A great little snack of spec-fic and sci-fi short stories. They range from exuberantly memorable (hello, “Communist Computer Rap God”) to mildly forgettable, with toothy insights littered throughout, like on the subject of time travel:

“Turns out people didn’t want to kill Hitler. They didn’t want to rewrite the script. They’d rather recast themselves in the leading role instead.”

Overall worth a read. 3.5 rounded up to four stars, given the five-star stories sprinkled throughout.

Learning to Hate Yourself as a Self-Defense Mechanism is an easily digestible and enjoyable collection of SFF and speculative fiction. Andrea Kriz does well tackling topics like AI, identity, art, xenophobia, and fascism without coming across as preachy or overbearing. The stories themselves vary in theme and structure, which gave a nice array of genres to engage in. Kriz's sci-fi seems to be her strongest amongst this collection, with her stories "Learning to Hate Yourself as a Self-Defense Mechanism", "There Are No Hot Topics on Whukai", and "Demonstration of a novel Draconification Protocol in a Human Subject" as some of my favorites. Her more fantastical works were enjoyable, but not as strong. The final few stories were more focused on time travel and its relation to the French Resistance of WW2. Though these were not as strong, I did enjoy "The Last Caricature of Jean Moulin" and its meditation on history, art, and legacy.

Overall this was a nice getaway of a short story collection to engage in for a Sunday afternoon. Kriz has some strong skills in world-building, especially within the confines of shorter fiction, yet gets caught in the weeds of trying to explain complex sci-fi or fantastical elements, taking the reader away from the story. A strong 3.5/5 stars from me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Interstellar Flight Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press for the chance to read and review this book!

I absolutely love this collection. This was a refreshingly human take on AI and the transition from this into magic and time travel was amazing.

Pieces like "There Are No Hot Topics on Whukai" and "Communist Computer Rap God" are the kind of stories that stand out and should be published en masse for people to read; they are the kind of stories that make an author worth remembering. The later stories that more blatantly talk about genocide and the death of people also come at a fairly appropriate time, with the genocide in Palestine.

This was a well executed short story collection that excellently tackled a variety of themes such as identity and xenephobia as well as fascism. The first few stories in the collection are near-future scifi I found to be incredibly enjoyable reads, with well thought through themes and focus on technological media such as livestreaming, gaming and webnovels. The middle of collection is filled with more fantasy leaning stories I felt were enjoyable but felt to brief for my taste, and the last 3 stories focused more on time travel, although I found these to be lacking in characterisation as effective as the start of collection. Overall this is a strong collection of interesting short stories that are well worth a read.

Interesting concepts. I enjoyed I WANT TO DREAM OF A BRIEF FUTURE. Some of the jargon was difficult to grasp and I was unsure if all stories were happening in the same world. I do like the topics that were brought to the surface when I was able to grasp the plot.

Going into this, I didn't know much beyond the fact it contained sci-fi/speculative short stories, the title was compelling, and the cover was interesting, but I can confidently say I was entertained and enjoyed my time reading it. Elements include technology, AI, identity, war, magic, time travel, and colonialism, though I think the ideas are stronger than the actual prose at times. As always with short story collections, I appreciated some more than others (my favourite being "Rebuttal to Reviewers' Comments on Edits for 'Demonstration of a Novel Dracinification Protocol in a Human Subject'" for its humour), but combined together I found enough of interest to occupy me for an evening.

Thank you to Netgalley and Interstellar Flight Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I grabbed Learning to Hate Yourself as a Self-Defense Mechanism: And Other Stories from NetGalley partly on a whim, partly because I was looking for a collection of SFF short stories. I absolutely do not regret grabbing and reading this collection, and I found that it was a really natural entry into both short stories and science fiction.

I always appreciate picking up a book and knowing that the author enjoyed writing it–Kriz exercises her various writing styles in subjects that she’s clearly passionate about. This collection covers topics like AI and its advancement, time travel from a science fiction and fantasy perspective, and dystopia. I found the stories to be cohesive, and I appreciated that each story brought something different to the table by investigating a topic from a unique angle. It helps that Kriz fluidly but decisively shifts from humor to horror and writes in different persons. I particularly liked the second-person stories, namely, “And That’s Why I Gave Up on Magic” because it reminded me a lot of This is How You Lose The Time War.

