Welcome to Litsy!

An idealistic group leaves Earth behind to found a colony based on principles of peace. They face challenges and hardships as they struggle to survive, including contact with a sentient plant that may want to control them and with the remnants of a past civilization, but the most serious threats come from within. I picked this up after it was mentioned in The Light Eaters by Zoe Schlanger--I'll definitely read the next book in the series!

I‘m surprised to see a low rating for this here, I thought it was a solid interesting scifi.

A group of Earth Humans who fled a dying planet find themselves on a very far away world. Their plan is to leave all of humanity‘s bad traits on Earth, and live in harmony with nature on their new home. Then the plants begin to show fast adaptation, even sentience, and things get complicated.

This spans several generations. I really liked it.

Whenever I finished a (overly long) chapter of this science fiction book, I struggled to want to pick it up again. While I get what the author is trying to do some of the time leaps between chapters made this book a bit too disjointed for my taste. I felt the same about Greenwood and The Night Travelers so it might be a me thing. The back half picked up well though.

This was an interesting story of first contact that introduced a unique sentience. This took me longer to read than it should have an a part of that was circumstances outside of the book but also the fact that each POV chapter was from a new generation and brought almost a different kind of story with it. There is definitely a clear line of plot and character progression but the chapters felt almost like individual distinct stories themselves.

#BookReport
Managed to finish my first read of the year and while I'd like to have also finished the tagged I did make some real progress on it.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to finish the tagged and make it to at least 25% of Station Eleven. I'll also probably start Mysterious Howling as that's a library book.

#BookReport
So December was a slow month for me in general (only finished two books) but I did make it to around 63% in the tagged this week.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to start my BookSpin pick for January and maybe finish Semiosis. I'm trying to put less pressure on myself when it comes to reading goals this year.

Taking advantage of the sun to get some porch reading in while Rolo gets outside time.

#BookReport
As far as tracking goes this was a dud week for reading BUT I was reading. I read like ten little 'guilty pleasure' books that I never track. Mostly cheesy harlequins and the like.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to start and finish Semiosis. I've completely given up on reading the entirety of my bookspin backlog but I'm gonna do what I can before years end!

#BookReport
Managed to finish The Vanished Birds this week which was very good. But I've also been hit by the reality that I won't finish all my DoubleSpin picks for the year before the deadline.

#WeeklyForecast
My goal this week is to finish the tagged and then move on to my other BookSpin picks for the year. I'd like to at least finish all the main picks before the New Year.

HAPPY #BOOKSPIN DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE!
I‘ve recalculated my BookSpin backlist goals and I‘m worried but also super pumped that a holiday miracle has occurred and no chonky bois were drawn. My picks for this month are the tagged and Foreigner.
@TheAromaofBooks

#BookSpin day is so close and I am so hype to find out the next picks. New to the list this month are Deathless and the tagged. I‘m really starting to feel the pressure about my backlist though. I never realized how much of a mood reader I am until the chunkster curse hit lol.

I wanted to like this one, but honestly I was pretty bored for the large majority of the book. It wasn‘t badly written, but the book covers several generations of colonists, and by the time you start to get to know one group, it quickly moves on to the next. This made it difficult for me to get attached to any of the characters and made it feel like I was just going through the motions of reading a story without really caring about the outcome.

Some parts of this book were fantastic. Some parts weren‘t great. I liked more than I disliked, but the parts I disliked were significant. There were parts I enjoyed that were too short and parts I disliked that were too long. We read this in a book club. Most of the women liked it. Most of the men didn‘t. I was a man in the minority. I can‘t call it a pick, but I‘d sell it with no qualms. Very cool premise. I may actually read the sequel.

I enjoyed the story but didn't love it.

I'm torn between Pan and So-So rating. I was so looking forward to this (especially as I'm only a few degrees of separation from the author). I am, generally, a sci-fi fan. I just couldn't get into this disjointed story spanning over 100 years and at least 7 generations. It's overly long for very little substantive action/plot.

Giving this a pick because SciFi is a huge reach genre for me, and I did like this overall! My biggest problem was the pacing; half of the novel takes place over at least a hundred years, and the second half takes place over the course of days. This made it hard to connect with the characters, and I wish it was more focused. But overall I'm happy I challenged myself, and think I'll eventually continue with the second book!

This multi-generational tale of human colonists on an alien world was so close to being a five-star read! The world-building was astonishing, especially the sentient plants, and it was fascinating to watch how society shifted over seven generations. However, there were some annoying bits. The chapters were inconsistent in their tone and some could have been a lot shorter. ⭐⭐⭐ from me as it was an interesting read that dragged at times.

My weekly update for #BFCr4 I'm pleased with the reading side of things - I finished two books and started a third - but I haven't been to the gym for a few days thanks to a lurgy I picked up from the kids 😷 And, yeah, not snacking has been hard...

@wanderinglynn @lapreader @4thhouseontheleft @rsteve388

It feels like forever since I wrote a full length review, but hey I did the long form word thing today!

https://onemore.org/2019/06/22/semiosis/

An unusual tale of first contact and an intriguing SFnal cultural history. Semiosis is episodic and ultimately a little underwhelming - it doesn‘t really have an arc, and just sort of decides it‘s had enough now thanks and stops - but I found it absorbing and enjoyed the nuances of cultural development.

