What did you like about the book?

• Nothing was like it seemed
• Full of surprises
• “I liked that nobody was really likable”
• Discussed what makes a person a person and what makes us human
• Borne being really weird, unclear what he is à you still feel for him
• “I was really rooting for him all the time”
• Survival but then it is about humanity, how human are we still?
• Moral dilemmas, philosophical dimension great
• Rachel’s name is funny given the dystopian setting and her background
• Not entirely about R. being a mother figure for B.
• People are lying all the time, lying about omission, what is reality
• If you take anything out of the book out of context, everything sounds insane and absurd
• You get used to the weirdness, “yeah that’s Mort”
• “You vibe with the chaos”
• Easy to follow the story despite the weirdness
• Narrative structure quite accessible
• Explanations followed
• Setting in general was cool, just the city
• Very atmospheric
• Craving connection, no authority, no way out
• Borne a bit like Baby Yoda 😀
• Socio-economic commentary of the novel nice
• “The Company” could stand for almost everything that should be criticised
• City can also stand for everything else, unclear if there are even other cities
• Rachel’s memories as a refugee, you can piece everything together
• No moral high ground, moral ambiguity brilliant
• B. is a murderer, makes R. question everything
• New world order, humans need to survive and find a new place
• “Would I even want to survive in the city any more?”
• Writing style partly enjoyable
• R. and W.’s relationship slightly unhealthy but it also worked against the odds
• Decisions in the novel made out of a desire to control
• Trying to find meaning in a meaningless world: mother figure or controlling Borne? Shape him as I see fit?
• Estrangement from one’s child a major theme
• Monsters and monstrosity as a key theme
• Ending was nice, planet can recover if we stop meddling so much, no control, no tyrant figure needed, people can start working together again, find trust and hope again
• Epic boss fight bit random but nice
• Open questions nice

What we discussed:

• Writing style not to everybody’s liking
• Pacing until ending really good but then way too rushed
• Mort is dead and it starts raining and everything bad is washed away à too weird
• Description of the boss fight made no sense because Mort was such a giant and Borne might’ve been bus-sized
• How did Mort become so fucked up?
• Without audiobook, some wouldn’t have finished the book
• Too character-driven
• Tension, potential for something to happen, only at the end
• More action in between needed
• More background information would’ve been nice, more solid world building, character backgrounds à others like that one can use one’s own ideas to fill the gaps 
• How did they become refugees?
• “different dimension”, RANDOM, nah
• Magician not used enough à what was her goal? Unclear motivation
• Borne not important in the end any more, why
• Covers partly weird, interesting
• Different genre expectations
• Wick is an android, being “born”, “becoming”, “being”
• Easy to space out with this story
• Suddenly Rachel adopted children, weird. Build a family contrasts with her “everybody for themselves”
• Extreme motherhood also annoying
• Desire to take care of Borne not out of a desire for motherhood à control
• Rushed ending, showing Rachel’s healing process would’ve been good #

Ratings:

5/5 giant bears fighting because the novel felt like a fever dream (would not work if I reread it)

3/5 feral children

3/5 dead astronauts

“weird parts intrigued me”

4/5 deadly bears “it gave me a lot to think about beyond the surface level of the story”

Join us!

What we enjoyed about the book:

• Group dynamic of the cohort great, necessity, co-dependency, mirrors students feeling isolated at university, very realistic
• Magic system cool: in-between translations create magic
• Language / words are the worst important element here, translation is magic itself
• Well researched as well, felt very real, so many languages
• Morality of translating
• Empire and colonisation depicted very well
• Problems within Britain interesting too
• Silver bars as power source interesting
• Theme of book great, “novum” / idea great
• Criticism of academia and connecting it to imperalism, racism and how this is ingrained to academia is so important
• Felt like something the English would do
• Breeding people to exploit them in academia realistic
• Ethic implications well done
• Nuanced take on rebellion vs. being dependent on the system
• Belonging and not belonging within and outside of academia in various regards
• Not a single white person is good: hurts but realistic and a good choice
• Feeling out of place: class, ‘race’, background, religion,…
• Intersectionality well addressed: Victoire: racism and sexism
• White people don’t listen realistic
• White fragility
• Lettie’s character fascinating and a mirror to the others
• Being able to relate to other people’s experiences and struggles as key to real understanding: Lettie fails to do that
• Grander scope was great: from the small incident to the big political sphere
• Me vs. the system question so interesting
• Getting to know the characters vs. death and nobody will remember them that way –> but the reader
• Sacrificing themselves for the cause
• “The Necessity of Violence” –> showing why radicalisation was necessary
• Revolution: one moment in time where things need to change
• Book made me uncomfortable and that’s good
• Who is fighting, who won’t fight. What would I do?
• The system had to burn. Impressive. Novel does not shy away from the hard topics.
• Modern take on academia and Oxbridge: inclusion but not real inclusion.
• Rage / helplessness: what can you do if you’re part of the system?
• very slow build up: indecision of Robin relatable, gets messy
• Shipped R. and R. so much
• Being afraid of being one’s place: Robin on the fence, lacks social life, never lived in his home country really
• Unwilling hero refreshing
• Ramy was way cooler than Robin
• Book can teach you a lot
• Being caught up in the revolution without being 100% convinced
• Language is literally power
• Historical fiction: main character is mediocre
• Changing languages, overusing ressources

