20,000 Leagues Under the Sea★★★★☆
Jules Verne (F.P. Walter Translation) Even though marine science and geology have passed it by, it’s still a gripping episodic adventure through a strange, hidden world of marvels.
Always Coming Home★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin Not a novel, not quite a short story/poetry collection, but a fascinating, thorough exploration of an imagined post-apocalyptic rural utopia in a far-future Napa Valley.
Automatic Noodle★★★★★
Annalee Newitz A short but joyful tale of creating the future you want out of the present you’ve been stuck with, told by robots who would rather make noodles than war.
The Beginning Place★★★⯪☆
Ursula K. Le Guin More of an in-between place, a portal fantasy of people caught in liminal spaces and a quest that never quite makes sense to the two young adults pushed into it.
The Birding Dictionary★★★★★
Rosemary Mosco A delightful collection of comedic ‘definitions’ of various terms one might encounter while watching birds (or interacting with people who do), filled with the style of humor and illustration the author brings to her comics.
The Birthday Of The World (And Other Stories)★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin A collection of stories set in Le Guin’s Hainish universe, on worlds with vastly different gender relations. Plus a couple of stand-alone stories. Mostly ranging from good to great, with Solitude and Paradises Lost being my favorites of the batch.
Bookshop.org★★★★☆A good place to shop online for books and still support indie bookstores. They sell eBooks too, in standard ePub format.
BOOX Go 7 Color (Gen II)★★★★★After five years, I replaced the Poke3 with the Go 7 Color. It’s a lot faster and more responsive, brings back physical page turning buttons, and adds (pastel) color. Like its predecessor it has a sharp e-ink screen and runs any Android-based ebook reader app.
Calculating God★★★★☆
Robert J. Sawyer What if there is scientific evidence out there for a supreme being, but to find it you have to correlate knowledge from multiple inhabited worlds across the galaxy?
Changing Planes★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin Lighter than most Le Guin I’ve read, Changing Planes is a Gulliver’s Travels for the present era, the social satire made possible through interdimensional travel.
A Christmas Carol★★★★★
Charles Dickens It’s been ages since I last read the original, and I wanted a break from a longer book two days before Christmas, so I figured I’d pick it up. And yeah, the story holds up.
City of Illusions★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin How can you be yourself when you don’t know who you really are? A story of isolation, adaptation, kindness, cruelty, trust and hope, and above all, how to piece together the truth (or at least pick out the lies) on a future, depopulated Earth.
A City on Mars★★★★★
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith Accessible and intricately researched, with scattered humor to keep the reader’s interest. Getting to space is the easy part. Staying there is going to be a lot more complicated.
Cordwainer Smith: Short Fiction★★★★☆
Paul Linebarger Three mid-century science-fiction stories about the future of war, space travel, symbiosis, and the dangers of cutting off your own humanity.
The Daughter of Odren★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin A small, stand-alone tale set in Earthsea, reminiscent of the folk tales glimpsed throughout the series. Betrayal, revenge, kindness, and power - and just living.
The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell★★★★★
Mira Grant Seared into my memory. Cascading failures as zombies attack an elementary school. Well-written, but I never, ever want to read it again.
The Defiant Agents
Andre Norton An enjoyable space western with Apaches as the good guys, wrapped up in the cold war and tossing in the Golden Horde, a lost alien city and Russians with a mind-control ray.
Down Among the Sticks and Bones★★★★★
Seanan McGuire Creepy tale of twins transported to a world out of 1930s monster movies. Hangs together better than the first book.
The Downloaded★★★★☆
Robert J. Sawyer A short, fast tale of frozen people reawakening after the fall of civilization, built around the premise that you need to keep a frozen person’s consciousness active in VR, and there are very different reasons you might put people into cryo storage and a simulation. Not a lot of plot, mainly concepts and character studies.
Dracula★★★★★
Bram Stoker The original Dracula is a great read, not just for the way it codified modern vampire lore, but the way it’s built as a collection of letters, diary entries, and so on.
A Dragon for William★★★★★
Julie Czerneda A welcome return to the world of A Turn of Light (though shorter!)
eBooks.com★★★★☆An eBook seller with some actual business ethics. No hardware (which simplifies things), but they have an app for Android and iOS, and any DRM-free titles can be downloaded and read on just about anything.
Eifelheim★★★★☆
Michael Flynn Detailed and thoughtful exploration of first contact with aliens in the midst of the Black Death.
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)★★★★★
Katie Mack An engaging read for the general audience about what we currently know about the history and structure of the universe and what that knowledge – and the pieces we don’t know – might mean for its future and eventual end.