Jeez, first my SF book group read Adrian Tchaikovsky‘s Children of Time, and now this one, which is not about uplift but about a sort of bamboo that‘s trying to train humans to be its service animals ... somewhat like the spiders and the ants in Children of Time. A generation book that unfolds slowly, and contains first contact, mystery, adventure, and other genres within it. Good, BUT did not like compulsory heterosexuality, rape, or murder.

& now my book group book, which should be my last book for May (I might add one from the library, but really, time to get ready for June). #sciencefiction #kobo

I read this book for my book club. I loved it and couldn't wait to talk to everyone about it. Turns out, I was the only one in the club who liked it. Whaaaaat?! I found it very well-written and thought-provoking, and I want to read the next book when it comes out.

Brilliant. Entertaining. Witty. I am not usually into sci-fi but this book was excellent. It exceeded all of my expectations. I never once felt bored with the story or the characters. It was unlike many of the books I have read, and I think it would be a good challenge for non sci-fi readers. Who doesn‘t want to read about intelligent plants?

Phenomenal book (will review after I finish). But I had to pause after this quote. I often find myself pretty disappointed if I have high expectations (from dates, new restaurants, cities, you name it). I am an optimist but I have learned that sometimes it‘s good to have low expectations or no expectations at all (although that‘s tough for me). What do you all think? #foodforthought #qotd

This story had a lot of promise but overall it just failed to keep my attention. It‘s told throughout generations with a different narrator in each generation discussing the struggles & socio-political climate. What they all had in common was that they weren‘t very interesting. I just couldn‘t seem to connect with them. Then the ending, well that was a little too unrealistic for me. Full review at www.thegenreminx.com #TheGenreMinxBookReviews

Well I know I said this was capturing my imagination -- which it was -- but it isn't anymore so I'm bailing! The structure of switching perspectives to the next generation every section isn't helping. There's not enough time to get attached to the characters. Yaa Gyasi's novel Homegoing had the same problem.

16% in this is really capturing my imagination so far! #AwesomeAudiobooks #audiobook #ScienceFiction

I started out being absolutely fascinated by this book. I love first contact stories--especially ones with very alien aliens--so this looked like it was right up my alley. And it seemed like there were so many interesting ideas and questions being set up, but I felt like there was no follow through on any of it.
I see now that there is supposed to be a second book, where maybe some of this will be explained, but I'm not sure I will read it.

#ChapterCheckIn ... chapter two starts out about 30+ years later and they are calling the latrines “gift centers” because they donate waste to friendly plants which is WAY weird if you think about it.

Interestingly, for all that they wanted to get away from earth thinking, these Parents (the original colonists) sure are stuck in their ways.

Also, conspiracies abound!
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#books #booklover #bookworm #booknerd #reading #reader #sciencefiction

This #chaptercheckin is for the first chapter of my much anticipated read “Semiosis.” There are still many questions I have about what is going on, but I‘m enjoying each little tidbit as they are revealed, lol!

I‘m SUPER curious about the snow vines and what effect they will have on the future of the colony.

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#bookstagram #books #booklover #bookworm #booknerd #bookphotography #reading #reader

🌾Character-driven.
🌾Focuses on botany and ecology a lot.
🌾Cross between The Martian, Annihilation, & Uprooted.
🌾Chs are diff character perspectives & written like personal chronicles.
🌾Very slow-paced.
🌾Pensive motifs about colonisation & taking what doesn‘t belong to you.
🌾4/5

Just started this first contact sci-fi book this morning and, with only being a handful of pages into it, I‘m blown away by the intricacy of the world-building and the focus on the characters. Their emotions and tension are beautifully exhibited. It‘s terrifying and marvellously engrossing.

#firstcontact #scifi #semiosis

It‘s not you, it‘s me. I didn‘t get too far into this and I was thoroughly enjoying it, but I just don‘t feel the desire to pick it up right now. So I‘m sending it back to the library for the next person and I shall definitely be revisiting this at a later date. Perhaps when I‘m not in such a slump.

It‘s official. I have hit the slumpiest of the reading slumps 😪 I can‘t tell you how many books I‘ve picked up and put down in the last month. Hoping one of these can break the slump.

As an idea, I really enjoyed this book. I think the narrative voice was too similar between all the supposedly very different narrators, but I enjoyed the development of the society and especially the way Stevland developed. It's interesting to think about his character and the way the Pacifists judged and misjudged him.

Easter is by far and away my favourite holiday of the year - made even better by an excellent four days of reading, interrupted only by time out for eating all the things.

Stevland seems too like a human to me. Runaways from Earth's climatological collapse land on a planet where two plants of the same species are at war Humans befriend the plant that feeds rather than poison them, and the story continues over multiple human generations.

For an alternate take on sentience and plant life, I recommend Umbernight by Carolyn Ives Gilman in the February 2018 issue of Clarkesworld magazine.

On the recent addition shelf of my local library. Some good ‘ol classic sci-fi with a modern twist? It‘s good so far...