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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.

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.

Loved The Terraformers, so picked up Autonomous. I liked the former more, but it was such a high bar that Autonomous was still excellent. Different, though related themes. Terraformers is environmental where Autonomous is health care / pharmaceutical, but both tell deeply compelling future narratives about attempts to create survival and thriving in the face of terrible, dystopian, and yet believable futures. Appreciate wrestling with parallels between human freedoms and post-human freedoms, with both taking place in the context of capitalism that is recognizable today... On to Newitz's next work.

Fast, engaging, and information packed, this book sent me tracing down references with excitement, energized me to think about the cooperative movement even more, and perhaps most importantly, gave name to things I've been studying better than I have yet to do. If you are at all interested in the futures of work, in economics beyond capitalism, or in more democractic ways of coming together, I highly encourage this book. It would be a great place to start.

I'm not into horror. Period. Don't like to read it, don't like to watch it. Don't even really like to hear it talked about. But this was a good ride, engaging, with profoundly beautiful visual description. It managed to be quite long and complex, and yet still relatively simple too. It turned cliches about and brought them back with something new.

And probably at least semi realistic? Didn't like it as much as Project Hail Mary by the same author. This sorta read as a sequence of "oh crap, another thing went wrong" problems, followed by solutions. I'm certain this is realistic - or even still overly optimistic, given what they were surviving through - but kinda made for an overly long, repetitive narrative. I suspect this is part of why they cut some of these out of the movie (and to save time, but also it got repetitive). Nevertheless, a fun read if you enjoy sci-fi that sticks close to contemporary science.

Close echoes to Gregory Bateson and Gilles Deleuze both. Easier to understand than both, I think. Nora Bateson's prose is often lovely, compelling, poetic. It represents in form the ideas she espouses. Symmathesy and Warm Data are her concepts and she circles them, especially in the latter half of the book. A worthwhile read to those who want to think differently as they work on the problems of our world. And a different way in to understanding Deleuze than Deleuze himself. I'll return to some of the essays in here over the next years, I'm certain. Can be read in small sections.

Like many self help books, this could be an article and just as usefully make all the points. I've found what was said to be true to my learning about creating and keeping productive habits. So it is useful if this is what you are trying to do - or at least would be to someone like me. I think you can probably generally just skim, dive into interesting parts, and read chapter summaries to save time.

Solidly in the rom-com genre, with a gay romance at the heart of the story. It seems like the real emphasis though is on the mental health struggles of both characters - and the ways they help and support each other through them. In that sense, it warps the genre some, because so few emphasize mental health almost exclusively. However, for me at least, the story started to drag about half way through and was kind of slow to the finish. Loved the idea more than the execution.

Never read anything by Locke I didn't love. She's a genius in her writing and description, and also for the profound complexity through which her stories unfold. I don't like the detective/mystery/crime genre, but I love her work. That she can bring in race and racism in a tale of the modern U.S. and bend but not break the detective genre is an awesome feat. I'll read everything she publishes.

I think the author does a nice job of capturing a dystopian universe, alongside the strengths of characters coming into their own and making sense of a world through a critical lens. A quick read, series and playful at the same time. Ursu follows YA adventure fantasy genre... and also busts it up.

A fun YA fantasy novel based in mathematics of all things. Classic Brandon Sanderson twists a reader should come to expect but can rarely predict. I wish Sanderson would continue this series (maybe he will - but he has so many open series at this point).

I love everything I've ever read by Kazuo Ishiguro. His prose isn't filled with vocab words and doesn't ever even feel anything but mundane, and yet somehow, every single line is poetry. This book did not disappoint. Lovely, loving, heart-rending... and also exploring the very real potential futures of artificial intelligence, machine learning, friendship, and disposability.