Every Heart a Doorway★★★★☆
Seanan McGuire A fast read with an intriguing concept that reverses multiple YA fantasy tropes.
The Farthest Shore★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin Magic is failing, and a young prince sails with the Archmage of Earthsea to seek out the cause and resolve the crisis. It’s my least favorite of the original trilogy, but that’s not a euphemism. It’s still quite good, and there’s so much in it worth reading.
Five Ways to Forgiveness★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin Five loosely-connected stories set in the final years of a color-based enslaving society, the war for liberation, and the messy aftermath.
FlashForward (Novel)★★★★★
Robert J. Sawyer A fascinating exploration of time, destiny and free will after everyone on Earth gets a glimpse of the same moment 20 years in the future.
Four Lost Cities★★★★★
Annalee Newitz Fascinating look at how cities form, live and die, seen through archaeological discoveries at Pompeii, Angkor, Cahokia and Çatalhöyük.
Four-Day Planet★★★☆☆
H. Beam Piper A fun frontier/sailing adventure, but nothing special. Sort of Moby Dick in space with everyone based out of a corrupt frontier town.
Fuzzy Nation★★★★★
John Scalzi Not sure it’s better, but it is more enjoyable than the original, with better characterization and less deus-ex-machina. Same overall story of colonization, corporate greed, enviromnental exploitation and who counts as people, but different enough to enjoy both.
Fuzzy Sapiens★★★★☆
H. Beam Piper Continuing the Mad Men approach to ecological space colonization, this sequel explores the growing pains of a company town becoming a democracy, a corporation losing its monopoly, and two species of people figuring out how to live together.
Galactic Derelict★★★☆☆
Andre Norton A decent outer space adventure from the anything-goes era of science fiction. The story drags a bit after it switches from time travel to space travel.
A Game of Thrones (Book)
George R.R. Martin I should have liked this book. I tend to enjoy big epic fantasy, but I just couldn’t get into this one.
The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time Book 12)
Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson Events move rapidly toward the apocalypse foretold in book one, and Sanderson shows he was a good choice to finish Jordan’s series.
The Great Typo Hunt★★★⯪☆
Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson A cross-country road trip with a Sharpie pen, correcting grammatical and spelling errors in road and shop signs. I’ve mellowed on the subject since it came out, but it’s still interesting.
Head On★★★★★
John Scalzi The sequel to Lock In is a fast read with intriguing concepts, fun characters and an interesting mystery. This time locked-in FBI agent Chris Shane investigates the death of a locked-in athlete in a sport too extreme for human bodies, played with remotely-controlled robots.
Heaven’s Vault (Novels)★★★★☆
Jon Ingold Aliya and the robot sail the Nebula, seeking clues to its history and future. The first two novels tell a story similar to the game, just different enough to feel new. Ancient writing appears throughout, sometimes translated and sometimes left for the reader. Book three picks up both after the game and long before, exploring a changed Nebula and the Loop.
The High and Faraway (Trilogy)★★★☆☆
Greg Keyes Not Keyes’ best work. Interesting concept and characters, but poorly edited and creepy (in a bad way).
Illuminations★★★★★
T. Kingfisher Madcap magical damage control in a family of eccentric artist-magicians. Fun like A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive baking, but with a tighter story and better-defined characters.
In the Shadow of Spindrift House★★★★☆
Mira Grant Imagine the Scooby-Doo gang encountering a Lovecraftian horror in Hill House. They manage about as well as you might expect.
Interference★★★★☆
Sue Burke An intriguing followup to Semiosis that weaves several drastically different sentient species (both plant and animal) into a story about factions, community, freedom, communication and war.
Invasive★★★★☆
Chuck Wendig Swarms of killer ants genetically altered to target humans are as much nightmare fuel as you would expect.
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport★★★★★
Samit Basu Starts as a cyberpunk take on Aladdin and gleefully launches into a glorious mishmash of robots, legacies, secrets and political upheaval in a crumbling spaceport slowly sinking into the mud on a backwater planet.
The Kaiju Preservation Society★★★★★
John Scalzi Escaping the pandemic by learning to survive on a world with gigantic monsters.
Key Out Of Time★★★★☆
Andre Norton Lost in time, lost in space, out of their depth, a handful of humans are caught in the middle of a four-way power struggle on the high seas of an alien world.
Kobo (eBook store and readers)★★★★☆A solid alternative to Kindle, from the eBook selection through apps and hardware. The app works well on my eink tablet without too much tweaking, though it still wants to sell me more books before I can open the one I want to read.
