Harland's depiction of Nell as uncompromising when it comes to her freedom and the security of her family is unmatched, exploring how going against the gain with a bull-headed kind of stubborn grit is both an admirable quality and a problematic one in varied circumstances. It's the kind of realness that is often left out of tales meant for 'female empowerment'.​

What truly sets Renegade Nell apart is its masterful blend of action, humor, and heart. Each episode is a rollercoaster ride of adrenaline-pumping stunts, clever plot twists, and laugh-out-loud moments, all woven together seamlessly against the backdrop of a richly imagined historical setting. The costuming details are glorious, both in highlighting the practicality of outfit choices and also addressing the often cavernous gulf between the options available to the upper and lower classes, as well as to men and women.

The show directly addresses the concepts of gender presentation identity politics, presenting thoughtful, and discussion-inspiring commentary without making it the focus of the show. There is a wide spectrum of masculinity and femininity showcased within the show, and the only comments of dressing 'properly' for one's socially ascribed gender-adjacent social role are made by old men, literally laughed at, and swiftly (if not always easily) dismissed. Likewise, the issues of race-relations, lingering issues of slavery, and the issues of immigration in direct and unflinching ways, but without derailing the narrative. Furthermore, the concepts of 'right' and 'fair' in terms of social governance and the socio-political contract of the governed being the ones with real power all get directly addressed and discussed as things that require proactive and attentive maintenance to ever have a chance at being implemented without falling into corruption.

From the breathtaking cinematography to the stunning production design to the incisive call-to-action social commentary, every aspect of Renegade Nell is executed with precision and passion, immersing viewers in a world that feels both exhilaratingly fantastical and authentically grounded.

In conclusion, Renegade Nell is a tour de force of storytelling brilliance that deserves to be celebrated far and wide. It's a must-watch for anyone craving adventure, humor, and heart, and a shining example of the magic that happens when visionary storytellers dare to defy convention and chart their own course. Disney+ has truly struck gold with this captivating series, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

          Reading this is certainly a monumental undertaking, being that it's nearly 800 pages of intensely detailed scientific rigor, but the result is entirely worth the effort! I will say that some parts of it, particularly a few of the early chapters, are a slog for anyone who is not familiar and keening interested in the finer point of microbiology, cellular neurology, or endocrinology. Sapolsky's writing is exceptionally clear and his points in these early chapters are well laid out, but, even so, the material is simply dense.
             While I wholly understand the reason that these chapters are placed early in the sequence of the thesis (being that the book scales outward, starting with the literal smallest piece of potentially relevant biological influence and incrementally moving out to the macro-scale evolution of globalized, cooperative culture), it's a shame that the intensity and niche specificity of the early chapters come before the parts that a layperson could more easily connect with... I'm sure plenty of readers who would have delighted in the second half of this work were unable to make it past the first half.
             Still, I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in the mess that is the modern human, go for the audio book and just let the words wash over you (possibly skipping many of the early chapters).

            Whelp... I'm not mad at it. I set the bar really low going into this one and I'm pleased to say that it has managed to surpass those wary expectations. I'm not actively offended to the point of having to write an angry letter to her publishers / editors / agents...
         Which, despite being the lowest bar ever set, still makes this the best thing SJM has released in years. Seriously, the last time I wasn't actively disappointed by an SJM release since 216 with A Court of Wings & Ruin, way back in 2016.... And even then, I wasn't angry at it, but I also wasn't terribly pleased with it.
House of Sky & Breath is very much a relief, because I'm not actively angry, but it's also still kind of disappointing because even though I'm not offended there's not a lot to like.

