Started: 6/15/19
Finished: 6/22/19
Book 2 in the Wayfarers series. Instead of an episodic adventure story like the first one, this book follows two characters as they struggle with their identities. Universal in a very science-fictional way. It’s also a found-family story. I’m a sucker for found-family stories.
Started: 6/7/19
Finished: 6/15/19
This one keeps popping up in my recommendations, usually described as being like Firefly, and I finally got a copy in this year’s Hugo voter’s packet (the 3rd book and the series have been nominated). I can say that yes, it IS like Firefly (not as much shooting), and I enjoyed it very much. It’s light and fun, much lighter than what I’ve been reading lately, so that was a pleasant surprise. It’s not heavy on plot – there’s an episodic feel to it which probably also led to the Firefly comparisons, but it’s nice.
Started: 6/1/19
Finished: 6/7/19
I’ve been meaning to read this one for a year, and then it got nominated for a Hugo and I got it in the voter’s packet, so yay for me! It’s a story about monsters and monsterslayers in a post-apocalyptic US, set on a Navajo reservation, and it’s pretty great.
Started: 5/10/19
Finished: 5/19/19
I LOVED the author’s novella, so I was really looking forward to his first novel. The premise was interesting, and it started out great, but it gradually lost me. It wasn’t bad, but there were parts that were viscerally disturbing, and the reveal at the end (that will drive the rest of the trilogy) feels like something the main character should already have known. I found myself distanced from it.
Started: 4/19/19
Finished: 4/24/19
I was hesitant to start this one because I kept getting hung up on the Lovecraftian parts of the book reviews, and the whole unknowable-horror-tentacled-monster thing is what keeps me away from Lovecraft. The other parts of the book reviews (the solid writing, flipping Lovecraft’s whole bigotry thing, the found family theme) are why I read it anyway. Final thoughts: good story, good characters, hardly any tentacles.
Started: 4/1/19
Finished: 4/6/19
Book 8 in the Expanse series. Even though it’s been over a year since I read the last one (Dec 2017), I was able to jump right in with no refresher. I think book 4 and maybe book 2 are the weakest in the series so far – this one falls squarely in the middle for quality, and a little higher for emotional kicks. It’s the second to last book, and it feels like it. I’m not ready for the last one, but I don’t have to be for a while yet.
Started: 3/27/19
Finished: 4/1/19
Space military! Kind of. It’s the military part that threw me a bit. They all have military ranks and a chain of command, but the way they interact and feel about each other is NOT military. I couldn’t decide if it meant the author just didn’t know what she was talking about, but then it occurred to me that their mission is a bit more Star Trek than military, and that shift made it work for me. I liked it. Planning to read more in the series.
Started: 3/23/19
Finished: 3/23/19
Really good novella set in the near-enough future about a super-messed up citizenship test. Good and disturbing – the good kind of disturbing.
Started: 3/1/19
Finished: 3/6/19
This is a post-apocalyptic world where nearly all white people died and the people who live die by the time they’re 20 (of what sounds like the plague), so the world is populated by kids. The language is all dialect or pidgin, hard to get used to, but you get there. It’s told in the first person, so that language is all you get. It’s sometimes hard to remember that the main character is only 15. At other times, it’s painfully obvious and terribly sad that they’re all just children. I was having trouble deciding if I liked it, or even if I thought it was good, and since I finished it over a week ago and I can’t let it go, I think that’s a yes on both counts (although I’m not crazy about the VERY end).
Started: 2/18/19
Gave up: 2/22/19
I couldn’t get into this story. It started with so much exposition, and when we finally got into some characters’ heads, I was relieved and then disappointed. It’s slow-moving, and the depiction of an alien race (native to a planet humans settled on) strikes me as vaguely racist, so it’s unpleasant to read. Add to that the abundance of unnecessary commas and I had to walk away.
Started: 2/7/19
Finished: 2/14/19
I liked the opening framing device more than I liked the rest of the story, although it was interesting. I didn’t love it – I feel like there were so many more stories to tell here, and the one tertiary story the author included basically only had an end. It was missing the beginning and the middle, which took all of the emotion (which I was clearly supposed to feel) out of it.
Started: 1/30/19
Gave up: 1/30/19
I gave up on this one almost immediately. The writing was bad. Very bad. I couldn’t make myself continue, even for a clone story.
Started: 1/25/19
Finished: 1/28/19
A series of vignettes following a few families over several generations. It’s SF because of the reproduction processes involved, but it’s mostly about parents and children. Pretty good.
Started: 1/23/19
Finished: 1/23/19
Short story about a mystifying alien encounter on an alien planet.
Started: 1/23/19
Finished: 1/23/19
Short story about a man dealing with his family and debating coming out, set in a world where if you lie, you get drenched in rain.
Started: 1/23/19
Finished: 1/23/19
Short story about a man dealing with his mother’s death and cooking. Good story.
Started: 1/19/19
Finished: 1/19/19
A short story about identity and acceptance and time travel. I’d like to see it expanded into a novel so I can get more.
Started: 1/8/19
Finished: 1/11/19
Book 6 in the Frontlines series. It’s book 6 of 6, but it clearly isn’t the end. I’m happy to believe there will be more. I’ve been enjoying this series.
Started: 1/7/19
Finished: 1/8/19
Book 5 in the Frontlines series. Have I mentioned that these are all written in the present tense? I always notice when the book starts and then stop noticing because I’m in the story.
Started: 1/4/19
Finished: 1/5/19
Fun story, couldn’t put it down. I feel like I haven’t read one of those in a while.