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Viewing this book on Goodreads I saw a list for well written comfort books where people are nice to each other, and I gotta say, this book is exactly that. So I made a list on here with books I read/I'm reading soon. It's an open group, so please feel free to contribute with your faves from Science Fiction & Fantasy. Basically, the closest it makes you feel to a book from Becky Chambers, the best it'll fit in this list.

lire.boitam.eu/list/61/s/books-where-people-are-nice-to-each-other

Le vers libre peut être un peu déstabilisant au début, ou juste inhabituel, mais ça se lit bien. La forme épouse le fond : le côté lancinant et répétitif du travail d’usine, le rythme des moments dedans et des rares moments dehors… Une très bonne lecture dans un train.

At first i wasn’t convinced, I felt it was a bit confusing. Then everything got in line and the big reveals are surprising. Good character-driven story.

The action scenes are good. The characters are tittering on the cliché side of modern sci fi stereotypes.

Considering that these "finest minds" mostly come from an era where slavery is not a problem, and that Plato's ideas on personal relationships—as logical as they might be—have nothing to do with how humans relate to each other, well, the experiment would be interesting to watch.

Jo Walton pushes the thought experiment by giving us well written characters, a fantastic setting (Atlantis was real!) and sci-fi musings (do robots have souls?), and uses the rules of the experiment to make us question it (thanks, Sokrates).

I really enjoyed this book, but I'll wait a couple of weeks at least before opening the second volume of the series—I don't want to burn out on it.

I liked it. The characters are compelling, and the worldbuilding makes up for the very spare action scenes.

Nothing really memorable, but a good page turner nonetheless. The “military” themes are subverted quite a bit, so we avoid the worst types of copaganda that are normally present in military science fiction.

One character is woefully out of place in his new environment but knows how to do everything, he carries the plot ; one is the grizzled veteran plagued with doubt about her capacity to carry her duty ; then there’s the crew of “specialist” misfits without much depth… thankfully the pacing of the action is good, and the setting and main concepts are interesting. I wonder how the rest of series will go on, but I’m not on the edge of my seat waiting for it.

A good short story (I think I discovered it in an award shortlist?) inspired by Asian history and religions. Perfect length to read on a train ride.

The Golem And The Jinni has a sequel that resolves some things, but not all of them. See my review of the first installment: lire.boitam.eu/book/8848

Both characters are more human, but don't want to lose what made them "them". Both are confronted by a being similar as them (but of the opposite sex), which doesn't make anything easier. The new cast of human characters are more interesting than the main couple, which is a nice change.

China Miéville is a storyteller, as he is a leftists. His month-by-month retelling of the October Revolution is deeply researched and engaging. He's also fair in his portrayal of a very partisan moment in time. And I really enjoyed the fact that he avoided delving into tedious debates about finer points of marxist theory ; there's a greay many books for that, but this book is perfect for a more general approach with rich details.

I liked this book. It's not as serious and realist as Abercrobie's writing, not as convoluted as G.R.R. Martin's stories, it's 'adult' without falling into voyeuristic and misogynist drivel or manly-man power fantasies… A good summer reading, with a beautiful map before the story (and even a calendar with special months and weeks)

The worldbuilding is well done, especially when it comes to the use of magic. I was less concerned by the languages invented for the book, but it's of little importance in the logic of the book. Some prominent characters are not as engaging and well rounded as the main, but I guess that's what you get when your narrator is self-absorbed, kinda dishonest (he's a thief, after all) and more interested in this blind cat he found by chance.

A monk looking for a purpose meets a robot. They both have much to discover from each other, as they tackle the meaning of life.

Short as it is, this book might serve as an introduction to a larger body of work set in the same world, but it also works well alone from other expectations.

I'd love to see more of that world, a sort of solarpunk utopia where suffering, or illness, or poverty, seem very foreign. The robot wants to check in on humanity, to ask them what they need, what the population of wild robots could help them with. What are the need of a society that's got everything? I'm curious. I want to read more.