The Last Unicorn★★★★★
Peter S. Beagle Whimsical and melancholy tale of the last unicorn’s quest to find others of her kind. Well drawn characters and story, very much a classic.
The Lathe of Heaven★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin A surreal tale of dreams changing reality, global stakes anchored by the three people involved. Be careful what you wish for.
The Law of Superheroes★★★★★
James Daily, J.D. and Ryan Davidson, J.D. A fun read that applies real-world law to comic book tropes. Shape-shifters, alternate realities, resurrections and massive property damage are all explored.
Little Fuzzy★★★★☆
H. Beam Piper An enjoyable tale of first contact, colonialism, environmental stewardship, corporate greed vs. ethics, and most importantly, who counts as “people” on an alien world that turns out not to be uninhabited after all.
Minor Mage★★★★☆
T. Kingfisher By turns melancholy and creepy, with a dash of sarcastic armadillo.
Mysterious Galaxy★★★★★Bookstore specializing in sci-fi and mysteries, involved in local community and conventions.
Night Watch (Discworld)★★★★★
Terry Pratchett Time travel, barricades and a mix of humor and darkness in a rebellion with good cops, bad cops and time monks.
Nomad of the Time Streams★★★⯪☆
Michael Moorcock A 19th-century British soldier in India is flung into three wildly different future wars, forcing him to reexamine the world he thought he was building.
Norse Mythology★★★★☆
Neil Gaiman Entertaining, sometimes gruesome, sometimes funny and sometimes sad collection of stories about Odin, Thor, Loki and the other gods of Asgard.
Not Cross-Posting to Better World BooksI recently picked up some used books, which worked out great. But I’m not cross-posting my reviews there because they claim copyright over user submissions, not just a perpetual license.
The Old Iron Dream★★★★★
David Forbes An extended essay tracing the strand of military authoritarianism and white male supremacy in science fiction, from John Campbell through Heinlein, Pournelle and other major names up through the then-present of 2013.
Onyx BOOX Poke3★★★★☆I used the Poke3 as my main ebook reader for almost five years. It’s a convenient size, has a clear e-ink display, and can run the Android app for (almost) any eBook store.
Overgrowth★★★⯪☆
Mira Grant Invasion of the Body Snatchers from the POV of an alien plant person who grew up human. Now the invasion has started, and she’s sorting out friends, family, and who she can trust from either planet.
Parable of the Sower★★★★★
Octavia Butler Hard to put down. And hard to pick up again. It’s certainly not a fun book, but it’s extremely engaging, despite the bleakness of the slow-apocalypse setting and story.
Paradises Lost★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin An intricate novella about the middle generations of a multi-generational spaceship, and the religion they’ve developed that believes nothing outside the ship is real, and both Earth and their destination are myths.
People of the Crater★★★☆☆
Andre Norton Standard fantasy rescue-the-princess adventure with sci-fi trappings, nodding vaguely toward Hollow Earth tropes.
Planet of Exile★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin A tighter story than Rocannon’s World, with better-drawn characters, and more ambitious in its worldbuilding and themes.
A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching★★★★★
Rosemary Mosco A fast, funny, informative read about pigeons, their long history with humans, appearance and behavior, and even modern extreme pigeon breeds.
Project Gutenberg★★★★★Predating the web itself, they’ve put together tens of thousands of ebooks from classics and other public domain sources in multiple formats from plaintext to ePub.
Quantum Night★★★★☆
Robert J. Sawyer Intriguing premise, well explored: Quantum entanglement, psychopaths, and mob behavior. Can we reboot humanity amid a rising tide of xenophobia?
Ready Player One (Book)★★★☆☆
Ernest Cline Back when I read it, the nostalgia and scavenger hunt were enough for me. Now, not so much.
Rocannon’s World★★★☆☆
Ursula K. Le Guin A serviceable quest story that melds fantasy and sci-fi. Engaging enough, but I’d only recommend it to someone who’s read her later work.
Semiosis★★★★★
Sue Burke A fascinating take on space colonization, intelligence, and language, following multiple generations of humans on a world dominated by sapient plants.
Shy Little Kitten’s Secret Place★☆☆☆☆A 1980s sequel to the classic The Shy Little Kitten that completely misses the point of the original book and tells shy kids they need to change themselves.
Solitude★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin The people of Eleven-Soro live alone except for a bare minimum of human interaction. But what is that bare minimum, and what does it mean for people who avoid all other contact?
Soon I Will Be Invincible★★★★☆
Austin Grossman Austin Grossman’s novel Soon I Will Be Invincible is a fun read for fans of the super-hero genre, an affectionate parody featuring every cliche in the book.