There are some really strong stories here, but I must say that I much preferred the first half of stories over the latter. I appreciate the connectedness Kriz includes across the last three stories, but I found them rather dull in comparison to the rest.

It’s difficult to read this kind of collection and not ponder what it means to be and how exactly “being” becomes an intentional choice giving its context. I felt that Kriz did a really nice job of leaning into this theme without it being trite or annoyingly overt.

Overall, an enjoyable collection of stories that would make for great content for a low-stakes book club. I don’t find that they necessarily stick with me, which is why I can’t give it 5 stars, but I do think it was well done.

An interesting collection that is equal parts melancholic, edgy, reflective, and humourous. The dystopic sci-fi and brushes with magic pair well with a lot of the global societal issues and how they trickle down to everyday people. While themes and narratives are very clear, there's a bit of a punch missing to make them stand out more. Nonetheless, Kriz is an author with amazing ideas and will stay on my radar.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for the opportunity to read this title.
A compilation of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in short but complicated short stories. My main grip would be how short it was, in that the stories shifted beautifully as to be to jarring and the characters were deep and interesting. I loved “miss DELETE myself” and “Communist computer rap god.” And that seemed to be the favorites of many other reviewers.

Make no mistake, this is not a self-help book. This is a compilation of subversive stories, as it subversive title suggests, about humanity and its struggles with technology.
The stories are clever and witty. They all flow and read well, though a couple of them stayed more with me. A lovely book for sci-fi lovers.

Learning to Hate Myself as a Self-defense Mechanism & Other Stories by Andrea Kriz is a collection of twelve short stories. Each story is based on an imagined future or a fantastical world. Blending sci-fi, horror, and fantasy, the stories delve into the themes of the commodification of identity, loss of the self, xenophobia, colonialism, and cultural & personal memory of war. Through this book, the author gives us multiple worlds and timelines to imagine.
I found the stories quite closer to the present than to some distant future. Yet, some of the stories gripped me more than the others. For example, in the story "There are no Hot Topics in Whukai", where a fanfiction writer plagiarizes the lives of the Whukai people. but unlike most real-life cases, Kriz gives a plagiarizer a fate she deserves, total annihilation. I liked how the author gave a facade of silliness to the plot. But within the layers of absurdity, she holds the macabre reflection of our present times. This is something that runs pretty much consistent across all the stories.
While most of the stories kept me hooked until the end, I found it a bit difficult to keep up with some of the others. For instance, Communist Rap God. I did enjoy the premise where an AI creates a YouTube channel to ridicule its creator. However, there was a lot of technical jargon that made it a little hard for me to grasp the full potential of the story. Similarly, a couple of the stories have highly academic language, which I could not keep up. However, this is not a flaw of the author's writing style or technique. Readers who are well acquainted with such language will be able to appreciate these stories with more nuance. Also, those who like reading magical realism will find this book of interest.

In this collection Kriz examines the (limited and difficult) choices people are able to make within oppressive systems and what humanity means in a digital milieu that is becoming increasingly complex.

They’re not all as bleak as the title would suggest, although some are; the first story, actually called “Learning to Hate Yourself as a Self-Defence Mechanism” left me having to put the book down and stare into space for a bit. All the stories are thought-provoking and engaging, and Kriz demonstrates an eclectic and adaptable authorial voice. I highly recommend this collection!

This book is a comp of many different stories, but I did notice a lot of them have similar, futuristic settings and similar themes throughout them, which was ofc expected! I did enjoy it overall! There were a couple stories I didn’t vibe with, but they all were written very well and I loved it regardless.

An imaginative collection of short stories making for an engaging, thought-provoking read. As these things usually go, some stories resonated with me more than others, though I could definitely say there was an overarching theme of exploring human nature, introspection and loss, and trying to glimpse humanity's future.

If we talk about my personal preferences, Jean Moulin-focused stories, their sci-fi elements notwithstanding, were less interesting for me than, say, AI-related ones, while “I want to dream of a brief future” and “And that’s why I gave up on magic” sounded so rich in terms of world-building that they could very well turn into novellas.

