Peter Watts is An Angry Sentient Tumor, by Peter Watts

 (and a good thing, too, because if it was by someone else those would be fighting words)

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Regular readers know, I think, that I read a lot of review copies in advance, depending on when I get them and what my schedule allows. I write the review when it's fresh and post it later. This one I read at the end of a week of being sick in bed with influenza.

This is no one's fault but my own. I've read Peter Watts before, and in case I'd forgotten what it was like to do so, he and Tachyon Press gave this essay collection the convenient title listed above. So that for readers who have not encountered Peter's writing before--my brief and entirely internet encounters with Peter-the-person, I hasten do add, have nothing of this quality--there is the title in large friendly letters. It does not say Don't Panic on the cover. It would not dream of saying that. No. This is a Peter Watts book.

So I, clever person that I am, decided that the best thing on day six of being in bed with a variable fever, would be to let an entire collection of Peter's blog posts and editorial rants wash over me.

I...would suggest that you read this book in another condition, if you have one available to you.

In the introductory essay, Peter makes a comment about John Scalzi having collected his blog posts in two volumes, then an aside about how cheerful John is. And this made me think: possibly there are people out there who were introduced to the concept of John Scalzi by the descriptions of his self-appointed enemies. Who heard that there was this angry, radical leftist who was putting loads of his politics into his science fiction and thought, sure, I want one of those!, went looking and were mildly baffled by what they found. Well, it turns out there's an entire buffet of such people, it's just that cheerful centrist John Scalzi is not on the list really. Try Peter Watts if you want a collection of blog posts from a writer like that.

As with any contentious blogger, you'll probably find at least some of the posts/essays in here to cheerfully disagree with--or to bury your head in your hands, groan, and wish you could disagree with. But remember: the reader expectations should be set pretty clearly. This is what it says on the tin. Not: Peter Watts Is An Angry Sentient Tumor But Look! A Butterfly! or Peter Watts Seems Like An Angry Sentient Tumor But In Just Three Essays You'll Find Out How He Learned To Play His Cares Away On The Ukulele--And So Can You! There's a lot of climate change realism, a lot of anger at police brutality and surveillance state assholery, a lot of frustration at entirely valid frustrating human behavior. Also a little bit of talking out his ass about YA fiction, some movie reviews, mourning for some much-loved humans and cats. This is a set of blog posts, not a two-minutes' hate, no matter how well-directed. It's easy to slip into "just one more" here even when you're wincing and going "oh God too much truth." Just a little more truth though, just one more blog post worth of truth before I go back to my fever dreams....

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2632

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