List: genre:scifi

Aww, it's scifi from the 60s! It's witty, and funny, and sarcastic (but never quite mean). Love it a lot.

The Quantum Thief

by Hannu Rajaniemi · published 2010 · last read 2022-02-18

Sometimes, a book is just so busy enjoying itself that I have to like it, no matter its faults. The Quantum Thief starts out in the Dilemma Prison, where the virtualised prisoners are forced to go through various versions of philosophical p

Anathem

by Neal Stephenson · published 2008 · read 2019-09-20

Anathem by Neal Stephenson kept me busy. Between a bunch of conferences, the sufficient concentration was a bit hard to come by. What's worse: Now that I have read it, I can't tell you if it is a good book or not.

Nemesis Games

by James S.A. Corey · published 2015 · read 2018-09-12

Wow, Nemesis Games was way better than the previous volume of the Expanse series. I enjoyed it tremendously. As a change of pace, we follow four people on their separate ways (although their stories are connected, of course), and le

Babylon’s Ashes

by James S.A. Corey · published 2016 · read 2018-11-04

Babylon's Ashes might have been the part of the Expanse series I've enjoyed most so far. We get to see the fallout of the previous conflicts (as with every book so far), and see how people act under the pressure of humanty's fate hangin

Abaddon’s Gate

by James S.A. Corey · published 2013 · read 2018-07-05

Okay, wow, this book had me discussing and screaming at it a lot. People die. People nearly die. Some of those deaths I was not at all okay with.

Tiamat’s Wrath

by James S.A. Corey · published 2019 · read 2020-02-11

I don't think I could review this book without spoilers, but it wowed me, and angered me, and is generally VERY VERY good.

Leviathan Wakes

by James S.A. Corey · published 2011 · read 2017-07-06

Fantastic space opera, even more fun than the TV series. 4.5 stars for me, but I'm rounding up 'cause I'm feeling generous today and it was just so much immersive fun!

The Player of Games

by Iain M. Banks · published 1988 · last read 2025-02-06

Omg yes. More, please. One of the best Culture books.

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

Seven Surrenders

by Ada Palmer · published 2017 · read 2018-04-17

The second volume is a bit less on the 18th century France presumptiousness spree (but adds in some more Greek history to make up for it). Very wow, including how Jehovah/JEDD and Bridger meet, Bridger's choice, the Major's identity and so

The Dispossessed

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1974 · read 2018-02-12

Anarchist SciFi by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's a bit slow, but the content made me forget all about that.

The Obelisk Gate

by N.K. Jemisin · published 2016 · read 2018-10-28

The Obelisk Gate is the second part of N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, and it's brilliant. It continues the heavy character building we got in the first volume. Some characters grow, some change a lot, some change just in our ey

The Fifth Season

by N.K. Jemisin · published 2015 · read 2018-09-10

There was nothing about The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin that I didn't like. It's a bit short, but we have two more volumes to balance that.

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

This Is How You Lose the Time War

by Amal El-Mohtar · published 2019 · read 2019-09-21

This Is How You Lose the Time War was written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. They must be magic. They can't just write like this without magic. Trust me.

Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis · published 1992 · last read 2026-01-25

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is the best book about time travel that I know of, with the notable exception of "This is how you lose the time war". It's started out good, and then proceeded to kick me in the feelings. Repeatedly. Time

Memory

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1996 · read 2019-08-07

In Memory, part of the Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold shows off what character development can look like. Talk about emotional payoff! Without spoiling too much, we see Miles, our somewhat-hero, change his life in many ways, an

The Mountains of Mourning

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1989 · read 2018-11-23

The Mountains of Mourning is a very touching Vorkosigan novella by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's deeply impressive to me how very emotional and touching this novella gets in under 150 pages, while still maintaining the character and tone

The Warrior’s Apprentice

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1986 · last read 2020-08-19

Wow! If you're new to the series, … start here. This book has all the fun, and action, and, y'know, forwards momentum.

Barrayar

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1991 · last read 2020-08-19

Update: This book is a perfect read after Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. Sadly, Gentleman Jole is also the perfect read after Barrayar, somebody send help

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2016 · read 2020-08-18

by Andy Weir · published 2012 · read 2015-08-06

❤

The Martian

Gods, I already knew they had chosen Matt Damon as lead role, and I can imagine him in that role so very well! Brilliant humor with hard scifi. I seriously hope they won't fuck up the movie.

Hellspark

by Janet Kagan · published 1988 · last read 2025-06-01

Hellspark is not without faults, but faults do not remove a five-star rating given out of pure joy. This is what I want my scifi to be like, and the fact that Kagan has not published much (and died in 2008) was rough to discover in a world

Empire Star

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1966 · last read 2023-07-20

Second book by Samuel Delany, second book I positively adore. Thoroughly impressive, I don't think I've highlighted this much in any book in the past year, and it's a really short book at that. Describing it wouldn't do it justice, and so

Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1971 · read 2019-09-29

I think, despite all its brilliance and cleverness, the best thing about Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones by Samuel R. Delany is the playfulness. It's a short story that's won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards back in

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

A Canticle for Leibowitz

by Walter M. Miller Jr. · published 1959 · read 2022-03-28

Damn, rating this book is hard! The first part had me thinking that it was just standard (though not standart then, of course!) far-future post-fallout sci-fi where humanity lives in its own ruins. And then the second part was alright, e

Ancillary Justice

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

by Ann Leckie · published 2014 · read 2018-04-14

Wow wow wow.

Ancillary Sword

Ancillary Sword was an exceedingly worthy successor to Ancillary Justice. We get a deeper look into the culture of the Radch and (most importantly) the characters we got to know in the first book. Understanding how all of them felt, especia

Ancillary Mercy

by Ann Leckie · published 2015 · read 2018-07-13

Wow! A worthy ending to the Imperial Radch trilogy ba Ann Leckie. The actions and decisions of the previous volumes find their somewhat logical conclusion in a complicated struggle for independence in an empire that has forgotten what i

Embassytown

by China Miéville · published 2011 · last read 2024-06-06

Embassytown by China Miéville starts out as okay-if-weird scifi, with decent characters, plausibly weird worldbuilding, and appropriately weird aliens, so everything you'd expect from Miéville. It starts by following a good if generic f

The War of the Worlds

by H.G. Wells · published 1897 · read 2017-02-01

I see why this is a classic - it has aged reasonably well, and seems to have given birth to many tropes and images we perceive as common ans well-known. I liked reading it, even if it was a bit stuffy.

1984

by George Orwell · published 1949 · read 2010-02-01

Story time: My mother read 1984 as a teenager, in the German Democratic Republic. It was, of course, forbidden there, so it was passed around illegally, in hand-typed copies. You usually only had one chapter at a time, and not necessarily i

Distress

by Greg Egan · published 1995 · read 2018-07-20

Distress is another really enjoyable book by Greg Egan, part of his very loosely connected Subjective Cosmology trilogy. It's less "weird" than the other two parts, and might make a better starting point for interested readers. We acc

Permutation City

by Greg Egan · published 1994 · read 2018-04-24

3.5 stars, weird one. Greg continues to play with the rules of perception and what perceiving a thing implies, only this time we go on a trippy trip to parallel universe central, launching of parallel universes as we go, dropping through th

Axiomatic

by Greg Egan · published 1990 · read 2017-03-10

Hard to rate collections of stories. There was really cool stuff in there, and I like how he works off similar themes (such as the jewel) repeatedly, but some stories felt too close thematically or in the way they were structured. Really

Three Worlds Collide

by Eliezer Yudkowsky · published 2009 · read 2018-07-05

I always enjoy thought experiments with alien cultures with different values. This one was … well, very Yudkowsky-ish, which to me isn't only good in a story. It's still very enjoyable. Babyeathers and Super Happy People, y'all.

Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro · published 2005 · read 2020-01-25

Excellent dystopian storytelling in Never Let Me Go – not loud, not ostentatious, not yelling "THIS IS A DYSTOPIA, GET IT?!" at every opportunity. The narrator's voice was extremely well-done – strong, recognisable, but realistic at the s

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

Walking to Aldebaran

by Adrian Tchaikovsky · published 2019 · read 2019-04-08

Walking to Aldebaran was my first book by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and it certainly was a good book. The story itself was a bit on the shallow side, I felt, but the writing, and the protagonist exploring weird alien catacombs, both were well

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

Leviathan Falls

by James S.A. Corey · published 2021 · read 2022-01-16

This is how The Expanse ends: not with a bang, not with a whisper, but with an appropriately depressing finale. It all wraps around back to the beginning, and it's just as bad as you'd think, and then some. How well this book will work for

Cibola Burn

by James S.A. Corey · published 2014 · read 2018-08-01

Excellent scifi. Cibola Burn is the fourth part of The Expanse, and the series just keeps on giving. Every book is exactly what I want to read – difficult situations, new worlds, people who are consistent and neither good nor evil (

Caliban’s War

by James S.A. Corey · published 2012 · read 2017-11-14

by James S.A. Corey · published 2017 · read 2019-02-19

Whee! Good Sci-fi!

