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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I liked this but didn't LOVE it, as much as I wanted to. There were times it was a little too on the nose or even verging into cringe. I did love that there was open exploration of ongoing trauma, disagreements, and innovation both big and small, and it made me tear up a couple of times when characters remarked how horrid life was or must have been pre-revolution. A worthy entry into the hopepunk canon even if not perfect.
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I am going to critique this book a bit, so want to start off by affirming i do like the book! Given the socio-political moment, there are many moments of welcome hope and community and care present in each of the stories presented in the interviews. There is one interview that describes the day palestine is liberated (in 2038) that i want so bad (right this moment), that i was crying. I also appreciated the interview/oral history format quite a lot, as it allows for many, sometimes contradicting, perspectives into the story of the revolution.
My main critique come around some political shortfalls that i wish would have been addressed more (and could be in a follow up book!).
1) i do not understand how regions of hundreds of millions of people could reasonably be governed in what are essentially anarchist communes. Maybe i need to understand how the regionally assemblies they discuss work (the interview on that barely talked about them)….but even then how can there be global coordination of building something like a space elevator through such communes?
2) what did they do to re-educate people who were fascists/non-political, etc? They do talk about some of this (abandoning billionaires in space, wars with fascists and some enclaves of them remaining)….but the book makes it seem like there were some uprisings in some boroughs of NY and some switch was flipped and all of a sudden everyone was running and participating in a commune. This is ahistorical when looking at the kind of re-education required to get capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism out of individual’s and society’s pysche and systems.
3) this timeline - 30 years after the time of publishing - for most of capitalist and imperialist structures to fall is really ambitious…..i think the interview that feels the most realistic in this timeline is the one with Zou on ecological restoration, which delves into how the climate collapse is devastating and still happening/unfolding in 2069. This all seems a but idyllic and put together for 20 years after a world revolution.
4) on a storytelling note, one thing i will say about the voices is that although they look very diverse on paper, the characters all read in a very similar voice. Also a lot of the stories do bot go in depth at all. I would categorise this as a “through-topia” but the “through”ness of it is really not clear in a lot of ways. More dedication to that would have been appreciated.
Overall though - i want to re-iterate i do like this book. And have written the longest review of a book on here because the topic is literally the most important one of our time. I am glad it exists.
My main critique come around some political shortfalls that i wish would have been addressed more (and could be in a follow up book!).
1) i do not understand how regions of hundreds of millions of people could reasonably be governed in what are essentially anarchist communes. Maybe i need to understand how the regionally assemblies they discuss work (the interview on that barely talked about them)….but even then how can there be global coordination of building something like a space elevator through such communes?
2) what did they do to re-educate people who were fascists/non-political, etc? They do talk about some of this (abandoning billionaires in space, wars with fascists and some enclaves of them remaining)….but the book makes it seem like there were some uprisings in some boroughs of NY and some switch was flipped and all of a sudden everyone was running and participating in a commune. This is ahistorical when looking at the kind of re-education required to get capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism out of individual’s and society’s pysche and systems.
3) this timeline - 30 years after the time of publishing - for most of capitalist and imperialist structures to fall is really ambitious…..i think the interview that feels the most realistic in this timeline is the one with Zou on ecological restoration, which delves into how the climate collapse is devastating and still happening/unfolding in 2069. This all seems a but idyllic and put together for 20 years after a world revolution.
4) on a storytelling note, one thing i will say about the voices is that although they look very diverse on paper, the characters all read in a very similar voice. Also a lot of the stories do bot go in depth at all. I would categorise this as a “through-topia” but the “through”ness of it is really not clear in a lot of ways. More dedication to that would have been appreciated.
Overall though - i want to re-iterate i do like this book. And have written the longest review of a book on here because the topic is literally the most important one of our time. I am glad it exists.
it’s cool that the authors have done the work of imagining a post-capitalist future and i give them props for trying the oral history format, but i could not get on with the writing.. this is ALL telling no showing, each interviewee talks the same, and sometimes the interviewers’ interjections are cringey !! from a literary standpoint, this did not work for me.
some of the ideas are interesting but i also have questions about how this new world came to be & have doubts.. maybe im more nihilistic than the authors :(
some of the ideas are interesting but i also have questions about how this new world came to be & have doubts.. maybe im more nihilistic than the authors :(