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Will Sargent

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Joined 2 years ago

I like books.

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Will Sargent's books

Stopped Reading

Scott McCloud: The sculptor (2015) 2 stars

"David Smith is giving his life for his art--literally. Thanks to a deal with Death, …

Review of 'The sculptor' on 'Storygraph'

2 stars

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did.

I didn't like the protagonist. I didn't like the manic pixie dream girl love interest. I didn't like portentous Uncle Harry. I didn't like the false dichotomy. I didn't like the superpowers. I didn't like the intrigues of the art world. I didn't like the ending.

There's a statement about books that I like from lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me/

"Paying
attention is the foundational act of empathy, of listening, of seeing, of imagining experiences other than one’s own, of getting out of the boundaries of one’s own experience. There’s a currently popular argument that books help us feel empathy, but if they do so they do it by helping us imagine that we are people we are not. Or to go deeper within ourselves, to be more aware of what it means to be heartbroken, or ill, or …

Eliezer Yudkowsky: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Paperback, 2015, Fanfiction.net) 4 stars

In this alternative version of J.K. Rowling's famous tale, Petunia Evans marries the biochemist Michael …

Review of 'Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Neat, in the places where Harry Potter is realistically a 12 year old boy, especially his interactions with Hermione (who, all things considered, still could have done with more agency.)

In the places where Harry Potter talks about defeating death, it reads as a bullshit extropian transhumanist tract. Death isn't a touchstone for Harry. He doesn't remember his biological parents. He wasn't touched by death as a child, unless you consider his pet rock. I understand that there's some plot magic, but it just doesn't ring true.

reviewed Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, #3)

Ann Leckie: Ancillary Mercy (EBook, 2015, Orbit) 4 stars

For a moment, things seemed to be under control for Breq, the soldier who used …

Review of 'Ancillary Mercy' on 'Storygraph'

2 stars

I know I should like this book. But I don't.

I get tired of the talk of breakfast and tea. The voyeurism of private conversation and personal heartbreak. The totally unprofessional military officers. And I can't believe the AI are that stupid. It just doesn't work for me. It's like The Culture crossed with Downton Abbey.