termie/sci-fi jan 2021

## sci-fi jan 2021
Of Sci-Fi I've liked recently:
 - the whole murderbot series so far by Martha Wells (lightweight humorous reads with a side-serving of corporate dystopia)
 - all of the A Lady Astronaut books by Mary Robinette Kowal (charming characters, alternate history, light gender and race politics)
 - The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (a hunger games prequel, that, like the originals I read in pretty much one sitting)
 - The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde (humorous socio-political satire, well-written with touches of Nighteen Eighty-Four, Stranger in Strange Land)
 - Space Opera by Catherynne M Valente (sensing a theme of uplifting stuff here due to recent times... this one reads like a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel for the pansexual gutterglam generation, some of the scenes legitimately made me cry)
 - the Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee (amazing epic space stuff that just goes up and up and up, has a neat concept for altering the physical rules of the universe that takes a little while to stomach)
 - the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers (a vibrant universe, charming characters, the books are largely standalone but don't miss The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet)
 - the Planetfall books by Emma Newman (the first book is sort of distant from the rest, and each feels like almost a different genre, but i liked each book better than the previous, they jump around a bit but are sort of telling the story of people discovering an alien ... thing... and trying to reach out across the cosmos to find/follow it)
 - The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts (this is apparently not the first book in the universe it is set in, but the others were not available on kindle though they are free online I think? it tells a very clever multilayered story of people organizing across a hostile network while only being conscious for short periods of time every decade)
 - The Children of Time (and second book of Ruin) by Adrian Tchaikovsky (explores non-human, but familiar, intelligences with a little help from sped-up evolution and the end of the humanity)
 - The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane-Anders (surrealist low-tech sci-fi on an alien world a la China Mieville)
	Of Sci-Fi I've liked recently:
	- the whole murderbot series so far by Martha Wells (lightweight humorous reads with a side-serving of corporate dystopia)
	- all of the A Lady Astronaut books by Mary Robinette Kowal (charming characters, alternate history, light gender and race politics)
	- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (a hunger games prequel, that, like the originals I read in pretty much one sitting)
	- The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde (humorous socio-political satire, well-written with touches of Nighteen Eighty-Four, Stranger in Strange Land)
	- Space Opera by Catherynne M Valente (sensing a theme of uplifting stuff here due to recent times... this one reads like a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel for the pansexual gutterglam generation, some of the scenes legitimately made me cry)
	- the Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee (amazing epic space stuff that just goes up and up and up, has a neat concept for altering the physical rules of the universe that takes a little while to stomach)
	- the Wayfarers books by Becky Chambers (a vibrant universe, charming characters, the books are largely standalone but don't miss The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet)
	- the Planetfall books by Emma Newman (the first book is sort of distant from the rest, and each feels like almost a different genre, but i liked each book better than the previous, they jump around a bit but are sort of telling the story of people discovering an alien ... thing... and trying to reach out across the cosmos to find/follow it)
	- The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts (this is apparently not the first book in the universe it is set in, but the others were not available on kindle though they are free online I think? it tells a very clever multilayered story of people organizing across a hostile network while only being conscious for short periods of time every decade)
	- The Children of Time (and second book of Ruin) by Adrian Tchaikovsky (explores non-human, but familiar, intelligences with a little help from sped-up evolution and the end of the humanity)
	- The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane-Anders (surrealist low-tech sci-fi on an alien world a la China Mieville)