Category: Media

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 17 – Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

Pages: 411
Purchased from: Kobo

The word I would describe this book would be…anticlimactic. After reading the first book of the series last year I was looking forward to reading this second book so I had it preordered. I don’t think I disliked the experience of reading this book but my high expectations coming in left me mildly disappointed.

The book’s plot felt like it was meandering until the last quarter of the book or so. Most of it felt like setting up events for the next book in the series. Some of that set up was important character development but a lot of it felt extraneous.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 16 – The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

Pages: 318
Purchased from: Kobo

This is the first time I’ve read a book by John Scalzi and I gotta say I’m a fan of his style already. Fast paced space opera that doesn’t meander with interesting characters had left me thirsting for more by the end of it. Also I gotta mention this, Scalzi has the highest amount of characters swearing in a book that I’ve seen in a good while. It never feels overdone however so it only serves to make the characters feel more human.

Definitely placed the sequel in the wishlist for later!

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 15 – Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Pages: 432
Purchased from: Kobo

This book feels like a spiritual predecessor to A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine which is quite possibly one of my most favourite sci-fi books of all time. This book deals with the themes of colonialism/imperialism, identity and empire just like Martine’s book does. The books are obviously not 1-to-1 copies but if you liked Martine’s book you really should check this one out.

I found the way the book deal with the concept of split personalities particularly interesting. I am very curious how the concept is further developed in the sequels to this which I have added to my wishlist.

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packetcat reads 2022 Week 14 – The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Pages: 556
Purchased from: Kobo

Meandering and confusing, this one is filled with way too many threads spanning multiple timelines leading to a tangled mess that doesn’t entirely get untangled by the time the end approached.

The book needed some more editing to make the narrative a bit tighter because there is an interesting story underneath, there’s just a lot of extraneous stuff on top of it.

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Review: Tana Talk 4 by Benny the Butcher

This is a republishing of a post I wrote for my now defunct music newsletter. Substack sucks so the post is here now.

Each of the Griselda crew has their particular style. Conway the Machine’s slower introspective verses always pack a punch. Westside Gunn’s adlibs add much needed levity to any track he is on. Benny the Butcher brings the grime.

I don’t mean the UK hiphop sub-genre but the dirt you would find on well worn city streets. Every Benny verse drips with a grit that only feels authentic but also has the confidence of someone who truly understands the subject matter they are rapping about.

Hip-hop verses are often filled with braggadocio which in the hands of the best rappers in the game don’t feel like kayfabe but instead the real lived experiences of the rapper turned into words.

Benny is without a doubt one of the best rappers in the game and in Tana Talk 4, the Butcher delivers album filled with one gritty song after another.

Let’s dive into the album some by breaking down some individual tracks.

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