Sci-Fi Month 2019 TBR(or sci-fi books written by women I own and haven’t read yet)

November seems to be THE month for readathons – there is Non-Fiction November and Novellas in November, but I am most excited about this one: Sci-Fi Month 2019. I adore the community and I am hoping that my enthusiasm for them will finally properly re-introduce me to the blogging world. Sci-Fi Month is hosted by Imyril over @ onemore and Lisa over @ deargeekplace. You can still join up here. I’ll be using this readathon as a motivation to finally pick up some more of the science fiction books I own (true to brand, only those written by women) and hopefully to get back into the groove of reviewing regularly.

I am notoriously bad at following TBRs but I do love compiling them and I had fun looking at the books I own and haven’t read yet. If I read two of these books I will see that as a success.

Priorities

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

I love everything about the premise. I am a huge (unironic) fan of the Eurovision Song Contest and cannot wait to see what Valente and her signature imagination can do with it. Also, the tagline is a thing of genius: “In space, everybody can hear you sing.” I really need to finally get to this.

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

I absolutely adore Chamber’s brand of optimistic sci-fi and I cannot believe I still haven’t read this. I haven’t been in the mood for any spec-fic that is dark and twisted, so this one should work perfectly for me.

 

ARCs

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann

I keep talking about this book because it is so ridiculously up my alley: I mean, AI gods? How much more custom-made for me can any sci-fi book be? But then I never pick it up. I really want to change this soon. And I would love to have at least one ARC-review up for Sci-Fi Month.

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe

This one fell victim to my reading slump (or rather, slump involving anything not romance related) – I read the first few chapters and did enjoy it but didn’t love it. I am determined to finally make a proper dent into it though! I like stories about siblings and I like closed room sci-fi and I like stories set in different timelines.

Maybe

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz and Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

I bought those two books when I decided I wanted to read more science fiction early in 2018 – that I still haven’t picked them back up is maybe not the best sign. But then again, I got overly ambitious and bought way too many books at once. Both come highly praised as well – especially Ancillary Justice has won pretty much every prize there is to win and my boyfriend who reads more science fiction than I do really loved it.

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

I enjoyed both ealier installments of this series – and Murderbot is just the perfect protagonist. This could double as the only book I read for Novellas in November so I am indeed very tempted to pick it up. Especially because it would be a very quick and fun read.

I really hope I’ll manage to pick up at least some of these books. Are you planning on participating in Sci-Fi Month?

TBR: Novellas in November (2018)

This year I am planning on participating in Novellas in November. You can find an overview of the history of this event and further links on Laura’s blog.

There are two (main) reasons why I am trying to participate in Novellas in November:

1. One of my reading resolutions was to read more novellas this year. I haven’t really done that.
2. My reading has been super slow these last few weeks.

I am not very good at TBRs (which is why I have stopped setting myself any), so I will have to wait and see how it goes this month, but I do have a few novellas I want to get to. I will try to read as many as possible in a single sitting in the hopes of getting into the groove of reading again.

The Strange Bird by Jeff VanderMeer

I adore Jeff VanderMeer’s writing and own a few books of his that I haven’t read, but for some reason I have not picked any of his books up in months. Crossing this one off my TBR would be ace.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

I have heard amazing things about this series, but I also DNFed one of Nnedi Okorafor’s other books (man, that one was disappointingly romance heavy). I want to like her writing more than I do, I think. But, this is less than 100 pages long and will hopefully be as great as everybody says it is.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

I would be nice to have read at least one classic book this year. I have neglected older books altogether this year and maybe that is a mistake. I have not read any Steinbeck but I have the nagging feeling that I would adore his work if I just got off my butt and actually read one of his books

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy

This sounds SO brilliant. And creepy. And disturbing. I was super excited when I bought it and really should get to it before the year ends.

 

Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries #3 by Martha Wells

I have read the first two in the series earlier this year and really enjoy the characters and the humor. It is just fluffy enough to hopefully sooth my reading despair.

Are you planning of participating in Novellas in November? What are your reading plans in general?

