@cavyherd I really liked [Loka](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/96cb102d-6158-4b55-ac23-156decd273ad) (and it's prequel #Meru, but I found #Loka to be the stronger story)

It takes a bit of a "what if we learned not to do a colonialism but we leaned too far into the liberal 'anticolonialism' that is essentially isolationism"

Fito Páez estrena ‘Cuando el Circo Llega al Pueblo’, primer adelanto de su álbum Novela

Fito Páez inicia una nueva era musical con el lanzamiento de ‘Cuando el Circo Llega al Pueblo’, primer adelanto de su esperado álbum Novela.

Rolling Stone en Español

That said, I immediately hoped back into #Loka, the second book in #SBDivya’s #TheAlloyEra for a pallet cleanser.

It is a bit lower stakes and less graphically brutal in its exploration of interspecies power dynamics; which I tend to find a bit more relaxing.

Random thought: @sbdivya's "Loka" reminds me a lot of "Moana"*. Hear me out:

We've got a young heroine rejecting her birthright and setting out on an adventure which turns into a much bigger thing. She loves the sea, but has to learn to sail regardless; it's hard, and dangerous, and the most beautiful thing ever. She finds out about seemingly lost arts, gets to teach her elders to sail and finds a way to fulfill her destiny.

*that's a good thing! Fave Disney princess, hands down

#Loka

But "Loka" also has beautiful and evocative descriptions of the joy and danger of sailing small craft across oceans, astute observations about grief and dealing with chronic illness, and in the end, Jayanthi comes through and does what all parents should: nurture and away-follow, as @adapalmer says, their children.

And that was a great ending and theme.

(4/n, n=4)

#Loka #Books2024

So, "Loka" by @sbdivya. I loved "Meru", and when I finished it, I wanted more: sweeping stories about alloy society in space, historical background, humans being complacent and ambitious.

But Divya chooses to tell a different story in "Loka": a more constrained, more intimate story, at heart a story about a friendship.

Akshaya is Jayanthi's and Vaha's kid, illegally conceived and with illegal alloy genes.

(1/n)

#Loka #Books2024

The Challenge has some political consequences, but it feels like a smaller story. A story about teenage need for rebellion and teenage recklessness. I've been there and I've done that, I don't actually care that much.

I wanted to see alloy society and human politicking and the structure of this universe!

So, it wasn't what I'd expected.

(3/n)

#Loka #Books2024