List: Science Fiction

The second volume is a bit less on the 18th century France presumptiousness spree (but adds in some more Greek history to make up for it). Very wow, including how Jehovah/JEDD and Bridger meet, Bridger's choice, the Major's identity and so many little things we learn about Mycroft (♥), the hives, and individuals. Also, Utopians forever.

The Will to Battle

by Ada Palmer · published 2017 · read 2018-07-15

The Will to Battle is currently the last volume of Ada Palmer's brilliant Terra Ignota series. One volume is missing, and it's supposed to come out next year, and I bloody hope so because this one leaves me aching for more. As with the previous books, I completely get why people would not like this book, at least its style, but to me it's magical. Even three books into the series, we get an astounding amount of worldbuilding, we receive new information on the previous books (in particular their creation, it's all Very Meta), all the while the world heads straight towards the biggest and worst World War imaginable. I love these books dearly, and the world Ada Palmer shows us is filled with wonders.

This Is How You Lose the Time War

by Amal El-Mohtar · published 2019 · read 2019-09-21

This Is How You Lose the Time War was written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. They must be magic. They can't just write like this without magic. Trust me.

The Martian

by Andy Weir · published 2012 · read 2015-08-06

Gods, I already knew they had chosen Matt Damon as lead role, and I can imagine him in that role so very well! Brilliant humor with hard scifi. I seriously hope they won't fuck up the movie.

Ancillary Justice

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

by Ann Leckie · published 2014 · read 2018-04-14

Wow wow wow.

Ancillary Sword

Ancillary Sword was an exceedingly worthy successor to Ancillary Justice. We get a deeper look into the culture of the Radch and (most importantly) the characters we got to know in the first book. Understanding how all of them felt, especially Breq, even while they were navigating treachery, improper (!) annexations, war, and crisis, was a treat. This exploration of characters comes at the cost of action and pace, but the slower pace is made up by the frequent and fast changes of scenery. The book is more linear than the first one, but at the same time the consistent multi-focus storytelling is a different (and great) challenge altogether.

Ancillary Mercy

by Ann Leckie · published 2015 · read 2018-07-13

Wow! A worthy ending to the Imperial Radch trilogy ba Ann Leckie. The actions and decisions of the previous volumes find their somewhat logical conclusion in a complicated struggle for independence in an empire that has forgotten what independence even is. This book was a truly amazing mix of fast-paced action (lots of fun and creativitiy in there, too), and deep, deep character development. This series hit my tastes in every way, balancing action, character development, humor, serious issues of personal growth, society, and politics. Wow.

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.

The Great Explosion

by Eric Frank Russell · published 1962 · read 2018-01-27

Aww, it's scifi from the 60s! It's witty, and funny, and sarcastic (but never quite mean). Love it a lot.

Quarantine

by Greg Egan · published 1992 · read 2018-03-26

This was lots of fun. The story is told in a four-star way, but it has so fucking many great concepts: Having a fuckton of software for your brain, and the implications of loyalty software, of cours. But mostly the idea that humans are unique in collapsing the wave functions of possibilities, and the implications of xenocide that come with it. Wow. And the implications of learning to suppress that reflex, and having human made quantum computing in the brain. ♥

The Quantum Thief

by Hannu Rajaniemi · published 2010 · last read 2022-02-18

Sometimes, a book is just so busy enjoying itself that I have to like it, no matter its faults. The Quantum Thief starts out in the Dilemma Prison, where the virtualised prisoners are forced to go through various versions of philosophical puzzles or game theory scenarios. If you win enough games, some poor sod in a surrounding cell gets deleted and replaced with a copy of you. If this doesn't sound hilarious or intriguing to you, then this book is safe to skip (despite the fact that the Dilemma Prison only takes up the first ten pages or so).

The Player of Games

by Iain M. Banks · published 1988 · read 2018-02-14

Omg yes. More, please. One of the best Culture books.

Leviathan Wakes

by James S.A. Corey · published 2011 · read 2017-07-06

Fantastic space opera, even more fun than the TV series. 4.5 stars for me, but I'm rounding up 'cause I'm feeling generous today and it was just so much immersive fun!

Abaddon’s Gate

by James S.A. Corey · published 2013 · read 2018-07-05

Okay, wow, this book had me discussing and screaming at it a lot. People die. People nearly die. Some of those deaths I was not at all okay with.

Nemesis Games

by James S.A. Corey · published 2015 · read 2018-09-12

Wow, Nemesis Games was way better than the previous volume of the Expanse series. I enjoyed it tremendously. As a change of pace, we follow four people on their separate ways (although their stories are connected, of course), and learn more about each of them. Where at first this seems to be a calmer book to allow for more characterisation, things take off towards the middle of the book, and then they just don't stop accelerating. I'm really looking forward to how both the world and the main cast will continue after this.

Babylon’s Ashes

by James S.A. Corey · published 2016 · read 2018-11-04

Babylon's Ashes might have been the part of the Expanse series I've enjoyed most so far. We get to see the fallout of the previous conflicts (as with every book so far), and see how people act under the pressure of humanty's fate hanging in the balance. (I don't want to spoiler anybody, so I'll leave it at that)

Tiamat’s Wrath

by James S.A. Corey · published 2019 · read 2020-02-11

I don't think I could review this book without spoilers, but it wowed me, and angered me, and is generally VERY VERY good.

Hellspark

by Janet Kagan · published 1988 · read 2020-10-07

Hellspark is not without faults, but faults do not remove a five-star rating given out of pure joy. This is what I want my scifi to be like, and the fact that Kagan has not published much (and died in 2008) was rough to discover in a world where it seems like every book has a sequel. Sadz.

My Real Children

by Jo Walton · published 2014 · read 2019-09-29

This review is biased. Of course, all my reviews are biased, what else are they there for? But this one is more biased than most. My Real Children by Jo Walton came recommended by a friend who said “if you ever feel the need to bawl your eyes out”, when I mentioned that I had planned to read something by Jo Walton.

The Warrior’s Apprentice

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1986 · last read 2020-08-19

Wow! If you're new to the series, … start here. This book has all the fun, and action, and, y'know, forwards momentum.

The Mountains of Mourning

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1989 · read 2018-11-23

The Mountains of Mourning is a very touching Vorkosigan novella by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's deeply impressive to me how very emotional and touching this novella gets in under 150 pages, while still maintaining the character and tone of the overall series. Our favourite hero, Miles, confronts a backwater village while investigating a child murder. The crippled man confronting a society where killing crippled children is more than just tolerated – and at no point Bujold goes for the easy way out. No good vs evil here, oh no, just heartbreak.

Barrayar

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1991 · last read 2020-08-19

Update: This book is a perfect read after Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. Sadly, Gentleman Jole is also the perfect read after Barrayar, somebody send help, please?

Memory

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1996 · read 2019-08-07

In Memory, part of the Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold shows off what character development can look like. Talk about emotional payoff! Without spoiling too much, we see Miles, our somewhat-hero, change his life in many ways, and go through the dark passages, darker thoughts, and inevitable pains this change brings. My only criticism might have been that ignoring the somewhat obvious(?) solution to the whodunnit is not very Miles like, but when I thought about it, I realized that this blind spot has a perfect explanation in Miles' character, so there is that. A very impressive book, that let me keep my high opinion of the Vorkosigan series (because improving it would be close to impossible).

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2016 · read 2020-08-18

by N.K. Jemisin · published 2015 · read 2018-09-10

❤

The Fifth Season

There was nothing about The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin that I didn't like. It's a bit short, but we have two more volumes to balance that.

The Obelisk Gate

by N.K. Jemisin · published 2016 · read 2018-10-28

The Obelisk Gate is the second part of N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, and it's brilliant. It continues the heavy character building we got in the first volume. Some characters grow, some change a lot, some change just in our eyes by virtue of being seen through different eyes, for example, our protagonist, Essun, is very different when seen by her daughter. Seeing the kid grow into her own character arc was beautifully done.

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.

Babel-17

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1966 · read 2018-08-18

It's been a long time (apart from Too Like The Lightning) that I've read a novel that felt so tailored to me like Babel-17. I mean, it's a queer polyamorous scifi novel where linguistics are key, even to winning space battles, which there are plenty of. I have no words. It's also been the first time in a while that a novel brought me to tears.

Empire Star

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1966 · read 2018-09-29

Second book by Samuel Delany, second book I positively adore. Thoroughly impressive, I don't think I've highlighted this much in any book in the past year, and it's a really short book at that. Describing it wouldn't do it justice, and so soon after reading it, I can't even try.

Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1971 · read 2019-09-29

I think, despite all its brilliance and cleverness, the best thing about Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones by Samuel R. Delany is the playfulness. It's a short story that's won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards back in the day, and rightfully so. The story is a good example of why I seem to like every Delany book I come across: brilliant, lyrical and association heavy style. In Space. Very human and tongue-in-cheek.

The Dispossessed

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1974 · read 2018-02-12

Anarchist SciFi by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's a bit slow, but the content made me forget all about that.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

by Walter M. Miller Jr. · published 1959 · read 2022-03-28

Damn, rating this book is hard! The first part had me thinking that it was just standard (though not standart then, of course!) far-future post-fallout sci-fi where humanity lives in its own ruins. And then the second part was alright, eh. And then the last part was suddenly really fucking intense and painful in a good way.

Walking to Aldebaran

by Adrian Tchaikovsky · published 2019 · read 2019-04-08

Walking to Aldebaran was my first book by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and it certainly was a good book. The story itself was a bit on the shallow side, I felt, but the writing, and the protagonist exploring weird alien catacombs, both were well done, so it was a good read. I think all things considered, the protagonist's narration voice was the best part of the book – without it, it would've been generic grim scifi, but this way it was quite a bit better than that. (A review copy was provided in exchange for an honest review by the publisher, via NetGalley.)