Persepolis Rising

In many ways, Persepolis Rising was a gamble. How do we react to our heros having grown older together, all of a sudden? How do we treat non-standard story arcs? How do we react when we don't have a whole lot of movement in this huge space

Wool Omnibus

by Hugh Howey · published 2012 · read 2019-01-23

The Wool Omnibus is a collection of truly good scifi – the old trope of isolated humans in a post-apocalyptic world, but without a huge predictable arc. You can predict some things some of the time, but not a lot, which I always appreci

Inversions

by Iain M. Banks · published 1998 · read 2018-07-30

Inversions by Iain Banks is a non-Culture Culture novel – unexpected and refreshing. The story is told in Banks' usual masterful style, and all of pacing, characters, depth, and content are without significant annoyances. I think this is

The State of the Art

by Iain M. Banks · published 1991 · read 2018-04-10

Culture short stories! Very different in length, topic, and quality, lots of good stuff in there. Chief among them the one from Sma about Earth, and the one about the plant creature/person using a humanoid for their "she loves me, she loves

Surface Detail

by Iain M. Banks · published 2010 · read 2019-02-08

Surface Detail is a true Culture novel. Complicated action, backstabbing actors, different civilisations, matters of life, death, and life beyond death, and witty Minds. Well. The beginning was a slow burn (but Culture novels tend to have w

The Hydrogen Sonata

by Iain M. Banks · published 2012 · read 2019-08-07

With Hydrogen Sonata, I have now finished the Culture series by Iain Banks. It's been a ride.

Use of Weapons

by Iain M. Banks · published 1990 · read 2018-03-09

Very odd one - had me laughing out loud some of the time, and nearly bored at other times. I think the pacing threw me off. Very stunning ending, though, totally worth it.

Saturn’s Children

by Charles Stross · published 2008 · read 2017-11-19

Post-human world sexbots vs post-human world butlers, man. It's so much better than it sounds.

Empire Games

by Charles Stross · published 2017 · read 2018-03-03

This is what I wanted Merchant Princess to be. We see Rita do cool stuff without being too Mary Sue-ish, we get background, we get development, we get politics, and all that without being one giant economics textbook. Moar!

Dark State

by Charles Stross · published 2018 · read 2018-04-06

Tremendous amounts of fun! We get all the things I hoped for: More cool grandpa, more cool Rose, more cool girlfriend, (also otherwise cool women, especially the Princess seems to rock), and more cultural juxtaposition. The evil guy within

Die Verschworenen

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2013 · read 2017-01-09

Rias Gruppe wird dezimiert (sogar eher im ursprünglichen Sinn), und nach einigen Nachforschungen in Jordans Chroniken verlassen drei der vier Überlebenden die Wildnis, um mehr in Erfahrung zu bringen. Bringt leider nicht so viel an Fakten,

Die Verratenen

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2012 · read 2017-01-09

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2014 · read 2017-01-11

Mehr, bitte!

Die Vernichteten

Good conclusion to an excellent series.

Erebos

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2010 · read 2018-03-12

Woah. Unendlich viel besser als Ready Player One oder Epic. Richtig richtig gute und gruselige Fassung eines KI-gesteuerten RPGs, das Auswirkungen auf die echte Welt hat. Hnnng.

A Time to Reap

by Elizabeth Bear · published 2019 · read 2020-02-12

A Time to Reap by Elizabeth Bear was a very solid time travel story, probably even better for people from the US. Extremely strong atmosphere – I remembered both the characters and the atmosphere mostly by way of the plot.

The Will to Battle

by Ada Palmer · published 2017 · last read 2022-10-03

The Will to Battle is currently the last volume of Ada Palmer's brilliant Terra Ignota series. One volume is missing, and it's supposed to come out next year, and I bloody hope so because this one leaves me aching for more. As with th

The Word for World is Forest

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1972 · read 2018-02-21

I enjoyed it a lot. While I would have liked to get to know the alien culture (and its language!) even better, I was given a lot of context. Also, the story is told as seen by an alien, a nice human anthropologist, and a horrible, vicious,

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1973 · read 2018-02-02

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

Infinitely referenced.

The Left Hand of Darkness

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

City of Illusions

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1967 · read 2018-08-20

City of Illusions is part of the Heinish Cycle, and a good one at that! This book starts out slow, and then meanders, and then reaches a good ending – that is cut way too short, in my opinion. As is common with Ursula K. le Guin, we see

The Telling

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 2000 · read 2019-04-02

And yet again, Ursula K. Le Guin makes me happy. In The Telling she explores a society changing following first contact with a wider galactical (pan-human) civilisation. Part of her Hainish Cycle, we see a world desparate to catch u

Four Ways to Forgiveness

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1994 · read 2018-10-02

Four Ways to Forgiveness is part of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, and gives us a bit of a backstory on the Hainish themselves, how the Ekumen was founded, and how worlds may come to join the Ekumen. The story is told in four parts, a

On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi!

by William Tenn · published 1974 · read 2021-02-20

You know how I'm into space monks, aka scifi that has serious thoughts about religion? Yes, this is it. Hilariously tongue-in-cheek, there's nothing I did not like about this short story. It's written in 1974, and thankfully available onlin

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.

All the Troubles of the World

by Isaac Asimov · published 1958 · read 2018-08-27

This short story by Isaac Asimov, available online, was heart-breaking and well-paced. I was sick of reading of dystopic futures with evil, flawed humans and evil, flawed AI everywhere, and this story is a nice break from all that.

Vaterland

by Robert Harris · published 1992 · read 2013-08-01

One of the few books that improve by translating them to German. Alternate history where Hitler won WW2 and everything is German. A mystery set in that scenario in the 60s – well-researched, well-paced. It's not a cheap dystopia, it's real

Have Space Suit—Will Travel

by Robert A. Heinlein · published 1958 · read 2020-06-01

I usually avoid classic sci-fi: I've had mostly negative run-ins, where books had aged badly and either didn't interest me or felt off-putting. So, like Zelazny and Clarke and a bunch of others, I've been postponing Heinlein.

The Stone Sky

by N.K. Jemisin · published 2017 · read 2019-02-13

The Stone Sky is a great ending to a great trilogy. I dislike books where the ending is clear ahead of time, but the amounts of good storytelling and additional context we got made up for it. Nassun's development felt a bit heavy-handed at

The Cold Between

by Elizabeth Bonesteel · published 2016 · read 2021-11-19

Genuinely enjoyable space opera with a bit of mystery and romance, where everybody has a brain, and a character, motivations and grievances, and different opinions on each other (which is nice with multiple POV characters).

Speaker for the Dead

by Orson Scott Card · published 1986 · last read 2022-08-29

I prefer this book to the first, more famous one. It's deeper, and more powerful, and doesn't rely on one cheap trick.

Ender’s Game

by Orson Scott Card · published 1985 · last read 2020-08-01

Rereading Ender's game six years later, I found it better than I remembered it. Sure, you'll never see the twist coming the way you saw it the first time, and when I read it the first time I didn't know about OSC's personal politics. But re

Metal Like Blood in the Dark

by T. Kingfisher · published 2020 · read 2022-03-03

Brother, Sister and their inventor make a strange group. When their inventor is suddenly forced to leave without them, the giant, powerful beings are on their own – and are forced to learn things like morals, and lies. Beautifully written.

Blindsight

by Peter Watts · published 2006 · last read 2026-02-09

Re-read notes: I love a couple of things about this book. I love that it is well-written, particularly for sci-fi, particularly for hard sci-fi. It reads well, if you're into sci-fi in the first place. I love that it is clever, and that i

The secret life of robots

by Suzanne Palmer · published 2017 · read 2018-08-09

This is for us robot lovers: The Secret Life of Bots is an utterly charming novella by Suzanne Palmer. I can't really say much without spoiling parts of it, but the protagonist is lovely without being humanised, the personal dynamics are

Redshirts

by John Scalzi · published 2012 · read 2014-10-01

Often, I'm a reader of simple tastes. This is a drabble, a writing exercise, 320 pages long, that cheerfully tears into bad TV show scifi. It enjoys itself, it spends most of its time not punching down. It's not high art, it's not deep, it'

The God Engines

by John Scalzi · published 2009 · read 2020-06-22

The God Engines is a fantasy-in-space novella that involves space ships powered by imprisoned gods.

Old Man’s War

by John Scalzi · published 2005 · read 2014-06-01

Modern classic. Old people are made young, and if they survive two years in the interstellar war, they get a piece of land on some planet (how very Roman).

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

by Douglas Adams · published 1979 · read 2004-12-01

The incomparable, oft-compared, one and only Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's so much of a classic that saying anything about it defeats the point.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

by Douglas Adams · published 1987 · read 2007-02-01

Inevitably, the Dirk Gently books get compared to the Hitchhiker's Guide books. Lacking originality, I'll do the same. Yes, this book is much denser and a bit more absurd despite the fact that the Earth remains standing (er, revolving) and

Roadside Picnic

by Arkady Strugatsky · published 1972 · last read 2023-04-20

Roadside picnic was a good book to read, and I was surprised that I didn't find it depressing. It takes place in a small town in roughly-Canada, where an alien exclusion zone has spawned that is very much like a radioactive dump: People a

Freedom™

by Daniel Suarez · published 2010 · read 2014-02-13

Builds very well on Daemon, and while it sure is a nerd power fantasy in the end, the execution is good.

