Litsy

The Weapon Shops of Isher | A.E. Van Vogt

so-so

The weapon shops are the only recourse against the tyranny of the Isher empire although the weapons they sell can only work as self-defence for their owner.

I was a great fan of the author as a teenager - especially the Null-A books - so I must have read this before, but I had no memory of the story. I expect I enjoyed it then, mainly because I was unaware of certain controversies it seems to be playing into. Now, not so much.

rwmg @RamFans1963
#ClassicLSFBC 13h

19 likes1 comment

Takeflightinreading

Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy | Martha Wells

Read the first two, still two to read!
Loving the dry humor, lots of action in such a short book. #murderbotdiaries#marthawells#scifi#quickreads#firstpost

rwmg I gather there's a TV version coming in May 13h

1 like1 stack add1 comment

TheBookgeekFrau

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K. Dick

#DynamicDs #Dream

Eggs, Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

britt_brooke Love this cover! 1d

TheBookgeekFrau @britt_brooke It's so cool! 1d

Eggs Brilliant 👏🏻👏🏻 22h

36 likes3 comments

rwmg

The Weapon Shops of Isher | A.E. Van Vogt

#coffeeandabook

#ClassicLSFBC
@RamsFan1963

23 likes

CoveredInRust

Death's End | Cixin Liu

25% in. This has been such a good series. I'll be so sad when it's over.

#scifi

27 likes

RamsFan1963

Police Patrol: 2000 A.D. | Mack Reynolds

pick

38/100 I love books like this, written in 1977, envisioning the world of 2000, but looking back from 2025 and seeing how off the author's vision came to be. Sadly, no hovercars or helio-jets for the police, no Universal Credit Cards to replace money, no instant purchases delivered to your home by vaccum tube. It's still a fun read, although too short for any character development. 3 ⭐⭐⭐💫 #Read2025

CSeydel I mean … we kind of have instant purchases with Amazon same day delivery. (Imagine how cumbersome a network of vacuum tubes all over the country would be! 🤣) And ApplePay or Venmo are kind of like “universal credit cards” 2d

Ruthiella Still no flying cars! 😂 2d

RamsFan1963 @CSeydel Yes those are close, but in the book, the Universal Credit Card is issued to everyone, so it's like a government supported welfare for everyone. If you had a job, you had more on your card, but even the unemployed got what was called Inalienable Basic, so no one went homeless or starved. They also had universal health care, another thing we can't seem to get right. 2d

CSeydel Oh yeah, that‘s a very different thing! 2d

52 likes4 comments

Decalino

When the Moon Hits Your Eye | John Scalzi

pick

I listened to this audiobook (narrated by an excellent Wil Wheaton) while spring cleaning, and it was somehow perfectly attuned to the strangeness, absurdity & atmosphere of dire calamity that characterize our world today. To be clear, it's about what would happen if the moon suddenly and inexplicably turned into cheese. Events are seen through the eyes of characters from all walks of life, in vignettes ranging from the silly to the truly poignant

24 likes

Mattsbookaday

When the Moon Hits Your Eye | John Scalzi

pick

When the Moon Hits Your Eye, by John Scalzi (2025)

Premise: The world is stunned to discover that the moon has been turned into a cheese-like substance.

Review: Scalzi‘s two previous books dealt with ordinary people dealing with extraordinary situations, and here it‘s the whole world dealing with an extraordinary situation. On the plus side, this allows him to cover a wide range of opinions and experiences about the event. Cont.

Mattsbookaday The bad thing is that, mileage varied a lot from chapter to chapter, so was a more uneven reading experience from the tight novels I‘m used to from Scalzi. It‘s still a worthy read by a wonderful author, but be warned that it‘s a strange one.

Bookish Pair: There is nothing like this, but another book of connected short stories dealing with a mass human crisis, Sequoia Nagamatsu‘s How High We Go in the Dark (2022)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 4d

8 likes1 comment

Decalino

Antimatter Blues: A Mickey7 Novel | Edward Ashton

pick

In this sequel to Mickey 7, Mickey once again holds the fate of the human colony on Niflheim in his hands. This time, though, he's no longer an Expendable, doomed to a cycle of horrible death followed by reprinting--instead, he has to try his hand at diplomacy and maybe even leadership. Dealing with imperfect information and intense time pressure, dying seems easier by comparison.

16 likes