At the end of 2018 I set a goal for myself of reading all of the books on the Top 100 Fantasy and Top 100 Science Fiction book lists. It was ambitious. Lately I’ve been concentrating on the Sci-Fi and I’m now at ** sci-fi books.
It’s been slow going this month, these books have been squeezed in between long stretches of Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels series. I haven’t been loving what I’m reading, so it’s been a bit of a slog.
Here are my brief thoughts about the ones I just read:
| Binti | Okorafor, Nnedi | A charmingly simple premise is handled deftly in a new perspective. Not enough world-building, and I found the author’s ability to ‘hand wave’ crucial events a bit annoying. |
| Feed | Grant, Mira | A zombie apocalypse book, with knowledge of how zombies get made (nice touch), set inside the ‘frame’ of a political campaign. |
| Darwin’s Radio | Bear, Greg | I could not get through this book. Great premise: our ‘non-sense’ genes are activated and a new species evolves within years rather than generations. I just couldn’t get interested. |
| All the Birds in the Sky | Anders, Charlie Jane | I simply do not understand why this book was lauded and awarded as much as it was. Truly awful adults torment teenagers; the reality of how their schoolmates treated them made this a book that needs trigger warnings for anyone who felt like an outcast as a teen. |
| Fahrenheit 451 | Bradbury, Ray | It’s a classic for a reason. I didn’t remember until I started, but I did read this waaaaay back in high school. It was as profound now as then. If you haven’t read it. |
| Death’s End | Liu, Cixin | Should not be on this list because it is #3 of a series. Moreover, it’s a series of seemingly unrelated stories that are lovely, but take FOREVER to connect. |
| Her Smoke Rose Up Forever | Tiptree, James | A pioneer in writing about gender and sexuality, this collection of stories is pessimistic, and gorgeous. |
For links to the the full list, see this post. For quick reviews of sci-fi I’ve previously read, my posts are tagged Top 100.