Daemon

by Daniel Suarez · published 2006 · read 2011-03-01

Great AI story. I liked it a lot, 'cause I'm a nerd. It's too into showing off that all the research has been done, so probably less readable to non-nerds. Though at this point, reality has caught up sufficiently that the whole thing should

Binti

by Nnedi Okorafor · published 2015 · read 2018-06-07

I liked Binti a lot more than Akata Witch, which I enjoyed very much. Binti was impressive and creative scifi, and the tha fast pace (du to the <100 pages) was refreshing and very well executed. Binti is a wonderful protagonist, and the

Gate of Ivrel

by C.J. Cherryh · published 1976 · read 2020-06-29

Gate of Ivrel hit a lot of sweet spots for me. I mean, Fantasy in a scifi/Stargate universe? Hell yeah. It relies on the reader to think along, and the characters are certainly far from perfect, while also being relatable. I went through it

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

With the Lightnings

by David Drake · published 1998 · read 2021-07-04

Being a fan of both the Vorkosigan Saga and of the Lord Peter Wimsey books, it's no surprise that I enjoyed this book a to

Slaughterhouse-Five

by Kurt Vonnegut · published 1969 · last read 2023-05-10

Vonnegut witnessed the Dresden bombing, and this is his book about it. Of course, it's not just that, and even where it is just that, it is processed beautifully. Vonnegut is brutal and yet kind, dramatic but always matter-of-fact.

Artificial Condition

by Martha Wells · published 2018 · last read 2023-06-25

The Artificial Condition is the second volume of Martha Wells' Murderbot series, and it's definitely better than the first one. I see why people love Murderbot, now – they, and their interaction with both humans and other bots, are bitter

Rogue Protocol

by Martha Wells · published 2018 · read 2019-01-04

In Rogue Protocol, the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells continue to be enjoyable – it's lighter on the character building and action than the previous two volumes, and some ticks of our protagonist start to feel worn-out, but I still

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers · published 2014 · read 2018-11-19

This was absolutely lovely scifi that reminded me a lot of Firefly in terms of down-to-earth real ship operations with a lovely, relatable crew and a gritty/real feeling universe. Seeing the crew of the Wayfarer coming together, in all thei

And Then There Were (N-One)

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2017 · read 2018-02-02

A multiverse scifi story! A convention of variations of the protagonist meet up – they discover divergence points, similarities, identities, and a body (of course, you did catch the Agatha Christie reference?).

Wind Will Rove

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2017 · read 2018-02-24

Very nice scifi about an intergenerational conflict on a multi(think >100) generational spaceship, focussing on music, both the people keeping old music alive, and the younger people rejecting history. I liked the setting and world build

To Say Nothing of the Dog

by Connie Willis · published 1997 · read 2020-02-22

This book as good as advertised – even better than that, because part of it is targeted at people who had their heart broken by Gaudy Night, which I just had two weeks ago. I'm very happy I didn't accidentally read this one before Gaudy Nig

The Borders of Infinity

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1987 · read 2019-03-12

In The Borders of Infinity, Lois McMaster Bujold shows her series protagonist Miles Vorkosigan as a prisoner of war. It's Miles distilled to his essence.

Mirror Dance

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1994 · read 2019-03-17

Mirror Dance was yet another really good entry in the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. I disliked the protagonist (mildly at first, strongly in the middle, barely at the end), and yet the book worked wonderfully for me. I felt

Labyrinth

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1989 · read 2019-03-12

Labyrinth is a scifi take on the legend of the Minotaur by Lois McMaster Bujold in her Vorkosigan saga. The novella really carries it off.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2012 · read 2020-08-16

Captain Ivan Vorpatril finally gets his own book, after decades – both in our world and theirs – of grumbling in Miles' shadow. Unfortunately for him, he gets his book at the point in life when Miles' bad habits have finally rubbed off enou

Weatherman

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1990 · read 2018-11-23

Weatherman is a novella that is also part of The Vor Game. It was the weaker part of Vor Game, but it's still bloody good. I mean, it's Lois McMaster Bujold.

The Vor Game

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1990 · last read 2020-08-20

The Vor Game is another Miles book in the Vorkosigan Saga, and as usual, it is a lot of fast-paced fun. I was lost over the first third or so, where it wasn't clear where the plot was going, and every time I thought I had it figured out

Cryoburn

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2010 · read 2020-08-18

Miles does his thing, and he does it well. Side characters are strong and complex. The plot is a mess, intentionally and outrageously, though no more so than usually. Bujold shows that she can do precocious children – they and their treatme

Falling Free

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1987 · read 2018-04-11

How is Lois McMaster Bujold not one of the first authors to be recommended to people starting scifi? Falling Free introduces the Quaddies (humans with arms instead of legs), as seen and told by an Engineer, capital E. It's awesome, and it's

Winterfair Gifts

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2002 · read 2020-08-15

Wedding stories – I accidentally read this one out of order, as it belongs before Diplomatic Immunity, both to get the couple settled, and to introduce Roic as a character in his own right. Oh well. The wedding was, of course, very Milesi

Brothers in Arms

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1989 · read 2018-07-11

Brothers in Arms is the fifth part (in order of publishing) of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga and I enjoyed it immensely. After the previous volumes vaguely related tales, we finally return to Miles and his crew. It's been seven y

Ethan of Athos

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1986 · read 2018-03-10

Brilliant fun! Take this mostly horrible scifi concept of an all-female planet, reverse it to an all-male planet, then take it seriously. This poor protagonist doctor, sent out into the hostile and horrfyingly feminine universe, meets the

Komarr

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1998 · read 2020-08-13

Komarr reads so much like Gaudy Night to me, it's ridiculous (although it doesn't go to the same romantic height). That is to say: I liked it very much.

Shards of Honour

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1986 · last read 2020-07-04

I re-read "Shards of Honour" somewhat by accident while looking up a quote for a writing exercise. I had remembered it as a decent first entry in brilliant series: Okay sci-fi, but n

Catfishing on CatNet

by Naomi Kritzer · published 2019 · read 2021-05-13

Catfishing on CatNet was tons of fun. It's a not-quite-light YA about a helpful AI who just wants to look at cat pictures and also help their friends. In a way it's the YA version of MurderBot. It includes some heavy themes, and they are ge

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

by Ken Liu · published 2016 · read 2018-03-16

A heart-breaking short story about belonging, and families, and a tiny bit of magic. But mostly heartbreak.

Rainbows End

by Vernor Vinge · published 2006 · read 2018-03-23

Well, this was great scifi. It was focussed on a not very likeable, but very real character, and a completely informationally connected world. I enjoyed that it focussed so much on where and how information flowed, and the implications of V

A Fire Upon the Deep

by Vernor Vinge · published 1992 · read 2019-03-03

A Fire Upon the Deep was very impressive scifi! The scope ranges across the complete universe, complete with medieval worlds, advanced civilisations, up to god-like transcended entities, their interactions, and wildly alien races. And at th

A Desolation Called Peace

by Arkady Martine · published 2021 · read 2021-04-11

Generally, A Desolation Called Peace is nearly as good as A Memory Called Empire. It replaces parts of the intrical cultural commentary with very alien aliens who need to be communicated with, but

A Memory Called Empire

by Arkady Martine · published 2019 · last read 2021-03-26

A junior ambassador from one alien nation and planet to another, which boasts of a highly complex language and culture? Finding herself scrambling to catch up with her predecessor (rudely murdered, instead of being in her brain as would be

Lord of Light

by Roger Zelazny · published 1967 · read 2021-03-15

Lord of Light is hard to describe without spoilers up to the last third of the book, so I won't even try. You have been warned: hic sunt ~~dracones~~ spoilers. Even adding this book to my "space monks" list is technically a spoiler.

Micromegas

by Voltaire · published 1752 · read 2018-07-09

Throughly enjoyable and witty. It's mostly Ada Palmer's fault I read this, but this is definitely the earliest space-faring fiction I know about.

The Star

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1955 · last read 2022-03-05

A solid scifi short story. I probably shouldn't be surprised at Clarke's knowledge of the Jesuits. At only four pages, it felt well-written (but not quite as moving as it wants to be). This book is part of the [2022 Backlog Incident](/p

Epic

by Conor Kostick · published 2004 · last read 2022-09-20

The world's a game, and we're all players – that's how things work in Epic. Digital currency can be spent and gained in the global VR video game. Our protagonist is rather poor, and has to play the odds – then he makes the stupid and de

The Tea Master and the Detective

by Aliette de Bodard · published 2018 · read 2019-07-07

The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard is a nie short scifi novella in a world where different sorts of teas can have a profound impact on how the human brain works, there is deep space that behaves entirely different from

Bloodchild

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1984 · read 2020-01-24

I first read Bloodchild last year, I think, and re-read it now. It's a very Octavia Butler story – aliens cohabitating with humans and making ties that touch on reproductive and life cycles is a thing she does. But she does it well, and it'

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

Dawn

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1987 · read 2018-02-15

Wow wow wow. Real scifi, brilliant scifi. The Oankali are delightfully alien.

