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A Half-Built Garden
Jan. 11th, 2023 01:54 pmA Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys is a near-future sci-fi book about first contact with aliens who think the best option for the future of humanity is for everyone to leave Earth and take to the stars as soon as possible. However, a lot of the humans feel like they've been making good progress on fixing the environmental problems on the planet and don't want to just give up.
I like how complicated and messy it all is - lots of factions across three different species, intricate cultural aspects to navigate, tons of gender politics and a lot of disagreement about the best way to live and move forwards.
There are very personal stories amongst the global - and interplanetary - scope of the book. I liked Judy as a protagonist and enjoyed the dynamics and drama amongst her own family as much as, if not more than, the wider story.
It was a great audiobook - the narrator made all the characters - both human and alien - distinct without dipping into caricature, and it all flowed very well.
Some of the more technical details escaped me, but I followed enough to be able to understand broadly what was going on, and all the character development was excellent.
I like how complicated and messy it all is - lots of factions across three different species, intricate cultural aspects to navigate, tons of gender politics and a lot of disagreement about the best way to live and move forwards.
There are very personal stories amongst the global - and interplanetary - scope of the book. I liked Judy as a protagonist and enjoyed the dynamics and drama amongst her own family as much as, if not more than, the wider story.
It was a great audiobook - the narrator made all the characters - both human and alien - distinct without dipping into caricature, and it all flowed very well.
Some of the more technical details escaped me, but I followed enough to be able to understand broadly what was going on, and all the character development was excellent.
