Libromancer's Apprentice

The Sheep Look Up / John Brunner I almost put this book down several pages in.  Narrative voices, even those true to the character the story is focusing at the time... can be a challenge, and in this case the book slapped me in the face with racism that made me concerned for the whole story.  The story is a lot more than one character's bigotry, that being a single piece of a multi-faceted puzzle shaped together by different and divergent experiences throughout.  Warring ideologies and biases are central to the overall plot.  The picture it paints of a potential future pulls uncomfortably on many things that resonate as much today as they did when the book was written. In terms of outlook and despair it puts me in mind of Peter Watts' work, a destructive nihilistic view of humanity's future.  An interesting book, and one that I'm not sure I would have picked and read on my own, were it not for a chance discovery and impulse. Discussion Fodder: As a...

A Wrinkle in Time / Madeleine L'Engle   I went with an "easy" read for March, shorter than many of my picks and by and large considered accessible to children.  Going in I remembered the concepts surrounding a tesseract, that the children were helped by something like angels, and there being some dark force that they had to combat. I actually re-read this in two formats, the graphic novel adaptation as well as the traditional novel.  The graphic novel adaptation is very well done, and I highly recommend it.  The religious aspects of the story stood out starkly to me, which is something that I often struggle with encountering.  At the same time, other concepts stood strong on their own, both of metaphysics and philosophy, and I definitely enjoyed both of those.  Worth the reread, and I wish I had read this when I was in the target audience range. Discussion Fodder: What do you think of the attitudes towards Meg and her mother?  What about atti...