My comments on the books listed above which I've read: Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold: this is quite a change-up from the earlier Miles adventures, but I liked it. It's a quieter, more philosophical story with some great humor, about two older people who, having each suffered the loss of their great love, find meaning and purpose moving forward rather than just retiring and waiting to die. "Light of Other Days" by Bob Shaw (short story): this one, while having a great concept, has not aged well, with two of the main characters being an abused wife and her abusive husband. It's still worth reading, but if you go in knowing the bad stuff, hopefully you can pay more attention to the good stuff. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart: I grew up reading Stewart's Gothic mysteries, and I much prefer her Merlin sequence to the horrifying Mists of Avalon series by MZB. Chaos Vector by Megan O'Keefe: I recently finished this, and I thought it was better than the first (Velocity Weapon). You very much have to have a good recall of the events of the first book to keep up with it and enjoy it, though. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: this was first on my Hugo ballot last year and I really loved it. It has a similar feel to Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series. I'm really looking forward to the sequel (A Desolation Called Peace). Take a Look at the Five and Ten by Connie Willis: this is very much the typical Willis Christmas story, a mystery with miscommunications and misunderstandings, not too serious, and a nice feel-good factor. My recent reading: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez: I really can't rave about this book enough. Go into it with no expectations other than it's a generation-spanning epic space adventure. I put it on my Hugo Novel ballot, and the author on my Astounding Award ballot. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig: be aware that the story starts out with the attempted suicide of the main character who has lost pretty much everything. She thinks she has done everything wrong in her life, but gets the chance to see how having made different choices for a number of pivotal moments would have affected her life. I really liked the ending here, and thought it was a feel-good contrast to the grim beginning. It's kind of a fantasy version of Ted Chiang's science-fictional Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom. In the Black by Patrick S. Tomlinson: this is a good thinking person's military SF space adventure which is way better than the typical pew-pew stories. I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it -- in a good way. Gallowglass by S.J. Morden: this is a rather epic deep-space adventure, and it's pretty good. It turned out to be quite different from what I was expecting, and I liked that unpredictability. Like Morden's other books, the worldbuilding and technical details are the stars of the show, and the characterization is okay but not as strong. The Last Dance and The Last Campaign by Martin L. Shoemaker: this is good military SF space adventure with a murder mystery and lots of political machinations. The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky: this is a decent parallel-universe story with big stakes. I've come to the conclusion that all of the author's works I've read are fine, but never quite get over the threshold into being so good that I can rave about them. Piranesi by Susannah Clarke: if you don't know who Aleister Crowley is, reading his Wikipedia entry is probably a good prep for this short novel. It's strange and interesting, but I felt vaguely dissatisfied by the ending (but I can't tell you what it could do differently to make me feel more satisfied). The Dark Archive by Genevieve Cogman: only for people who've read the previous books, another interesting adventure. I really enjoyed the earlier books, but I think that the series is getting a bit repetitive at this point. At the top of the TBR pile: The Stone Weta by Octavia Cade: a short climate fiction novel crossed with a Mars colonization novel, featuring revolutionaries who are biologists, entomologists, and botanists. Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett: the first book, Foundryside, was enjoyable but did not blow me away the way the author's Divine Cities trilogy did. Based on other peoples' comments, I'm expecting this one to be the same, but I think the worldbuilding is still very interesting. The Machine Dynasties trilogy (vN, iD, and ReV) by Madeline Ashby: this looks like it's an updated take on Asimov's 3 Laws, with some interesting twists. I've started both The One and Future Witches and The Midnight Bargain but have set them both aside at least for the moment, because they seem to be predictable stories about witches, and I've hit my bag limit for witch stories at this point. |