The Tea Master and the Detective

by Aliette de Bodard · published 2018 · read 2019-07-07

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard is a nie short scifi novella in a world where different sorts of teas can have a profound impact on how the human brain works, there is deep space that behaves entirely different from normal space, and we have sentient ships.

Provenance

by Ann Leckie · published 2017 · read 2018-10-05

Provenance by Ann Leckie is set in the Ancillary universe, but doesn't have much to do with the Radch or any of the known characters. Instead, it's a pleasant little space-opera adventure. I enjoyed it a lot, even if it didn't have the same quality as the Ancillary trilogy – it clearly doesn't aim to be the same book, and that worked for me. The protagonist is young, sometimes clever, but noticeably inexperienced and often wrong. There are a couple of inconsistencies in her character, I'd say (both painfully insecure, and sufficiently sure of herself to pull off big plots of her own?), but having the inner view on a clever, but anxious person was convincing, all things considered. As usual for Leckie, relationships are not really fleshed out (because, again, the protagonist is somewhat clueless, although we do get a very low-key romance), so it falls to the reader to notice interactions and draw conclusions. The worldbuilding was very good, as to be expected, and I'd have loved to see more of it, especially of the different human and non-human cultures.

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.

A Desolation Called Peace

by Arkady Martine · published 2021 · read 2021-04-11

Generally, A Desolation Called Peace is nearly as good as A Memory Called Empire. It replaces parts of the intrical cultural commentary with very alien aliens who need to be communicated with, but surprisingly, the aliens are one of the weakest parts of the book. This is basially the anti-Tchaikovsky, where humans are inevitably more interesting than even hive mind aliens.

Roadside Picnic

by Arkady Strugatsky · published 1972 · read 2020-08-03

Roadside picnic was a good book to read, and I was surprised that I didn't find it depressing. It takes place in a small town in roughly-Canada, where an alien exclusion zone has spawned that is very much like a radioactive dump: People around it experience mutations, people at the site when it spawned lost their lives or were injured in weird ways, you should only enter the zone in a special suit, but of course people do enter without one anyways. This was published 14 years before Chernobyl, mind.

The Star

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1955 · last read 2022-03-05

A solid scifi short story. I probably shouldn't be surprised at Clarke's knowledge of the Jesuits. At only four pages, it felt well-written (but not quite as moving as it wants to be).

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.

Gate of Ivrel

by C.J. Cherryh · published 1976 · read 2020-06-29

Gate of Ivrel hit a lot of sweet spots for me. I mean, Fantasy in a scifi/Stargate universe? Hell yeah. It relies on the reader to think along, and the characters are certainly far from perfect, while also being relatable. I went through it in a day or so, because wow.

Empire Games

by Charles Stross · published 2017 · read 2018-03-03

This is what I wanted Merchant Princess to be. We see Rita do cool stuff without being too Mary Sue-ish, we get background, we get development, we get politics, and all that without being one giant economics textbook. Moar!

Dark State

by Charles Stross · published 2018 · read 2018-04-06

Tremendous amounts of fun! We get all the things I hoped for: More cool grandpa, more cool Rose, more cool girlfriend, (also otherwise cool women, especially the Princess seems to rock), and more cultural juxtaposition. The evil guy within the Commonwealth isn't … openly evil? I'm not even sure which side of their story I beliefe yet. And then we get dropped a huge cliffhanger on us (Princess missing, Kurt about to visit the Commonwealth, Adam The First Man dead) that is straight up illegal in the EU. Good thing the UK is seceding, if you look at it that way.

Saturn’s Children

by Charles Stross · published 2008 · read 2017-11-19

Post-human world sexbots vs post-human world butlers, man. It's so much better than it sounds.

To Say Nothing of the Dog

by Connie Willis · published 1998 · read 2020-02-22

This book as good as advertised – even better than that, because part of it is targeted at people who had their heart broken by Gaudy Night, which I just had two weeks ago. I'm very happy I didn't accidentally read this one before Gaudy Night, that would've ruined the reading experience.

Epic

by Conor Kostick · published 2004 · read 2007-03-01

The world's a game, and we're all players – that's how things work in Epic. Digital currency can be spent and gained in the global VR video game. Our protagonist is rather poor, and has to play the odds – then he makes the stupid and desperate move to go all in on CHA. I liked the book a lot, and especially considering it's from 2004, it's held up incredibly well. Nice storytelling, too!

Daemon

by Daniel Suarez · published 2006 · read 2011-03-01

Great AI story. I liked it a lot, 'cause I'm a nerd. It's too into showing off that all the research has been done, so probably less readable to non-nerds. Though at this point, reality has caught up sufficiently that the whole thing should be transparent to everybody. Chapeau, Mr Suarez.

Freedom™

by Daniel Suarez · published 2010 · read 2014-02-13

Builds very well on Daemon, and while it sure is a nerd power fantasy in the end, the execution is good.

With the Lightnings

by David Drake · published 1998 · read 2021-07-04

Being a fan of both the Vorkosigan Saga and of the Lord Peter Wimsey books, it's no surprise that I enjoyed this book a ton. Explicitly a scifi take on the Aubrey/Maturin series, Lt. Leary is a perfect crossover between swashbuckling adventure fun and scifi – though it's really more "adventures in space", similar to the Vorkosigan saga.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

by Douglas Adams · published 1987 · read 2007-02-01

Inevitably, the Dirk Gently books get compared to the Hitchhiker's Guide books. Lacking originality, I'll do the same. Yes, this book is much denser and a bit more absurd despite the fact that the Earth remains standing (er, revolving) and there are no aliens. It's also more geeky, or nerdy, or written to a British academic in-group. Or possibly against it.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams · published 1979 · read 2004-12-01

The incomparable, oft-compared, one and only Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's so much of a classic that saying anything about it defeats the point.

Three Worlds Collide

by Eliezer Yudkowsky · published 2009 · read 2018-07-05

I always enjoy thought experiments with alien cultures with different values. This one was … well, very Yudkowsky-ish, which to me isn't only good in a story. It's still very enjoyable. Babyeathers and Super Happy People, y'all.

A Time to Reap

by Elizabeth Baer · published 2019 · read 2020-02-12

A Time to Reap by Elizabeth Bear was a very solid time travel story, probably even better for people from the US. Extremely strong atmosphere – I remembered both the characters and the atmosphere mostly by way of the plot.

The Cold Between

by Elizabeth Bonesteel · published 2016 · read 2021-11-19

Genuinely enjoyable space opera with a bit of mystery and romance, where everybody has a brain, and a character, motivations and grievances, and different opinions on each other (which is nice with multiple POV characters).

1984

by George Orwell · published 1949 · read 2010-02-01

Story time: My mother read 1984 as a teenager, in the German Democratic Republic. It was, of course, forbidden there, so it was passed around illegally, in hand-typed copies. You usually only had one chapter at a time, and not necessarily in the correct order. When I read it for the first time, she told me all that, and added as an aside: "You know, I've never quite understood why people in the free West liked this book so much. It couldn't speak to them as it did to us!"

Axiomatic

by Greg Egan · published 1990 · read 2017-03-10

Hard to rate collections of stories. There was really cool stuff in there, and I like how he works off similar themes (such as the jewel) repeatedly, but some stories felt too close thematically or in the way they were structured. Really enjoyed it though!

Permutation City

by Greg Egan · published 1994 · read 2018-04-24

3.5 stars, weird one. Greg continues to play with the rules of perception and what perceiving a thing implies, only this time we go on a trippy trip to parallel universe central, launching of parallel universes as we go, dropping through thousands of years and more, and "failing" (in one universe, and what's one universe) in the end because the aliens we created have a more solid and cohesive perception of reality than we do. I just felt the whole time that Greg made all the rules arbitrarily and could change them whatever way he wanted at any time. Which may have been due to me not understanding the premise deeply enough (and is a feeling shared by Maria, one of the two protagonists, at least).

Distress

by Greg Egan · published 1995 · read 2018-07-20

Distress is another really enjoyable book by Greg Egan, part of his very loosely connected Subjective Cosmology trilogy. It's less "weird" than the other two parts, and might make a better starting point for interested readers. We accompany our protagonist, a scientific journalist, to a phyics conference on an anarchist island – less happens than in th other books, but that just finally leaves room for better characters and characterisations. The whole book, especially its increasingly twisty story arch, is very recommendable scifi.

The War of the Worlds

by H.G. Wells · published 1898 · read 2017-02-01

I see why this is a classic - it has aged reasonably well, and seems to have given birth to many tropes and images we perceive as common ans well-known. I liked reading it, even if it was a bit stuffy.

Wool Omnibus

by Hugh Howey · published 2012 · read 2019-01-23

The Wool Omnibus is a collection of truly good scifi – the old trope of isolated humans in a post-apocalyptic world, but without a huge predictable arc. You can predict some things some of the time, but not a lot, which I always appreciate. It's depressing, but drew me in by showing realistic worlds and characters, and posing some hard ethics questions.

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.

The State of the Art

by Iain M. Banks · published 1991 · read 2018-04-10

Culture short stories! Very different in length, topic, and quality, lots of good stuff in there. Chief among them the one from Sma about Earth, and the one about the plant creature/person using a humanoid for their "she loves me, she loves me not". And A Gift from the Culture was just hilarious.

Inversions

by Iain M. Banks · published 1998 · read 2018-07-30

Inversions by Iain Banks is a non-Culture Culture novel – unexpected and refreshing. The story is told in Banks' usual masterful style, and all of pacing, characters, depth, and content are without significant annoyances. I think this is as much Fantasy as Banks will ever get, and I enjoyed the never-quite-touching storylines, and the connections you really had to look out for (and that were never explicitly explained). The fact that I knew that this was a Culture novel added another fun layer, too, because I was constantly considering who was part of the Culture and what their goals were.

