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sol2070

[email protected]

Joined 1 year, 4 months ago

From Brazil. #scifi #philosophy #nature #politics #tech #fantasy

Costumo ler sci-fi, filosofia, natureza, política, tech e alguma fantasia. Mais livros no blog → sol2070.in/livros Também escrevo ficção científica → fic.sol2070.in/ Mastodon → @[email protected]

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sol2070's books

Stopped Reading

Jem Bendell: Breaking Together (Paperback, Good Works) 4 stars

The collapse of modern societies has begun. That is the conclusion of two years of …

I am with philosopher Slavoj Zizek when he says “do not blame people and their attitudes. The problem is not corruption or greed, the problem is the system that pushes you to be corrupt.” I am also with Lyla June’s mum when she tells us that “you think you know what it is to be human, but you don't. All you know is how a human behaves in a power-over paradigm. But what if you were to plug that human being into a completely different paradigm?” Pat McCabe is right. We do not actually know what unmanipulated and uncoerced humans might do about our planetary predicament, but now would be a good time find out.

Breaking Together by 

reviewed Absolution (Southern Reach, #4)

Absolution (inglês language) 5 stars

The surprise fourth volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series—and the final word on one …

Area X 4

5 stars

(em português → sol2070.in/2024/11/livro-absolution-jeff-vandermeer-comando-sul-4/ )

"Absolution" (2024) is the fourth installment in Jeff Vandermeer's "Southern Reach" series, a book whose release date I had even marked on my calendar.

It's a prequel to the other three books, which mix surreal horror with science and ecological fiction. The first of them, "Annihilation" (2014), is the most famous, since it became a cult movie by Alex Garland.

The story revolves around a phenomenon in a vast swampy area of the USA, Area X, which causes nature to behave in a bizarre and potentially annihilating way for humans. Southern Reach is the government task force that has been covering up what is happening for decades, investigating and ultimately influencing the whole process.

The things I like most about the series are:

  • Ecology. The predominant symbol is environmental catastrophe and our relationship with the natural world, revealing an inconceivable dimension of nature.
  • Ambiguity. At …
Sue Burke: Semiosis (Semiosis Duology, #1) (2018) 4 stars

In this character driven novel of first contact by debut author Sue Burke, human survival …

Alien plant sentience

4 stars

(em português → sol2070.in/2024/10/livro-semiosis-sue-burke/ )

It's been harder to read science fiction, for some reason. Or rather, it's not been easy to find books I like in the genre. In the last few weeks, I've abandoned three well-recommended ones. So “Semiosis” (2018, 336 pgs.), by Sue Burke, was a find.

The story covers the first century of a small human settlement on the planet Pax, roughly the year 2200, after the complete collapse of civilization and the environment on Earth. The plan is a reboot of humanity, with values that don't point towards compromising the environment and self-destruction. Pax has a biosphere similar to Earth's — already with vegetation and animals — but as it is a billion years older, its members have evolved in an unexpected way. The species with the most sophisticated intelligence and communication is a plant, and humans have to learn to deal with it, among …

reviewed Spill by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow: Spill (2024, Tor.com) 5 stars

In a new Little Brother novella, there is no security in obscurity. But there can …

Contemporary cyberpunk page turner

5 stars

(em português → sol2070.in/2024/10/conto-spill-cory-doctorow/ )

‘Spill’ (2024, 111 pgs.) is a contemporary cyberpunk novella set in the universe of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother series.

As a fan of the trilogy(1), I was delighted to have hacker-activist Marcus back, as well as protest organiser Tanisha, a character from ‘Attack Surface’ (2020), the third volume.

Over the course of the series, Marcus grows up - the first two volumes are aimed at young people, and in the third, he's already an adult. In ‘Spill’, in his spare time between freelancing as a digital security consultant, Marcus sets up a mighty personal server in a hacker friend's datacenter, which ironically ends up hacked and hijacked as a vector for ransomware attacks.

In a parallel story that intertwines, a civil disobedience movement protesting the fossil fuel corporations wreaking havoc in California is being accused of terrorism and cyber-attacks, suffering brutal violence and repression.

It's …