What we discussed:

• pacing/revelations could’ve come earlier
• Language was too contemporary
• Too contemporary, concepts etc.
• Dialogue a bit too modern too
• not knowing Victoire until the very end
• more character development needed
• One person disliked the writing style
• Different focaliser would’ve been cooler
• Maybe more focus on the other cohort characters
• Victoire as token character?
• Too obvious in its message, not subtle
• Robin doesn’t do much, agency could be improved, but maybe on purpose?
• Female characters mostly irrelevant for a long time?
• Robin and Ramy disregard the sexism of the girls: problematic too, they’re not perfect
• So many things could’ve been expanded
• Bleak ending
• Sexism could’ve been addressed more
• Bit too much in your face ethics
• Covering up the murder ridiculous
• Characters so young
• Magic system not convincing with every detail
• Magic fails? Why couldn’t they ficture out different modes of transportation?
• Academia well done, but daily life? Bit weird

Ratings:

• 5/5 dark take on academia, falling in and out of love with academia wonderful
• 5/5 love the vibe, got me thinking
• 5/5 “mainly because I love Ramy”, very relatable
• 3,5/5 setting great, very good ideas, very relatable, “something bothers me and I can’t pinpoint it”
• 3.5/5 despite the annoying bits
• 3.5/5 vials of magical blood: magic system with translation “really really cool”, “nerdiest magic system ever”, setting/academia brilliant, time period
• 3.5/5 silver bars
• 3.5/5 “all the spoilers I got made me more excited to finish it”
• 4/5 “trying to put too much into it but also lacking at the same time”, so much good stuff

Join us 🙂

BSFG is at it again… A Viking Ball with mead, dancing, and food is coming your way. Start 2023 the right way!

This Ball is organised by BSFG members and Marthe is beyond thankful.

You can buy your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/viking-ball-tickets-490376398007

What we enjoyed about the book:

• Setting and time great, fluffy story, very detailed, expanded throughout the novel
• “Completely fell in love with it”
• Writing style creates magic
• Atmosphere and immersion great
• Would love to read another story set in the same universe
• Best part of it was the magical setting and vibe
• “Night Circus” idea was so wonderful
• Wonderful world
• Shows described in quite a lot of detail, at first boring and then it became more interesting
• “Very enchanting”
• Story boring when reading it for the second tme, enchantment better when one reads it for the first time
• Right headspace needed
• One person’s Secret Santa gift was this book and it was quite enchanting, but also very criticial –> maybe better to read it when one is younger
• Fairy tale style
• So much unused potential
• Dreamers really cool
• Childlike wonder created very well
• Twins are col and sweet
• Ballroom scene cool
• Conversation about stories great
• Tarot foreshadowing cool

What we discussed:

• Plot and characters not that great
• If details annoy you, then the book isn’t for you
• Borderline abuse of the pupils was terrible
• Main characters showed little emotion and the reader received very little insight –> frustrating
• Fairy tale style also explains the lack of emotions
• Romance a bit boring
• Underwhelmnig story, big setup and lots of foreshadowing and then nothing
• Readers don’t really understand *why* the two main characters fall in love, it’s very distant
• Ending super anticlimatic
• Lovers have no chemistry???
  Ending confusing
• W. telling the story cool, but how the plot is resolved was meh
• Magic system quite weak
• Maybe more clarity would have helped create more suspense
• Reader kept in the dark for too long: bargain should have been introduced earlier
• Father as ghost terrible, stalking

