Tag: Science Fiction

“The Outside” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Outside” (The Outside No. 1) by Ada Hoffmann

Autistic scientist Yasira Shien has developed a radical new energy drive that could change the future of humanity. But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard. The AI Gods who rule the galaxy declare her work heretical, and Yasira is abducted by their agents. Instead of simply executing her, they offer mercy – if she’ll help them hunt down a bigger target: her own mysterious, vanished mentor. With her homeworld’s fate in the balance, Yasira must choose who to trust: the gods and their ruthless post-human angels, or the rebel scientist whose unorthodox mathematics could turn her world inside out.

Review

This was a strange but really good book. The “AI Gods” were essentially created by humans a long time ago out of their computer systems and then grew to become god-like figures because they’re so powerful. People believe in them and worship them like they would other gods, except these gods are real not like the old religions of the past to paraphrase the book. Makes for an interesting read. What also makes it interesting are the two main characters who are both autistic but were both treated very differently. Yasira was given all the supports she needed growing up while another character was beaten into being “normal” – didn’t work out so well. The world building is interesting and I don’t want to spoil anything so I’ll just leave it at wanting to know if what I suspect about the universe they’re in is true based on various plot points that came up.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Outside”.

Book Details

The cover is filled with black metal spirals that look like snake skin - squared areas with bolts. There is a character in a red spacesuit standing on one of the spirals. The book title is at the top of the cover and the authors name at the bottom.

Author’s Website
Ada Hoffmann
Publisher / Date
Angry Robot, June 2019
Genre
Science Fiction
Page Count
400 pages
Completion Date
January 6, 2024

2023 in Review

Posted on by Jen

Reading Stats

61 Books

20,992 Pages Read

Average length 346 pages

Average reading time 4 days

50 Fiction / 11 Non-Fiction

18 Fiction Anthologies

41 Novels

2 Non-Fiction Anthologies

5 Memoirs

4 Essay Collections

Top Ten Books in No Particular Order with links to my reviews

“Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection”
Edited by Madeline Dyer
Type: Fiction Anthology
“We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir”
Written by Samra Habib
Type: Memoir
“The Thirty Names of Night”
Written by Zeyn Joukhadar
Type: Novel
“A Master of Djinn”
Written by P. Djèlí Clark
Type: Novel
“The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred”
Written by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Type: Essay Collection
“We Don’t Swim Here”
Written by Vincent Tirado
Type: Novel
“Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019”
Edited by Ibram X. Kendi with Keisha N. Blain
Type: Non-Fiction Anthology
“Invisible Son”
Written by Kim Johnson
Type: Novel
“To Shape a Dragon’s Breath”
Written by Moniquill Blackgoose
Type: Novel
“The Free People’s Village”
Written by Sim Kern
Type: Novel

“Mata Oti: Eyes of Death” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Mata Oti: Eyes of Death” by Lani Wendt Young

From reclusive librarian to warrior guardian… Iva must safeguard her two nieces as Samoa battles a mutant variant of the deadly virus that’s raging across the world. It transforms people into savage creatures beyond all hope. She’s afraid, but determined to get the children through hordes of the infected to an emergency evacuation plane. It’s a race against time though as the variant rampages through her own veins. Can she fight off the Change for long enough so they all survive?

Review

This was very good book – I really liked the characters and how things played out. The situation starts out very similar to the COVID pandemic with everyone trying to stay safe. The island of Samoa manages to keep the virus out for a while but things go from bad to worse pretty quickly once the virus hits. It also ends up being an engineered virus that got out of a lab accidentally which makes things much worse for everyone. There’s a lot of things going on beyond it just being a virus and the ending makes that very clear as well.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Mata Oti: Eyes of Death”.

Book Details

The cover is mostly blue and shows the upper corner of a persons face so just their eye and cheek are visible. The eye is bright yellow while the rest of the faces is tinted blue. There is a strand of DNA displayed diagonally across the cover as well.

Author’s Website
Lani Wendt Young
Publisher / Date
National Library, National University of Samoa, August 2021
Genre
Dystopian, Science Fiction, Horror
Page Count
295
Completion Date
December 25, 2023

“A People’s Future of the United States” Review

Posted on by Jen

“A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers” edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams

In these tumultuous times, in our deeply divided country, many people are angry, frightened, and hurting. Knowing that imagining a brighter tomorrow has always been an act of resistance, editors Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams invited an extraordinarily talented group of writers to share stories that explore new forms of freedom, love, and justice. They asked for narratives that would challenge oppressive American myths, release us from the chokehold of our history, and give us new futures to believe in.

They also asked that the stories be badass.

The result is this spectacular collection of twenty-five tales that blend the dark and the light, the dystopian and the utopian. These tales are vivid with struggle and hardship—whether it’s the othered and the terrorized, or dragonriders and covert commandos—but these characters don’t flee, they fight.

Thrilling, inspiring, and a sheer joy to read, A People’s Future of the United States is a gift for anyone who believes in our power to dream a just world.