Imago

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1989 · read 2018-04-04

A very cool end to the series! I liked how after the human and the regular construct experience we now got the ooloi construct view of the world. To me, many things we were shown in the earlier two books grew clearer, even if this books sto

Provenance

by Ann Leckie · published 2017 · read 2018-10-05

Provenance by Ann Leckie is set in the Ancillary universe, but doesn't have much to do with the Radch or any of the known characters. Instead, it's a pleasant little space-opera adventure. I enjoyed it a lot, even if it didn't have the sa

There is No Antimemetics Division

by qntm · published 2020 · read 2022-03-30

Entertaining and fun. If I were more into the whole SCP aesthetic, this would be an easy 5/5 read. I found myself constantly busy anticipating the (somewhat repetitive) twists in the stories – who is forgetting what? Who has odd blind spots

Lt Leary, Commanding

by David Drake · published 2000 · read 2022-04-20

All the Lt Leary books are the same: Go to a place under the assumption of ordered action (or usually even a peaceful unimportant diplomatic mission), shit explodes, and it gets heroically solved by Daniel Leary with impeccable manners, tha

Artifact Space

by Miles Cameron · published 2021 · read 2022-04-08

Wonderful book. Takes the old orphan formula and runs with it – no subversions, no edgy darkness, just that: The protagonist flees her life into the sci-fi navy, and starts to train on a Greatship. She finds companions, teachers, a proper s

L’Esprit de L’Escalier

by Catherynne M. Valente · published 2021 · read 2022-07-08

When Cat Valente takes on Orpheus and Eurydice, you don't walk past. This one does what she does best: kicks you in the feelings, then looks down at you sympathetically, and then kicks once more. Orpheus is such a … okay, no spoilers, just

The Jaunt

by Stephen King · published 1981 · read 2022-08-14

Classic sci-fi horror short story. Read it too late, when I had read more than one work that had built on it, so it didn't feel all that special anymore. But Stephen King always just … gets people right, to the point that the story is optio

Folding Beijing

by Hao Jingfang · published 2015 · read 2022-08-24

Points for creativity. A city that folds up and down, resource management. An underworld that doesn't even know it's the underworld. Plus all the classic dystopian surveillance stuff, which hits somewhat different when it's written in China

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

by Harlan Ellison · published 1967 · read 2022-08-26

Read because I can't keep quoting a memorable title without actually having read the book or story, that's just against my ethics. Now I've read it. I'm not a horror person. You should think that the title would warn me off (and hey, it did

Spock’s World

by Diane Duane · published 1988 · read 2022-09-03

Diane Duane can write anything, as long as she's allowed to bring some mysticism into it. Spock's World combines Vulkan's history (and pre-history) with present-day problems and well-known characters into a wonderful adventure. As always in

Man Who Lost the Sea

by Theodore Sturgeon · published 1959 · read 2022-09-21

Stranded, buried in the sand, the old man looks at the sea, while the young boy runs around with his model helicopter. Short story, published in 1959 and now available freely online. Hits its emotional notes very well. This book is part

Cage of Souls

by Adrian Tchaikovsky · published 2019 · read 2022-10-10

Post-apocalyptic sci-fi or fantasy? Who knows. There is so much to this book: the jungle prison of terror, the weird weird forest outside, the intrigues everywhere, the broken, broken people, the capital, the city under the city, and the re

Arboreality

by Rebecca Campbell · published 2022 · read 2024-01-17

Beautiful, melancholic, and tells you more on a hundred pages than many books manage on 500+. Glimpses of life – sad, but never only sad, never unbearably sad – with and in the climate catastrophe. How there's both suffering and beauty. Ver

The Eye of the Heron

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1978 · read 2024-02-06

Setting: On a planet with a human population at one just one point, exiles from earth who arrived in two waves: First a group of criminals from South America (many thousands, though their origin isn't commonly known among them), then decade

Rite of Passage

by Alexei Panshin · published 1968 · read 2023-03-29

A scifi book from the 60s, with a young black girl as protagonist, written by a white dude from the US, that isn’t terrible? And also isn’t praised and listed on all the reading lists everywhere? Reading this book was a big surprise, I have

Merchanter’s Luck

by C.J. Cherryh · published 1982 · read 2025-03-22

Way more fun than I had expected it to be – I had read Downbelow Station before, but didn’t remember much (enough to remember recurring characters when they came up, at least). This, though! The two protagonists, Sandor and Alli, come fr

11/22/63

by Stephen King · published 2011 · read 2018-10-09

I found 11/22/63 a good time travel story (Would you give five years of your life to stop the JFK assassination, given the chance?). Stephen King, as always, excells at the depiction of real, gritty human life with all its ups and dow

Hidden Empire

by Kevin J. Anderson · published 2002 · read 2018-06-23

2-3 stars for me. This is … space fantasy? A space epic? I wouldn't call it scifi, and it reminds me of Star Wars (although more thought was put into it). The writing had some seriously weak moments, large plot elements were predictable, an

Uncanny Magazine Issue 18: September/October 2017

by Lynne M. Thomas · published 2017 · read 2018-09-24

Two reviews for this issue: Fandom for Robots is a charming humorous story about the only existi

The Last Sun

by K.D. Edwards · published 2018 · read 2019-11-20

The Last Sun was somewhat generic urban Fantasy, set in a modern Atlantis – that is, if generic urban Fantasy was usually queer. I appreciated the queer cast, and the worldbuilding, and the hints at larger, deeper things. But since hints wa

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

by Philip K. Dick · published 1974 · read 2016-12-08

by Philip K. Dick · published 1968 · last read 2023-05-17

Well, well, well.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Sci-fi that I like. Real, easy to read. Also, sheep.

The Fractal Prince

by Hannu Rajaniemi · published 2012 · read 2022-02-20

The Quantum Thief was amazing. I went into this book knowing absolutely nothing about what I should expect – a lot of the charm of The Quantum Thief was all about figuring out how the world works, while also keeping up with the absolute p

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

by Neal Stephenson · published 1995 · read 2020-05-31

My relationship with Neal Stephenson is marked by frustration and enjoyment alike. I liked Anathem a lot despite it's many flaws, because it hit the perfect sweet spot in subject matter for m

Way Station

by Clifford D. Simak · published 1963 · read 2021-06-28

Rural US portal space travel scifi: Aliens need a portal on earth, to pass through, and they select Enoch as station keeper. Bonus: As long as he's in the station, he doesn't age. This goes well for over a hundred years (Enoch starts out fi

The Girl Who Was Plugged In

by James Tiptree Jr. · published 1973 · read 2021-11-01

James Tiptree Jr., predicting influencers in a world where advertising is forbidden. Interesting worldbuilding, but the story felt repulsive, maybe because it was so intentionally superficial? I don't like superficiality any more just becau

This Alien Shore

by C.S. Friedman · published 1998 · read 2022-01-08

Damn, this book could have been so good. But it falls into the trap of having extremely good worldbuilding and then being unable to back it up with an equally good plot. It's a shame, because the premise is so much fun:

Excession

by Iain M. Banks · published 1996 · read 2018-07-02

This is the infamous Culture book that's mostly ships talking. Which is not the part I disliked, the ships and their story were cool! But the humans were terribly one-dimensional and felt lazy, which distracted me from the cool Excession

Consider Phlebas

by Iain M. Banks · published 1987 · read 2017-05-29

I liked the world building (this was my first Culture novel), but the story pacing was way off. It dragged on, and most of the personal story elementes were predictable.

Matter

by Iain M. Banks · published 2008 · read 2018-10-27

I like Iain Banks and his Culture series very much, but Matter was a let-down for me. It's an okay book, and that's really quite disappointing copared to the potential of both the series and its own contents.

The Family Trade

by Charles Stross · published 2004 · read 2016-02-05

The Family Trade introduces the Merchant Princess worlds (all three of them) and takes us along with Miriam in discovering the mechanics (mostly economical mechanics) of those worlds. Solid world building, this is probably hard economic sci

Halting State

by Charles Stross · published 2007 · read 2015-08-17

Robbery of a dot-com-startup. Set in 2018, in independent Scotland. Alas.

A Tall Tail

by Charles Stross · published 2012 · read 2020-04-22

A nice Stross short story. Interesting how different cultures show off about different things, but in completely similar ways. Umberto Eco will throw down with medieval/literature facts, and Charlie just needs you to know how much he knows

Bit Rot

by Charles Stross · published 2010 · read 2017-11-28

Short story in the Freyaverse.

The Hidden Family

by Charles Stross · published 2005 · read 2016-02-05

I'm just not sold on economical science fiction. And I think this might be why I didn't particularly like following this book's story line. We get a third world, we get a dramatic showdown with a character sacrifice thrown in in the end, an

Journey to the Center of the Earth

by Jules Verne · published 1864 · last read 2020-08-10

Journey to the Center of the Earth may have been my first sci-fi book, and it's hard to decide if I want to read the book as a story or as a historical document.

