What if you combined:

The Running Man-esque gladiatorial combat as entertainment

with some Battle Royale

with some pro wrestling theatrical vibes sprinkled on top

with some Naked and Afraid

and light it all up?

You get Chain-Gang All-Stars, that’s what you get.

This was the first romance novel I’ve read. Sometimes you have to unleash your inner mom and read a book by a mom for moms.

I’m about as far from a mom as you can get but despite that, Cesca Major pulled me in with her writing in a way that I wasn’t expecting.

Shadow & Claw is an omnibus containing the first half of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun which is a far future sci-fi fantasy epic following the story of Severian the torturer, a self described insane person who has trouble differentiating between reality, his memories and his dreams.

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.

Dayummmmmm this was good.

There’s a, soon-to-be wizard, on a archipelago world. He goes to wizard school and becomes xXx#1_Mage_NAxXx.

A classic fantasy story elevated by Le Guin’s poetic use of words. Struggles to give women in the story the story they deserve, an issue dealt with in the subsequent novels.

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.

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).

Fred’s idyllic existence is disrupted by the theft of a priceless alien artifact, the star-stone. He’s a person of interest for reasons outside of his control and so he is pursued by humans and aliens alike who think he can help them find the stone (can he?).

“You are a living example of the absurdity of things.”

Hijinks ensue.

Going Postal is my favorite Terry Pratchett novel. I’m facepalming right now for not writing my thoughts down about this book.

Cassandra in Reverse is a novel about a woman in her early 30s with a fascination for Greek mythology who has just been dumped by her boyfriend of 4 months and fired from her job in PR.

In that moment, something snaps and she gains the ability to go back in time. She becomes like her namesake from myth who could see into the future but was cursed to never be believed.

I guess this is what happens when a tremendously successful author with a single published novel to her name spends 16 years writing another one.

I read Susanna Clarke’s first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, as a kid and, now, I’ve forgotten what it was about and if I enjoyed it (or not).

After reading Piranesi, I’m unlikely to forget this one and how I felt reading through it.

A very human story with Alien aliens, AI/human constructs and time “travel”.

The first Adrian Tchaikovsky story I read and perhaps the best. Once you pick this book up, you won’t be putting it back down until it’s done.

Infrastructure is a guide to all the major “ecosystems” of our modern industrial world. In exploring railroad tracks, antenna towers, highway overpasses, power lines, coal mines, nuclear power plants, grain elevators, oil refineries, steel mills, and more, Brian Hayes reveals how our familiar and often-overlooked industrial environment can be as dazzling as nature.