Review

This was a really dark and interesting anthology. All of the stories take a potential dystopian scenario and run with it. All of them involve marginalized and oppressed people becoming more so due to things that are already problems in this country. The book was published in 2019 so a lot of ideas come from the actions of then President Trump – only catastrophic for a lot of people. It’s interesting reading it now in 2023 knowing that things did in fact get worse because of the COVID Pandemic. And while we don’t have President Trump anymore, we’re will dealing with COVID and various other issues that that have developed. The stories all show how the various characters are fighting to survive against what has happened. All of the characters still have hope for a better future despite everything that has occurred.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “A People’s Future of the United States”.

Book Details

The title of the book is written across the black cover - one word on each line in various colors. The names of the editors are at the bottom of the cover.

Editors’ Websites
Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams
Publisher / Date
Random House Publishing Group, February 2019
Genre
Science Fiction, Dystopian, Short Stories
Page Count
432
Completion Date
December 24, 2023

“The Free People’s Village” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Free People’s Village” by Sim Kern

In an alternate 2020 timeline, Al Gore won the 2000 election and declared a War on Climate Change rather than a War on Terror. For twenty years, Democrats have controlled all three branches of government, enacting carbon-cutting schemes that never made it to a vote in our world. Green infrastructure projects have transformed U.S. cities into lush paradises (for the wealthy, white neighborhoods, at least), and the Bureau of Carbon Regulation levies carbon taxes on every financial transaction.

English teacher by day, Maddie Ryan spends her nights and weekends as the rhythm guitarist of Bunny Bloodlust, a queer punk band living in a warehouse-turned-venue called “The Lab” in Houston’s Eighth Ward. When Maddie learns that the Eighth Ward is to be sacrificed for a new electromagnetic hyperway out to the wealthy, white suburbs, she joins “Save the Eighth,” a Black-led organizing movement fighting for the neighborhood. At first, she’s only focused on keeping her band together and getting closer to Red, their reckless and enigmatic lead guitarist. But working with Save the Eighth forces Maddie to reckon with the harm she has already done to the neighborhood—both as a resident of the gentrifying Lab and as a white teacher in a predominantly Black school.

When police respond to Save the Eighth protests with violence, the Lab becomes the epicenter of “The Free People’s Village”—an occupation that promises to be the birthplace of an anti-capitalist revolution. As the movement spreads across the U.S., Maddie dreams of a queer, liberated future with Red. But the Village is beset on all sides—by infighting, police brutality, corporate-owned media, and rising ecofascism. Maddie’s found family is increasingly at risk from state violence, and she must decide if she’s willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of justice.

Review

This was such a great and important book to read. It really does a good job of showing how bad things can still be under different political situations. Democrats aren’t always any better than Republicans when it comes to how minorities are treated. In the book only the rich are able to live in paradise under the rules created in the war against climate change which isn’t all that differen than our current reality. I really liked the story of the main character realizing her own privileges and the ways she had caused harm. There are many different types of people in the book and they are all well written and developed characters. I really enjoyed the entire story and while the ending isn’t a happy one the fight goes on for a better future.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Free People’s Village”.

Book Details

The cover is dark pink with the title written sideways on the top right corner. On the left corner there is a drawing of an individual swinging a bat at machine dog at the bottom of the book cover. The author's name is on the bottom of the book.

Author’s Website
Sim Kern
Publisher / Date
Levine Querido, September 2023
Genre
Alternate History, Science Fiction
Page Count
388
Completion Date
December 18, 2023

“Being Ace” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection” edited by Madeline Dyer

A disabled vigilante trying to save her kidnapped girlfriend, a little mermaid who loves her sisters more than suitors, a slayer whose virgin blood keeps attracting monsters and more, the works in Being Ace are anything but conventional.

Whether in psychiatric hospitals, space ships, haunted cemeteries, or under the sea, no two aces are the same in 15 unique works that highlight asexual romance, aromantic love, and the many sub-identities of the asexual spectrum umbrella.

From a mixture of established and emerging YA writers, contributors include Rosiee Thor, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Linsey Miller, and Moniza Hossain.

Book Review

This is a great collection of fantasy and science fiction stories with asexual characters! I had a lot of fun reading all of the stories in the collection. I really liked that there wasn’t just one type of asexual representation but multiple variations on the theme and how it drove the stories. There was also great disability representation involved with some stories as well. I’m definitely checking out all the authors to see what else they’ve written.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Being Ace”.

Book Details

The cover is purple with a darker shade at the top and lighter at the bottom. There is a person wearing a white outfit and shoes within the title - there areas are wrapped around some of the letters oof the title and their feet go through the letters as well. They are holding the Asexuality flag (stripes of black, grey, white and purple).

Editor’s Website
Madeline Dyer

Publisher / Date
Page Street Publishing, October 2023
Genre
Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Stories
Page Count
353
Completion Date
October 29, 2023