Surface Detail

by Iain M. Banks · published 2010 · read 2019-02-08

Surface Detail is a true Culture novel. Complicated action, backstabbing actors, different civilisations, matters of life, death, and life beyond death, and witty Minds. Well. The beginning was a slow burn (but Culture novels tend to have weird pacing), but this was still very enjoyable. "Should hell be allowed to exist if it's up to us?" is … quite a question.

The Hydrogen Sonata

by Iain M. Banks · published 2012 · read 2019-08-07

With Hydrogen Sonata, I have now finished the Culture series by Iain Banks. It's been a ride.

All the Troubles of the World

by Isaac Asimov · published 1958 · read 2018-08-27

This short story by Isaac Asimov, available online, was heart-breaking and well-paced. I was sick of reading of dystopic futures with evil, flawed humans and evil, flawed AI everywhere, and this story is a nice break from all that.

I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter

by Isabel Fall · published 2020 · read 2020-01-12

Original review: I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is just very, very good. You are cringing from the title? Good, that means it works as intended. This piece is really good scifi – and not transphobic in the least, quite intentionally spiting the title. Read it here.

Caliban’s War

by James S.A. Corey · published 2012 · read 2017-11-14

by James S.A. Corey · published 2014 · read 2018-08-01

Whee! Good Sci-fi!

Cibola Burn

Excellent scifi. Cibola Burn is the fourth part of The Expanse, and the series just keeps on giving. Every book is exactly what I want to read – difficult situations, new worlds, people who are consistent and neither good nor evil (except for Naomi, of course), but just live their lives. Cibola Burn felt very much like I'd fear the exploration of thousands of suddenly appearing new worlds would go. I think if you think too hard about the technology level displayed in the series, some missing (AI, among other things) tech doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I'm willing to forgive this for the vast, technologically and psycologically sound universe.

Persepolis Rising

by James S.A. Corey · published 2017 · read 2019-02-19

In many ways, Persepolis Rising was a gamble. How do we react to our heros having grown older together, all of a sudden? How do we treat non-standard story arcs? How do we react when we don't have a whole lot of movement in this huge space opera 'verse, and the characters we get to see are … very human, and not always appealing?

Leviathan Falls

by James S.A. Corey · published 2021 · read 2022-01-16

This is how The Expanse ends: not with a bang, not with a whisper, but with an appropriately depressing finale. It all wraps around back to the beginning, and it's just as bad as you'd think, and then some. How well this book will work for you depends pretty much on how much this series has hurt you in the previous books (as in: how much you love the characters). It's not the strongest book in the series, but it's a satisfying ending, and I didn't dare to hope for even that.

Redshirts

by John Scalzi · published 2012 · read 2014-10-01

Often, I'm a reader of simple tastes. This is a drabble, a writing exercise, 320 pages long, that cheerfully tears into bad TV show scifi. It enjoys itself, it spends most of its time not punching down. It's not high art, it's not deep, it's just straight-up fun – if you're into the meta underpinnings. Otherwise, it's probably 300 pages of tedious jokes. It made me laugh, a lot.

The God Engines

by John Scalzi · published 2009 · read 2020-06-22

The God Engines is a fantasy-in-space novella that involves space ships powered by imprisoned gods.

Old Man’s War

by John Scalzi · published 2005 · read 2014-06-01

Modern classic. Old people are made young, and if they survive two years in the interstellar war, they get a piece of land on some planet (how very Roman).

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.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

by Ken Liu · published 2016 · read 2018-03-16

A heart-breaking short story about belonging, and families, and a tiny bit of magic. But mostly heartbreak.

Slaughterhouse-Five

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. · published 1969 · read 2009-01-01

Vonnegut witnessed the Dresden bombing, and this is his book about it. Of course, it's not just that, and even where it is just that, it is processed beautifully. Vonnegut is brutal and yet kind, dramatic but always matter-of-fact.

Shards of Honour

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1986 · last read 2020-07-04

I re-read "Shards of Honour" somewhat by accident while looking up a quote for a writing exercise. I had remembered it as a decent first entry in brilliant series: Okay sci-fi, but nothing special.

Ethan of Athos

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1986 · read 2018-03-10

Brilliant fun! Take this mostly horrible scifi concept of an all-female planet, reverse it to an all-male planet, then take it seriously. This poor protagonist doctor, sent out into the hostile and horrfyingly feminine universe, meets the brilliant Ellie Quinn of all people. It was SO MUCH FUN. (Also, we get a gay happy end, in a way? Aww www.)

Falling Free

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1987 · read 2018-04-11

How is Lois McMaster Bujold not one of the first authors to be recommended to people starting scifi? Falling Free introduces the Quaddies (humans with arms instead of legs), as seen and told by an Engineer, capital E. It's awesome, and it's got everything you'd wish for: a new culture, social implications, lots and lots of economic and corporate implications (I see where Charlie got his Laundry File bureaucracy from), and the cultural implications aswell. Also, very sweet and cool characters all around, and funny af. Leo Graf, the protagonist, is just ♥

Brothers in Arms

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1989 · read 2018-07-11

Brothers in Arms is the fifth part (in order of publishing) of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga and I enjoyed it immensely. After the previous volumes vaguely related tales, we finally return to Miles and his crew. It's been seven years (!!!. Where are the stories about those years? Well, at least one later volume takes place in the space between.), and it's brilliant. Miles is still the protagonist with the most absolute forward momentum, and the story has no clear villain, the characters are ambiguous, the narrator is only nearly reliable, and the plot is just tremendous amounts of fun. It really says something when you see that a series has 16 volumes + minor works and you're relieved because it won't be over quite so soon.

Labyrinth

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1989 · read 2019-03-12

Labyrinth is a scifi take on the legend of the Minotaur by Lois McMaster Bujold in her Vorkosigan saga. The novella really carries it off.

The Borders of Infinity

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1987 · read 2019-03-12

In The Borders of Infinity, Lois McMaster Bujold shows her series protagonist Miles Vorkosigan as a prisoner of war. It's Miles distilled to his essence.

Weatherman

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1990 · read 2018-11-23

Weatherman is a novella that is also part of The Vor Game. It was the weaker part of Vor Game, but it's still bloody good. I mean, it's Lois McMaster Bujold.

The Vor Game

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1990 · last read 2020-08-20

The Vor Game is another Miles book in the Vorkosigan Saga, and as usual, it is a lot of fast-paced fun. I was lost over the first third or so, where it wasn't clear where the plot was going, and every time I thought I had it figured out, it switched to an entirely new track. I spent a good amount of time wondering how those threads would be tied back together, and the story did not disappoint at all – but it does turn out that the first third was a standalone novella at first, explaining the break.

Mirror Dance

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1994 · read 2019-03-17

Mirror Dance was yet another really good entry in the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. I disliked the protagonist (mildly at first, strongly in the middle, barely at the end), and yet the book worked wonderfully for me. I felt afraid for Miles, scorn, compassion, and pity for his brother, and a whole range of things for everybody else. We get to see new and brilliant parts of Cordelia, and seeing the world from the eyes of Miles brother definitely shows a good perspective on our favourite hero (and reflects well on Miles' growth over the series so far!).

Komarr

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1998 · read 2020-08-13

Komarr reads so much like Gaudy Night to me, it's ridiculous (although it doesn't go to the same romantic height). That is to say: I liked it very much.

Winterfair Gifts

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2002 · read 2020-08-15

Wedding stories – I accidentally read this one out of order, as it belongs before Diplomatic Immunity, both to get the couple settled, and to introduce Roic as a character in his own right. Oh well. The wedding was, of course, very Milesian in every way. As this a novelly, Bujold mostly uses it to show us all our old favourites again, and still manages to cram new characters in there, plus something resembling a plot.

Cryoburn

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2010 · read 2020-08-18

Miles does his thing, and he does it well. Side characters are strong and complex. The plot is a mess, intentionally and outrageously, though no more so than usually. Bujold shows that she can do precocious children – they and their treatment by the adults broke my immersion at times, but Miles addresses this issue in an attempt to appease the readers and editors, so that's covered. Nothing else is really strange or new, except maybe the lack of a strong woman pulling the plot together – it's the first Vorkosigan book in quite a while where the main female character is mostly being rescued (though she does have some offscreen badassery).

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2012 · read 2020-08-16

Captain Ivan Vorpatril finally gets his own book, after decades – both in our world and theirs – of grumbling in Miles' shadow. Unfortunately for him, he gets his book at the point in life when Miles' bad habits have finally rubbed off enough to push him into a chivalrous-if-ill-advised wedding. Bujold has the decency to show up front that this will be a romance, so that the inclined reader doesn't have to fret about the ending, and just gets to guess how she'll bring it off.

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.

Artificial Condition

by Martha Wells · published 2018 · read 2018-10-19

The Artificial Condition is the second volume of Martha Wells' Murderbot series, and it's definitely better than the first one. I see why people love Murderbot, now – they, and their interaction with both humans and other bots, are bittersweet and relatable. In this second volume, Murderbot has to figure out what to do with their freedom, and they use it well – to examine their past, and work on ways to live their future. I enjoyed that while the protagonist is snarky, the snarkiness isn't overdone at all, and leaves spaces for cleverness, and vulnerability, and all kinds of connections to other people.

Rogue Protocol

by Martha Wells · published 2018 · read 2019-01-04

In Rogue Protocol, the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells continue to be enjoyable – it's lighter on the character building and action than the previous two volumes, and some ticks of our protagonist start to feel worn-out, but I still liked it! I read it when I was feeling tired, and down, and easy and fun (but never too easy, or too fun) books like these are the best thing next to hot chocolate for moods like that.

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.

