@bookstodon My #review of Stars of Chaos (Sha Po Lang) Vol. 2 by priest is now live! This volume builds on both the relationship of the leads and the worldbuilding as a whole, making for a VERY entertaining read.
@bookstodon My #review of Stars of Chaos/Sha Po Lang Vol. 1 by priest has gone live! Enjoyed this more than MDZS, I have to say, mostly because of the worldbuilding and the plot.
"Casts the reader into a fantasy world of flying vessels, war, hidden identities, secret agendas, repressed societies, and awakenings... His enchanting story captivates you with a journey of discovery."
INNOVATIVE WORLDBUILDING AND THOUGHTFUL characterization make this steampunk speculative fiction tale about the hidden marvels in a glacial mountain shine. B PLUS
This week I've been mainly reading, No. 94.
I've been rather disappointed by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine (1990/2011), which while presenting an immersive depiction of a world in which Babbage's 'computer' had become an equivalent of later computing (both influenced by early #SteamPunk fiction & going on to influence later books), sacrifices plot for atmosphere; the plot such as it is really not much & offers no real pay-off. Sadly, style over substance!
Today in Labor History August 28, 1921: The Soviet Red Army dissolved the stateless Anarchist Free Territory, after driving the Black Army out of Ukraine. The anarchist rebel leader, Nester Makhno, barely escaped, and with serious injuries.
The Free Territory within Ukraine, also known as Makhnovia (after Nestor Makhno), lasted from 1918 to 1921. It was a stateless, anarchist society that was defended by Makhno’s Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army (AKA the Black Army). Roughly 7 million people lived in the area. The peasants who lived there refused to pay rent to the landowners and seized the estates and livestock of the church, state and private landowners, setting up local committees to manage them and share them among the various villages and communes of the Free State.
Michael Moorcock’s “A Nomad of the Time Streams” is a steampunk/alternative history novel where Makhno survives into the 1940s.