Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Shop this series
See full series
Shop this series
There are 3 books in this series.
Bundle price:
Kindle price
$37.28
By clicking the above button, you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use
This option includes 3 books.
Bundle price:
Kindle price
$37.28
By clicking the above button, you agree to the Kindle Store Terms of Use
Customers who bought this item also bought
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
From the Publisher
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
About the author
Excellent as Expected
Short review: extremely good book. Reminiscent of John Scazi. Funny, thought-provoking, hard to tear your eyes away from the pages.Longer Review:So I’ve been watching Lindsay Ellis make media analysis videos (on YouTube) ever since I was 16 and beginning to develop opinions and a personality; in many ways, Lindsay Ellis was the model of the type of person I wanted to become. In this book, I can hear her voice as clearly as if she were dictating one of her videos, and it remains as insightful and funny as I remember it being 10 years ago.I went into reading this book knowing LITERALLY nothing about it (beyond it being science fiction) so if you’d like to have a similar experience, then don’t read any further.This book is focused on a college dropout named Cora who becomes wrapped up in humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial life after an alien named Ampersand designates her his interpreter. The events leading up to that are a tinge too complicated explain in an amazon review, but the narrative mainly focuses on their relationship and their attempts to understand one another.The character’s attempts to do so are stilted, largely because, as Ampersand articulately explains in the novel, people can only filter alien life through the prism of their own existence. When a species refuses to fit into the other’s preconceived notions of life/culture/philosophies, one will attempt to remake the other in its own image, either by influence or violent force.Much of the setting will be extremely familiar to anyone who has ever lived on the Los Angeles periphery. As Ellis lives in Long Beach, it was easy for me to imagine the locations and geography (even some of the precise street names) mentioned in the novel. She describes the settings without lingering too long on them, something that I find drags down other stories that would have otherwise been far more interesting.The aliens, it should go without saying, are utterly alien. Less Star Trekian foreheads and more cyborg velociraptors from space. Their social structures and biology are bizarre, which is fitting with the themes of the book.The only minor criticism of the book I have is Ellis’s reliance on pop culture to explain certain concepts or emotional states to the reader. It’s definitely still funny, but that humor has a short half-life in the grand scheme of storytelling. Again; VERY minor criticism. Tons of accomplished and respected authors do this, and they’re far more guilty of it than Ellis is.So anyway I inhaled this book in about 2 days so I recommend it.
Top reviews from other countries
Thiago Pereira
A slow build-up to an amazing payoff.
Reviewed in Brazil on May 24, 2021
Origami
Something old, something new and an intriguing new voice in Sci-Fi
Reviewed in France on May 8, 2021