The Calculating Stars

by Mary Robinette Kowal · published 2018 · read 2019-08-07

The Calculating Stars by Marie Robinette Kowal is a book I enjoyed tremendously, and I have started recommending it to a bunch of friends. It is set in the US in the 50s, just shortly after a meteorite drops into the sea next to Washington, kills millions, and starts what might be an extinction level event. Our protagonist is a woman with a PhD in maths, who flew planes in WW2 for WASP (officially never saw combat, but, y'know …), and whose husband is lead engineer for the NACA/IAC.

The Stone Sky

by N.K. Jemisin · published 2017 · read 2019-02-13

The Stone Sky is a great ending to a great trilogy. I dislike books where the ending is clear ahead of time, but the amounts of good storytelling and additional context we got made up for it. Nassun's development felt a bit heavy-handed at times, but she still makes a good character, and contrasts well with her mother Essun. I enjoyed getting the true backstory for the breaking of the earth!

Catfishing on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer · published 2019 · read 2021-05-13

Catfishing on CatNet was tons of fun. It's a not-quite-light YA about a helpful AI who just wants to look at cat pictures and also help their friends. In a way it's the YA version of MurderBot. It includes some heavy themes, and they are generally handled well. Kritzer has a really good grip on chatroom language and managed to write all those parts good without "hello, fellow kids" vibes, which I appreciated a lot.

Binti

by Nnedi Okorafor · published 2015 · read 2018-06-07

I liked Binti a lot more than Akata Witch, which I enjoyed very much. Binti was impressive and creative scifi, and the tha fast pace (du to the <100 pages) was refreshing and very well executed. Binti is a wonderful protagonist, and the culture and belief system sketched out in the book made me hungry for more. (Also: living ships?! Living ships!)

Bloodchild

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1984 · read 2020-01-24

I first read Bloodchild last year, I think, and re-read it now. It's a very Octavia Butler story – aliens cohabitating with humans and making ties that touch on reproductive and life cycles is a thing she does. But she does it well, and it's not a repeated shtick. I didn't enjoy the story as such, but it was expertly written, and viscerally stuck in my memory. (Also: ew.)

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.

Dawn

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1987 · read 2018-02-15

Wow wow wow. Real scifi, brilliant scifi. The Oankali are delightfully alien.

Imago

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1989 · read 2018-04-04

A very cool end to the series! I liked how after the human and the regular construct experience we now got the ooloi construct view of the world. To me, many things we were shown in the earlier two books grew clearer, even if this books story in itself wasn't groundbreaking. 3.5-4

Ender’s Game

by Orson Scott Card · published 1985 · last read 2020-08-01

Rereading Ender's game six years later, I found it better than I remembered it. Sure, you'll never see the twist coming the way you saw it the first time, and when I read it the first time I didn't know about OSC's personal politics. But regardless: The book sucked me in, dragged me through a story as relentlessly cruel as it was enjoyable, and then spit me out three hours later, not without delivering a last minute kick straight to the feelings.

Speaker for the Dead

by Orson Scott Card · published 1986 · read 2014-03-01

I prefer this book to the first, more famous one. It's deeper, and more powerful, and doesn't rely on one cheap trick.

Blindsight

by Peter Watts · published 2006 · last read 2020-11-26

Re-read notes: I love a couple of things about this book. I love that it is well-written, particularly for sci-fi, particularly for hard sci-fi. It reads well, if you're into sci-fi in the first place. I love that it is clever, and that it is also not stupid. There is a lot of clever sci-fi that is also very stupid. I love the vampires.

An Unkindness of Ghosts

by Rivers Solomon · published 2017 · read 2018-10-18

An Unkindness of Ghosts is so good that it seems implausible that it is Rivers Solomon's debut novel. I mean, I'm very much into generational starships as a literary setting, but this is the best usage of the genre I've encountered so far (it nearly reached a five-star rating for me). We find ourselves on a generational starship, over 200 years into the journey away from a dead planet Earth. People are organized by deck, with the upper decks being the ruling class with a Sovereign, and the lower decks being the ill-treated worker class under guard. But instead of being as simplistic and YA-y as this sounds, An Unkindness of Ghosts goes deeper.

Vaterland

by Robert Harris · published 1992 · read 2013-08-01

One of the few books that improve by translating them to German. Alternate history where Hitler won WW2 and everything is German. A mystery set in that scenario in the 60s – well-researched, well-paced. It's not a cheap dystopia, it's real and gritty and oppressive without going over the top.

Have Space Suit—Will Travel

by Robert A. Heinlein · published 1958 · read 2020-06-01

I usually avoid classic sci-fi: I've had mostly negative run-ins, where books had aged badly and either didn't interest me or felt off-putting. So, like Zelazny and Clarke and a bunch of others, I've been postponing Heinlein.

Lord of Light

by Roger Zelazny · published 1967 · read 2021-03-15

Lord of Light is hard to describe without spoilers up to the last third of the book, so I won't even try. You have been warned: hic sunt ~~dracones~~ spoilers. Even adding this book to my "space monks" list is technically a spoiler.

And Then There Were (N-One)

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2017 · read 2018-02-02

A multiverse scifi story! A convention of variations of the protagonist meet up – they discover divergence points, similarities, identities, and a body (of course, you did catch the Agatha Christie reference?).

Wind Will Rove

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2017 · read 2018-02-24

Very nice scifi about an intergenerational conflict on a multi(think >100) generational spaceship, focussing on music, both the people keeping old music alive, and the younger people rejecting history. I liked the setting and world building and characters, but I was hoping for more depth in every way.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 132

by Suzanne Palmer · published 2017 · read 2018-08-09

This is for us robot lovers: The Secret Life of Bots is an utterly charming novella by Suzanne Palmer. I can't really say much without spoiling parts of it, but the protagonist is lovely without being humanised, the personal dynamics are sweet and witty, and the time reading it was very well spent.

Metal Like Blood in the Dark

by T. Kingfisher · published 2020 · read 2022-03-03

Brother, Sister and their inventor make a strange group. When their inventor is suddenly forced to leave without them, the giant, powerful beings are on their own – and are forced to learn things like morals, and lies. Beautifully written. The ending was a bit weak, but I can't bring myself to care when the rest was so good.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1973 · read 2018-02-02

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1967 · read 2018-08-20

Infinitely referenced.

City of Illusions

City of Illusions is part of the Heinish Cycle, and a good one at that! This book starts out slow, and then meanders, and then reaches a good ending – that is cut way too short, in my opinion. As is common with Ursula K. le Guin, we see the protagonist on a not-quite-intentional journey. The large time gaps in the beginning helped to keep the story moving, and made me feel invested in the protagonist's search for his past, without feeling that I was just seeing a common trope. The resolution was typical of le Guin, who rarely shies away from difficult discussions and decisions. If only the ending hadn't been so short! I'd love to read a book on the last 20% of the story plus what came after.

The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1969 · read 2017-03-01

Wow! This is a fantastic, clever, wonderful scifi book. I loved the explicitly humanoid species (that are probably expanded on, especially their origin, in other parts of the series). I loved the mostly-androgynous species, their peculiarities, the mechanics of it all, the implications. I loved the protagonist and the carefully spun story arch - but I loved most that the narrator/protagonist was both clever, relatable, and fallible - there were several instances where, in the middle of narration, you started to think "Hold up, I'm sure that's not quite …" or "Isn't that just your weird bisexual bias …?"

The Word for World is Forest

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1972 · read 2018-02-21

I enjoyed it a lot. While I would have liked to get to know the alien culture (and its language!) even better, I was given a lot of context. Also, the story is told as seen by an alien, a nice human anthropologist, and a horrible, vicious, self-righteous human soldier, which was well done.

Four Ways to Forgiveness

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1994 · read 2018-10-02

Four Ways to Forgiveness is part of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, and gives us a bit of a backstory on the Hainish themselves, how the Ekumen was founded, and how worlds may come to join the Ekumen. The story is told in four parts, a character apiece. The characters do interact, but they form their own narratives. From the perspective of a slave, a military slave owner, an envoy, and a historian, we gain a perspective on the world of Werel, and the rebellion of the slaves against their owners.

The Telling

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 2000 · read 2019-04-02

And yet again, Ursula K. Le Guin makes me happy. In The Telling she explores a society changing following first contact with a wider galactical (pan-human) civilisation. Part of her Hainish Cycle, we see a world desparate to catch up with other civilisation in the galaxy, and to this end abandons all of its culture in favor of a burocracy, ruthlessly suppression its previous religion for its culturally dangerous superstition and conservative love for the past. It's clear from the get-go that this isn't a good thing, but through the eyes of our protagonist, who escaped an Earth dominated by religious fanatics, the story explains the motivations of all parties concerned, and humanises this decision (all the while building on glimpses into the previous/repressed culture).

Die Verratenen

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2012 · read 2017-01-09

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2013 · read 2017-01-09

Mehr, bitte!

Die Verschworenen

Rias Gruppe wird dezimiert (sogar eher im ursprünglichen Sinn), und nach einigen Nachforschungen in Jordans Chroniken verlassen drei der vier Überlebenden die Wildnis, um mehr in Erfahrung zu bringen. Bringt leider nicht so viel an Fakten, aber bringt Ria auf die richtigen Gedanken und sie beendet das Buch, wo sie es begann.

Die Vernichteten

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2014 · read 2017-01-11

Good conclusion to an excellent series.

Erebos

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2010 · read 2018-03-12

Woah. Unendlich viel besser als Ready Player One oder Epic. Richtig richtig gute und gruselige Fassung eines KI-gesteuerten RPGs, das Auswirkungen auf die echte Welt hat. Hnnng.

Rainbows End

by Vernor Vinge · published 2006 · read 2018-03-23

Well, this was great scifi. It was focussed on a not very likeable, but very real character, and a completely informationally connected world. I enjoyed that it focussed so much on where and how information flowed, and the implications of VR. Lots of fun!