          Instead, we see like 4 or 5 different versions of the same storyline with very limited set-dressing alterations. It's hardly even a 'variation on a theme' kind of thing. There's a whole bunch of angsty, honorable, super-jock, alpha-males facing unwanted / awkward engagements to shy-ish wallflowers with secret bad-assery potential that they've been too sheltered to feel ready to reveal. The stories play out slightly differently, but not with nearly enough unique and significant variation to warrant watching 5 separate iterations.
          Speaking of a lack of variation: there's still ZERO diversity. Like you can call a group of people whatever you want, give them all kinds of different powers and theoretical inter-group rivalries and grudges, but unless you make something about the sects culturally unique, it's not diversity. There's only two body types mentioned for female characters (supermodel / action-hero and pixie-lithe ballerina), and only one for guys (supermodel / action-hero). Nobody's fat. Nobody's short. Nobody's pale enough to have freckles instead of a Cali-perfect suntan, nor dark enough to use any word but 'bronze' to describe their flawless skin tones. Hell, nobody is even the smidge of not utterly pristine biological perfect that is needing glasses with corrective lenses.
             There's a mostly-off-camera solitary gay couple, and a surprise-for-the-shock-value lesbian couple that makes like a 30 second appearance, in flagrante, and there's one mention of a vegetarian being slightly uncomfortable with the vague concept of meat.... and that's it... Seriously, there's not a single, genuine ideological difference between any of the factions that are supposedly diametrically opposed and have been hated enemies for centuries.
           Still on the lack of diversity factor: EVERYBODY'S ROYAL. When ALL your characters are politically significant of more or less equals in technical political standing, basically it means that none of them are facing power-imbalance dynamics that could make being Royal or whatnot interesting. It's special snowflake syndrome, but with political titles.
Also, none of the characters change they take a few, teeny tiny baby steps towards dealing with specific traumas and such, but no one actually changes through the narrative, they reveal that they'd been changed by the magic of insta-love, but none of them actually, visible evolve in any notable manner. And Bryce is an idiot about throwing her royal title around like it's Harley Quinn's hammer and is appalled when no one else is surprised that her continuous stupid choices led to horrible consequences.
           It's just boring.
           And beyond that, the bore-factor is ramped up by the utter lack of stakes. 
         There's a period of interest, when we're caught up in looking for a lost, potentially super-powerful kid. But that plot-line gets buried under the layers of other-people-with-awkward-engagements sandwich and it resolves pretty quickly (all told, that plotline probably takes like 300 pages, max, to run from start to finish). The rest of it is a search for a vague secret, a secret that no one involved even manages to care about without outside agents acting full-on deus ex machina to prompt investigation. There's even a moment with Bryce addresses the lack of Endgame, but it settles with a deeply unsatisfying conclusion of 'search for truth, for sake of truth'. 
          And the secrets that get 'revealed' are painfully dull. I seriously didn't realize that the 'secrets' had been revealed when I read them. I honestly thought it was a bit of framing as a reminder for the current status quo that could he altered in a paradigm shift of wow, that's unexpected and dramatic... and instead we just got, yeah, that's the status quo as it currently exists... No life-altering hidden truth. Just the curtain coming back on the obvious machinations of the current world, most of which could be guessed at by even a half-savvy reader with a few poli-sci or electrical engineering podcasts under their belt. I did like the lure bit of the secret reveal, but it's like showing up to a birthday party for the cake and just being given a particularly neatly shaped bit of a flower made of icing.
      Beyond all that? The whole army from hell thing? And the super-badass female who doesn't want the responsibility of rule but somehow earns the devotions of an abused super-powerful, military famous and respected male? With a cabal of super gorgeous, super powerful, politically significant friends? With a random bad-ass maybe-dragon?
       WE HAVE SEEN THIS STORY BEFORE.... AND I'M GETTING BORED WITH IT.
       Fortunately, there's nothing in this that I'm actively angry about (though, I'll admit, my threshold for what counts as angry is way higher for this author's work than for that of any other, so I probably should be angry about some things, but I'm sticking to my guns and letting it go unless it's actively harmful to real people (like the vile nonsense of A Court of Silver Flames).
      (Okay, that's a lie. I AM actively angry about the way Male and Female are the exclusive references to both gender presentation and biological sex. Like my Trans and Fluid friends are still people, yo.... And no one should simply BE their gender or their biology, personhood is significant without a shred of reproductive potential... But I've decided to pick battles I feel actively endanger safety and while casual erasure is damaging on some level, the mishandling of PTSD in Silver Flames WILL cause some dumbass reader to trigger some unfortunate soul into self-harm, possibly suicide).
        SO.
        I do NOT recommend it. 
        I WILL actively warn my clients against it. 
      And I CANNOT whip up any BS about it as a decent showing that I can ignore while reserving judgement on the whole series. 
       This series is crap. End of story.
       It's sloppy and insulting and pathetic; and it treats the reader like a pitiable, ignorant, idiotic little child.

     I will probably read the 3rd one, when it eventually comes out, simply because I can't reasonably hate on a book I haven't read and still look like a genuine authority, but I likely won't make it a priority read.

           The uniqueness of the setting, which lead to the wonderful array of characters, and to the unexpected rise to prominence of Gen Watanabe, is decidedly AWESOME.
           However, like all books meant for adult audiences, it was painfully slow in developing an actual story. Unlike most adult fiction, that actually worked in its favor. The plot here follows a several-month-long incarceration by terrorists of attendants to fancy dinner party and a key theme it plays with is what happens when humans get bored (answer: dangerous things happen, VERY dangerous things).
            Also, unlike most grown-up books, this one had a point.
            This one took a situation and looked at it from a whole bunch of varied angles, but instead of just showing it to you, it made an active comment about that situation: namely that there's no such thing as 'the Bad Guys' in the real world, they only crop up in the stories that people tell to try explaining what happens in the world.
           It was definitely the best adult straight-fiction book I've read in a long while.
          That said, it was still REALLY slow and rather more boring that I generally prefer.  I did like it, though, and it was decidedly well-crafted (and EXCEPTIONALLY well-narrated), so I do certainly recommend it.