I grabbed the ebook of astounding stories on a bit of a whim. But I have enjoyed it. Its proper boys own stuff, and reminded me of the sort of books that one used to find in my grandparents house. Hugely entertaining but of another world somehow.

I love Roberts' science fiction — he has a dark way of doing exactly what sci-fi should do which is to make you look at the world with different eyes. And he is sociologically astute. This novel tackles head on the revoltingness of inequality and the vacuousnessness of privilige, whilst also examining the universality of opressive power. Its dark and cynical and twisted and completely absorbing.

This is a bit of a mixed bag of queer theory with an anarchist bent, but not wrapped in the usual inpenetrable academic style of queer theory. Some of the pieces are probably rather too introductory in their tone, reading kind of like undergraduate essays. But there is also some wonderfully provocative analysis of gender and sexuality issues, and connecting struggles together. And I learned the word anarcho-normativity which I fully intend to deploy in conversation given half a chance.