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Tentacle
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
24 posts | 20 read | 30 to read
An electric tale of apocalypse, sex and time travel from one of the Caribbean's most extraordinary cultural figures.
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Bookwomble
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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#TuesdayTunes @TieDyeDude
As you asked for recommendations for upbeat Latin music, I can only really offer Rita Indiana's "Mandinga Times", but I think it's a good one! She's a Dominican musician, author (see tagged) and advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights across the Caribbean ❤️?️‍? https://open.spotify.com/album/027cuwNhwK78Agx2K1N5EC?si=IFXmW5ACQ5SGr2-PylclTA
For a more chill bossa nova beat, I like Paul Desmond's "Take Ten" ??

TieDyeDude I like it! Thanks for the recommendation 8mo
Jari-chan Same. Thank you! 8mo
Bookwomble @TieDyeDude @Jari-chan You're welcome 😊 8mo
Billypar Great pick! After I listened to her album, I went on a Spotify algorithm tear today that led me to discover several new artists, including Ketekalles from Barcelona and Cuban singer La Dame Blanche. 8mo
Bookwomble @Billypar I'm glad you like Rita, and that you've found some other new music, too 😊 8mo
37 likes5 comments
review
Bookwomble
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #DominicanRepublic 🇩🇴
This had Philip K. Dick feels, with relatively ordinary people getting drawn into mind bending situations, perceptual time/reality slips, and fluidity of personality and body. It takes in politics, art theory, climate catastrophe, challenges a Eurocentric scientific worldview with Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and centres trans experience in the MC.
⬇️

Bookwomble Lots going on, and it was good, though I think I was missing a sense of heart, so I didn't feel fully invested in the characters. 3.5 ⭐
Parental Advisory: Swears, sex, drugs and violence, sometimes all at once, but not all the time
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB
2y
30 likes1 comment
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Bookwomble
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Waiting for Mrs B to have an eye test, popped out for a coffee, tempted by the breakfast bagel! ☕🥯📖
#BooksAndCoffee #BooksAndBagels

thebackyardgnome I love bagrls! Wish you could just buy thrm in bakeries over here. 2y
thebackyardgnome Oh, and your pfp is the cover of my favourit album! 2y
Bookwomble @thebackyardgnome Where's "over here"? ? I love the Low album, too (obviously ?), and just about everything David recorded. A colleague I worked with in the 80s said he reckoned if David farted into the microphone, I'd buy the recording of it, and I don't think he was wrong! ?‍????? 2y
36 likes3 comments
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Bookwomble
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #DominicanRepublic ??
I got this for the challenge, noting it's sci-fi, post-apocalypse, dystopian, time-travel with a trans MC, which was all promising. What I didn't look at before buying was reviews, which flag gory horror and graphic sex, which are not in my bailiwick - the fact I thought the word "bailiwick" is probably an indicator of just how far out of mine it's likely to be!? I'll just have to gird my loins!

Bookwomble Author, Rita Indiana, is also a musician, whose music I need to explore, and a vocal LGBTQIA+ advocate within traditionally patriarchal Dominican culture. Sounds like an all-round good egg 🥚🏳️‍🌈
@Librarybelle @BarbaraBB
2y
The_Book_Ninja Did you do a Mary Whitehouse and read it to the end just to make sure it wasn‘t in your bailiwick?🧐😉 2y
BarbaraBB It sounds a bit like a book I just read: 2y
See All 8 Comments
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja Ha, ha! 😂 No, I'm still at the beginning of the book and will continue. I'm not such a prude that these elements will stop me reading, unless they become cruel, prurient or gratuitous. 2y
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB Ah, I saw a few Litsy reviews for that book but haven't read it. It sounds like the idea was interesting but, again, the execution (forgive the pun) rather too bloody for me. 2y
The_Book_Ninja @Bookwomble Well I‘ll be waiting for a detailed review! Have a good Sunday Mr Womble✌🏼 2y
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja You, too, Mr Ninj 😊 2y
BarbaraBB It wasn‘t very pleasant I admit. Can‘t recommend 🤷🏻‍♀️ 2y
37 likes8 comments
blurb
traa
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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quote
Bertha_Mason
Tentacle | Rita Indiana

"This kind of coincidence ought to have a name. Whenever he heard a word for the first time, a stream of references, information, and associations would rise up out of nowhere, as though the universe were conjuring up the tools necessary for learning, or as though it were giving its approval to a specific path of knowledge."
This always happens to me too.

quote
Bertha_Mason
Tentacle | Rita Indiana

"Everything was drenched in the light of a late afternoon in which the limits of the flesh dissolved into white and yellow particles in the same way life itself appears to dissolve under a microscope."