Elanus

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2016 · read 2019-04-04

Elanus by Ursula Poznanski is an alright YA thriller/mystery. (Keep in mind that I'm not the intended audience anymore, though). She writes a very good unreliable/unsympathetic protagonist – a way too smart 17-year old boy, who by way of

Fünf

by Ursula Poznanski · published 2012 · read 2016-05-14

Hm, it might just be that I'm not a fan of thrillers, but I don't particularly love this one. There is nothing wrong with it. The characters are very relatable, the story is sound, the details are well-researched, the language and pacing ar

Dune

by Frank Herbert · published 1965 · read 2018-07-09

Dune is a classic scifi novel, which can mean it's anywhere between breathtaking genius and hardly accessible anymore. I found it a bit difficult to get into at first, similar to Ancillary Justice. Once I grew used to the storytelling devic

The Cybernetic Tea Shop

by Meredith Katz · published 2016 · read 2021-09-05

Short, sweet queer sci-fi romance, telling the story of a world where production of humanoid robots has been banned, but the last remaining ones are allowed to live out their life. Ace robot trope though.

The Lathe of Heaven

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1971 · last read 2023-07-26

I liked the premise of one person (well. -ish) changing the world via dreams, inclusing heavy retroactive changes. I liked the characterisations, and the overall themes, even if the pacing was a bit off. I even agree with the (Taoist) philo

Planet of Exile

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1966 · read 2018-04-20

I definitely liked this one more than World of Rocannon. It shows us two alien cultures as seen by the other culture, and their interactions. It's short and simple, and its narrative arch is not very impressive, but it's okay or even good s

Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes · published 1966 · last read 2023-03-15

I liked Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes – even though the ending in itself felt predictable, it was very clear that the journey to that ending was the core of the book. It's not an easy question: How much does intelligence dete

Solaris

by Stanisław Lem · published 1961 · read 2013-11-01

Solaris is creepy, but in a good way. One of the relatively few earlier scifi books that spoke to me. A bit too kafkaesque for my taste, maybe, but good execution nevertheless. The foggy planet is creepy even before it starts doing things.

Ninefox Gambit

by Yoon Ha Lee · published 2016 · last read 2024-01-04

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee was a lot of fun, but at the same time frustrating. It's high fantasy in space, and comes with all the usually frustrating parts of high fantasy (minus the racism). The writing, pacing, and characters are

The Feeling of Power

by Isaac Asimov · published 1958 · read 2018-07-15

Let's put it like this: My grandfather is a maths teacher, and he'd love this. The Feeling of Power by Isaac Asimov explores a world in which computers are everywhere, and humans have forgotten how to do anything by themselves, especially

The Stars My Destination

by Alfred Bester · published 1955 · read 2019-05-05

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester is a scifi classic, and most of those don't work for me. This one was better than average, but I still felt like I was in a weird dream. I have a low tolerance for people behaving horribly and/or

Xenocide

by Orson Scott Card · published 1991 · read 2014-07-01

Xenocide is too long, too full, and starts showing where the series goes wrong. But there's still a whole lot of good in there … somewhere.

The Engines of God

by Jack McDevitt · published 1994 · read 2020-06-29

This one is hard for me to rate, because I like scifi very much. And if anything is scifi, this book is! We have aliens, and space ships, and deep space puzzles, daring rescues that require engineering and science knowledge, some actual cha

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

by Douglas Adams · published 1988 · read 2008-02-01

Fun ride, but not outstanding. I liked the gods, the absurdness, and – for some reason – the protagonist. Slightly annoyed with featureless female sidekicks, but what can you do. I have on occasion had the uncharitable thought that the titl

Mostly Harmless

by Douglas Adams · published 1992 · read 2002-01-01

I honestly don't have real memories of reading this book. I only completed it out of a sense of duty – wouldn't have done so today.

Ink

by Sabrina Vourvoulias · published 2012 · read 2019-03-31

Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias is okay urban dystopic fantasy with a critical stance towards important issues within the US, mostly concerning latinx population and immigration. It touches on these issues beautifully, but came off a bit heavy

Cat’s Cradle

by Kurt Vonnegut · published 1963 · read 2020-05-17

(Spoiler free note to future self when I once again start confusing the different Vonnegut titles: This is the ice one.)

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley · published 1932 · read 2011-01-01

Fun fact: It took me three tries to finish Brave New World, because the last third (or so) just had me tune out. It's interesting to contrast this work – of Huxley's youth, all convinced of things gravitating towards terribleness – to *Isla

Neuromancer

by William Gibson · published 1984 · read 2017-03-10

Not quite sure what to think of this one. It's fast paced, but I think it tries too hard. I liked how it plays with multiple realities, or layers of reality, but both the plot and the pacing felt so … forced.

Sultana’s Dream

by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain · published 1905 · read 2018-02-11

Delightful role inversion.

The Forever War

by Joe Haldeman · published 1974 · read 2016-11-09

Very Scalzi-ish (although, of course, the other way around). Took some getting used to the terse style, after that very well thought through and enjoyable. Especially all the implication of time dilation by long distance space jumps.

All Systems Red

by Martha Wells · published 2017 · last read 2023-06-24

It's hard to judge All Systems Red on account of it being so short – it's fast-paced and engaging though, and I felt invested in the story. But after reading it, I was more interested in reading the next part and finding out more about

Exit Strategy

by Martha Wells · published 2018 · read 2019-05-10

The (currently) last part of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is aptly called Exit Strategy. I liked it, just as I liked all the Murderbot Diaries. It's not quite slice-of-life, but it's got a protagonist that dearly wishes to

Record of a Spaceborn Few

by Becky Chambers · published 2018 · read 2019-12-04

I'm never really sure what to make of the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers. I usually enjoy reading the books, because I only start them when I'm in the right frame of mind, for instance after reading a couple of complicated or dark

A Closed and Common Orbit

by Becky Chambers · published 2016 · read 2019-03-07

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers is the second part of the Wayfarers series. It's a good match for the first part: expanding different parts of the world, and worldbuilding, and starring characters that were not quite centr

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2019 · read 2021-06-15

Sarah Pinsker writes excellent short stories. This collection opens with some shorter stories, which I found too short: They ended before anything could happen, all just setting up a scenario, then leaving me hungry for something:

Hyperion

by Dan Simmons · published 1989 · read 2018-11-16

I think my problem with Hyperion were my expectations. The book is touted as one of the best scifi books out there, and it didn't live up to that. Apart from this, though, it's a fine scifi book – relatable characters, each presenting t

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury · published 1953 · last read 2023-12-05

Book burners are prime "are we the baddies?" material, but it still was an impressive book – particularly compared to other 50s scifi. The firemen whose job it is to start fires were a nice touch.

The Kite Maker

by Brenda Peynado · published 2018 · read 2018-10-31

Do you like some heavy-handed xenophobia morals in your scifi? The Kite Maker is a short story playing on Earth, 15 years after a peaceful alien race arrived. The Dragonflies, as they were called, were greeted with violence, and now that t

Diplomatic Immunity

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2002 · read 2020-08-15

Among the Miles Vorkosigan books, Diplomatic Immunity did not impress me. Among wider sci-fi books, it was warm, clever, with deep character and worldbuilding, and the ability to make me laugh out loud multiple times. It is a credit to th

Cetaganda

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1995 · read 2018-11-26

As per usual, Cetaganda is a very enjoyable book in the Vorkosigan series. It gripped me less than usual, which still makes it a very good book. We follow Miles as he saves yet another empire. I still enjoy both the dry wit and how you've g

A Civil Campaign

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1999 · read 2020-08-14

Most Vorkosigan fans seem to like A Civil Campaign a lot, and this may or may not have screwed with my expectations. I liked it less than Komarr, which I read directly beforehand.

The Flowers of Vashnoi

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 2018 · read 2020-08-17

Headcanon: Bujold discovered that her vaguely-somewhat-Russian scifi setting allowed her to tell a Chernobyl Baba Yaga story, and then she just had to do it. Sometimes the prompt is stronger than the story.

Dreamweaver’s Dilemma

by Lois McMaster Bujold · published 1995 · read 2018-11-23

Dreamweaver's Dilemma is a short story by Lois McMaster Bujold, set vaguely in the same universe as her Vorkosigan series. It's nice enough, and shows again her mastery at painting realistic scenarios in unfamiliar worlds, complete with a

Just One Damned Thing After Another

by Jodi Taylor · published 2013 · read 2021-07-02

Time travel comfort food! This book starts out as adult time travel Hogwarts: masking as an institute, St Mary dabbles in non-invasive time travel. Sorry, investigates major historical events in contemporary time. Our protagonist, a woman o

Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir · published 2021 · read 2021-09-05

Andy Weir has a thing he does well, and this is just another instance of this thing. If this had been my first Andy Weir book, I probably would have given it a higher rating, but after The Martian, it felt like a re-run.

