{"id":1223,"date":"2018-09-13T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T21:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=1223"},"modified":"2018-09-03T14:22:23","modified_gmt":"2018-09-03T20:22:23","slug":"book-sourdough-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/13\/book-sourdough-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Sourdough (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sourdough\"Sourdough
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2017
\nAuthor: Robin Sloan
\nLength: 259 pages<\/p>\n

Much like\u00a0Armada<\/a><\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0Ready Player One<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0Artemis<\/a><\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0The Martian<\/a><\/em>, I looked forward to reading Robin Sloan\u2019s follow-up to\u00a0Mr. Penumbra\u2019s 24-hour Bookstore<\/em>. Unfortunately, much like the follow-up books by Ernest Cline and Andy Weir, respectively, I wasn\u2019t entirely satisfied with Sloan\u2019s\u00a0Sourdough<\/em>. I will give credit that Sloan\u2019s quirky and charming style is still in high form here, it\u2019s more that there wasn\u2019t much of a central conflict that would have led to a satisfying ending. It\u2019s almost like too many plotlines got into the mix, and it muddled everything up to the point where it would be too difficult to follow each to their logical conclusion.<\/p>\n

Cline has video game references. Weir has accurate, hard sci-fi. If there\u2019s one thing Sloan does well, it\u2019s the fusion of analog and digital. From\u00a0Mr. Penumbra\u2019s 24-hour Bookstore<\/em>, it was the appreciation of the printed book in the era of Google searches. In\u00a0Sourdough<\/em>, Sloan explores the future of food\u2014which is perhaps the most analog of topics\u2014by including some realistic and relatively soon-to-be-realized technological advances like nutrient gels, robotic cooking, and alternative growing environments. If this was the primary focus of the book, there could have been a great conflict between old and new instead of what felt like a rushed, gulping ending to a book I\u2019d want to sip like great wine.<\/p>\n

Sourdough<\/em>\u00a0was my \u201cvacation book,\u201d meaning that I was truly looking forward to reading it. I love the style Sloan uses, which is both humorous and light. This book was quite the quick read, but that was helped by the fact that I hardly put it down. It\u2019s a little disappointing that some of the \u201cmysteries\u201d weren\u2019t played up more (I never really did care who Mr. Marrow was), and that the ending felt a little out of left field, but I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll pick up Sloan\u2019s next book, regardless. After all, I was still entertained with this one, even if it didn\u2019t live up to the \u201cMr. Penumbra<\/em>\u201d expectation.<\/p>\n

Another semi-adequate follow-up from one of my newer, favorite authors, I give\u00a0Sourdough\u00a0<\/em>3.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a01\/2<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sourdough Year: 2017 Author: Robin Sloan Length: 259 pages Much like\u00a0Armada\u00a0to\u00a0Ready Player One\u00a0or\u00a0Artemis\u00a0to\u00a0The Martian, I looked forward to reading Robin Sloan\u2019s follow-up to\u00a0Mr. Penumbra\u2019s 24-hour Bookstore. Unfortunately, much like the follow-up books by Ernest Cline and Andy Weir, respectively, I wasn\u2019t entirely satisfied with Sloan\u2019s\u00a0Sourdough. I will give credit that Sloan\u2019s quirky and charming style […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,54],"tags":[349,55,1454,8,1453,1452],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-book","tag-349","tag-book","tag-mr-penumbras-24-hour-bookstore","tag-review","tag-robin-sloan","tag-sourdough"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1230,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/1230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}