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Chittavrtti
Tentacle | Rita Indiana

Found this in last year‘s to be reads. As I read it I‘m discovering it‘s one of those books whose narrative is so cynical I‘m going to need a sunshine novel afterward to help me feel positive towards humanity again.

1 like1 stack add
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AJackets
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Sunday Read! A book in translation that is sci-fi and jumps straight into questions of climate change, technology, Yoruba ritual, queer politics, poverty, colonialism and contemporary art! #mustread #lgbt #translated #booklove #ReadFastDieYoung #bookart #bookstagram

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lalatiburona
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Queer sci-fi and Manhattans 😍🙌

review
Lindy
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

My admiration grows the longer I reflect on this queer, peppy time-travel triple narrative set in the Dominican Republic and #translated by Achy Obejas. Can the past be manipulated to avert future ecological disaster? Can altruism triumph over self-interest? A transgender man, Santera sorcery and a magical sea anemone are key elements in this vertiginous exploration of colonialism, gender, art and greed. #LGBTQ

TrishB Wow 😮 what a review! Stacked. 5y
Lindy @TrishB Thanks! And it‘s a short novel, too: Indiana does all this in 132 pages. 5y
Cinfhen You post the most awesome books!!!!!!! 5y
Lindy @Cinfhen Thanks! I think I heard about this one on Litsy, maybe from @xicanti . @Reggie has reviewed it also. 😊 5y
Reggie Nice review!! Have you looked the author up? She‘s in a band and has some cool music out there. 5y
34 likes4 stack adds5 comments
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Lindy
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Los Charamicos was a backwards town, dirty and small, and completely dependent on tourism—in other words, prostitution, in all its varieties.
(Internet photo)

37 likes1 stack add
review
Reggie
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

This story takes place in the Dominican Republic, 2024. There is no more life in the oceans we humans have destroyed. We start by following Acilde, a maid, who wants to be male, steal a sacred and rare anemone from her boss who happens to be a representative of a Yoruban deity. What follows is multi layered time travel story that is brash and explicit with an ecological theme throughout. This was bonkers but that last page really got me. Pick!

Centique Already on my TBR #becausetimetravel but your review would have done it! Man you are powering through the books my friend 🙌 Like some kind of book reading Popeye after swallowing a can of spinach! 😝 5y
Reggie @Centique This book feels twice as long as it‘s 132 pages, but in a good way. She really packs it in and no sentence is wasted. This one and last night‘s were short. But I‘ll take a Popeye reference any way I can get it. 😜 5y
TobeyTheScavengerMonk You‘re speaking my weirdo language here, friend. Stacked. 5y
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batsy I already have it stacked but your review speaks to me so I'm double stacking it in my mind, lol 5y
Mandoul Thanks again fella - great review. Stacked! 5y
Reggie @batsy it won some kind of award for best Caribbean fiction. First Spanish language book to do so. It‘s a wild ride! 5y
Reggie @Mandoul Thank you! 5y
readordierachel Sounds amazing. Stacked! 5y
BooknerdsLife Love your review! And stacked the book🙌🏼📚💖 Fingers crossed I can get it from my library🤞🏼 5y
62 likes9 stack adds10 comments
review
mreads
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

Partially set in a post apocalyptic dystopia where the ocean is dead, a sacred anemone makes it possible to time travel into the past. Lots here about Dominican Republic culture, queerness and what you're willing to sacrifice for a better planet. One of those books that keeps you thinking.

#booked2019 8. Cli Fi @Cinfhen @4thhouseontheleft @BarbaraTheBibliophage

Cinfhen Sounds like a #genreburster too!!! 6y
Reggie I heard Jenn recommend this on Get Booked. I‘m glad to hear you liked it. Stacked. 6y
mrozzz This was such a weird & great one!! 6y
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mreads @Reggie 😀👍 6y
mreads @mrozzz 😀👍 6y
SenatorMothma Wow sounds very unique! 5y
54 likes5 stack adds6 comments
review
xicanti
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

TENTACLE is one of those SFMALF offerings that works equally well whether you approach it as science fiction or litfic. It‘s weird and deep and exciting. It uses its disparate timelines to consider human motivations and the nature of consciousness. And it only needs 130 pages to accomplish great things.

