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Shadow & Claw: The First Half of The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

“What will you be, Severian? A torturer? You may leave the guild, you know, if you prefer.” I told him firmly - and as though I were slightly shocked by the suggestion - that I had never considered it. It was a lie. I had known, as all the apprentices knew, that one was not firmly and finally a member of the guild until one consented as an adult to the connection.

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Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Probably the best “second novel in a trilogy” that I’ve read in a while. To no one’s surprise, Adrian Tchaikovsky is responsible. Eyes of the Void clicked for me when I realized that Adrian Tchaikovsky is an avid tabletop roleplayer and this novel comes alive because he’s basically role-playing (to perfection) all of his characters. He’s thought about (and nailed) the way each character thinks and speaks based on where they’re from, who they are, their culture, etc.

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Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

A murder mystery set in a Warhammer 40k-esque far far future universe setting with necromancy at the core of everything. Also it’s horny but not explicitly so. This novel is trying to do a little too much IMO and fails to tell a cohesive story that works all the way through as a result. It’s not bad, far from it. It’s just inconsistent and a little long. The setting is cool in theory but in execution I’m left feeling as though it’s internally inconsistent (and so, less believable than it could be otherwise).

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The Martian by Andy Weir

An astronaut is abandoned on Mars after a dust storm separates him from his crew. Through journal entries, he tells the story of how he tries to survive. The story starts out a bit dry but it starts to shine once people on Earth realize he’s alive and begin to make plans to rescue him. The POV shifts around between the “Martian”, the NASA employees trying to save him and the members of the crew that left him behind.

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Lilith's Brood by Octavia E. Butler

Dawn - 5 stars Adulthood Rites - 3 stars Imago - 3 stars What follows is mostly me rambling about the series. I was blown away by the premise of Dawn and its execution. The remnants of humanity, after a nuclear apocalypse occurs, are “saved” by aliens and forced to choose between mating with their saviors or never being able to have children again. This series is about biological determinism, consent, imbalanced power dynamics and sexual violence (among other things).

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The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

Felt more like a soap opera than a space opera at times. There’s a lot of people thinking about, talking about and having sex. There’s a lot of scheming and plotting that sometimes makes sense but often doesn’t. PS: I’m looking to have a good time reading a book so I try to meet the book I’m reading halfway and appreciate what it’s trying to do instead of comment on what I think the author should have done.

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Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Big robots, fighting off aliens, piloted by pairs of young men and women (mostly boys and girls), with the men draining the life force from the women (often killing them in the process). Wu Zetian, eventually becoming the Iron Widow, is sold to the army by her family to become a concubine-pilot. She has a plan to avenge her sister, burn the system to the ground and build it back up again.

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The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

The shake that passes will echo. The wave that recedes will come back. The mountain that rumbles will roar. The Fifth Season is a story about suffering and trying to find moments of pleasure and peace in a broken world. The POV characters are all persecuted and forced to suffer because of circumstances outside of their control. They’re “orogenes”, people born with the ability to exert control over stone, often, in exchange of their own life force and of the people around them.

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Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines

This book is a joke and not a very funny one. It fails completely in its stated goal of being funny. The tonal clash between the comedic intent of the author and the violent story centered around a group of janitors trying to stop a genocide is jarring. The characters are nothing more than caricatures and this is a trainwreck waiting to happen given the inclusion of a comic relief autistic character.

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Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Fantastic genre-bending sci-fi. My mind’s eye has never been very good so I rarely latch on to descriptions of the spaces that characters find themselves in. But, the descriptions of Solaris’s space station and the planet it’s orbiting were so vivid and interesting that it elevated the story for me. The space station’s color scheme of white combined with stripes of vibrant colors lit by the alternating blue and red hues of the system’s both suns was breathtaking.

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The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

spoiler alert The Light Brigade is a story about breaking people down and putting them back together again, both mentally and physically, to turn them into perfect soldiers/monsters. It’s a wild ride that kept me hooked all throughout. It makes reference to many science fiction tropes you’ve seen before to keep you guessing and subverting your expectations. Overall I enjoyed it despite the politics feeling a little on the nose (Late stage capitalism baaaad?

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Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny

In fair puzzles there should always be a way out. But I saw no doorways in the sand, and try as I might I could not make the puzzle fall fair. Doorways in the Sand tells the story of Fred Cassidy the “Eternal Student”, a man who’s spent 13 years of his life as an undergrad. He does everything he can to avoid getting a degree so he can continue benefiting from his uncle’s generous will, predicated on him being in school (once he graduates he’ll be cut off).

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To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

Humm… It was OK. Unlike The Galaxy and The Ground Within (also written by Becky Chambers), this novella doesn’t have a lot of space (see what I did there?) to develop its characters and have you care about them. There’s a little bit of tension as the crew navigates to each planet they’ve been tasked with scouring for life. Will they be ok? What will they find? Etc. But it was hard for me to care.

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Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

The Murderbot Diaries series so far have been extremely cyberpunk: Murderbot hacks its own brain (or part of it) and tells us about it on page 1 of the first novella. People with cybernetic enhancements are so commonplace that Murderbot can (with a little help) disguise itself like one of them and no one bats an eye. From the very start, the story is focused on big corporations having a lot of control and the consequences of that on the workers and slaves (like Murderbot) in the system.

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Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“They think.” “Not thinking like us, though.” “Well that’s to be expected.” Minor spoilers below about the basic premise of the series/novel Children of Memory is the third novel in the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It follows in the footsteps of the first two books by giving us another story about characters (various uplifted species, human/AI constructs and one fungi species) being thrust together onto another planet.

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The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is a science fiction novel about a diverse cast of characters from all over the galaxy, stuck at an inter-planetary truck stop for an indeterminate span of time, getting to know one another and helping each other overcome (or make peace with) problems in their personal lives. As the characters learned about each other and gradually opened up about themselves, I started to see parts of myself reflected in them making me feel invested in the mostly low stakes interactions occurring between the characters.

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Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Which of us are people and which of us are meat? Let’s set the stage (you can read all of this on the front cover so no spoilers): In Space Opera, an intergalactic World War 2-standin breaks out, causing much destruction and suffering (while humans remain woefully unaware of this). As a result of this confrontation, the remaining alien civilizations unite and organize a Eurovision-esque contest (the Metagalactic Grand Prix) to determine how the resources of the galaxy will be shared amongst the participants for the following year (based on their relative ranking in contest).

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Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“We’re going on an adventure!” If you liked the previous novel in this series, Children of Time, you’re likely to enjoy this one just as much if not more (I definitely did). If you haven’t read it, I suggest you start with that one (also great) and then read this sequel. Otherwise, you’ll be missing out. Both novels take place in universes that feel very grounded in reality. The way in which the various species present evolve over time, communicate with each other, perceive the world around them and interact with it, feels satisfyingly plausible while simultaneously feeling truly alien.

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To Hold Up the Sky by Cixin Liu

To Hold Up the Sky is a collection of short stories from Liu Cixin who’s mostly known for his Three Body Problem trilogy. This collection is a mixed bag. The stories range from very bad, to middling to great. Two (out of eleven) stories really spoke to me and the rest were mostly meh.

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Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis

Set in 2007, the novel is about a U.S. government coverup of contact with extraterrestrial life. You follow the story of Cora, daughter of an exiled whistleblower, who finds herself in the middle of the whole ‘alien’ situation.