Null States by Malka Older
Aug. 9th, 2018 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsNull States
4/5. Sequel to Infomocracy. More political scifi, this time about the establishment of microdemocracy in the former Darfur.
This series is growing on me. Mostly because I realized how rare this kind of political speculative fiction is. The sort that centers the political theory, I mean, and where that theory isn't just yes, that's a dictatorship with spaceships, yawn. This speculative form of government is genuinely and radically different from anything practiced at any point in my knowledge of human political history, and I'm having a hard time coming up with other books that can claim that. Too Like the Lightning, sort of. No, Leckie doesn't count, that's dictatorship with clones, yawn (admittedly we haven't done that yet, but it's the glaringly obvious extension of monarchy by dissent, and not that interesting).
4/5. Sequel to Infomocracy. More political scifi, this time about the establishment of microdemocracy in the former Darfur.
This series is growing on me. Mostly because I realized how rare this kind of political speculative fiction is. The sort that centers the political theory, I mean, and where that theory isn't just yes, that's a dictatorship with spaceships, yawn. This speculative form of government is genuinely and radically different from anything practiced at any point in my knowledge of human political history, and I'm having a hard time coming up with other books that can claim that. Too Like the Lightning, sort of. No, Leckie doesn't count, that's dictatorship with clones, yawn (admittedly we haven't done that yet, but it's the glaringly obvious extension of monarchy by dissent, and not that interesting).