of fresh air. Finally, after like three books straight about things that suck or people that suck, I got a book with a heart. Loved this one.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/9872697a-c4ca-4f50-bd44-5681f957640f
The Fountains of Paradise was an extremely boring slog through all of the worst sci-fi has to offer
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e6b2f48e-f74c-4912-9555-a1afe8be7a22
I'm firmly into the 80s now with Joan Vinge's The Snow Queen! I thought it was fine, but weirdly pro-cop for a book so interested in the lasting damage that is caused by colonialism
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/046cb1a9-f140-42d6-b46c-190054af91d0
I have reached my limit. I am not going to finish reading Downbelow Station.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/b2cf410d-0927-41c8-abad-93ecfe2297a0
I read like a thousand pages of Heinlein but THIS was the book that beat me
I had to read 3 entire novels before I got to the next winner because I was not about to jump into book 4 of Foundation. There was some good stuff in that series but most of it was in the first book.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/778e8982-f786-45c2-a931-86802c7a48a9
Startide Rising was a great book about dolphins in space
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/0cb5d52e-00ec-4002-9a8c-c44994f25060
The Uplift War was also a very good book about chimpanzees on an alien planet
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/cd2ef051-be3a-46e3-b617-54630f91da36
It might be heresy, but I gave Neuromancer less than 5 stars
But not a lot less
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/3b78afeb-8fd6-4115-a6f4-f548489c750a
@coriander I don't know what that is, but still, reported.
@coriander I am reading A Wizard of Earthsea 
@wallhackio I should read that at some point
@coriander You haven't read that yet? Reported.
@wallhackio Anyway Neuromancer, together with Blade Runner, basically codified what cyberpunk Is
@coriander I have never watched blade runner
@wallhackio Reported as FUCK
@wallhackio @aescling come collect your brother
@coriander @wallhackio i would be a hypocrite
@aescling @wallhackio @Lady come collect these two
@wallhackio Anyway, watch the Final Cut
There's a billion versions out there, it's very confusing, I'm saving you like two hours
Watch the Final Cut
And then watch Blade Runner 2049
@wallhackio Hasn't read Dune, doesn't know Neuromancer, clodboy can you even read