List: arthur-c-clarke-award-nominees

Cover of Ancillary Justice.

Ancillary Justice

by Ann Leckie · published 2013 · read 2018-03-13

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Cover of Embassytown.

Embassytown

by China Miéville · published 2011 · read 2019-03-12

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Embassytown by China Miéville starts out as okay-if-weird scifi, with decent characters, plausibly weird worldbuilding, and appropriately weird aliens, so everything you'd expect from Miéville. It starts by following a good if generic feeling story arc, and continues like that for quite a while. Miéville continues to be great at writing about cities (Perdido Street Station!), so I felt comfortable, once I had spent the first ~20% of the book figuring out how the world worked.

Cover of Doomsday Book.

Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis · published 1992 · read 2019-11-20

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is the best book about time travel that I know of, with the notable exception of "This is how you lose the time war". It's started out good, and then proceeded to kick me in the feelings. Repeatedly.

Cover of Anathem.

Anathem

by Neal Stephenson · published 2008 · read 2019-09-20

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Anathem by Neal Stephenson kept me busy. Between a bunch of conferences, the sufficient concentration was a bit hard to come by. What's worse: Now that I have read it, I can't tell you if it is a good book or not.

Cover of A Memory Called Empire.

A Memory Called Empire

by Arkady Martine · published 2019 · last read 2021-03-26

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A junior ambassador from one alien nation and planet to another, which boasts of a highly complex language and culture? Finding herself scrambling to catch up with her predecessor (rudely murdered, instead of being in her brain as would be appropriate), trying not to share his fate? Sudden conspiracies, even more complex cultural games, plus an assistent she's very much into? Hell yes.

Cover of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers · published 2014 · read 2018-11-19

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

This was absolutely lovely scifi that reminded me a lot of Firefly in terms of down-to-earth real ship operations with a lovely, relatable crew and a gritty/real feeling universe. Seeing the crew of the Wayfarer coming together, in all their alien differences, and following them on their way to a difficult job, and seeing their hardship and friendship, was touching and a wonderful help against the autumn gloom.

Cover of Perdido Street Station.

Perdido Street Station

by China Miéville · published 2000 · read 2018-06-19

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Wow, this book was … a lot to take in. I liked it very much. Getting thrown into an Ankh-Morporkesque city, discovering alien races, and characters, and social structures was awesome. I noted with thanks that there was very little of a conventional story arch, so that the overall direction of the story only grew really clear when reaching 50-65% of the story. The very clear-cut and very different characters were relatable and realistic, and the final twists were all the better for the fact that they were not positive.

Cover of The Scar.

The Scar

by China Miéville · published 2002 · read 2018-07-24

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Scar is the second volume of Chine Miéville's Bas-Lag series, and it's as impressive as the first one. Only very loosely connected, we now explore the wider Bas-Lag world instead of New Crobuzon. Again, China Miéville excells with implicit worldbuilding, forcing the reader to think along and ahead (though there's less culture shock included than in Perdido Street Station).

Cover of Iron Council.

Iron Council

by China Miéville · published 2004 · read 2018-09-02

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

I think The Iron Council was weaker than The Scar (which is the previous volume in the Bas-Lag/New Crobuzon trilogy), but I enjoyed it nearly as much, because I'm a sucker for revolutions. Also, it's noticeable just how skilled China Miéville is at talking about cities – each of the stories in the series describes at least one fundamentally foreign, weird city with a mix of cultures and races among the inhabitants, and thanks to the sublte worldbuilding and depth, I feel invested and interested in every one of them.

Cover of Use of Weapons.

Use of Weapons

by Iain M. Banks · published 1990 · read 2018-03-09

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Very odd one - had me laughing out loud some of the time, and nearly bored at other times. I think the pacing threw me off. Very stunning ending, though, totally worth it.

Cover of Never Let Me Go.

Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro · published 2005 · read 2020-01-25

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Excellent dystopian storytelling in Never Let Me Go – not loud, not ostentatious, not yelling "THIS IS A DYSTOPIA, GET IT?!" at every opportunity. The narrator's voice was extremely well-done – strong, recognisable, but realistic at the same time. The unveiling of their lived reality was slow, and good – it allowed you to stay a step ahead, without that victorious feeling of having pulled one over the book. Interesting how the world described is terribly depressing, yet the book didn't once feel sad or depressing or tedious to me.