A Fire Upon the Deep

by Vernor Vinge · published 1992 · read 2019-03-03

A Fire Upon the Deep was very impressive scifi! The scope ranges across the complete universe, complete with medieval worlds, advanced civilisations, up to god-like transcended entities, their interactions, and wildly alien races. And at the same time, the story gets up close to humans and aliens alike, and lets the reader live epic events at a comprehendable scale.

Micromegas

by Voltaire · published 1752 · read 2018-07-09

Throughly enjoyable and witty. It's mostly Ada Palmer's fault I read this, but this is definitely the earliest space-faring fiction I know about.

On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi!

by William Tenn · published 1974 · read 2021-02-20

You know how I'm into space monks, aka scifi that has serious thoughts about religion? Yes, this is it. Hilariously tongue-in-cheek, there's nothing I did not like about this short story. It's written in 1974, and thankfully available online, both in text and as an even more hilarious reading by the author. The tone is everything. Space jews arguing about the inclusion of alien species. Let me just say “Papa, you’re so old-fashioned! You yourself told me that the blue Jews from Aldebaran show how adaptable our people are.” – if this doesn't sell you on the story, pass it by.

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley · published 1932 · read 2011-01-01

Fun fact: It took me three tries to finish Brave New World, because the last third (or so) just had me tune out. It's interesting to contrast this work – of Huxley's youth, all convinced of things gravitating towards terribleness – to Island. He wrote Island much later in life, and it shows. What if … people could just feel good, for a while? That would be … good?

The Stars My Destination

by Alfred Bester · published 1955 · read 2019-05-05

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester is a scifi classic, and most of those don't work for me. This one was better than average, but I still felt like I was in a weird dream. I have a low tolerance for people behaving horribly and/or stupidly at the moment, which is certainly part of it. I enjoyed the exploration of what the power of personal teleportation at a whim would do to society, and I laughed at the outrageously absurd parts of the novel, but the middle part felt like a drag, not due to lack of action, but due to the characters being weird/horrible/stupid or alternating between those three in rapid succession.

Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir · published 2021 · read 2021-09-05

Andy Weir has a thing he does well, and this is just another instance of this thing. If this had been my first Andy Weir book, I probably would have given it a higher rating, but after The Martian, it felt like a re-run.

The Nine Billion Names of God

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1967 · read 2019-02-19

I appreciated the woo, but. The Nine Billion Names of God is a short story typical of the Arthur C. Clarke times of scifi. Doesn't hurt to read, but by now it's predictable, and the premise was new then, but is ehhh today.

The Songs of Distant Earth

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1986 · read 2020-01-24

A future human settlement gets visited by the last travellers from the doomed planet earth, on their way to their final destination, a new earth. Very calm, slow, slightly utopian.

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.

Record of a Spaceborn Few

by Becky Chambers · published 2018 · read 2019-12-04

I'm never really sure what to make of the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. I usually enjoy reading the books, because I only start them when I'm in the right frame of mind, for instance after reading a couple of complicated or dark books. The slice-of-life space fluff is nice. Becky Chambers is good at describing small realistic scenes, be it angry teens, toddler tantrums, stubbornness, or romance. But at the same time, things always seemed so smoothed out and sanded down that I can't help but miss some substance, or plot, or … less obvious moralising, in the end. There's a bunch of poetic passages in there that touched me – but at the same time they felt like a cheap grab for my feelings. Just because the grab is successful, it's not good. I'm going to continue reading for the poetic prose and fluff, but I'm not quite convinced.

The Kite Maker

by Brenda Peynado · published 2018 · read 2018-10-31

Do you like some heavy-handed xenophobia morals in your scifi? The Kite Maker is a short story playing on Earth, 15 years after a peaceful alien race arrived. The Dragonflies, as they were called, were greeted with violence, and now that they are somewhat integrated into society, the right mob moves against them. Heavy-handed metaphore is mixed with good characterization, leading to an intentionally painful, okay-but-not-quite-good short story.

This Alien Shore

by C.S. Friedman · published 1998 · read 2022-01-08

Damn, this book could have been so good. But it falls into the trap of having extremely good worldbuilding and then being unable to back it up with an equally good plot. It's a shame, because the premise is so much fun:

A Tall Tail

by Charles Stross · published 2012 · read 2020-04-22

A nice Stross short story. Interesting how different cultures show off about different things, but in completely similar ways. Umberto Eco will throw down with medieval/literature facts, and Charlie just needs you to know how much he knows about chemistry off the top of his head.

Bit Rot

by Charles Stross · published 2010 · read 2017-11-28

Short story in the Freyaverse.

Halting State

by Charles Stross · published 2007 · read 2015-08-17

Robbery of a dot-com-startup. Set in 2018, in independent Scotland. Alas.

The Family Trade

by Charles Stross · published 2004 · read 2016-02-05

The Family Trade introduces the Merchant Princess worlds (all three of them) and takes us along with Miriam in discovering the mechanics (mostly economical mechanics) of those worlds. Solid world building, this is probably hard economic science fiction. Not my main area of interest but apart from some passages on trading that became too in-detail for me, I enjoyed the book.

The Hidden Family

by Charles Stross · published 2005 · read 2016-02-05

I'm just not sold on economical science fiction. And I think this might be why I didn't particularly like following this book's story line. We get a third world, we get a dramatic showdown with a character sacrifice thrown in in the end, and that's … it. Other than that it's slow, tiring movement of goods and ideas between three worlds. Didn't work for me, might work for an economy major.

Way Station

by Clifford D. Simak · published 1963 · read 2021-06-28

Rural US portal space travel scifi: Aliens need a portal on earth, to pass through, and they select Enoch as station keeper. Bonus: As long as he's in the station, he doesn't age. This goes well for over a hundred years (Enoch starts out fighting for Abe Lincoln). But in more modern times, the book being written in 1963, the CIA and other parties start being suspicious.

Little Brother

by Cory Doctorow · published 2008 · read 2013-05-01

Cory is always preaching. I don't like preachy books (look at all my Narnia hate). Even when I like the message, as I do here, I'd like to be taken more seriously as a reader.

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.

Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes · published 1966 · read 2018-07-25

I liked Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes – even though the ending in itself felt predictable, it was very clear that the journey to that ending was the core of the book. It's not an easy question: How much does intelligence determine who we are, and what would happen if our intelligence were to rapidly in- or decrease? While I liked the concept of the book, I can't say that I enjoyed it though … it felt too stressfull with a hint of the kafkaesque for that.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

by Douglas Adams · published 1988 · read 2008-02-01

Fun ride, but not outstanding. I liked the gods, the absurdness, and – for some reason – the protagonist. Slightly annoyed with featureless female sidekicks, but what can you do. I have on occasion had the uncharitable thought that the title might be better than the book. It's not, but it's also not not.

Mostly Harmless

by Douglas Adams · published 1992 · read 2002-01-01

I honestly don't have real memories of reading this book. I only completed it out of a sense of duty – wouldn't have done so today.

Der Sandmann

by E.T.A. Hoffmann · published 1816 · read 2011-06-01

Early science-fiction? You may not agree, but there's an automaton that drives the protagonist insane (more or less, shush!), so I'm declaring it sci-fi, on the horror side of things.

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.

Dune

by Frank Herbert · published 1965 · read 2018-07-09

Dune is a classic scifi novel, which can mean it's anywhere between breathtaking genius and hardly accessible anymore. I found it a bit difficult to get into at first, similar to Ancillary Justice. Once I grew used to the storytelling device of an aggressively all-knowing narrator (frequently giving both/all inner views to all sides of a conversation), the world-building was fascinating, and despite the extensive narrator-explanations the reader is forced to make connections themself. My only misgiving was that large parts of the plot were too laid-out: the Mary-Sue protagonist, the evil antagonists, the good Fremen warriors etc. I hope that further parts in the series alleviate the clear-cut morals and abilities of the characters a bit. I'm looking forward to it – the world-building was exemplary. (Also, I can finally watch the movie now.)

The Fractal Prince

by Hannu Rajaniemi · published 2012 · read 2022-02-20

The Quantum Thief was amazing. I went into this book knowing absolutely nothing about what I should expect – a lot of the charm of The Quantum Thief was all about figuring out how the world works, while also keeping up with the absolute power and momentum of the characters involved – gods, gods who didn't know they were gods, their toys, their toys about to kill some gods, and so on.

“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman

by Harlan Ellison · published 1965 · read 2018-07-13

This is a tricky one: Repent, Harlequin!, Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison is a metaphor against an over-reglemented world. It's old, and I'm afraid to my eyes it hasn't aged too well. It's got an important message, and the scenario isn't bad either, and the language is poetic, but it didn't capture me at all.

Consider Phlebas

by Iain M. Banks · published 1987 · read 2017-05-29

I liked the world building (this was my first Culture novel), but the story pacing was way off. It dragged on, and most of the personal story elementes were predictable.

Excession

by Iain M. Banks · published 1996 · read 2018-07-02

This is the infamous Culture book that's mostly ships talking. Which is not the part I disliked, the ships and their story were cool! But the humans were terribly one-dimensional and felt lazy, which distracted me from the cool Excession and nearly-as-cool intrigue.

Matter

by Iain M. Banks · published 2008 · read 2018-10-27

I like Iain Banks and his Culture series very much, but Matter was a let-down for me. It's an okay book, and that's really quite disappointing copared to the potential of both the series and its own contents.

The Feeling of Power

by Isaac Asimov · published 1958 · read 2018-07-15

Let's put it like this: My grandfather is a maths teacher, and he'd love this. The Feeling of Power by Isaac Asimov explores a world in which computers are everywhere, and humans have forgotten how to do anything by themselves, especially calculations. Not a novel concept, you may say, but the publication date is 1958. I'm completely undecided on if this has aged astonishingly well or has been made unreadable, but I'd say take the five minutes and read it regardless.

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).

The Girl Who Was Plugged In

by James Tiptree Jr. · published 1973 · read 2021-11-01

James Tiptree Jr., predicting influencers in a world where advertising is forbidden. Interesting worldbuilding, but the story felt repulsive, maybe because it was so intentionally superficial? I don't like superficiality any more just because there's a meta.

