| The Books of Earthsea (complete series) |
Ursula Le Guin |
2024 |
Starts as a very simplistic fairy tale; if you're turned off by the first book, the second completely changes tone, and is likely worth your time. |
| Sourdough |
Robin Sloan |
2024 |
Every bullshit-steeped corporate worker fantasizes about abandoning their pointless soul-sucking job to bake bread or something. This book explores what that might look like if you did it with magic sourdough starter. Like every Sloan book, deeply charming and difficult to put down. If you squint hard enough, you might realise that this book is saying the exact same thing as The Circle, except in a competent way! |
| Mr Penumbra's Twenty-Four Hour Bookstore |
Robin Sloan |
2024 |
A Daniel Pinkwater book for adults. Fun characters, intriguing hook, legitimately difficult to put down. I also highly recommend the prequel novella. |
| Moonbound |
Robin Sloan |
2024 |
Charming. Starts very slow, but the plot is compelling, the universe has plenty of depth, and the characters are charming. I could spend a lot of time in this universe; hopefully Sloan will deliver more books in this series soon! |
| The Circle |
Dave Eggers |
2024 |
What if Orwell wrote 1984, but didn't understand capitalism or communism? What if JD Vance and Donald Trump wrote a book about the evil of social media? Eggers understands that Big Tech and the social media panopticon are a bad thing. But beyond that, he understands very little about the tech world, having never worked in tech. Despite clearly feeling like Big Tech is a bad thing, Eggers presents the anti-tech argument in a deeply clumsy way. The main character is a complete idiot who seems to understand tech just about as much as Eggers. Overall the plot is just too simplistic to provide any meaningful criticism of the real world. The 'twist' at the end is something you'll probably figure out in the first third of the book. Eggers writes symbolism like I wield a rapier; poorly. Wins my 2024 Gold Medal for "worst written sex scenes I have ever seen in my entire life ever". |
| Use of Weapons (Culture book 3) |
Iain M Banks |
2024 |
A third of this book was clearly written on drugs. The reverse-chronological chapter ordering is a complete gimmick that added very little to the story and only served to confuse me; when I reread this, I will slice and dice my ebook into a better order. The moral and message of the book is thought-provoking, and the universe is deep and well-considered. But the ending is over-reliant on a single twist that doesn't pack as much punch as the author seems to think it does. Characters are largely flat and uninteresting outside of one character who is pretty flat throughout the events of the book. I would have enjoyed this a lot more if I'd known the twist from the beginning, because the author has to twist several chapters into confusing and convoluted shapes to maintain the twist. I really wish Banks would occasionally attribute lines of dialogue in conversations, because all of his characters sound the same and it's really easy to lose track of who's saying what. |
| Player of Games (Culture book 2) |
Iain M Banks |
2024 |
Takes some time to catch your interest. Like most Banks tales, the main character is a total unlikable douchebag. Universe-building is top-tier, and quite progressive for a book written in the 80s. The ending feels a bit rushed, but overall the story is satisfying and thought-provoking. A great entry point for the Culture series. |
| The Mercy of Gods |
James SA Corey |
2024 |
Excellent characters. Gloomy, but captivating story. Clearly a deep universe with lots of thought put into it. Some of the character writing reminds me of the first third of Dune: full of internal dialogues and beliefs that peel back the motivations of each character like an onion. The first chapter is especially full of this. From another author, I might be skeptical that this story will land someplace satisfying. But the Corey duo has already landed one epic 9-book, 10+ novella-spanning science fiction story. |
| The Vela: Season One |
Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, S.L. Huang, Rivers Solomon |
2024 |
Political commentary is clumsy and far too on-the-nose. Characters are interesting, but I didn't like any of them much. Authors wrote separate chapters, and it's very obvious in continuity and characterization. An interesting idea, but not well-executed. |
| Legends and Lattes |
Travis Baldree |
2024 |
Fun. A good story. A hilarious title. A short and uplifting read about friendship and hard work. |
| The Expanse (series) |
James SA Corey |
2023 |
One of the finest works of science fiction this decade. Lovable characters. A believable universe (most of the suspension of disbelief is based on a single development). Good pacing throughout. Lows and highs. Reminds me of the science fiction TV shows I used to love. If you enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation and Firefly, you should absolutely check this out. Try to read it in order, including the novellas. |
| Pirate Cinema |
Corey Doctorow |
2023 |
Every character sounds like Corey, but the story is compelling, the characters are lovely, and the overall message about media and freedom is something everyone should understand (and hopefully agree with). |
