(no subject)
Apr. 21st, 2023 12:24 pmBlood Music by Greg Bear (the novel version)
I... don't know? Maybe I should check out the Hugo-winning novelette version to see if this just got needlessly padded out from something good, but I found a lot of this incredibly interesting but not necessarily enjoyable. It's a twist on Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" where the microcosm is biotech inside its creator rather than an external microcosm, and I think that leads to some interesting speculation about embodiedness as representing our DNA, some mechanistic code that can be interpreted to explicate our entire self, as opposed to embodiedness representing some experiential fact of life that goes beyond what can be calculated. But the characters, with the exception of Vergil who disappears halfway through the book, are dead dull. Also I tried to ignore the fact that it's premised on us not understanding what introns do and now we actually know a lot more about what they do than we did in 1985, but I'm sure I wasn't perfect at that ignoring.
Honey and Me by Meira Drazin
A fascinating middle grade novel about two Modern Orthodox girls struggling with identity and growing up as they become b'not mitzvah. Read on![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lannamichaels's rec and I think I agree with most of lannamichaels's lengthy review. And honestly I desperately hope it provides a sense of recognition for children living within a culture that really is not represented at all in children's literature.
I... don't know? Maybe I should check out the Hugo-winning novelette version to see if this just got needlessly padded out from something good, but I found a lot of this incredibly interesting but not necessarily enjoyable. It's a twist on Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" where the microcosm is biotech inside its creator rather than an external microcosm, and I think that leads to some interesting speculation about embodiedness as representing our DNA, some mechanistic code that can be interpreted to explicate our entire self, as opposed to embodiedness representing some experiential fact of life that goes beyond what can be calculated. But the characters, with the exception of Vergil who disappears halfway through the book, are dead dull. Also I tried to ignore the fact that it's premised on us not understanding what introns do and now we actually know a lot more about what they do than we did in 1985, but I'm sure I wasn't perfect at that ignoring.
Honey and Me by Meira Drazin
A fascinating middle grade novel about two Modern Orthodox girls struggling with identity and growing up as they become b'not mitzvah. Read on
lannamichaels's rec and I think I agree with most of lannamichaels's lengthy review. And honestly I desperately hope it provides a sense of recognition for children living within a culture that really is not represented at all in children's literature.