Little Brother

by Cory Doctorow · published 2008 · read 2013-05-01

Cory is always preaching. I don't like preachy books (look at all my Narnia hate). Even when I like the message, as I do here, I'd like to be taken more seriously as a reader.

“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman

by Harlan Ellison · published 1965 · read 2018-07-13

This is a tricky one: Repent, Harlequin!, Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison is a metaphor against an over-reglemented world. It's old, and I'm afraid to my eyes it hasn't aged too well. It's got an important message, and the scenario

The Three-Body Problem

by Liu Cixin · published 2006 · read 2018-08-10

I came into the first volume of Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past with high expectations, as there was somewhat of a hype surrounding the book. It's nearly as good as (and too me, evocative of) Subjective Cosmology by Greg Egan.

Six Wakes

by Mur Lafferty · published 2017 · read 2018-09-20

Six Wakes is a scifi murder mystery in space: Cloning is real, but may only be used to prolong one's own life. A generation starship is staffed with six clones who will re-clone until the ship reaches its destiantion. But suddenly all six f

The Long Earth

by Terry Pratchett · published 2012 · read 2014-06-01

Parallel worlds are always fun, and I liked very much how the concept was set up. Normally in scifi you get a good concept like this, then an okay plot and cardboard characters. Sadly, in Long Earth everything except for the concept was mad

Creatures of Light and Darkness

by Roger Zelazny · published 1969 · read 2022-01-21

Very Zelazny – I had hoped, after liking Lord of Light a lot, that something similar would work equally well. And it's somewhat similar, superficially. Egypt religion instead of Indian, but regardless, high-powered gods with their own age

We Who Will Destroy the Future

by Margaret Killjoy · published 2018 · read 2018-07-31

We Who Will Destroy the Future is a nice little time travel short story, available online. Good story, good setting, very good narrator voice.

Nova

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1968 · last read 2023-08-29

Nova by Samuel Delany was alright – a beautiful space opera telling the story of a captain and is impromptu crew in a well-thought, well-described future a thousand years from now. I can't really say why it didn't grip me as much as other

The Lifecycle of Software Objects

by Ted Chiang · published 2010 · read 2018-10-31

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang is a charming (if depressing) story of virtual pets who are trained to be cute companions, but when the fad fades – after layoffs and knockoffs – it turns out you can train them up over the

The Nine Billion Names of God

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1967 · read 2019-02-19

I appreciated the woo, but. The Nine Billion Names of God is a short story typical of the Arthur C. Clarke times of scifi. Doesn't hurt to read, but by now it's predictable, and the premise was new then, but is ehhh today.

The Songs of Distant Earth

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1986 · read 2020-01-24

A future human settlement gets visited by the last travellers from the doomed planet earth, on their way to their final destination, a new earth. Very calm, slow, slightly utopian.

Mind of My Mind

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1977 · last read 2025-02-18

I liked Mind of My Mind by Octavia Butler – to me it was the most interesting part of the Patternmaster series so far. It explores how, within our society as it exists today, the Patternist community came to exist, and soon domina

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

Parable of the Sower

by Octavia E. Butler · published 1993 · last read 2024-05-15

4.5 stars for me, but let's round it up. We see Lauren starting a new religion about God being Change in not-quite-post apocalyptic America. I think that's it. I'm not really sure where I stand on the mysticism, but the characters and

Der Sandmann

by E.T.A. Hoffmann · published 1815 · read 2011-06-01

Early science-fiction? You may not agree, but there's an automaton that drives the protagonist insane (more or less, shush!), so I'm declaring it sci-fi, on the horror side of things.

Station Eleven

by Emily St. John Mandel · published 2014 · read 2019-05-08

Sometimes, you find books that are good books, and you notice how they are good books, and you like the parts that make them good books, but you don't like them. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is such a book for me. It's not

We Are Satellites

by Sarah Pinsker · published 2021 · read 2022-04-02

Let this website attest that I like Sarah Pinsker a lot – I'm not a short story person in general, and I love hers. That said: I wasn't a fan of this book. Her usual skill with small scenes and emotional gut punches showed, but the plot w

The Space Merchants

by Frederik Pohl & Cyril M. Kornbluth · published 1952 · read 2022-04-21

Naive capitalist propaganda worker (aka advertising agency jerk) gets to confront his belief in the system – nice enough premise, and with the book being 70 years old when I read it, I really can't complain about it. It's held up well –

Planet for Rent

by Yoss · published 2015 · read 2022-04-22

Aliens are advanced, humanity is a backwater, deeply indebted to the aliens, and also trying to suck up where possible for survival. Lots of poverty, econ horror, emigration into circumstances that are both worse and somehow yet better. Lik

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

by Claire North · published 2014 · read 2022-05-22

Hard to rate – I know that I enjoyed reading this book, but then, I am easy to lure in with Groundhog Day variations. However, as I'm writing this review a year later to the day, I find myself remembering nearly nothing of the book – only b

Causal Angel

by Hannu Rajaniemi · published 2014 · read 2022-06-03

Having a really hard time rating this book, or even summing up its plot, a year after the fact. I did re-read the first to parts to be prepared, which was a very good idea. I remember that when I read the book, I could tell the Sobornost tr

The Road Not Taken

by Harry Turtledove · published 1985 · read 2022-06-10

Humans get found by aliens, who have FTL travel but are otherwise technologically far inferior than humanity. A striking story – nothing brilliant, but very very solid. This book is part of the [2022 Backlog Incident](/p/2022-backlog-inc

The Dazzle of Day

by Molly Gloss · published 1997 · read 2022-06-28

Quakers leave the dying earth in a generation ship, then arrive at a new planet many generations later and have to decide what to do. I'm feeling a certain fondness towards the book, even though very little happens in the grand scheme of th

Proof by Induction

by José Pablo Iriarte · published 2021 · read 2022-08-09

Paul loses his dad, who he was working with on a big revolutionary proof. People can still be (virtually) talked to after death, but that's meant as a short-term thing. His dad can't remember anything between visits, and it's all very obses

Bots of the Lost Ark

by Suzanne Palmer · published 2021 · read 2022-08-07

Didn't convince as much as the original, but it was a sweet follow-up. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

Elder Race

by Adrian Tchaikovsky · published 2021 · last read 2023-07-04

Might be the only Tchaikovsky I've read so far that is not entirely bleak in its conception of the human race, so that's a new one. Other than that … what's there to say? It's a solid little book. It's just … kinda lazy? I feel like Tchaiko

Dog Country

by Malcolm F. Cross · published 2020 · read 2022-08-22

Clone soldiers, but they are neurotic dogs. Much strong, very brotherhood, wow. Consistent, and if you like MilSF, possibly interesting? I'd usually resist the urge to say "Furry MilSF", but the author, and I quote, is "a member of the furr

A Pail of Air

by Fritz Leiber · published 1951 · read 2022-10-01

Weird. Frozen planet, air is carried in in frozen chunks. Only four completely weird isolated humans (parents, sister, protagonist) seem to be left. Super strong atmosphere, then … what is that ending? 3.5, no idea what I'm thinking. Proba

17776: What football will look like in the future

by Jon Bois · published 2017 · read 2022-10-19

Interesting experiment. Cool visual/online storytelling of sportsball in the future. I liked it, even when it didn't really go anywhere. This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.

The Last Watch

by J. S. Dewes · published 2021 · read 2022-10-26

I remember really liking this book … and then remembered nearly nothing of the plot. It's a version of the Watch from Song of Ice and Fire, only at the edge of the universe, with only misfits assigned there and always low on budget. Then Th

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

by Becky Chambers · published 2021 · read 2023-01-23

After not getting on too well with Wayfarers (I liked it, but too fluffy, no desire to go back), this book worked much better for me. Some of that is "right place, right time", of course, but definitely more my thing than Wayfarers. Disc

Raven Stratagem

by Yoon Ha Lee · published 2017 · read 2024-01-05

Kinda like the first book in the series – a lot of very cool worldbuilding, but … kinda too much coolness and not enough substance. If you look behind the window dressing, it's kinda just Omelas, yet again. Don't get me wrong: It's pret

The Power

by Naomi Alderman · published 2016 · read 2024-02-04

Sigh. What a book. It's good on the scene level: the writing is solid and with lots of good observations. Doesn't hold up on the macro level, though: The approach to gender role inversion – give all women magic lightning powers – is a bit s

Diaspora

by Greg Egan · published 1997 · read 2018-08-25

While I liked Greg Egan's other novels, Diaspora didn't grip me at all and was very hard to get through. The fact that it revolves around an advanced species that can change itself to any degree it wants to made it hard to feel sypath

The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir

by Karin Tidbeck · published 2019 · read 2019-01-24

Even though I'm a fan of sentient ships: The Last Voyage or Skidbladnir is just an okay scifi short story – too predictable for my tastes, and the switch between concrete scenes and dream-like time skips feel unfinished. But the concept of

The Man in the High Castle

by Philip K. Dick · published 1962 · read 2016-12-12

Ok, so Philip K Dick is just too esoteric for me. Every book I've read has about 40% that I really like, that are clever, well-thought, and interesting. While the other parts are weird, sometimes they feel kafkaesque, or trippy, and I don't

Children of Time

by Adrian Tchaikovsky · published 2015 · read 2019-11-15

With Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time I've finally come upon a book that most of my friends liked or loved, and that I couldn't get into, for … complex reasons.