Mini-Novella-Review: Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) – Martha Wells

Verdict: So much fun!

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Genre: Science Fiction, Novella

Published by Tor, May 2018

Find it on Goodreads.

It has a dark past – one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.

Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.

What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…

I just adore this series. I had so much reading this second book and cannot wait for the last two books to be released. Martha Wells has created a wonderfully vivid world here, with a character at its core that is brilliant, funny, and relatable – and a murderbot. Murderbot is the main draw to this series of novellas: a rogue bot who pretends to not care about anything but its soap operas, it nevertheless cannot help but help other people on its way to solve the mysteries of its past.

For a book this short, Martha Wells deals skillfully with many different things: found family, helping others, the role of society, and maybe most importantly the question of what makes somebody a person. We saw glimpses of how sexbots are treated in this world where their intellectual capacity is huge but their freedom is nil. I hope there will be more exploration of these themes in the last two books, as there is so much Martha Wells has to say on this subject.

One thing that I keep circling back to trying to review this, is an observation on myself rather than on the book. In the book it is explicitly stated that Murderbot is genderless. In the first book (I spoke about this in my review for that) I kept picturing Murderbot as female and I am not sure why that is and what that says about me. This time around I did not picture it as female and I am glad of that.

Wrap Up: May 2018 or Finally.

I had a really good reading month, especially compared with the last two. I read 10 books which I mostly enjoyed.

Books read in April:

1. An Abbrevitaed Life by Ariel Leve: 2,5 out of 5 stars
2. Not That Bad eNotificationsdited by Roxane Gay: 5 out of 5 stars
3. The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh: 4 out of 5 stars
4. Florida by Lauren Groff: 4 out of 5 stars
5. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor: 3 out of 5 stars
6. The White Book by Han Kang: 4 out of 5 stars
7. Women & Power by Mary Beard: 3 out of 5 stars
8. Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells: 4 out of 5 stars
9. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferries: 4 out of 5 stars
10. Caliban’s War (The Expanse #2) by James S. A. Corey: 3 out of 5 stars

Wrap Up: February 2018 or I read so very many memoirs

I had an okay to good reading month. I read some absolutely brilliant books, finished a few meh books, and have also been stuck on some books for longer than I would like to admit (How I Lose You is taking me forever). I did read a lot of books though.

These are the books I read this month:

1. I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell: 4 out of 5 stars
2. The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale: 2 out of 5 stars
3. Mean by Myriam Gurba: 4,5 out of 5 stars
4. Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey: 3 out of 5 stars
5. Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot: 5 out of 5 stars
6. All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells: 4 out of 5 stars.
7. The Rending and the Nest by Kaethe Schwehn: 3 out of 5 stars.
8. This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins: 4 out of 5 stars.
9. You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie: left unrated.
10. Meaty: Essays by Samantha Irby: 4 out of 5 stars.

Favourite of the Month

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot was just so unbelievably stunning that I still don’t really have the words to talk about it. It is hypnotic and mesmerizing, honest and raw, and most of all poetically beautiful. And also the opposite of cathartic.

Mean by Myriam Gurba is another memoir that I can only recommend.

Stats (ish)

My reading month was dominated by memoirs and genre fiction. More than half of the books I read were memoirs or essay collections or something in between. This has never happened but I am loving every second of it.

I finished 2929 pages worth of books. Of these ten books I read six memoirs, two science fiction books (one of those was a novella), one post-apocalyptic book, and one fantasy book. Three books were written by men, seven by women. six books were written by people of colour (so at least I seem to be succeeding with parts of my resolutions).

How did I do with my TBR:

This month I set myself a TBR; I don’t usually do this but I had so much fun thinking about the books I might read this month. I think I will keep doing this, if only for the fun. Because sticking to a TBR? Not that much my thing. I read a lot more non-fiction than I thought I would this month. But memoirs seem to be the kind of books I gravitate to right now. I will take that into account for my TBR next month.

I read two books of my TBR… Oops.

