eclaire.bsky.social

Really remarkable. Of course, I read translation state to prepare to read this, and they're very different. Both are very sharply funny - Radiant Star had me regularly laughing loudly and reading out paragraphs for my partners. It is also a very sad and deeply tragic book, far harsher and more painful than any of the other raadch books. There's a real trick here in doing a joking, playful narrator who reminds me almost of either jane austen or somehow, douglas adams, conveying a story of almost unbroken sadness throughout with real empathy. (some degree of spoilers to follow) I was waiting throughout for the characters to come together, for the threads to be woven into a solution which uses every part of every character to produce a tightly woven resolution in the manner of a lot of literary science fiction and Translation State particularly, and I was absolutely thrilled to see that that's not the nature of this story. It's about the place, of religious dedication, of shared endurance, rather than building to a percussive climax. Really good book

I loved 80% of this book! I think the character work is great, a bunch of it is something that you could almost construe as a school drama but in such a neat way that it doesn't feel rote, really excellent writing as always from Leckie! My only complaint is that the last section of the book switches to a more action centred climax when what I really wanted was more internality from the leads about the transformation we've spent the book talking about, which instead happens offscreen and we do not see their perspectives on the process or its results and anything about how they've changed. Give me a sequel where we see more of Qven and Reet in their new life if that's what it takes to give me more about how they're new, but I would have liked that to be the last quarter of the book instead of the climax we got

Really beautiful; captures the sort of horrible longing for a life outside of society and it's costs and freedoms. Bold and interesting choice to make a case that joining a weird forest sex cult may in fact be better and better for you than just continuing to live as we do, complicit in everything we are. Beautiful, sexy, insightful.