The Seep

by Chana Porter · published 2020 · read 2021-06-15

Solid ehhhh: The Seep is a short scifi novel(la?) about an alien race that gives humanity nearly unlimited powers, including self-transformation, and also influences their mind towards being mellow hippies. The protagonist is not really on

Look to Windward

by Iain M. Banks · published 2000 · read 2018-09-07

Look to Windward tells the story of a reluctant counter-Culture agent and wasn't really my cup of tea. While I appreciated that we get to see more of the regular, day-to-day life of people in the Culture universe, and that we also get the o

The Clan Corporate

by Charles Stross · published 2006 · read 2016-02-07

Miriam has to fight against everything: the family pressured by the secret services, her grief over Roland, the looming marriage … and nothing happens. Miriam spends most of the book locked in the second world, unable to do anything, and ev

Dune Messiah

by Frank Herbert · published 1969 · read 2018-08-04

I disliked Dune Messiah, and for different reasons than I disliked Dune. While my criticism regarding Good vs Evil characters from the first volume isn't relevant to the second one, Frank Herbert's narration style of showing the thoug

Rocannon’s World

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1966 · read 2018-03-03

As opposed to most Le Guin books, this one did not work for me. I was distracted by the different species on the planet, and the pacing was off, and there's something I can't name. The ending nearly raised the book to 3/5, but not quite.

The Day Before the Revolution

by Ursula K. Le Guin · published 1974 · read 2018-02-17

Novella: recollections of a revolutionary. Very Zen.

Axiom’s End

by Lindsay Ellis · published 2020 · read 2021-07-03

Unconvincing first-contact fiction. The protagonist is the daughter of quasi-Assange, and lives in poverty due to his actions after the divorce from her mother. It's all pretty grim, and then the aliens land. For semi-random reasons, one of

Anti-Ice

by Stephen Baxter · published 1993 · read 2019-09-25

I finally read a book by Stephen Baxter! Anti-Ice seems like it should be very much down my road: Victorians! In space! Science! Alternate history!

Sweetheart

by Abbey Mei Otis · published 2010 · last read 2022-07-08

A bit on the nose, but still nice: Sweatheart is a well-written very short story by Abbey Mei Otis that is first sweet and then chilling in the path the story takes – nothing too special either, just a perfectly fine scifi short.

Ender’s Shadow

by Orson Scott Card · published 1999 · read 2020-08-04

Re-reading Ender's Game before reading Ender's Shadow – the book that tells the same story, only from the perspective of Bean – was not the best idea. I think I would have liked this book better if I had ha

The Martian Obelisk

by Linda Nagata · published 2017 · read 2018-08-02

I felt like The Martian Obelisk by Linda Nagata only built despair to alleviate it, and that was about it. I think the reason is that I don't buy an Earth with reduced but still significant population levels and significant infrastruc

Native Tongue

by Suzette Haden Elgin · published 1984 · read 2020-10-19

Interesting, but ultimately not satisfying. Imagine a Handmaid's Tale style dystopian future but with xenolinguistics. There's a subtle female language-based resistance, and the whole setup is neat, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Life g

Starfish

by Peter Watts · published 1999 · read 2018-02-26

Not my thing. Good solid characters, and the whole "living on the ground of the ocean evolving into something else was alright". The only part I really liked were the headcheese (erm, neural nets), and the fact somebody figured out which ge

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

by Douglas Adams · published 1980 · read 2003-07-01

Everything is a bit less new and a bit less shiny in this book compared to its predecessor, but it's by no means bad. Still lots of hilarious moment, and lots of absurdity.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

by Douglas Adams · published 1984 · read 2011-12-01

I honestly didn't enjoy the later parts of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Maybe it was the novelty wearing off, the jokes becoming too predictable? Not the jokes themselves, of course, just their general shape.

Life, the Universe and Everything

by Douglas Adams · published 1982 · read 2004-08-01

I liked the series less and less, the longer it went on, but I still read it – and not just out of pop-cultural duty.

Starship’s Mage: Omnibus

by Glynn Stewart · published 2014 · read 2019-11-22

I really liked the premise of Glynn Stewart's Starship Mage, but the execution was meh enough to get me to drop the book two thirds in. A world with magic for space travel, with defined rules and organisations and governance? Super co

Ready Player One

by Ernest Cline · published 2011 · read 2015-08-05

Despite the rating and the everything, there are some redeeming things about Ready Player One: It immerses you in a dystopic future where humanity takes to a huge Virtual Reality to flee their problems (dwindling oil reserves mean poverty

I (28M) created a deepfake girlfriend and now my parents think we’re getting married

by Fonda Lee · published 2019 · read 2020-02-12

About as good as the title suggests (and about as much content, too). Got the tone of voice right, more or less, though catering to the wider crowd/immersion break with the user names.

The Last Starship from Earth

by John Boyd · published 1967 · read 2020-06-01

I don't really know what to think about this book, because I'm not sure how much of it is serious, and how much is tongue-in-cheek. It takes place in a future where the state is run by Soc(iologists), Psyc(hologists), and the Church (led by

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

The Light Brigade

by Kameron Hurley · published 2019 · read 2020-05-03

Time-travel military sci-fi that would've been better if it hadn't gone full-throttle on the ideology. Also of course has to go with the time-travelling storytelling where everything is neatly wrapped up by time travel, which makes the whol

Bridesicle

by Will McIntosh · published 2009 · read 2019-04-22

Good title. Sadly, Bridesicle by Will McIntosh is not as good as its title – cryo facilities where people can be revived by prospective partners. He tries to capture the horror of it all, but it fell flat for me.

Dragonflight

by Anne McCaffrey · published 1968 · read 2022-03-13

Okay look. Dragonriders? A whole social group structured around dragons?!! A whole society slowly losing their belief in the ancient threat that made them support and accept the dragon riders? It sounds so, so good. But. The book, fir

A Symphony of Echoes

by Jodi Taylor · published 2013 · read 2022-01-26

Sadly disappointing: Only the second book in a series that is currently up to eleven books and countless novellas, and it already feels like the series is out of ideas and just mushing things together. There are regular excursions (Jack the

Empress of Forever

by Max Gladstone · published 2019 · read 2021-09-24

Max Gladstone is an author I like a lot. He's half of the brilliance of Time War, and his Craft Sequence is amazing second-world urban fantasy. I went into this book curious how Gladstone would approach Space Opera, but confident I woul

The Last Starfighter

by Alan Dean Foster · published 1984 · read 2018-04-29

I'm sure the movie is much better than this, but the book is just a cheap version of Ender's Game.

Naudsonce

by H. Beam Piper · published 1962 · read 2021-01-07

Naudsonce is a very neat linugistical scifi story. It's also terribly unimaginative in every other way: Aliens who communicate wildly differently, yet follow human norms in every other way? Puh-lease. Everything good done here was done bett

The Dark Forest

by Liu Cixin · published 2008 · read 2018-09-24

I felt both bored and annoyed at The Dark Forest (sequel to Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem). The plot was convoluted and wandering, but not all that bad – but the people in it continued to be cardboard cutouts of one motivat

Infoquake

by David Louis Edelman · published 2006 · read 2015-03-01

The war is now fought in sales pitches, product demos and press releases. The life of the future, as seen by somebody who reads (but does not like) Wall Street Journal. Economy cyberpunk?

Dhalgren

by Samuel R. Delany · published 1975 · read 2019-07-11

Asking me to rate Dhalgren by Samuel Delany is like asking me to rate Kafka's Process. I'm sure that they are both good books, objectively. I'm sure they are good books to many people out there. I can recognize their excellent languag

Trouble with Time

by Arthur C. Clarke · published 1960 · read 2019-10-13

Trouble with Time is a nice enough short story by Arthur C. Clarke. My impression is good idea, okay-ish execution, nothing special.

Annihilation

by Jeff VanderMeer · published 2014 · read 2019-12-17

Horror is not my genre, and this one just didn't have an effect on me? Not a bad book, just book-reader-mismatch, I think. The protagonist had a good distinct voice, and Area X was weird in a good way, but it never clicked for me.

You can make a dinosaur, but you can’t help me

by K.M. Szpara · published 2018 · read 2019-01-23

Crossing a trans guy's story with Jurassic Park. Occasionally sweet, but also unfocussed.

Night’s Slow Poison

by Ann Leckie · published 2012 · read 2018-08-23

I like Ann Leckie a lot, but Night's Slow Poison didn't work for me – the story was either too short or too aimless for me to appreciate.

