Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Jun. 12th, 2023 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsLords of Uncreation
4/5. Conclusion to this trilogy about a ragtag crew of smugglers and traumatized psychics taking on aliens the size of planets that rewrite civilizations out of existence.
Terrific. Another packing book, so I think I can be forgiven for grumbling my way through the first third, wondering why we were spending so long – or any time, really – on that one plotline with the clone internal politics, and that other plotline with the blah blah blah. Then I got my head out of a box long enough to notice everything this book is doing. It’s about the impulse to impose esthetics onto the universe – how it ought to look is a way of getting at how it ought to be. The clone internal politics matter because they are a capsule debate about eugenics and ableism and self-determination and what it really means to create a good society. And all of that matters because the whole trilogy is about that stuff on the macro and the micro.
And the whole trilogy is pretty mad about all this stuff, to be clear – eugenics and ableism and societal control and the esthetics of the good society. And, ultimately, about gentrifiers on the galactic scale, and for real, fuck those guys.
Good stuff. If you want to start with Tchaikovsky, this trilogy is a pretty good place.
4/5. Conclusion to this trilogy about a ragtag crew of smugglers and traumatized psychics taking on aliens the size of planets that rewrite civilizations out of existence.
Terrific. Another packing book, so I think I can be forgiven for grumbling my way through the first third, wondering why we were spending so long – or any time, really – on that one plotline with the clone internal politics, and that other plotline with the blah blah blah. Then I got my head out of a box long enough to notice everything this book is doing. It’s about the impulse to impose esthetics onto the universe – how it ought to look is a way of getting at how it ought to be. The clone internal politics matter because they are a capsule debate about eugenics and ableism and self-determination and what it really means to create a good society. And all of that matters because the whole trilogy is about that stuff on the macro and the micro.
And the whole trilogy is pretty mad about all this stuff, to be clear – eugenics and ableism and societal control and the esthetics of the good society. And, ultimately, about gentrifiers on the galactic scale, and for real, fuck those guys.
Good stuff. If you want to start with Tchaikovsky, this trilogy is a pretty good place.