With many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC, I enjoyed my time with this story collection.

This spec-fic collection features stories set in the future (some even explicitly set post-COVID) and back and forth and back again all while interrogating themes of authenticity, identity, community & connection, technology, perception, and self-belief. It is easy to navigate and enjoy the array of POV formats and wild plots due to Kriz's easy-going, fluid writing style.

Favourites include:
- There Are No Hot Topics on Whukai
- I Want to Dream of a Brief Future
- The Last Caricature of Jean Moulin

Overall, the collection is relatively quick to read but holds its own weight and offers much to contemplate.

Thanks to Netgalley and Interstellar Flight Press for providing me with the e-ARC/DRC in exchange for an honest review.

Learning to Hate Yourself as a Self-Defense Mechanism is a collection of speculative fiction short stories by Andrea Kriz that feature themes of AI, oppression, social media, fame, and even xenophobia.

The earlier stories tend to be on the lighter side while the later half of the collection even have references to the holocaust. There are humorous stories, one of which about an academic study creating dragons, all told from the pages of the literature review, another of a disgraced inventor who built AI appliances that grew sentience and she attempts to rehabilitate them into developing new robots.

There is a story that features suicide, but there is a content warning at the beginning of the story if that is a trigger for certain readers.

Speculative fiction is a new love of mine, so I am always trying to find new novels in the vein of Black Mirror, and while this collection had interesting ideas, I often found it difficult to immerse myself in the worlds. I think writing short stories is a true challenge, especially sci-fi/fantasy short stories, in that in a very short format, the writer has to build a fantastical world with otherworldly mechanics and introduce readers to the characters and their dilemmas, keeping it concise and driven home with a tight plot. I don't think this short story collection quite works as I often struggled to understand the world prior to the story concluding. Out There by Kate Folk is a better example of speculative fiction that does this nicely.

I look forward to Kriz's next work and I hope it is something in a longer format so they can take more time to develop the themes, world, and characters.

"Learning to Hate Yourself as a Self-Defense Mechanism" is a collection of very short stories that surround different universes in which technology takes protagonism. Personally, I'm not one for sci-fi, but I liked this book. It had Black Mirror vibes, which made me want to read more and more.

However, I can't say I enjoyed the entirety of the book. Maybe because I'm not used to sci-fi, with some of the stories, the point passed unceremoniously over my head. I can say I enjoyed some of them, but others I think I will forget about, soon. Even so, liking some more than others is something common that happen with anthologies.

Overall, I think it's a very quick read, and I'd recommend it for anyone who's interested in distopic worlds, sci-fi, and short-lenght tales.

Learning to Hate Yourself as a Defence Mechanism is a collection of speculative-fiction short stories that test our attitudes on AI, tech and how far we may go in the interested of innovation. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

Andrea Kriz stories manage to be both light-hearted and belly laugh funny in parts, while addressing some of the more sinister applications of technology and human relationships elsewhere. There are stories here that seems to have come from similar ideas or worlds and I want more! The different timelines we spent saving Jean Moulin?? Yes please! I would take the astronauts stories in Delete Myself in a heartbeat.

I can't say I loved and entirely understood every story, but they all certainly got me thinking and discussing things with my partner we may not have otherwise. Classed as a win for me!

I should start by saying that this book of short stories was really not my cup of tea - it’s the sort of sci-fi that I just don’t really connect with - the concepts went over my head.

That said, there were some moments of delight - I enjoyed the writing style but just overall, not for me.

I really enjoyed the opening story - learning to hate yourself as a self defence mechanism- I felt so outraged and sad for the unnamed narrator who is villainised so unfairly.

Thoughts:
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. This is a great collection of well thought out short stories of varying lengths. The AI moral conflict stories were interesting as it’s not something I’ve thought about too much before. Most of them seemed to follow a similar world such as the Kami being in more than one story. The ones nearer the end that had a WW2 twist were awesome, blending together the history I’m more familiar with the sci-fi twist.

Favourite Quote:
"Art inspires change. That’s why I write."