Currently Reading:

The Gender Games by Juno Dawson: I am absolutely loving this. I am listening to the audio book of this and Juno Dawson is hilarious.

The Sea Beast takes a Lover by Michael Andreasen: I am nearly finished with this and have a few thoughts that I still need to organize in my head.

How I Lose You by Kate McNaughton: This is taking me forever. While I enjoy parts of it, others drag. I will finish this though, hopefully before the release date on the 8th.

(Some of the) Blog posts I loved:

I wasn’t very good at remembering to bookmark the posts I loved this month. So this list is “slightly” shorter this month.

I loved Paula’s review of a book I had never heard of before.

I am glad I am not the only one with way too many unfinished series. Also Jeroen agrees with my assessment of The Name Of The Wind.

And finally, Sarah compiled a brilliant list of upcoming SFF-releases.

How was your reading month? What was the best book you read?

Novella Mini-Review: All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) – Martha Wells

Verdict: SO MUCH FUN.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Published by tor, 2017

Genre: Science Fiction, Novella

Find it on goodreads.

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

I had so much fun reading this short little novella. I needed something quick and easy to read after Leviathan Wakes, and this just fit the bill. It is snarky and witty and surprisingly well-rounded.

Our main character and point of view is Murderbot, as it likes to call itself. It is working security for a group of explorers when things start to go sideways. Murderbot is the clear focus of this book and rightfully so: it is hilarious in its pessimism and sympathetic in its apathy. Its arc was (mostly) believable and I loved seeing the world from its point of view. (Aside: I was picturing Murderbot as female and kept thinking of it as such until I read reviews… and realized it is never called thus; the humans in this book refer to Murderbot as it, and so does it itself. I don’t know what that says about me but I found it fairly fascinating to think about my biases. If you have read the novella, please do let me know whether you thought of Murderbot as female or male. The audiobook narrator is a man fyi.)

I enjoyed how fast-paced this was and how much kept happening. Martha Wells did not waste a single page of this book which is something I am really appreciating about novellas at the moment.

I have already pre-ordered the next books in the series (they will all be coming out later this year) and cannot wait to see where Martha Well takes her story next.

First sentence (which I read and knew I would love this): “I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized that I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites.”

Reading List: Novellas

Another one of my resolutions for this year was to read more novellas. And as quite a few of the ones I had been eyeing were fairly cheap for my Kindle, I decided to go ahead and purchased an unreasonably high number of novellas to read over the next couple of weeks. This approach has advantages: I love reading on my Kindle and the books were cheap. The disadvantage is that if I happen to love the books, I will want to have print books of them. I guess I am doing a good deed for the publishing industry here. So without much further ado, here is a list of novellas I am looking forward to reading (I did a similar list for my Science Fictions reads.)

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

This sounds so brilliant. A socially awkward murderbot? With an affinity for crappy TV shows? Sign me up.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

I have previously tried to read a book by Nnedi Okorafor and did not enjoy this. However, I have heard nothing but great things about this trilogy. Also, this is only 98 pages, so I figure even if I don’t love it, I will be able to finish it quickly. It did win the Hugo Award, so I assume it’s brilliant. Also Nnedi Okorafor has the best hair.

The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion by Margaret Killjoy

I added this a while ago because someone over at Goodreads whose taste I trust, reviewed this very favourably. I might be super scared reading this but sometimes I like that (and I did say I wanted to branch out in my reading). I will have to read this during the daytime though.

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

Again, I will be scared. But this book (and its brilliant cover) has intrigued me for months. I figured, I might as well go for it.

The Black Tides Of Heaven (Tensorate #1) by J. Y. Yang

I heard nothing but amazing things about this. It sounds challenging and different and absolutely beautiful.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

Two things: Alternative history. People riding hippos.

 

As you can see, I am going full on genre fiction here, two horror books, two science fiction novellas and two fantasy books. I am planning on getting to more literary novellas later this year, hopefully including a couple of classic German novellas then.

Have you read any of these? Let me know your thoughts! Also, if you have any recommendations for me, these are always welcome.