Started: 2/2/20
Finished: 2/7/20
I picked this one up from the library after a Tor.com post about science fiction that provides hope for humanity. It’s the first in a trilogy, and I liked it. I don’t know if it’s officially YA, but the focus is on a bunch of teenagers, and aside from a few kind parents and parent-figures, the adults are Evil-with-a-capital-E. So, yeah, it’s YA.
Started: 12/28/19
Finished: 1/4/20
Debut novel of an author I heard speak on a panel at a convention. I’d read a couple of her short stories and really liked them, and I liked her in person, so I was excited to read this one and…I LIKED IT. It was fun, fast, and a little twisty plotwise (in a good way). I’m glad it’s the beginning of a series.
Started: 6/22/19
Finished: 7/1/19
Book 3 in the Wayfarers series. This was a NICE story, but I had a hard time getting into it at first. I enjoyed it, and I wholeheartedly recommend it (the whole series), but I don’t think it’s Hugo-worthy (this book is nominated, as is the series).
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: 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: 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: 1/3/19
Gave up: 1/4/19
The dialogue killed me. The story could be good – combination of magic (special abilities, anyway) and space adventures – but the dialogue between every character in the first few chapters is PAINFUL. I quit.
Started: 12/30/18
Finished: 1/3/19
The Mars base has to be built, but it’s risky and dangerous, so let’s get convicts with life sentences to do it. Pretty good, but the main character has this lack of curiosity (that gets lampshaded in the story) that means I was frustrated when he wouldn’t take the next logical step. A built-in character flaw is one thing, but when that character is the reader stand-in, it’s hard not to see it as a clumsy attempt to keep the reader from figuring out what’s going on. There’s a sequel. I might read it.
Started: 8/12/18
Gave up: 8/13/18
I was so ready to love this book and then I didn’t. It was written in the Hitchhiker’s Guide style (which I knew going in – that was part of the appeal), but it was too deliberately and obviously and painfully done that way, and it wasn’t fun to read. I gave up.
Started: 4/15/18
Finished: 4/20/18
This one was odd. I liked it, but the technology in this universe is, I think, deliberately inscrutable. It could be really interesting – it relies on calendars, dates, and the population’s belief in those calendars – but the way it’s described is not clear at all. The characters are interesting, and the plot is interesting, but there’s a space battle and how it’s being waged might as well be in Greek.
I was really looking forward to this one, too.
Started: 4/13/18
Finished: 4/15/18
Another Holmes and Watson take, but this time the Holmes character is an unstable Vietnamese woman and Watson is a sentient spaceship. It’s a novella, just long enough to solve one mystery, but while I liked the characters, I found the mystery (so basically, the story) a little…not hard to understand exactly, because I followed the plot, but hard to explain, maybe? Like, I read it, but I don’t think I could describe what happened.
Started: 3/12/18
Finished: 3/16/18
Space merchants and space adventure! Fun, exciting, with a young competent protagonist with doubts who has to overcome space adversity. Also, it’s set in space.
Started: 2/25/18
Finished: 3/4/18
I really like Neal Stephenson, but this was NOT a good novel. It’s more of a technical manual about space stations and surviving in space and STOP TEACHING ME ABOUT SPACE. When he was telling the actual story, with actual characters, I was riveted, but that was no more than half the book. On the one hand, I appreciate the real science, but the way he did it took away from the story, and I need my fiction to be about STORY. There is a paragraph near the end of the book that makes me actually angry, where, after giving me every technical detail about surviving in space, he dismisses the same details about surviving in a mine as unimportant and unnecessary to the story. IT’S THE SAME EXACT THING, GOD DAMN IT.
Started: 2/6/18
Finished: 2/10/18
A generation ship story with clones, told over a LONG period of time in a series of vignettes. Pretty good – we spent just enough time with the characters in each story to like or understand them. There was one episode that seemed a bit extreme, but it was good storytelling, so I’m okay with it.
Started: 2/3/18
Finished: 2/5/18
WEIRD. Like, I still don’t know what was going on exactly, or how that society worked. Are the ships alive? And there was this journey segment that, while it gathered up some companions for our hero, didn’t really teach her anything, so what was the point of that exactly? I found a lot of it offputting.
Started: 1/2/18
Gave up: 1/4/18
Clones. I like clone stories, and this one is also a murder mystery in space, but it’s a first novel, and the writing feels like it. Good story, but the writing is getting to me. Update: NOT a first novel, so that excuse is gone. Couldn’t handle the writing, and I put it down without finishing.