| Monk and Robot (series) |
Becky Chambers |
2023 |
Sometimes, you just need a book that gets you excited about the future. Toss in some philosophy to help us get to that future, and you've got this series. If modern life and technology ever make you feel a smidge too pessimistic, this will fix you right up. |
| Wayfarers (series) |
Becky Chambers |
2023 |
Firefly or The Expanse, but with 2020s politics. If you're not used to the recent wave of alternative pronouns, this is immersion therapy. Some of the best characters I've ever read in science fiction, especially of this length. Like Monk and Robot, this series will make you feel happy. |
| Bobiverse (series) |
Dennis E Taylor |
2023 |
The writing is not very good. The science fiction is about as well thought-out as OG Star Trek. Most of the characters are literally the same person, who seems to pretty much be the author. But it's fun sci-fi. Pure pulp, but sometimes that's what you want. |
| Mistborn (series) |
Brandon Sanderson |
2023 |
The characters are all complete cliches. Sanderson wrote a good story for book one, then got a decent deal to make a second and third book, and wrote an entire book of filler for the second book while he figured out what he was doing with the series. |
| Dune (series) |
Frank Herbert |
2023 |
The first half of book one is amazing. The second half of book one is a worthy conclusion of the first half. The second book is kind of awful, but the concept is a thought-provoking continuation of the plot of the first book. Characters develop a lot, but none are fundamentally likeable. The writing is excellent in book one, but goes downhill quick as Frank Herbert takes more and more LSD. Let's not even pretend that the Brian books are canon. They should show Frank's last book to kids as part of 'scared straight' to convince them that drugs are bad. |
| Scholomance (series) |
Naomi Novik |
2023 |
Pulpy, but solid fantasy. I don't think the third book entirely sticks the landing, but overall it provided a satisfying conclusion. Very similar structurally to the Hunger Games series: the first book is a worthy bildungsroman, the second book stretches the bounds of what the author possibly imagined as a backdrop for the first book, and the third book spends an awful lot of time in 'moody main character' mode to pad the book length before we reach a conclusion. |
| Hyperion (series) |
Dan Simmons |
2023 |
The correct way to expand a book universe through 'unreliable narrator' retcons. Excellent writing, spellbinding storytelling, wildly imaginative universes, and though the characters are a bit flat, they're surprisingly loveable. The ending is pretty out there, but the conclusion is ultimately satisfying. You'll feel a bit confused for the first few chapters, but trust me, it's worth it! |
| Broken Earth (series) |
NK Jemison |
2022 |
I'm not sure the conclusion lives up fully to the promises of the very first chapter, but the first book absolutely sucked me in and trapped me in a vortex of reading until I finished the series. Deep, varied characters. Lots of fun sci-fi and fantasy concepts; one of the most imaginative series I've read in the 2020s. Progressive in a way that really stands out. |
| Normal People |
Sally Rooney |
2022 |
Charming. Delightful and unique writing style. I never thought I would say this, but Rooney really knows how to write sex scenes in a way that develops characters. |
| Beautiful World, Where are You |
Sally Rooney |
2022 |
Very relatable as a member of the MillenialZ generation in the 2020s. It makes me think, but I'm not sure it challenges any of my existing worldview. But god damn does Rooney know how to write great dialogue, even in email form! |
| Termination Shock |
Neal Stephenson |
2022 |
If you want someone to convince you that climate change will probably start World War III, read this book. Also, plenty of the usual Stephenson descriptive porn (that seawall!). |
| The Ministry for the Future |
Kim Stanley Robinson |
2022 |
If you want someone to convince you that terrorism might solve climate change, read this book. |
| Permanent Record |
Edward Snowden |
2022 |
It's a shame that simply having a conscience got Ed kicked out of the USA and exiled to Siberia. If you don't think the surveillance state is an issue, or you don't grasp the extent of it, you should read this book. |
| The Wheel of Time (series) |
Robert Jordan & (eventually) Brandon Sanderson |
2021 |
Pure pulp fantasy. But a fun world nonetheless. You could probably read the first three books, synopsis the middle, then read the last three books and miss out on pretty much nothing. But what would you do with all of those hundreds of hours of your life instead? |
| Priory of the Orange Tree & A Day of Fallen Night |
Samantha Shannon |
2021 |
Fantasy, but with compelling non-male characters? Dragons? A country that is definitely not England? A country that is definitely not Japan? A country that is definitely not Norway? The ending to both books feels rushed, probably because Shannon runs out of pages that will fit in a modern hardcover book. Someone should really tell her that you can write a series instead of a single book. |