Just One Damned Thing After Another

by Jodi Taylor · published 2013 · read 2021-07-02

Time travel comfort food! This book starts out as adult time travel Hogwarts: masking as an institute, St Mary dabbles in non-invasive time travel. Sorry, investigates major historical events in contemporary time. Our protagonist, a woman of distinctly urban fantasy heroine characteristics, is a historian and has to go through some harsh training (yay for training sequences) to join the small team retrieving information from the past.

The Forever War

by Joe Haldeman · published 1974 · read 2016-11-09

Very Scalzi-ish (although, of course, the other way around). Took some getting used to the terse style, after that very well thought through and enjoyable. Especially all the implication of time dilation by long distance space jumps.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

by Jules Verne · published 1864 · last read 2020-08-10

Journey to the Center of the Earth may have been my first sci-fi book, and it's hard to decide if I want to read the book as a story or as a historical document.

The Last Sun

by K.D. Edwards · published 2018 · read 2019-11-20

The Last Sun was somewhat generic urban Fantasy, set in a modern Atlantis – that is, if generic urban Fantasy was usually queer. I appreciated the queer cast, and the worldbuilding, and the hints at larger, deeper things. But since hints was all we got, I think I'll jot this down as a very pleasant reading experience, but not something I need to follow up on.

Hidden Empire

by Kevin J. Anderson · published 2002 · read 2018-06-23

2-3 stars for me. This is … space fantasy? A space epic? I wouldn't call it scifi, and it reminds me of Star Wars (although more thought was put into it). The writing had some seriously weak moments, large plot elements were predictable, and, the worst, all characters were clearly good or evil. It was never phrased like that, but c'mon. Seriously, that's no fun.

Cat’s Cradle

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. · published 1963 · read 2020-05-17

(Spoiler free note to future self when I once again start confusing the different Vonnegut titles: This is the ice one.)

The Three-Body Problem

by Liu Cixin · published 2006 · read 2018-08-10

I came into the first volume of Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past with high expectations, as there was somewhat of a hype surrounding the book. It's nearly as good as (and too me, evocative of) Subjective Cosmology by Greg Egan. It's very nice physics (and physicists) scifi. The characters were irritatingly flat a lot of the time (a common hard scifi illness), and often felt over the top to me. The beginning of the book was slow, and compared to that, the ending felt sudden (not rushed, mind, only sudden), and I missed some information and worldbuilding there – I can't be more specific without heavy spoilers. I appreciated the somber ending (although the very final scene was over the top for me). The translation was decent. There remained occasional phrases that sounded weird/unidiomatic, but it happens, especially if there's so much culture to translate.

Cetaganda

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1995 · read 2018-11-26

As per usual, Cetaganda is a very enjoyable book in the Vorkosigan series. It gripped me less than usual, which still makes it a very good book. We follow Miles as he saves yet another empire. I still enjoy both the dry wit and how you've got to think along to get the most of the subtle fun between the lines. Other than that, it felt like Yet Another Adventure, where usually the Vorkosigan books tend to contain series-changing events. Great scifi in any case, I'm looking forward to the next one.

Dreamweaver’s Dilemma

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1995 · read 2018-11-23

Dreamweaver's Dilemma is a short story by Lois McMaster Bujold, set vaguely in the same universe as her Vorkosigan series. It's nice enough, and shows again her mastery at painting realistic scenarios in unfamiliar worlds, complete with a story arc, but also everyday details. At the same time, it didn't particularly grip me, the pacing was off, so it was just a nice afternoon read.

A Civil Campaign

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1999 · read 2020-08-14

Most Vorkosigan fans seem to like A Civil Campaign a lot, and this may or may not have screwed with my expectations. I liked it less than Komarr, which I read directly beforehand.

Diplomatic Immunity

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2002 · read 2020-08-15

Among the Miles Vorkosigan books, Diplomatic Immunity did not impress me. Among wider sci-fi books, it was warm, clever, with deep character and worldbuilding, and the ability to make me laugh out loud multiple times. It is a credit to the Vorkosigan series that this book does not stand out as good.

The Flowers of Vashnoi

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2018 · read 2020-08-17

Headcanon: Bujold discovered that her vaguely-somewhat-Russian scifi setting allowed her to tell a Chernobyl Baba Yaga story, and then she just had to do it. Sometimes the prompt is stronger than the story.

Uncanny Magazine Issue 18: September/October 2017

by Lynne M. Thomas · published 2017 · read 2018-09-24

Two reviews for this issue: Fandom for Robots is a charming humorous story about the only existing sentient robot (bulky out-of-date thing from the 50s) finds anime and fanfiction. Fluffy, funny, but sadly a bit inconsequential.

We Who Will Destroy the Future

by Margaret Killjoy · published 2018 · read 2018-07-31

We Who Will Destroy the Future is a nice little time travel short story, available online. Good story, good setting, very good narrator voice.

All Systems Red

by Martha Wells · published 2017 · read 2018-09-02

It's hard to judge All Systems Red on account of it being so short – it's fast-paced and engaging though, and I felt invested in the story. But after reading it, I was more interested in reading the next part and finding out more about the world and the protagonist – the whole book felt like it just provided a backdrop for the further series. As the series is generally well-liked though, I trust that things will pick up from here.

Exit Strategy

by Martha Wells · published 2018 · read 2019-05-10

The (currently) last part of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is aptly called Exit Strategy. I liked it, just as I liked all the Murderbot Diaries. It's not quite slice-of-life, but it's got a protagonist that dearly wishes to live in a slice-of-life novella instead. Think Rincewind, only here it's filled with competence and charming snark, and touching not-quite-humanity (we're still talking about a hybrid life form with dominant artificial intelligence!). Murderbot acts with human levels of procrastination and self-deception, super-human hacking and combat skills, and adorable coming-of-age behaviour in this novella: It disovers that its humans are in danger and need saving (yes, yes, this is the complete plot). Murderbot charms, and while it's a novella and I'm not sure the full book price is justified, I enjoyed reading it, I felt for the main character, and if the story wasn't terribly deep, or the language wasn't particularly overwhelming: so what.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop

by Meredith Katz · published 2016 · read 2021-09-05

Short, sweet queer sci-fi romance, telling the story of a world where production of humanoid robots has been banned, but the last remaining ones are allowed to live out their life. Ace robot trope though.

Six Wakes

by Mur Lafferty · published 2017 · read 2018-09-20

Six Wakes is a scifi murder mystery in space: Cloning is real, but may only be used to prolong one's own life. A generation starship is staffed with six clones who will re-clone until the ship reaches its destiantion. But suddenly all six find themselves murdered and re-awaken without any memory of the last 25 years of the journey. As plots go, this one is good – sadly the writing was uneven and I'm not a mystery person, so despite the coherent worldbuilding and the simple-but-plausible characters, I wasn't drawn in too much. If you like space and mysteries though, I can definitely recommend it.

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.

Parable of the Sower

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1993 · read 2018-04-09

4.5 stars for me, but let's round it up.

Wild Seed

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1980 · read 2018-07-20

Wild Seed (first part of Octavia Butler's Patternmaster series) was good, but not great. She experiments with the implication of mortal and immortal characters, who definitely aren't gods, and while I enjoyed the premise, and the writing, and the characters immensely, I felt that the story meandered and didn't quite know where to go. It was still a very pleasant read, and I'm looking forward to see in which direction the series develops. (After finishing the book, I was told that I had started the series in the chronological order, not the published order, which was not at all my intention, and may contribute to my impression of a vague plot.)

Mind of My Mind

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1977 · read 2018-10-06

I liked Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler – to me it was the most interesting part of the Patternmaster series so far. It explores how, within our society as it exists today, the Patternist community came to exist, and soon dominated life everywhere. It's exactly the bit of backstory I was missing. That said, I didn't feel particularly attached to any of the characters. I think this was due to the rushed feeling – by skipping large intervals of time, we get told about important character and group developments, instead of being shown, which is unfortunate: with more space and exploration, this would have made an outstanding book.

Xenocide

by Orson Scott Card · published 1991 · read 2014-07-01

Xenocide is too long, too full, and starts showing where the series goes wrong. But there's still a whole lot of good in there … somewhere.

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

by Philip K. Dick · published 1974 · read 2016-12-08

by Philip K. Dick · published 1968 · read 2016-11-12

Well, well, well.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Sci-fi that I like. Real, easy to read. Also, sheep.

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury · published 1953 · read 2013-01-01

Book burners are prime "are we the baddies?" material, but it still was an impressive book – particularly compared to other 50s scifi. The firemen whose job it is to start fires were a nice touch.

Creatures of Light and Darkness

by Roger Zelazny · published 1969 · read 2022-01-21

Very Zelazny – I had hoped, after liking Lord of Light a lot, that something similar would work equally well. And it's somewhat similar, superficially. Egypt religion instead of Indian, but regardless, high-powered gods with their own agendas, all that stuff.

Sultana’s Dream

by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain · published 1905 · read 2018-02-11

Delightful role inversion.

Ink

by Sabrina Vourvoulias · published 2012 · read 2019-03-31

Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias is okay urban dystopic fantasy with a critical stance towards important issues within the US, mostly concerning latinx population and immigration. It touches on these issues beautifully, but came off a bit heavy-handed in many regards – people felt magical, yet one-dimensional. It may just be that I'm at least one major ocean and culture shift removed from the intended audience, though.

Nova

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1968 · read 2018-11-29

Nova by Samuel Delany was alright – a beautiful space opera telling the story of a captain and is impromptu crew in a well-thought, well-described future a thousand years from now. I can't really say why it didn't grip me as much as other Delany books. My mood and the book just weren't a fit at the time.