Cover of The Handmaid's Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale

by Margaret Atwood · published 1985 · read 2017-12-21

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Oh yes, definitely the dystopic tale I needed without knowing it. Nicely done.

Cover of The Sparrow.

The Sparrow

by Mary Doria Russell · published 1996 · read 2020-01-08

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

I liked The Sparrow a whole lot. Part of that is just that I like the premise: Jesuit First Contact? Hell yes! The Jesuits are the science-minded and intellectual ones among the Catholic orders, and at the same time very capable of actions and decision-making.

Cover of Parable of the Talents.

Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1998 · read 2018-05-31

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Very very nearly a five-star book for me due to the ending, and I enjoyed it much more than the first volume. The story of Olamina told by herself, but commented on by her daughter, is really something. The pacing is outstanding and not very conventional (meaning you don't anticipate how the story is going to evolve and end). I was happy and impressed to follow Olamina through her budding community, her imprisonment, pregnancy, and founding a religion.

Cover of A Closed and Common Orbit.

A Closed and Common Orbit

by Becky Chambers · published 2016 · read 2019-03-07

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers is the second part of the Wayfarers series. It's a good match for the first part: expanding different parts of the world, and worldbuilding, and starring characters that were not quite central to the first book. It delves into the pan-alien world and implications of sentient AI with a sense of wonder, and it's well-written, certainly. It's also … fluff, to use a fanfiction term. It's very much giving us a slice-of-life view of the world, with few to none real confrontations. It can be very calming and healing to see a world where most people just try to live their lives and be good to each other, but I'm happy that I'm only reading books like this very occasionally, as I was missing any tension or overarching … thing. But as a once-in-a-while relaxation read, it performs very well.

Cover of The City & the City.

The City & the City

by China Miéville · published 2009 · read 2018-11-14

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The City & the City is a very impressive scifi book, but while I can appreciate its coolness and weirdness, and I can't point to a single flaw, somehow the story didn't quite grip me, although the concept of the two cities was introduced beautifully.

Cover of Hyperion.

Hyperion

by Dan Simmons · published 1989 · read 2018-11-16

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

I think my problem with Hyperion were my expectations. The book is touted as one of the best scifi books out there, and it didn't live up to that. Apart from this, though, it's a fine scifi book – relatable characters, each presenting themselves over and their (mostly tragic) history over the course of an equally tragic main plot. Then, just when we're supposed to get some resolution, it simply stops. WHAT? Yes. The entire book is giving the cast background to make us understand the stakes, and then leaves us hanging on a cliffhanger. I'll read the next one, but I'll do it grudgingly.

Cover of Station Eleven.

Station Eleven

by Emily St. John Mandel · published 2014 · read 2019-05-08

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Sometimes, you find books that are good books, and you notice how they are good books, and you like the parts that make them good books, but you don't like them. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is such a book for me. It's not the characters – they are vivid, and real, and neither horrible nor brilliant people. It's not the plot – the story wanders, and is mostly slice-of-apocalyptic-life, but it's a good story. It's not the writing – the language is precise and beautiful and conjures up images and feelings in your mind.

Cover of The Engines of God.

The Engines of God

by Jack McDevitt · published 1994 · read 2020-06-29

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

This one is hard for me to rate, because I like scifi very much. And if anything is scifi, this book is! We have aliens, and space ships, and deep space puzzles, daring rescues that require engineering and science knowledge, some actual characters (some even with motivations! … at least a little).

Cover of The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

by Neal Stephenson · published 1995 · read 2020-05-31

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

My relationship with Neal Stephenson is marked by frustration and enjoyment alike. I liked Anathem a lot despite it's many flaws, because it hit the perfect sweet spot in subject matter for me. Diamond Age did not, so it's flaws stood out more.

Cover of The Light Brigade.

The Light Brigade

by Kameron Hurley · published 2019 · read 2020-05-03

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Time-travel military sci-fi that would've been better if it hadn't gone full-throttle on the ideology. Also of course has to go with the time-travelling storytelling where everything is neatly wrapped up by time travel, which makes the whole thing uncomfortably predictable.