some buncha nerds

Mahit Dzmare is the fresh-faced new ambassador from a remote space station struggling to maintain its independence from the massive interstellar Teixcalaan Empire. What the Teixcalaanli diplomats don't know is that Mahit's mind carries the memories and personality of the previous ambassador alongside her own—and what Mahit doesn't know is that the old ambassador got up to a lot of sketchy stuff since the last time his mind files were backed up. Arriving on the Teixcalaan capital planet, Mahit finds that her predecessor has died in a *cough* "accident," and the sight of his own dead body in the morgue causes his uploaded personality to glitch out and Mahit loses contact with his memories. Now lacking the secret advantage she was supposed to have, Mahit must navigate labyrinthine court politics, figure out what the old ambassador did that got him killed, and save her home from imperial conquest.

On paper, this book checks all the boxes to make me love it. It's a queer anti-imperialist space opera with detailed worldbuilding and a premise that raises questions about identity and individuality! I was invested in the characters and I appreciated the unique flavor of the Aztec-inspired Teixcalaan culture.

And yet... I didn't love the book, I only kinda liked it. I enjoyed it while I was reading, but I found it easy to put down and easy to forget about when I wasn't reading it, and in the end I was left feeling lukewarm. I think there are three main reasons for that.

1. It's too much like Imperial Radch. And I love Imperial Radch! But I found this book not as compelling, surprising, or psychologically complex, and it misses a few of my narrative kinks that Imperial Radch hits dead on. (This book is queer all right, but it's not genderqueer, and the man's-memories-in-woman's-head premise is a big missed opportunity where it could have been.) I might have responded to this book more strongly if I hadn't read Imperial Radch first or if they hadn't been so similar in so many ways.

2. The pacing is sluggish, especially in the first half. Some points are needlessly belabored every time they come up, without being developed or expanded upon. Yes, I understand that Mahit has confused feelings about being a nerd for a culture that will never accept her and threatens her own culture's autonomy. Yes, I understand that she is having a hard time because her predecessor's memories aren't accessible. What else do you want to say about those things, author? It feels like ages go by where nothing is really shifting for the protagonist. I realize the events of the book only happen over a few days, but in that case maybe it's not necessary to restate where she's at emotionally at such length and frequency?

3. Several aspects of the ending seemed contrived.

plot spoilers

I didn't buy that the insurrection would fizzle so easily as soon as Nineteen Adze became emperor. I also wasn't thrilled to see Twelve Azalea predictably killed off after I spent most of the book thinking "this guy only exists so you can kill off a character we like other than the main pair, doesn't he?" And look, I did want to see Mahit and Three Seagrass get together, but I don't think the intended slow burn was executed well. They're obviously into each other from the moment they meet, but the tension doesn't build or develop in any meaningful way until suddenly they kiss at the end, and then Mahit abruptly decides to leave the planet for no reason. I mean, yes, vague reasons are supplied, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take those reasons seriously, or if Mahit is just scared of intimacy. Should be good times for Three Seagrass now that her best friend's been murdered in front of her and the only other person she trusts is pulling this ridiculous "sorry but we can't be together because I need to ~find myself~" thing out of nowhere!

But hey, there's only one sequel, so I'll probably read it and at least see how it ends. (Given that Teixcalaan is Space Aztecs, the mysterious alien threat has to be Space Conquistadors, right?)

In this point-and-click adventure from Czech studio Amanita Design, you play as a robot who's been banished from a robot city for mysterious reasons and thrown on the junk heap. Sneaking back in, you learn that the city has fallen under the control of a trio of criminal robot goons (not these guys, but something like that) who are making everyone's lives miserable. Fortunately you're a clever little robot, well-equipped to defeat the big bullies through the power of logic puzzles and lateral thinking.



The game is wordless (and I seem to be having an era of wordless media) with characters' dialogue conveyed through little animations in speech bubbles. The hand-drawn art and unusual setting give the game a unique aesthetic that I really liked. I thought "this would be a cool screenshot for my review" so often that I think I screenshotted almost every room.

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Machinarium is on Steam and on GOG for $19.99 USD, but with the GOG release you also get the soundtrack, concept art, and other goodies thrown in for free, while on Steam they cost extra. (Steam has a free demo, though.)

Éalú (Irish for "escape") is a puzzle game where you play as a mouse trying to find a way out of a diabolical maze. What caught my eye about it is that it's stop-motion animated—not digital art in the style of stop-motion, but actual video clips of physical hand-built rooms and models made of wood and wire.



It's a simple one-click interface where you just interact with things. The puzzles are, unsurprisingly, of a very concrete physical nature: Turn a handle in this room to change something in another room, or press buttons on a box to rotate a mechanism until things line up. Successful puzzle solves unlock doors to new areas. Thorough exploration is rewarded, as you may find clues to puzzles in distant rooms—but also punished, as seemingly innocuous and even attractive objects may instantly kill you and send you back to the start of the maze. (If you cannot handle the thought of the cute wooden mouse dying, do not play this game.) But you get unlimited second chances, armed with new knowledge each time you venture out again.

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Éalú is on Steam for $14.99 USD. It's advertised as taking 2-4 hours, which is probably about right. I completed it with all achievements (well, except the one achievement that's currently bugged) in a little under three hours, but I've played a lot of puzzle games. The price may seem high for the duration, but on the other hand, stop-motion animation is incredibly laborious, so I feel like it's fair to give some leeway for that, and I don't think it feels incomplete or needed to be more than what it is.

Economics has been defined as how self-interested actors compete in response to scarcity. In this short book, Indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer argues for an alternative model of human economy inspired by the abundance and interdependence found in nature.

Scarcity in the human world is largely manufactured: There actually is enough for everyone, we just act like there isn't. Hoarded resources are wasted, like unpicked berries whose seeds are never scattered. While reading Kimmerer's thoughts on artificial scarcity, I found myself also thinking about the interpersonal scarcity mindset which leads people to cling to damaging relationships because they're afraid they'll never find anyone else. The commonality is a refusal to see the abundance that's right in front of you.

The impersonal competition of capitalism is contrasted with gift economies which build community and reciprocal relationships rather than cutting them off; status is gained by how much you give away rather than how much you keep for yourself. Birds and people enthusiastically gather around the serviceberry tree because of how generously it gives to them—and through animal seed dispersal and human husbandry, the plant gets it all back and more. (This discussion reminded me again that I want to re-read David Graeber's Debt. In gift economies there is an obligation incurred, but it's ongoing, mutual, and unquantified.) Gift economies do already exist alongside the money economy at small scales, and I appreciated the mention of digital economies, where information is what's exchanged. It made me think of how fandom can function as a gift economy, with creative works and resources being shared without expectation of a fixed payment—but the community can only continue to function if others are also sharing in kind or at least offering recognition and support.

One framing that was new to me was the comparison of colonizer capitalism to environmental succession. Disturbed natural environments like clear-cut forests are first taken over by fast-growing species that rapidly consume resources, but this constant competitive growth is unsustainable and is eventually replaced by a more stable ecology of interdependent species. We live in a disturbed environment, but that doesn't mean that stability isn't in the future.

The book is an expansion of a previously-published long-form essay, and it's only 100 pages, so obviously it can't offer a comprehensive exploration of these ideas, but I found it an inspiring and hopeful read. (If you like this, definitely read her essay collection Braiding Sweetgrass!)

I bought this book from the bird sanctuary gift shop on our trip to Rhode Island; I'm trying to keep my personal library under control, but I figured the profit went to a good cause. I want to keep the book because I think I'll re-read it, but I'm also tempted to get another copy and put it in a Little Free Library.