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Reading Wednesday
Jun. 10th, 2026 06:50 amJust finished: The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohamed. This was really good, and I felt speaks to a growing need in the post-apoc/dystopia genre for the kind of books that ask "okay, but what do we do now?" It could very well be a story of a city boy who gets repeatedly shown by rural folk how incompetent he is, but it goes deeper, probing the flaws of the kind of society that prides itself in a hardworking, hard-living ethos. What that means for people with chronic illnesses and disabilities, neurodiverse people, and so on.
Did I mention it was set in Alberta? Lool.
And of course it's beautifully written, and other than the fictional fungus, absolutely realist in its depiction of the climate crisis, because Premee is both a fantastic prose stylist and a scientist.
I want to go back and read the first two now, but I know things that you may not know about what she has coming out next, which is even more up my alley.
Currently reading: A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang. I've been meaning to read Ai Jiang for ages and I'm most of the way through this one, which doesn't disappoint. It's about a princess of an oppressed people forced to marry a king in order to stop the palace's incursion into her people's territory. Her mother and sisters have gone to the palace before her, never to be seen again. She has one younger sister left and she is determined to kill the king and end these sacrificial marriages—and the destruction of her lands—once and for all.
Oh did I mention that they're all trees? They're all trees. 14/10 worldbuilding, no notes. The reveal that they're trees comes pretty early and I won't spoil anything else but I was like. Good job. That's weird af. I'm here for it.
Did I mention it was set in Alberta? Lool.
And of course it's beautifully written, and other than the fictional fungus, absolutely realist in its depiction of the climate crisis, because Premee is both a fantastic prose stylist and a scientist.
I want to go back and read the first two now, but I know things that you may not know about what she has coming out next, which is even more up my alley.
Currently reading: A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang. I've been meaning to read Ai Jiang for ages and I'm most of the way through this one, which doesn't disappoint. It's about a princess of an oppressed people forced to marry a king in order to stop the palace's incursion into her people's territory. Her mother and sisters have gone to the palace before her, never to be seen again. She has one younger sister left and she is determined to kill the king and end these sacrificial marriages—and the destruction of her lands—once and for all.
Oh did I mention that they're all trees? They're all trees. 14/10 worldbuilding, no notes. The reveal that they're trees comes pretty early and I won't spoil anything else but I was like. Good job. That's weird af. I'm here for it.