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2019 · read 2021-06-15

Sarah Pinsker writes excellent short stories. This collection opens with some shorter stories, which I found too short: They ended before anything could happen, all just setting up a scenario, then leaving me hungry for something:

Solaris

by Stanisław Lem · published 1961 · read 2013-11-01

Solaris is creepy, but in a good way. One of the relatively few earlier scifi books that spoke to me. A bit too kafkaesque for my taste, maybe, but good execution nevertheless. The foggy planet is creepy even before it starts doing things.

11/22/63

by Stephen King · published 2011 · read 2018-10-09

I found 11/22/63 a good time travel story (Would you give five years of your life to stop the JFK assassination, given the chance?). Stephen King, as always, excells at the depiction of real, gritty human life with all its ups and downs. I really think he can write about anything, natural or supernatural, as long as it has at least a tenuous connection to Maine. The story had internal consistency, a bit of character development (with a not all that clever protagonist, which I appreciated – not all protagonists need to be the cleverererest), and a satisfying conclusion. Readers of It will appreciate the tie-ins, and I caught whiffs of the Dark Tower aesthetic and resonating themes. The quality of writing is, as always with King, good: believable characters, mostly even with more than one dimension, tight writing, the usual brilliant use of foreshadowing and -telling.

The Lifecycle of Software Objects

by Ted Chiang · published 2010 · read 2018-10-31

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang is a charming (if depressing) story of virtual pets who are trained to be cute companions, but when the fad fades – after layoffs and knockoffs – it turns out you can train them up over the years to have intelligence and an understanding of the world. Yes, like children. Hilarity does not ensue, but it's a well-enough-written story that felt realistic. If anything, I'd have appreciated a little less realism – I'm already familiar with all the depressive reality of the software industry, and I'd like something more in my reading.

The Long Earth

by Terry Pratchett · published 2012 · read 2014-06-01

Parallel worlds are always fun, and I liked very much how the concept was set up. Normally in scifi you get a good concept like this, then an okay plot and cardboard characters. Sadly, in Long Earth everything except for the concept was made from cardboard.

The Lathe of Heaven

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1971 · read 2018-02-27

I liked the premise of one person (well. -ish) changing the world via dreams, inclusing heavy retroactive changes. I liked the characterisations, and the overall themes, even if the pacing was a bit off. I even agree with the (Taoist) philosophy shown behind it, but I don't like being shown philosophies forcefully in books, and this felt like it. Not even close to horrible Narnia levels, but … tending to a bit Philip-K-Dick style storytelling. Didn't enjoy the last third for that reason. A good book, for sure – but not close to my favourite Le Guin books.

Planet of Exile

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1966 · read 2018-04-20

I definitely liked this one more than World of Rocannon. It shows us two alien cultures as seen by the other culture, and their interactions. It's short and simple, and its narrative arch is not very impressive, but it's okay or even good scifi, hands down.

Elanus

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2016 · read 2019-04-04

Elanus by Ursula Poznanski is an alright YA thriller/mystery. (Keep in mind that I'm not the intended audience anymore, though). She writes a very good unreliable/unsympathetic protagonist – a way too smart 17-year old boy, who by way of his self-built illicit drone stumbles into a dangerous secret at his new school. Very solid writing. It's very clear from the start that the protagonist is an asshole, but with YA you'd want to make this clear to encourage engagement with the book (and to prevent any kids from finding him too much of a role model). Well-researched in terms of technical capacity, well-written, and while the twist is a bit predictable, the book is still solid.

Fünf

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2012 · read 2016-05-14

Hm, it might just be that I'm not a fan of thrillers, but I don't particularly love this one. There is nothing wrong with it. The characters are very relatable, the story is sound, the details are well-researched, the language and pacing are very well done,... I don't dislike it, but I don't love it either.

Neuromancer

by William Gibson · published 1984 · read 2017-03-10

Not quite sure what to think of this one. It's fast paced, but I think it tries too hard. I liked how it plays with multiple realities, or layers of reality, but both the plot and the pacing felt so … forced.

Ninefox Gambit

by Yoon Ha Lee · published 2016 · read 2019-03-31

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee was a lot of fun, but at the same time frustrating. It's high fantasy in space, and comes with all the usually frustrating parts of high fantasy (minus the racism).

Sweetheart

by Abbey Mei Otis · published 2010 · last read 2022-07-08

A bit on the nose, but still nice: Sweatheart is a well-written very short story by Abbey Mei Otis that is first sweet and then chilling in the path the story takes – nothing too special either, just a perfectly fine scifi short.

Children of Time

by Adrian Tchaikovsky · published 2015 · read 2019-11-15

With Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time I've finally come upon a book that most of my friends liked or loved, and that I couldn't get into, for … complex reasons.

The Last Starfighter

by Alan Dean Foster · published 1984 · read 2018-04-29

I'm sure the movie is much better than this, but the book is just a cheap version of Ender's Game.

Night’s Slow Poison

by Ann Leckie · published 2012 · read 2018-08-23

I like Ann Leckie a lot, but Night's Slow Poison didn't work for me – the story was either too short or too aimless for me to appreciate.

Dragonflight

by Anne McCaffrey · published 1968 · read 2022-03-13

Okay look. Dragonriders? A whole social group structured around dragons?!! A whole society slowly losing their belief in the ancient threat that made them support and accept the dragon riders? It sounds so, so good. But.

Trouble with Time

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1960 · read 2019-10-13

Trouble with Time is a nice enough short story by Arthur C. Clarke. My impression is good idea, okay-ish execution, nothing special.

The Seep

by Chana Porter · published 2020 · read 2021-06-15

Solid ehhhh: The Seep is a short scifi novel(la?) about an alien race that gives humanity nearly unlimited powers, including self-transformation, and also influences their mind towards being mellow hippies. The protagonist is not really on board, but instead of exploring the world or herself, we get touches of everything and nothing more. The protagonist is trans, but never really thinks about what bodily transformation powers mean for that (jealousy? excitement? nah), for example. Her Jewish ancestry is touched on a bit, her native American one not at all, and her relationship to the Seep as a doctor and artist is pretty much brushed aside after one lukewarm take. Or: the Seep (the aliens) has an original voice, but it doesn't come enough to really explore it.

The Clan Corporate

by Charles Stross · published 2006 · read 2016-02-07

Miriam has to fight against everything: the family pressured by the secret services, her grief over Roland, the looming marriage … and nothing happens. Miriam spends most of the book locked in the second world, unable to do anything, and events unfold painfully slow (save for the last pages). Didn't really know what to do with this book.

Infoquake

by David Louis Edelman · published 2006 · read 2015-03-01

The war is now fought in sales pitches, product demos and press releases. The life of the future, as seen by somebody who reads (but does not like) Wall Street Journal. Economy cyberpunk?

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

by Douglas Adams · published 1980 · read 2003-07-01

Everything is a bit less new and a bit less shiny in this book compared to its predecessor, but it's by no means bad. Still lots of hilarious moment, and lots of absurdity.

Life, the Universe and Everything

by Douglas Adams · published 1982 · read 2004-08-01

I liked the series less and less, the longer it went on, but I still read it – and not just out of pop-cultural duty.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

by Douglas Adams · published 1984 · read 2011-12-01

I honestly didn't enjoy the later parts of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Maybe it was the novelty wearing off, the jokes becoming too predictable? Not the jokes themselves, of course, just their general shape.

Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline · published 2011 · read 2015-08-05

I liked Ready Player One (and remember, three stars means 'liked it', not 'meh').

I (28M) created a deepfake girlfriend and now my parents think we’re getting married

by Fonda Lee · published 2019 · read 2020-02-12

About as good as the title suggests (and about as much content, too). Got the tone of voice right, more or less, though catering to the wider crowd/immersion break with the user names.

Dune Messiah

by Frank Herbert · published 1969 · read 2018-08-04

I disliked Dune Messiah, and for different reasons than I disliked Dune. While my criticism regarding Good vs Evil characters from the first volume isn't relevant to the second one, Frank Herbert's narration style of showing the thoughts of just about everybody felt like a giant "tell, don't show". I felt like the story just crawled along. Everything was overthought and overexplained, none of the characters were likeable in any way, and very little actually happened. I felt that the large time gap ("I don't want to be the messiah and cause a jihad" - 12 years later, guess what) took also part in my disbelief at the fact that there was nothing an emperor could do to at least mitigate the issues he suffered from. Ehh, I probably won't go on with the series.

Starship’s Mage: Omnibus

by Glynn Stewart · published 2014 · read 2019-11-22

I really liked the premise of Glynn Stewart's Starship Mage, but the execution was meh enough to get me to drop the book two thirds in. A world with magic for space travel, with defined rules and organisations and governance? Super cool, sign me up!

Diaspora

by Greg Egan · published 1997 · read 2018-08-25

While I liked Greg Egan's other novels, Diaspora didn't grip me at all and was very hard to get through. The fact that it revolves around an advanced species that can change itself to any degree it wants to made it hard to feel sypathy with any of the characters. The beginning was really strong, describing how their civilizations and personalities are formed. But after that, to my feeling the book consisted only of excalating physicsbabble and arbitrary personality changes, and this escalation continued right upon the not quite satisfying end.

Naudsonce

by H. Beam Piper · published 1962 · read 2021-01-07

Naudsonce is a very neat linugistical scifi story. It's also terribly unimaginative in every other way: Aliens who communicate wildly differently, yet follow human norms in every other way? Puh-lease. Everything good done here was done better by Vernor Vinge.

Look to Windward

by Iain M. Banks · published 2000 · read 2018-09-07

Look to Windward tells the story of a reluctant counter-Culture agent and wasn't really my cup of tea. While I appreciated that we get to see more of the regular, day-to-day life of people in the Culture universe, and that we also get the outside perspective on the Culture, too little happened and the story crawled along. A bit after the halfway mark, things got a bit more exciting, but overall it wasn't one of the better Culture installments, I'd say.

