There is a sci fi month coming up in November. I do like a themed reading/blogging month (although I wish it wasn’t the same month as Nonfiction November). I decided to take a quick look back to see what sci fi I’ve read this year to get an idea of what I would talk about.
I don’t read enough sci fi.
I read lots of fantasy. My imagination likes magic. But straight sci fi is rare for me. So I did what one does in this situation and headed to Google and Goodreads to make a list.
Hello, mood reader over here! It is understood that this is a list that I will now 97% percent ignore. But it is a good list so I’m posting it so maybe someone else will benefit.
Books Already on My Goodreads TBR
“A rare, searing portrayal of the future of climate change in South Asia. A street rat turned revolutionary and the disillusioned hacker son of a politician try to take down a ruthlessly technocratic government that sacrifices its poorest citizens to build its utopia.”
“Set in a world where a virus stalks our male population, The End of Men is an electrifying and unforgettable debut from a remarkable new talent that asks: what would life truly look like without men?”
YA Sci Fi
At first I have having trouble finding books that appealed to me. Most of what I was finding was super heavy and I wasn’t into that. So I started to look for YA sci fi as an entry point. A warm up, if you will, to get my brain in sci fi mode.
“Jamal Lawson just wanted to be a part of something. As an aspiring journalist, he packs up his camera and heads to Baltimore to document a rally protesting police brutality after another Black man is murdered.
But before it even really begins, the city implements a new safety protocol…the Dome. The Dome surrounds the city, forcing those within to subscribe to a total militarized shutdown. No one can get in, and no one can get out.
Alone in a strange place, Jamal doesn’t know where to turn…until he meets hacker Marco, who knows more than he lets on, and Catherine, an AWOL basic-training-graduate, whose parents helped build the initial plans for the Dome.”
“Tina never worries about being ‘ordinary’—she doesn’t have to, since she’s known practically forever that she’s not just Tina Mains, average teenager and beloved daughter. She’s also the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon, and one day soon, it’s going to activate, and then her dreams of saving all the worlds and adventuring among the stars will finally be possible. Tina’s legacy, after all, is intergalactic—she is the hidden clone of a famed alien hero, left on Earth disguised as a human to give the universe another chance to defeat a terrible evil.
But when the beacon activates, it turns out that Tina’s destiny isn’t quite what she expected. Things are far more dangerous than she ever assumed. Luckily, Tina is surrounded by a crew she can trust, and her best friend Rachael, and she is still determined to save all the worlds. But first she’ll have to save herself.”
Solarpunk
I like my reading to be cheerful. I want escapism. I don’t want to spend my free time reading bleak and depressing books. I want to read sci fi that is hopeful. Give me a future where humans have gotten their act together at least a little bit. This is why I’ll choose Star Trek over Star Wars every time.
Solarpunk is a subgenre that fits the bill. Things have gone bad but people actually learned something through it and are doing better.
Miscellaneous
“World leaders are on edge when reports start coming in of next generation androids having strange, apocalyptic visions of a lady in white.
But when an Artilect belonging to the wealthiest man in Africa shows up at Our Lady of Nigeria basilica claiming to be possessed, the stakes are raised.
The Vatican sends Father Gabriel Serafian, an exorcist who left behind a brilliant career as a neuroscientist, to Benin City to investigate…and to figure out who is behind what must surely be a hack.”
This isn’t by a west African author but I liked that it was at least set in Nigeria and/or Benin.
“Ocean’s Echo is a stand-alone space adventure about a bond that will change the fate of worlds, set in the same universe as Everina Maxwell’s hit debut, Winter’s Orbit.”
I loved Winter’s Orbit so of course I want to read this one. It comes out November 1.
“Hope City, Antarctica. The southernmost city in the world, with only a glass dome and a faltering infrastructure to protect its citizens from the freezing, ceaseless winds of the Antarctic wilderness. Within this bell jar four people–some human, some not–will shape the future of the city forever:
Eliana Gomez, a female PI looking for a way to the mainland.
Diego Amitrano, the right-hand man to the gangster who controls the city’s food come winter.
Marianella Luna, an aristocrat with a dangerous secret.
Sofia, an android who has begun to evolve.”
I’m always looking for books set in the Southern Hemisphere so this should work well.
