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List: awards:otherwise-award-nominees

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Cover of Too Like the Lightning.

Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer · published 2016 · last read 2021-12-06

★★★★★

For me, this was a five star books, plain and simple, but I completely understand why it would be a 0-, 1-, 2-star book for others. It's pretentious at times. It wants you to have classical knowledge of ancient Rome and 18th century Fr

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Cover of My Real Children.

My Real Children

by Jo Walton · published 2014 · last read 2023-04-05

★★★★★

This review is biased. Of course, all my reviews are biased, what else are they there for? But this one is more biased than most. My Real Children by Jo Walton came recommended by a friend who said “if you ever feel the need to bawl

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Babel-17

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1966 · last read 2023-07-30

★★★★★

It's been a long time (apart from Too Like The Lightning) that I've read a novel that felt so tailored to me like Babel-17. I mean, it's a queer polyamorous scifi novel where linguistics are key, even to winning space battles, which the

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Ancillary Justice

by Ann Leckie · published 2013 · read 2018-03-13

★★★★★

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A Brother’s Price

by Wen Spencer · published 2005 · read 2020-04-30

★★★★☆

This is comfort food, but it's GOOD comfort food. Fantasy world with inverted gender roles (only one man per 20 women, group family marriages ensue). It follows the Regency romance arc perfectly except for leaving out that relationship buil

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The Sparrow

by Mary Doria Russell · published 1996 · read 2020-01-08

★★★★☆

I liked The Sparrow a whole lot. Part of that is just that I like the premise: Jesuit First Contact? Hell yes! The Jesuits are the science-minded and intellectual ones among the Catholic orders, and at the same time very capable of actions

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Cover of I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter.

I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter

by Isabel Fall · published 2020 · read 2020-01-12

★★★★☆

Original review: I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is just very, very good. You are cringing from the title? Good, that means it works as intended. This piece is really good scifi – and not transphobic in the least, quite inten

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Cover of The Left Hand of Darkness.

The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1969 · last read 2024-06-19

★★★★☆

Wow! This is a fantastic, clever, wonderful scifi book. I loved the explicitly humanoid species (that are probably expanded on, especially their origin, in other parts of the series). I loved the mostly-androgynous species, their peculiarit

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Cover of A Fisherman of the Inland Sea.

A Fisherman of the Inland Sea

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1994 · read 2018-11-30

★★★★☆

I'm not a huge fan of short story collections – they're hard to rate, I don't like reading stories bunched together all that much, it's just not for me. So giving A Fisherman of the Inland Sea 4/5 stars means a lot – Ursula Le Guin alwa

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Cover of The Handmaid's Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale

by Margaret Atwood · published 1985 · read 2017-12-21

★★★★☆

Oh yes, definitely the dystopic tale I needed without knowing it. Nicely done.

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Perdido Street Station

by China Miéville · published 2000 · last read 2022-07-28

★★★★☆

Wow, this book was … a lot to take in. I liked it very much. Getting thrown into an Ankh-Morporkesque city, discovering alien races, and characters, and social structures was awesome. I noted with thanks that there was very little of a conv

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An Unkindness of Ghosts

by Rivers Solomon · published 2017 · last read 2024-11-17

★★★★☆

An Unkindness of Ghosts is so good that it seems implausible that it is Rivers Solomon's debut novel. I mean, I'm very much into generational starships as a literary setting, but this is the best usage of the genre I've encountered so far

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Every Heart a Doorway

by Seanan McGuire · published 2016 · read 2018-10-06

★★★★☆

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire is a nice little fantasy tale of the place where children go after going through a Door to Another Place (Fairylands, for example), and then coming back. It's short, and sweet, and sad, and gruesome

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Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1998 · last read 2024-05-22

★★★★☆

Very very nearly a five-star book for me due to the ending, and I enjoyed it much more than the first volume. The story of Olamina told by herself, but commented on by her daughter, is really something. The pacing is outstanding and not ver

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The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

by N.K. Jemisin · published 2010 · read 2019-11-15

★★★☆☆

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K.Jemisin is solid Fantasy, with cool mythology, a decent protagonist and good other characters, and absolutely nothing wrong with it – it just didn't really come to life for me. Huge bonus points for a

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Wild Seed

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1980 · last read 2025-02-17

★★★☆☆

Wild Seed (first part of Octavia Butler's Patternmaster series) was good, but not great. She experiments with the implication of mortal and immortal characters, who definitely aren't gods, and while I enjoyed the premise, and the writ

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Range of Ghosts

by Elizabeth Bear · published 2012 · read 2020-05-08

★★☆☆☆

Good worldbuilding on the Mongolian inspired Fantasy, but I'm generally not a fan of books that end on a cliffhanger without even an attempt at providing an internal arc, and this bothered me a lot. First book by Elizabeth Bear and not some

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Cover of The Calculating Stars.

The Calculating Stars

by Mary Robinette Kowal · published 2018 · read 2019-08-07

★★☆☆☆

The Calculating Stars by Marie Robinette Kowal sure is a book. It is set in the US in the 50s, just shortly after a meteorite drops into the sea next to Washington, kills millions, and starts what might be an extinction level event. Our p

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The Black Tides of Heaven

by J.Y. Yang · published 2017 · read 2021-06-10

★★☆☆☆

Asian-inspired genderfun fantasy. Didn't compel me at all: the plot wasn't as focused as the short length warranted, and the characters didn't stand out to me at all. The plot was compressed and considering the high odds and tragedy, didn't