Annihilation

by Jeff VanderMeer · published 2014 · read 2019-12-17

Horror is not my genre, and this one just didn't have an effect on me? Not a bad book, just book-reader-mismatch, I think. The protagonist had a good distinct voice, and Area X was weird in a good way, but it never clicked for me.

A Symphony of Echoes

by Jodi Taylor · published 2013 · read 2022-01-26

Sadly disappointing: Only the second book in a series that is currently up to eleven books and countless novellas, and it already feels like the series is out of ideas and just mushing things together. There are regular excursions (Jack the Ripper as weird monster hybrid in need of getting shot repeatedly), there are the enemies-in-time, there is the protagonist being temporarily Director of the institute in the future for a bit (!!), there is YET ANOTHER giant huge misunderstanding with her partner due to them not talking about things properly, going to absolutely ridiculous and uncalled-for lengths, then a Dodo hunt, and a bunch more side plots in case you were not feeling sufficiently entertained.

The Last Starship from Earth

by John Boyd · published 1967 · read 2020-06-01

I don't really know what to think about this book, because I'm not sure how much of it is serious, and how much is tongue-in-cheek. It takes place in a future where the state is run by Soc(iologists), Psyc(hologists), and the Church (led by a mechanical pope, a huge computer in a monstrous church building). People have their life and careers regulated by their family status, with the state assigning partners and keeping tabs. Also, there are starships that are only used to bring prisoners to the planet Hell. Apparently their history diverged from ours when Jesus didn't die young, but instead marched on Rome, successfully. (The divergance is tiny for a change like that, but hey.)

You can make a dinosaur, but you can’t help me

by K.M. Szpara · published 2018 · read 2019-01-23

Crossing a trans guy's story with Jurassic Park. Occasionally sweet, but also unfocussed.

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.

The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir

by Karin Tidbeck · published 2019 · read 2019-01-24

Even though I'm a fan of sentient ships: The Last Voyage or Skidbladnir is just an okay scifi short story – too predictable for my tastes, and the switch between concrete scenes and dream-like time skips feel unfinished. But the concept of sentient space ships is always a nice one.

The Martian Obelisk

by Linda Nagata · published 2017 · read 2018-08-02

I felt like The Martian Obelisk by Linda Nagata only built despair to alleviate it, and that was about it. I think the reason is that I don't buy an Earth with reduced but still significant population levels and significant infrastructure mixed with sentences like "surgery became a lost art" and the debilitating despair that seemed to stop everybody from doing anything actually useful.

Axiom’s End

by Lindsay Ellis · published 2020 · read 2021-07-03

Unconvincing first-contact fiction. The protagonist is the daughter of quasi-Assange, and lives in poverty due to his actions after the divorce from her mother. It's all pretty grim, and then the aliens land. For semi-random reasons, one of them picks her as its translator – nothing to do with her skill or anything, and the fact that she has studied linguistics has nothing to do with anything.

The Dark Forest

by Liu Cixin · published 2008 · read 2018-09-24

I felt both bored and annoyed at The Dark Forest (sequel to Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem). The plot was convoluted and wandering, but not all that bad – but the people in it continued to be cardboard cutouts of one motivation, and optionally one emotion or one habit, if you were lucky. Also, the vanishingly few female characters had even less of a personality (and were mostly partners-of-somebody with little page time and even less impact). One female character was literally introduced directly as the protagonist's fantasy and then fridged to provide motivation for him.

Empress of Forever

by Max Gladstone · published 2019 · read 2021-09-24

Max Gladstone is an author I like a lot. He's half of the brilliance of Time War, and his Craft Sequence is amazing second-world urban fantasy. I went into this book curious how Gladstone would approach Space Opera, but confident I would like it – boy, was I disappointed. It took me the better part of a month to dig through this book, and it ust dragged on.

Ender’s Shadow

by Orson Scott Card · published 1999 · read 2020-08-04

Re-reading Ender's Game before reading Ender's Shadow – the book that tells the same story, only from the perspective of Bean – was not the best idea. I think I would have liked this book better if I had had only a hazy memory of Ender's Game.

Starfish

by Peter Watts · published 1999 · read 2018-02-26

Not my thing. Good solid characters, and the whole "living on the ground of the ocean evolving into something else was alright". The only part I really liked were the headcheese (erm, neural nets), and the fact somebody figured out which genetic side they'd take by asking one if it preferred Chess or Checkers. That was neat.

The Man in the High Castle

by Philip K. Dick · published 1962 · read 2016-12-12

Ok, so Philip K Dick is just too esoteric for me. Every book I've read has about 40% that I really like, that are clever, well-thought, and interesting. While the other parts are weird, sometimes they feel kafkaesque, or trippy, and I don't get them (or at least, their relevance and what they do in the book). As always I liked the premise (also, I'm a sucker for Nazis-have-won books), but the more it progressed the more I felt like I should take some drugs to properly understand the book. Not to say that it's a bad book, but it's just not for me.

Dhalgren

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1975 · read 2019-07-11

Asking me to rate Dhalgren by Samuel Delany is like asking me to rate Kafka's Process. I'm sure that they are both good books, objectively. I'm sure they are good books to many people out there. I can recognize their excellent language, their meta storytelling, their intense settings and the skilled ways they use language to provoke feelings (which they do!).

Anti-Ice

by Stephen Baxter · published 1993 · read 2019-09-25

I finally read a book by Stephen Baxter! Anti-Ice seems like it should be very much down my road: Victorians! In space! Science! Alternate history!

Native Tongue

by Suzette Haden Elgin · published 1984 · read 2020-10-19

Interesting, but ultimately not satisfying. Imagine a Handmaid's Tale style dystopian future but with xenolinguistics. There's a subtle female language-based resistance, and the whole setup is neat, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Life goes on, women are mistreated, leadership remains the samel

The Day Before the Revolution

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1974 · read 2018-02-17

Novella: recollections of a revolutionary. Very Zen.

Rocannon’s World

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1966 · read 2018-03-03

As opposed to most Le Guin books, this one did not work for me. I was distracted by the different species on the planet, and the pacing was off, and there's something I can't name. The ending nearly raised the book to 3/5, but not quite.

Bridesicle

by Will McIntosh · published 2009 · read 2019-04-22

Good title. Sadly, Bridesicle by Will McIntosh is not as good as its title – cryo facilities where people can be revived by prospective partners. He tries to capture the horror of it all, but it fell flat for me.

Influx

by Daniel Suarez · published 2014 · read 2018-07-11

Influx by Daniel Suarez was disappointing, especially since I enjoyed Daemon. Influx bore all the marks of a sub-par action movie, with one Deus ex Machina chasing the next, random high-powered technology spawning all along, a big reveal (oh no! everybody knew!), and characters who are flat, and either Good™ or Evil™. It didn't help that I disagreed fundamentally with the barely-veiled message Suarez tries to bring across (don't ever hide innovation, kids, or you may bring about the end of the world). Even the writing was way over-the-top to make readers see every scene as part of a generic action movie. Very meh.

Metro 2033

by Dmitry Glukhovsky · published 2002 · read 2018-08-13

I did not finish because the English translation was really really really bad. I got up to about 40%. Nice setting, but world-building comes mostly in infodumps. Story seemed interesting though.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

by Edwin A. Abbott · published 1884 · read 2017-06-01

I had seen the (a?) movie and enjoyed it a lot. But the book is horribly classist and misogynistic and eww. It ready a bit like Brave New World without the social criticism. Yeah, the idea is great and mind blowing, but the execution just sucks.

Bitter Seeds

by Ian Tregillis · published 2010 · read 2021-12-03

Nazis, but they have supermen, vs British war mages who will gladly sacrifice children. Unpleasant all around. Nobody is sympathetic, nobody is even interesting, everybody is terrible, and I haven't met flatter characters in ages. Didn't enjoy anything about it.

The Embedding

by Ian Watson · published 1973 · read 2020-10-10

★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ (did not finish)

I am into linguistics sci-fi, and it was in search of more of it that I read this book. Or, at least, tried to read it: I gave up about 60% in, and it didn't work for me at all. First Contact, dodgy language experiments on kids, just as dodgy writing, some rainforest activism, plus no women (released in 1973, and I know for a fact that there were women on Earth even back then), … there was nothing to keep me going.

Before I Fall

by Lauren Oliver · published 2010 · read 2017-06-27

Mean Girl goes Groundhog Day, finding ethics, true love and inevitable death.

The Hierophant’s Daughter

by M.F. Sullivan · published 2019 · read 2019-03-17

The Hierophant's Daughter by MF Sullivan was an advance reading copy provided to me by NetGalley. It's … dystopian cannibal vampires? I have to confess that I aborted reading the book about a third of the way in. Its mix of unsympathetic characters, bleak dystopia, random info dumps, and random remeniscing about the past did not work for me at all. Dystopian cannibal vampire empire churches take a lot to be believable – Charlie Stross could do it, MF Sullivan couldn't.

Nussia

by Michele Tracy Berger · published 2018 · read 2019-01-14

I'm just not one for exchange student stories. Nussia is a short story that describes the first alien exchange student, who comes to a black family in the Bronx. The writing felt very uneven, and the plot directionless, so even though the idea is nice, the story didn't capture me at all.

Scythe

by Neal Shusterman · published 2016 · read 2019-09-29

Scythe by Neal Shusterman is YA scifi, and as such I am not the target group. I read YA occasionally, though, so I am familiar with both good and bad examples. This one, to me, fell in the latter group. Shusterman built a utopia somehow founded on an all-knowing machine, which leads to humans being somewhat directionless immortals – who still go for jobs and make money. Imagine my raised eyebrows. Everything about this future is utterly boring – except, of course, the titular Scythes, which are more nonsensical than everything.

Jumper

by Steven Gould · published 1992 · read 2017-06-28