AFKBRBChocolate

Natalie is the perfect Christian trad(itional)wife. An influencer with millions of followers, she's the perfect cook, the perfect wife to her sweet cowboy husband, and the perfect mother to her five kids (with a sixth on the way). She's a most likable woman living a perfectly traditional life on a perfectly traditional farm. At least, that's what she presents on her social media accounts; behind the camera, things are much less rosy. Things take a sharp turn when she awakens to find herself struggling to survive in a nineteenth century version of her farm house, with a harder version of her husband and similar but different children. The story alternates between the influencer timeline and the prairie timeline as things seem to get worse in both. This is an interesting book, but it's not enjoyable. The only likable character is a small child, though I at least felt sympathy for some of the other side characters. The book has a lot to say about social media, conservatism, and kindness.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/72211462

Sequel to Foundryside, set in the same city in which inanimate objects can be "scrived” to somewhat change their structure or state (make a wooden door behave more like stone, or a sword behave like it's moving much faster than it is). In the prior book we learned that this ability was learned from recovered fragments from a long gone civilization of "hierophants” who were masters of it. Here, Sancha and most of the main characters from the prior book have settled into a new life, but learn that someone is attempting to resurrect the original and greatest hierophant, who is likely to destroy their world. As with the first, I enjoyed this book. The world is interesting, the characters relatable, and the action kept the pages turning.

Sequel to Foundryside, set in the same city in which inanimate objects can be "scrived” to somewhat change their structure or state (make a wooden door behave more like stone, or a sword behave like it's moving much faster than it is). In the prior book we learned that this ability was learned from recovered fragments from a long gone civilization of "hierophants” who were masters of it. Here, Sancha and most of the main characters from the prior book have settled into a new life, but learn that someone is attempting to resurrect the original and greatest hierophant, who is likely to destroy their world. As with the first, I enjoyed this book. The world is interesting, the characters relatable, and the action kept the pages turning.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/71957771

In an unspecified but not too distant future, classrooms give way to individual instruction on mobile devices and children are more isolated. “Artificial Friends” (AFs) - androids designed as companions - become more popular to help reduce their loneliness. Klara is an AF, bought for a very sick young girl. Though Klara is especially clever and observant, her knowledge of how the world works is very limited. This is a wonderful but very slowly paced story - if you're looking for something action packed, it's not here. I really enjoyed the way Ishiguro gives us a constant trickle of information about the future he's created, and I enjoyed Klara’s joyful nature.

In an unspecified but not too distant future, classrooms give way to individual instruction on mobile devices and children are more isolated. “Artificial Friends” (AFs) - androids designed as companions - become more popular to help reduce their loneliness. Klara is an AF, bought for a very sick young girl. Though Klara is especially clever and observant, her knowledge of how the world works is very limited. This is a wonderful but very slowly paced story - if you're looking for something action packed, it's not here. I really enjoyed the way Ishiguro gives us a constant trickle of information about the future he's created, and I enjoyed Klara’s joyful nature.

Kai is a powerful demon who awakens outside of his human body to find he's been trapped unconscious in a tomb for over a year. His long-time friends are also missing. He has to figure out who has done this, and why. The story alternates between this “present" timeline, and a "past” timeline that starts with him as a young demon in his newly-gifted human body. Wells has a real knack for creating worlds with interesting rules (far from the cookie cutter tropes of some fantasy), and then exploring the boundaries of those rules. I enjoyed it, but also felt like there was an odd detachment to the story - like there wasn't a lot of emotional attachment to the characters. As an aside, Wells has a penchant for making subtle or not-so-subtle commentary on our society and the prejudices in it. As examples in this one, demons are referred to by the gender of their demon selves, not the gender of the body they're in. Some societies have gender neutral clothing, but where it's gendered it's the men who wear skirts and women who wear pants. One culture is referred to as confusing because they stick to two genders.

Kai is a powerful demon who awakens outside of his human body to find he's been trapped unconscious in a tomb for over a year. His long-time friends are also missing. He has to figure out who has done this, and why. The story alternates between this “present" timeline, and a "past” timeline that starts with him as a young demon in his newly-gifted human body. Wells has a real knack for creating worlds with interesting rules (far from the cookie cutter tropes of some fantasy), and then exploring the boundaries of those rules. I enjoyed it, but also felt like there was an odd detachment to the story - like there wasn't a lot of emotional attachment to the characters. As an aside, Wells has a penchant for making subtle or not-so-subtle commentary on our society and the prejudices in it. As examples in this one, demons are referred to by the gender of their demon selves, not the gender of the body they're in. Some societies have gender neutral clothing, but where it's gendered it's the men who wear skirts and women who wear pants. One culture is referred to as confusing because they stick to two genders.

Book four of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Carl, Donut, and Katia get to the next level, get into more trouble, get additional skills and levels, and figure more things out. This level has the crawlers divided up into separate domes with different circular quadrants. Also, there's getting to be a little more about the underlying factions and politics of the universe as the serious progresses. As before, if you liked the prior books, you'll probably like this one.

Zula has taken a job at a company responsible for a globally popular video game, founded by her billionaire uncle. Her boyfriend Peter has entered into an illegal transaction with someone he doesn't realize is connected to the Russian Mafia. Everything goes south, and Zula and Peter are abducted. What follows is a book with a giant scope. It's an international suspense thriller that takes a multitude of interesting main characters to the limits of their capabilities. Stephenson manages to linger on lots of small technical details in a way that's interesting, and while still making a real page-turner with characters we care about for over 1000 pages.

Maggie is an 83-year-old woman living alone while her husband is in a memory care facility with Alzheimer's. She's visited by a man who tells her that it's not a disease - her husband's memories are being erased intentionally because of something he discovered, and she needs to go inside his memories to find out what it was and to save him. There's quite a bit packed into this book. It's a thriller, a puzzle book, and especially it's a love story. There's one element of the book that seems more like mysticism than SF, but it's hard to say more - really about any aspect of the book - without spoilers. I enjoyed it and it kept me turning pages into the night.

Book three of the Palleseen Sway series. Many of the main characters of the prior book figure into this one, but they're less of the focus. It takes place in the aftermath of the prior book’s war, but in Usmiat, a costal city kingdom ruled by a blind king, but with some Pal presence in the city. Most of the focus is on the woman who is the highest ranking Pal, and on the king's heir. This one seemed to take longer to get going, but as it went along the momentum kept building. Tchaikovsky does a good job creating rich and diverse cultures as they clash or align. Good.

I read a lot of both SF and fantasy. Most communities I've dealt with have commingled the genres, in part because the line between them can be blurry. Is this community supposed to be strictly SF, or are discussions of fantasy also okay?

I was going to post my mini review of Days of Shattered Faith, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, but it's clearly fantasy (though Tchaikovsky writes quite a lot of SF), so I thought I should ask.

Edit: it seems like I've had pretty good response to the question, and the vast majority would prefer to be more inclusive rather than draw a line. I'll go ahead and continue posting both, though note that so far a moderator hasn't weighed I in, and that could change things.