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the rich ppl's dinner party reads like a horror scenario and ends like one for Shevek

this is neither dense nor deep but also not an introduction where you cover surface-level stuff but at least give an overview. wtf is this even??

idk what i expected but it wasn't reading about the very basics for almost half of the book???

"This is a shockingly understaffed clinic! (...) Some of these doctors are working eight hours a day!" this is a utopia alright

the chapter about trying to talk politics and socialism with an US-American and failing spectacularly even though you're technically on the same side. yeah.... yeah.

curious to see where this is going. his thoughts are for sure more radical than i expected

the only normal, self-aware person in this book is the young emergency room doc on a random weekday evening. the Situationskomik of it all is that in most cases, this type of person is the least hinged

Königsklasse der Situationskomik: ahnungsloser Westberliner vs DDR-Zollbeamter am 5.11.89

i'm so hooked

the jump in quality compared to city of illusions and the prev one is insane..

crying abt four drunk heteros being kicked out of a gay bar

"what even is cheese" as a discussion among aliens abdbdhdbfbc

this is, again, an audio book for terribly monotonous work days. i'm excited so far, saying this as someone whose favourite star trek series is deep space nine

that was a rather quick ending but on the other hand it was. right in the feels :')

it's all coming together huh

this """cozy soft uwu scifi""" really has it all huh

ah yes there it is. wandering through wintry lands

listening to the audio book at work while doing dull measurements. the definition of escapism

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom: ngl this felt like reading a Neuromancer-like scifi-action piece but 100 times better. i like Chiang's take on the subject and even tho the story is really well-executed, I don't think that this particular style of plot suits him that much

Omphalos: once again astronomy destroys the church lmao. also u get a glimpse into a world similar to the parallel universe described in His Dark Materials

The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling: i really dug the style of a fictional journalistic essay in this one. i appreciate the thinkpiece of "what if your shitty parent was Wrong and their Truth was a lie they told themselves" ending in an optimistic way. but I haven't been through therapy for nothing, so i agree w the fictional child's therapist: u need to live w it smh

The Great Silence: beautiful theme with a solid explanation and backstory provided by the end notes

Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny: liked it quite well, and it fit the strange views of Victorians and children and machinery. same vibe as Woyzeck

The Lifecycle of Software Objects: i'm a puddle of emotions

What's Expected Of Us: classic scifi in the sense that it takes a phenomenon from our times (new tech becoming available that rapidly changes society and human interaction) and examines that scenario with tech that's currently not (yet?) available. v enjoyable read, i felt like i savoured every sentence

Exhalation: oh my god. ohhh my god. i love how he constructs these short stories and how - at some point - feel something click inside your brain and you truly GET the setting and the people now. this was an amazing read.

the alchemist's gate: refreshing take on wormholes. you don't need them to be in some far corner of the galaxy, they can just pop up in Cairo or Baghdad

i am already so hooked