Little Free Library by Naomi Kritzer
Started: 11/18/21
Finished: 11/18/21
If only this were a true story! Link: https://www.tor.com/2020/04/08/little-free-library-naomi-kritzer/
source: trusted author
Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher
Started: 11/17/21
Finished: 11/17/21
A retelling of Hansel and Gretel where the kids are sentient machines in space, and the witch is a larger sentient machine. Fascinatingly weird, like the author (whose Hugo winner speech was about slime molds).
Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire
Started: 11/8/21
Finished: 11/12/21
Next in the Wayward Children series, nominated for a Hugo like all the others because, well, it’s good. This wasn’t my favorite, but I’m happy to see the series move forward. I like the installments that serve as backstories to characters we’ve met, too, but knowing there’s a big picture arc is satisfying to me.
The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Started: 10/28/21
Finished: 10/28/21
I read this one several years ago, cried, emailed the author. I read it again, cried, almost emailed the author. Good story, and I love that she was inspired to write the Lady Astronaut series.
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
Started: 10/26/21
Gave up: 10/27/21
I really liked the short story I read of his last year set in Cairo with a possessed tram car, and there’s a whole series there I’m excited to read, so I was bummed when I couldn’t get into this one. Mashing up Jim Crow and Klansmen with Lovecraftian monsters is a brilliant idea, but I’m a little leery of Lovecraft-related stories, and this one didn’t land for me.
A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel
Started: 9/19/21
Finished: 9/22/21
Set near the very end of WWII, with some jumps in time, it’s about a single line of women who are trying to get humanity into space. They don’t remember why, but they have very specific rules they live by. Most of the characters (not the main ones) were real people and most of the events were real (some minor details changed), which makes this totally fictional story completely plausible. Also, someone is hunting these women and trying to stop them. It was really good.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Started: 9/9/21
Finished: 9/19/21
I LOVE Naomi Novik. There’s only one book of hers I haven’t read that’s out right now, and I haven’t read it for the same reason I haven’t read that one last book of Robin McKinley’s: I don’t want to have read everything she has written.
That said, I almost quit on A Deadly Education. Wizard school (yay!) by an author I love (double yay!), but it started out so…unpleasant. So hard to understand. So not your typical wizard school book. I didn’t quit (because Naomi Novik has earned my trust), which is great because this totally weird book turned out to be awfully wonderful and I loved it and I can’t wait for the next one.
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
Started: 9/6/21
Finished: 9/9/21
My biggest complaint about novellas is that I usually want more. I really enjoyed the story, but there is so much hinted at in the rest of the world here, and I want those stories, too.
All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
Started: 8/19/21
Gave up: 8/21/21
I loved her Raven Cycle series, and I was totally hooked by the beginning of this one. It’s her writing – I can’t put my finger on it, but I like her writing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into the plot of this one. Magical realism isn’t always my thing, and this book reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude and all the ways I could not read it. So I gave this one up.
The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey
Started: 7/28/21
Finished: 8/6/2021
I know it’s hard to believe, but there are books by Anne McCaffrey I haven’t read. Not many, but still. And maybe there was a reason I hadn’t read this one. I’ve come across the brain/brawn ship thing in the Crystal Singer series, so I was familiar with the premise, but this was clearly a novel that had been put together from multiple short stories, and I just (I feel like I’m betraying Anne McCaffrey!) didn’t love it. The relationships feel dated in a way that makes me afraid to go back and re-read the early Pern books.
The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
Started: 7/10/21
Finished: 7/22/21
Katherine Addison’s first book*, The Goblin Emperor, is one of my new favorites. I loved it. Picking this one up was a no-brainer, and now that I have put it down, I want more. It’s a strange book – it’s Holmes and Watson, but with different names. It’s familiar mysteries, but with unfamiliar resolutions. There are familiar characters, but with supernatural twists. I wasn’t sure if I really liked it, although I enjoyed it, but I love the main friendship and I want to read more of it. So yeah, I really liked it.
*Not really her first book. Katherine Addison is a pen name for Sarah Monette, who has written other stuff. I just learned that. I have not read Sarah Monette. I will.
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
Started: 7/5/21
Finished: 7/9/21
Love Sarah Gailey. This book was much more SF than they usually write, much more suspense, much more psychological drama, and very good. I thought the ending was going one way, and it went another way, and I was left very unsettled. I think that’s good?
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Started: 7/3/21
Finished: 7/5/21
It’s a fantasy, it’s a mystery, it’s a contemplation of a lonely life, and it’s a really nice book.
An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear
Started: 6/2/21
Finished: 6/8/21
The next Maisie Dobbs book. I’ve been saying this for several books now, but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep reading these. They’re easy, they’re good enough, but Maisie needs more as a character.
Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
Started: 5/29/21
Finished: 5/31/21
Love Nnedi Okorafor, even though I’m not entirely sure I understand this one. It was short, and I wish there were more.
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
Started: 5/25/21
Finished: 5/29/21
Love T. Kingfisher. This is horror, just scary enough in the beginning and the middle that I refused to read it at night, but it got less scary after that. Very weird. In a good way.
Stars Uncharted and Stars Beyond by S.K. Dunstall
Started: 5/6/21
Finished: 5/25/21
I loved the Linesman series so much that I jumped at these when I saw my library had them. I didn’t love these two books quite as much, but I still really enjoyed the story. Found family, spaceships, mysteries, a ragtag crew on the run – all good stuff.
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
Started: 4/17/21
Finished: 4/26/21
I liked, but didn’t love, her first novel, but I had heard really good things about this one. Of course, then it took me a while to get into this, but once I did, I was completely hooked. Cried twice. Good stuff, and better than her first book.
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Started: 4/12/21
Finished: 4/17/21
SO GOOD, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this book is a 2021 Hugo nominee! (Just announced.) This has been on my radar since it was published last year, both because she’s great and I’ve loved many of her books and because everyone in the SF community raves about it, and it lived up to the hype.
Battleground by Jim Butcher
Started: 4/3/21
Finished: 4/9/21
Book 17 in The Dresden Files, which I have been re-reading via audiobook for the last year or so. I probably should have been listing the last several as new books for me, but I’ve been lazy about it. Anyway, I’m enjoying these books more than ever, particularly the later ones, at least partly because he really dialed back the low-key sexist descriptions of women THANK GOD.
Also, something in this latest book made me cry, and there was a bonus short story at the end that made me SOB. Jim Butcher has made me yell in annoyance, shout at unexpected events, laugh many times, but he’s never made me cry before.