Interest rates, The Disciple, and Ancillary Justice

Plus a featured article by Ashley Torres

Jul 03, 2021

Welcome to the fifty-fifth installation of The Q : your one-stop weekly newsletter of culture recommendations.

Featured Article

Stagnant, Once Fluid by Ashley Torres

When I was younger, my mother would refer to me as her little fish because of my fondness for water. I thoroughly enjoyed taking showers and baths, swimming in the northern California heat, and running in sprinklers as my mother tended to her rose bushes. Wherever the water flowed, Ashley followed—a sentiment I carried with me until the moment I stepped foot inside my high school.

Interest rates, a tape by George Riley

Sometimes we get drum & bass bangers, firmly rooted in British culture, other times we take neo-soul odysseys that sound like they were recorded in New York with the Soulquarians. But the project spends the majority of time drifting underwater between these two extremes. The album offers a new, and uniquely British, take on neo-soul and introduces a younger voice to a sound that is often dominated by elders.

The Disciple directed by Chaitanya Tamhane

Even when Shahrad is not actively singing, he’s listening to the greats. During the day, Shahrad archives old music in a dark and depressing room, and while traversing around the city on his motorcycle, he listens to tape recordings of advice from a master named Maai. Shahrad even has the wisdom from a respected mentor named Guruji (Arun Dravid), who he also takes care of by guiding him through his ailments and sometimes his medical bills.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice draws on a rich base of sci-fi tropes, leaving no bizarre alien race or bit of impossible technology behind. Avid genre readers will recognize a variety of references within Leckie’s text, as well as a somewhat tedious number of genre shorthands. The evil space empire, ice planet quests, and impossible energy sources have appeared in dozens of preceding sci-fi novels, and Leckie adds little to these tropes within the first book of her trilogy. However, Ancillary Justice stands out in two notable areas: its unique protagonist and its deep worldbuilding.