Ratings:

• 3/5 stars lot of shortcomings but a great sense of wonder, parts enjoyable
• 5 stars when reading it for the first time
• 4.5 stars now so many issues but still really nice, “I truly connect with it”
• Was a 5 star rating 10 years ago, now a solid 3/5

What we enjoyed about the book:

• Police procedure / mystery mixture well done
• Steampunk cool, world building works, “does not go overboard”
• Great diversity: racism, cultural appropriation covered as topics
• Multilayered narrative, good plottwists
• Setting great, previous novellas tie into the world/larger universe cool
• Characters really cool, “I just love Fatma as a character, she’s just so stubborn”
• Woman in a world of men cool
• Siti is awesome
• “I love H. the most”; strong personality, relatable
• “I love U., he sounds like a great guy”
• Characters very well done
• Historical, not taking place in the present, wonderful
• Critical view of colonialism, the Empire, great –> in the middle of things
• Timeline cool, background of mysticism, fighting back, decolonialisation, different reactions in connection to the loss of power of colonialism
• Queer rep. great, healthy relationship with realistic fights, “cute”
• Star-crossed lovers (supernatural touch)
• Cultural representation accurate, insults correct, everyday language fitting
• inaccurate idea of pledging one’s service to a family; connection to the otherworld, scary, djinns creepy in Islam: “they can come to our world but we can’t come to theirs”
• Fluffy djnn ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
• Faster pacing at the end good
• Hard-boiled detective with soft side but with great, diverse representation was nice
• Humour great, slightly absurdist
• Role that religion great, peaceful co-existance nice
• Linguistic awareness great; “oh your English is really good”
• Fashion bit great, fashion as a battle suit
• “F. is such a cool person, I just wanna hang out with her”
• Transformation into an angel a bit random
• Bypassing the curse through clues was smart
• Curse: forgetting about the seal was great, how they managed to remember it was great, nice investigation twist
• Everybody actually came back, that was nice
• Would make a great series, cinematography, would need to be made by Egyptians in Egypt but probably would not happen
• Audiobook is great
• F. policing the supernatural is hilarious
• Mixture of genres great
• Ending 100% wholesome
• Queer acceptance nice
• Djimn non-binary great, can take on various genders
• Set in the past but all the futuristic bits fun, not typical 20th century, alternate history with magic
• Feminist / empowerment content
• F. fights a patriarchal world and fights for her place in it, battles sexism, “felt very natural”
• Diplomacy great
• German delegation / Kaiser hilarious

What we discussed:

• Villain clear ver early on sadly
• Pacing at the beginning off
• “Jumping the shark” ending; steampunk mecha surprise attacking Kairo, all cool characters prepare for a final bossfight, deus ex machina villain, pacing off / too much at the ending
• Lots of steampunk stereotypes and tropes; steampunk for of an aesthetic (style over substance?) and it holds true for this book
• Too many details in one short book, maybe two books? –> not having known the novellas before
• So many exclamation marks 😀
• Plot sometimes unclear because of plethora of details
• Pacing off in general, sometimes hard to stay immersed
• Lots of swordfighting, bit ridiculous when there are guns, but it’s also cool
• Police does very little paperwork, could have more interrogation / police procedure, H. is doing the paperwork for F.
• Timeline quite condensed
• Summit: not many Arabic countries mentioned, weird
• More people from neighbouring countries needed, feels weird that they’re ignored
• Transculturality could be expanded, more magical creatures could be explored
• “I would love a spin off”
• Villain part of the story became unrealistic comedy
• “I’ll forgive you. She’s such a Karen” :D:D:D:D:D:D
• “It would have been funny, had Fatma been the villain”

Ratings:

• 4/5 “great read for a steampunk novel, well written, I hope there are going to be more sequel, investigation part great”
• 4/5 fluffy djinns “I love that it was historical and intersectional even though parts could be improved, I hope there will be more books”
• 4/5 ninja, despite the inaccuracies, really enjoyable, different cultures and religions depicted well
• 4.5/5 in a basket “had a lot of fun, would love more”
• 3.5/5 “good idea, fun, too much in one book, I love the characters”, –> “three fluffy djinns and half a puppy”
• 4/5 “just had fun”
• 4/5 bowler hats
• 3/5 “I loved the world building and the aesthetics”, prodigy detective bit conventional