Severna Park

3 3/4 Stars. Emotionally gripping but uneven. Park creates fascinating, complex characters and descriptions that are neither overwhelming nor sparse, but her story suffers from an incomplete approach to explaining the world she created. Several times while reading, I found myself too distracted by trying to figure out aspects of her world which were not well explained to completely engage in the actual story. I also struggled with her treatment of Costa's dreams and Mira's past. It felt a show more little wasteful to spend so much time mentioning and engaging with these aspects of the characters yet not do more to consider why Costa could tell the future or to explain why Mira had been on the slave list. Despite these shortcomings, I found that I enjoyed this novel much more than I expected and am looking forward to reading the sequel. show less

I just reread this bit of queer feminist sf. Park deals with slavery, biotechnology, and colonization, and manages to
have offhandedly queer protagonists. Some of the sex scenes can get a bit Naiad erotic, but if you skim those bits it's interesting.

The sequel to Speaking Dreams, set in the same universe in which slavers have a List of people from 18-22 who they are free to enslave if they can find them. When they do find people on the List, the slavers inject them with a virus which keeps them young for 20 years and then kills them. This book is primarily about an underground slave-freeing movement and also features offhandedly queer characters. It's a tiny bit dated, maybe, and prone to wince-inducing erotic passages, but I think it show more holds up. show less

I'm finding this book very difficult to describe or compartmentalise. At times, I felt I was really enjoying it, at other times I was not. At times I knew exactly what was going on, at other times I was completely lost. Some parts were reminiscent of The Matrix, others of religious mania. About the only thing I can say for certain, is that you will be left pondering the nature of good and evil and the fine line between salvation and damnation.