The least human character in All Systems Red is also the most human. A half-robotic creature (or maybe more than half) privately calls itself Murderbot, and it’s got a good reason to. All the humans around it consider it just another security android, which is fine by Murderbot; it’d rather watch bad TV than have to interact with humans.
Best Modern Science Fiction Book Series
Discovering a new book series is a fantastic feeling. Here’s hoping you find something new below.
If none of these is enough for you, look into the Perry Rhodan series. A new novella has been published weekly since 1961, and there are currently over 2700 stories. If that’s still not enough of a challenge for you, they’re also in German.
Review: Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
My whole family had a ton of fun reading Ready Player One, and its sequel Ready Player Two gives more of the same (this is a good thing). There’s a hugely important, intricate puzzle to be solved that requires massive amounts of 80s pop culture knowledge, and our hero and his friends must crack it before the bad guys ruin everything.
Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
I’m a huge fan of Andy Weir’s first book, The Martian, and his new book, Project Hail Mary, is even better. It’s fast-paced, fun, smart, and bold.
Summer 2021 Science Fiction Reading List
With vaccinations finally available, it seems that some semblance of normal is on the horizon, including safely traveling and seeing friends (in person!). Here are some books to take with you.
Review: Halting State by Charles Stross
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: thirty orcs and a dragon rob a bank…
No? That’s the premise of Charles Stross’s hard-science Halting State, where virtual characters rob a virtual bank for millions of not-virtual dollars, and no one has any idea how to solve the crime. It’s fast-paced, seriously smart, and filled with more Scottish that you usually get in science fiction.
The Best Science Fiction Book Sequels
Sometimes the sequel is nearly as good as the original. For all of these fun books, I recommend that you read the original first, and then lower your expectations just a wee bit for the sequel.
26 Best Grimdark Books
Art by Kai Lim
Grimdark is a fantasy subgenre that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent. Its protagonists tend toward the conflicted antihero, and its worlds are often brutal and nihilistic. The writing also tends to be much grittier and realistic. A whimsical quest to get the magic doohickey this is not.
The slightly overwrought term is inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000: “In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.”
Review: Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson
There’s a sub-sub-sub genre of books out there I’ll call “Baffling Worlds.” The main character is in a world so bizarre and with such strange rules that it’s not clear whether they’re on an alien planet, in a magical landscape, or in a surreal dream. The focus of the book is not on character development or having adventures, but in the reader slowly learning about how this strange world works. Hearts of Oak is one of these books.
Continue reading
Best Indie Science Fiction Books
These books are all self-published, or at least began their life as self-published.