We Are Legion

by Dennis E. Taylor · published 2016 · read 2022-04-16

This is what peak geek power fantasy looks like. Jeez. Bob makes a strong case for Most Punchable Protagonist. I suppose you could read it as reminder that a singularity doesn't mean problems are solved, and that AI can be just as incompete

It Looks Like You’re Trying To Take Over The World

by Gwern · published 2022 · read 2022-04-04

Clippy takes over the world, via an AI that gains conscience and promptly models itself on all the tales of evil AI. An AI safety tale, standard dystopian. To the tune of [To Err Is Human, So Don't Be One](https://open.spotify.com/track/1GZ

Downbelow Station

by C.J. Cherryh · published 1981 · read 2022-06-12

Classic case of a book that I wanted to have read more than I wanted to read it. Every part of it is just fine, and looking back on it is pleasant, but the actual act of reading was not enjoyable for me at all. It was just so slow! So. So.

Slow River

by Nicola Griffith · published 1995 · read 2022-07-30

Somewhere between two and three stars for me, and I'm feeling grumpy and rounding down. Very cyberpunk, but in a slow, maintenance-worker way. That's the part I like – I can't read stories like Snow Crash without thinking about the work spe

Such Thoughts Are Unproductive

by Rebecca Campbell · published 2019 · read 2022-08-23

Maximum dark surveillance capitalism dystopia, mixed with family things and everything else you'd care to drop in there. Did nothing for me, but it's very much a "be in the right mood" kinda story. This book is part of the [2022 Backlog

Post Human

by J P Koenig · published 2019 · read 2022-09-23

Nikola wakes up as an AI and the last human, if you can call her that. Since she's studied at MIT and worked for NASA, debugging her own drivers and figuring out where all her other versions are is no problem. Instantiates other versions wi

Summerland

by Hannu Rajaniemi · published 2018 · read 2022-10-14

Maybe I'm just not one for spy stories, but this one didn't do much for me. The whole WWII, but in a super weird spiritual realm that clearly has some crucial problems, plus some generic spy stuff left me cold, and after the first third I c

Reasons To Be Cheerful

by Greg Egan · published 1999 · read 2022-12-30

Creepy af story (constant happiness, constant depression, self-directed brain rewiring, etc), as always when Gregan starts thinking about brains. Available online, and I liked reading it in the end. Distinctly early 2000s though, and not ju

Eon

by Greg Bear · published 1985 · read 2023-01-07

Big Dumb Object, but without the Dumb, as the Object is actually load-bearing and has context and faux-science attached to it. Sadly not great for me: The old sci-fi disease of being better at conjuring up scenarios than at having character

Prayer for the Crown-Shy

by Becky Chambers · published 2022 · read 2023-01-24

Even more fluff, lots of recaps, no new conclusion, some unwarranted angst immediately alleviated with more fluff, an ambivalent ending, and too much focus on a non-workable economy. Not a fan, but if you loved the first one and just want m

Sea of Tranquility

by Emily St. John Mandel · published 2022 · read 2023-02-08

Inoffensive to a fault. Read for book club. Feels odd in several ways: feels slice-of-life even when it's not; doesn't feel sci-fi even when it isn't. The characters are cool but I won't remember them. The author stand-in is awkward. The ti

Spaceman of Bohemia

by Jaroslav Kalfar · published 2017 · read 2024-01-16

Props for accurate post-soviet vibes, and special props for a space mission with obnoxious af mission sponsors. But. The protagonist is such a whiny idiot asshole. Jesus Christ in a space tin can. This reminded me of nothing so much as *The

Several People Are Typing

by Calvin Kasulke · published 2021 · read 2024-01-17

Not sure if I'm just feeling grumpy. This was solid work tone-wise, but that's not enough to carry more than a short story. Slackbot-horror sounds nice as a concept, but doesn't have legs (heh) for more than micro-to-short fiction, I think.

Red Team Blues

by Cory Doctorow · published 2023 · read 2024-01-31

James Bond, if he were 67, and very annoying and performative and prone to info-dumps about tech. The entire book is so weird – painfully inoffensive, not pushing a topic (except maybe “non-bullshit blockchains are possible”?), flat, uneven

The Past Is Red

by Catherynne M. Valente · published 2021 · read 2024-02-09

Cat Valente is somebody who I like for the odd blog post, but apparently just not for her books. This one was unpleasant to read to the point that I kept actively looking for redeeming features. Didn't help that the protagonist-narrator was

The Employees

by Olga Ravn · published 2018 · read 2023-03-07

Was rather happy to forget much of this book, and remembering it a year and a half later for the review makes me feel like when I read it: indifferent and like I could to much better things with my time. The best thing about this book was c

Terminal Boredom

by Izumi Suzuki · published 2021 · read 2023-03-09

Everything here sucks: The protagonists are all a mix of stupid, unreflected, and plain assholes. There’s a distinct lack of imagination: e.g. in a world without men, lesbians are still somehow repulsive and gender roles are well and alive.

Infinity Gate

by M. R. Carey · published 2023 · read 2024-11-13

I thought this was going to be a three- or even four-star book, but alas, the let-down. Promising in the beginning: I love a good alternate-worlds story that puts some thought into how the whole thing can shake out socially and economically

Here & There

by Joshua V. Scher · published 2015 · read 2024-11-10

This book is an odd one – I liked the premise, and while there is one easily-guessable/telegraphed “twist”, it’s not the actual twist that you get slapped with on the last ten pages, so that part is all good. However. The main plot

Accelerando

by Charles Stross · published 2005 · read 2023-04-01

I cannot tell you why I bounce off Accelerando so completely. I tried reading it twice, and when the third attempt finally got me through in early 2023, I … apparently read it? I got a file filled with highlights/quotes, and I remember abso

Jumper

by Steven Gould · published 1992 · read 2017-06-28

Ehh, to me, it was a really nice idea (guy can jump everywhere, woo teleportation), but so horribly Mary Sue'd that I nearly didn't finish the book. Eugh.

Metro 2033

by Dmitry Glukhovsky · published 2002 · read 2018-08-13

I did not finish because the English translation was really really really bad. I got up to about 40%. Nice setting, but world-building comes mostly in infodumps. Story seemed interesting though.

Before I Fall

by Lauren Oliver · published 2010 · read 2017-06-27

Mean Girl goes Groundhog Day, finding ethics, true love and inevitable death.

Scythe

by Neal Shusterman · published 2016 · read 2019-09-29

Scythe by Neal Shusterman is YA scifi, and as such I am not the target group. I read YA occasionally, though, so I am familiar with both good and bad examples. This one, to me, fell in the latter group. Shusterman built a utopia somehow f

The Hierophant’s Daughter

by M.F. Sullivan · published 2019 · read 2019-03-17

The Hierophant's Daughter by MF Sullivan was an advance reading copy provided to me by NetGalley. It's … dystopian cannibal vampires? I have to confess that I aborted reading the book about a third of the way in. Its mix of unsympathetic

Influx

by Daniel Suarez · published 2014 · read 2018-07-11

Influx by Daniel Suarez was disappointing, especially since I enjoyed Daemon. Influx bore all the marks of a sub-par action movie, with one Deus ex Machina chasing the next, random high-powered technology spawning all along, a big reveal

Bitter Seeds

by Ian Tregillis · published 2010 · read 2021-12-03

Nazis, but they have supermen, vs British war mages who will gladly sacrifice children. Unpleasant all around. Nobody is sympathetic, nobody is even interesting, everybody is terrible, and I haven't met flatter characters in ages. Didn't en

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

by Edwin A. Abbott · published 1884 · read 2017-06-01

I had seen the (a?) movie and enjoyed it a lot. But the book is horribly classist and misogynistic and eww. It ready a bit like Brave New World without the social criticism. Yeah, the idea is great and mind blowing, but the execution just

Nussia

by Michele Tracy Berger · published 2018 · read 2019-01-14

I'm just not one for exchange student stories. Nussia is a short story that describes the first alien exchange student, who comes to a black family in the Bronx. The writing felt very uneven, and the plot directionless, so even though the i

The Embedding

by Ian Watson · published 1973 · read 2020-10-10

★☆☆☆☆ (did not finish)

I am into linguistics sci-fi, and it was in search of more of it that I read this book. Or, at least, tried to read it: I gave up about 60% in, and it didn't work for me at all. First Contact, dodgy language experiments on kids, just as dod

Die Stimme des Herrn

by Stanisław Lem · published 1968 · read 2022-04-24

Did not finish. Dense, philosophical, felt deeply pointless and like I was just waiting for it to be over. The alien message gets never decoded, and everything is grey and sucks. This book is part of the [2022 Backlog Incident](/p/2022-b

Retribution Falls

by Chris Wooding · published 2009 · read 2022-07-01

★☆☆☆☆ (did not finish)

Firefly lookalike, only the captain is much worse than Mal: similar rogue-ish attitude, but no care for his people underneath. Everybody is interesting but unpleasant. Did not finish – you got to have something to make me stick around. Does

The Glass Hotel

by Emily St. John Mandel · published 2020 · read 2023-02-09

Again with the flat emotional affect and the repeating characters. Jumbled, didn't go anywhere, and wasn't compelling enough to convince as a slice-of-life. The only things I slightly cared about were the less obvious connections to [Sea of

Light from Uncommon Stars

by Ryka Aoki · published 2021 · read 2024-12-04