You should check it out, with the caveat it deals with sexual violence and misogyny with a side of racism. Proceed with caution if necessary.

xicanti (I WILL make the acronym SFMALF—for science fiction marketed as literary fiction—happen. Tell your friends.) 6y
39 likes1 comment
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xicanti
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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I‘m seventeen days into a FitBit goals streak and no way was I gonna let my glitchy-ass battery steal that from me, so I grabbed my book and hopped on my stationary bike. I‘ve still got 70 more calories to officially burn, but now the record shows I‘ve met every other goal for today.

Eyelit 👏👏👏 6y
48 likes1 comment
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Dorianna
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

I really don‘t know how Rita Indiana managed to put so much into such a short book but it is impressive. It has a hyper-capitalistic post-apocalyptic society experiencing environmental collapse, what I can only describe as mental time travel, the fluidity of gender, colonial history, and future technology mixing with black magic. It‘s a very interesting and disturbing read, if a little hard to follow at times.

ohyeahthatgirl Glad to hear you liked it! I work at a library and just bought it as an ebook. 6y
Dorianna @ohyeahthatgirl I‘ve been trying to read more books in translation this year and so far I have not been disappointed. Indiana has a new book coming out in January and can‘t wait to read it. 6y
13 likes2 comments
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xicanti
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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I managed a nice, small library haul this week: one book of poetry and one short novel I requested because of Book Riot‘s SFF newsletter.

readordierachel Loving that Tongue Breaker cover 😍 6y
xicanti @readordierachel it definitely caught my attention on the New Releases rack! 6y
44 likes2 comments
review
mrozzz
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Pickpick

Acilde‘s past overshadows an uncertain future in the post-apocalyptic landscape that has a grip on the island, the Caribbean, & the world, and the surprise jumps through time drive the story to its certain oblivion. As the story alternately focused on Acilde, art dealer Giorgio and his artist prodigies, one of them the struggling Argenis, and a group of old world buccaneers, I read on in wonder. I bow down Indiana‘s brilliant mind.

77 likes1 stack add
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CyaneFillion
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
Mehso-so

It got good near the end, while it was a very strange book I think it sends us a good message regarding our environment.

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Emilymdxn
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Mehso-so

Hard to review - there were bits that I loved, but i always find I don‘t connect with distopian books that are this grim/violent. It reminded me of China Mieville - a successful writer a lot of people like but I just can‘t get on with. I don‘t think it was a bad book but really the opposite of a lot of what I like about reading fiction.

Tonton Mieville‘s Kraken! 6y
52 likes1 comment
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Emilymdxn
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Still very sick :( this chest infection is a nasty one. Probably won‘t make it back to work til Thursday and for some reason my ears are incredibly painful?? I never even heard of that symptom?? Urgh.

This is blindingly original, very well written, but for my personal tastes I just don‘t enjoy very grisly/violent/icky books. That‘s a personal taste thing that makes it difficult to enjoy for me, but I‘d recommend 1000x if you don‘t mind that!

Lauram I hope you‘re feeling better soon. 6y
Kaye Get well soon. 6y
Soubhiville I hope you feel better. 6y
See All 11 Comments
Librarybelle Feel better soon! 6y
sherryvdh Hope you feel better soon! 6y
Naj *sending positive vibes * Hope you feel better. 6y
quietjenn Hope you feel better soon. 6y
tina_b.ooks That doesn't sound too good, hope you feel better soon 🌻 6y
SW-T @Emilymdxn Hope you start feeling better soon! 6y
Clare_Riley Get well soon! 6y
48 likes11 comments
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catiewithac
Tentacle | Rita Indiana
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Tentacle was the bonus book I received from & Other Stories. It won the Grand Prize of the Association of Caribbean Writers. But look at that book description 👀‼️ This one promises to knock your socks off! I can‘t wait to plunge in! 💦

catiewithac @REPollock you‘re definitely gonna want to read this one! The first few pages are awesome 😎 6y
33 likes3 stack adds1 comment