Soonish★★★★★
Kelly and Zach Weinersmith Fascinating, accessible, funny, and still relevant overview of cutting-edge tech, even though it took me 7 years to get around to reading it.
Space Oddity★★★★⯪
Catherynne Valente Not quite as fun as the first book, but it’s just as absurd and chaotic, and exactly what I needed in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election.
Space Opera★★★★★
Catherynne Valente Fun sci-fi social satire from Catherynne Valente. The world is a mess, but we can find the sublime in chaos.
Standard Ebooks★★★★★Great source of classics and other public domain material, formatted and edited for maximum readability and compatibility.
Star Born★★★★★
Andre Norton An adventure woven through the post-war struggles of an alien world, with humans caught on both sides, exploring identity, colonialism and prejudice. Definitely worth the read.
Star Hunter★★★☆☆
Andre Norton A standard survival adventure with mismatched partners and ruthless rivals, only with weird stuff going on and in space.
Starter Villain★★★★☆
John Scalzi A fun, fast read, parodying the James Bond Villain archetype. With talking dolphins and typing cats.
Summer in Orcus★★★★★
T. Kingfisher A portal fantasy that answers the questions: What kind of quest would Baba Yaga send an 11-year-old girl on, and how can she save a world anyway?
Tehanu★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin A character-driven look at the lives of ordinary people in a world of magic, especially the women and children (and not a few men) caught underfoot when wizards, heroes and villains fight. And (of course) dragons.
The Telling★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin A thoughtful tale of discovery, as an observer from Earth struggles to find and understand fragments of the lost cultures hidden beneath a society that’s thrown away its past in favor of a single vision.
The Three-Body Problem (Book)★★★★☆
Liu Cixin, Ken Liu (Translator) Not a proper review of the book, but a collection of comments I made while reading it back in 2018.
The Time Machine★★★★☆
H.G. Wells A bit dry, but it draws you in, and if the plot is simple, it’s enough to wrap around some thought-provoking speculation about the future of humanity - and a critique of industrial society.
The Time Ships★★★⯪☆
Stephen Baxter A sequel to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine that drastically expands the scope across multiple timelines, from the dawn of time to the far future seen in the original. Now with Dyson spheres, nanobots, and a seemingly endless war that can only be stopped in the past.
The Time Traders★★★★☆
Andre Norton A fun time-travel spy thriller through the bronze age that’s very rooted in the cold war.
Toilers of the Sea★★★★☆
Victor Hugo, William Moy Thomas (translator) An outcast from a small island community spends weeks salvaging a shipwreck, alone, to prove himself. More tightly structured than Les Mis, if less ambitious in scope.
The Tombs of Atuan★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin Still my favorite of the Earthsea books. There’s something fascinating about a labyrinth that you must traverse in total darkness, keeping a map and counting turns in your head.
Triggers★★★☆☆
Robert J. Sawyer It’s an interesting take on memory and identity, but not one of Sawyer’s best.
Tune in Tomorrow★★★★☆
Randee Dawn A fun romp through backstage theater, mystery, soap opera, mythology, fandom and screwball comedy romance tropes. (whew!)
Under Alien Skies★★★★★
Philip Plait A fun look at what it would be like to visit other planets or star systems, weaving together sci-fi scenarios, the science behind them, and the history of how those discoveries were made.
Under the Influence★★★★☆
Trey Ratcliff Trey Ratcliff details a fascinating look at a side of Instagram that I’ve mostly ignored.
Usurpation★★★★☆
Sue Burke A different sort of book than Semiosis and Interference, taking place entirely on Earth long after the second Pax expedition returns. Can the bamboo keep humans’ chaotic conflicts in check? Where do the robots fit in? With so many forms of intelligence, who counts as a person, anyway?
Vaster Than Empires And More Slow★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin An intriguing story of a dysfunctional crew dealing with each other and a planet that, at first glance, appears to have no sentient life, only plants.
When The Moon Hits Your Eye★★★★☆
John Scalzi A fast, enjoyable read with a few gut punches hidden throughout. Not so much about the moon turning into cheese as how lots of different people react to the moon turning into cheese.
Where to Get eBooksA round-up of places I’ve used to find, buy, borrow and download eBooks.
The Wind that Sweeps the Stars★★★★☆
Greg Keyes Betrayed by an empire, Yash has one night to assassinate as many magicians as possible, set in a fantasy world inspired by southwest indigenous American mythology.
The Wind’s Twelve Quarters★★★★⯪
Ursula K. Le Guin A collection of short stories from early in Le Guin’s career, spanning her first sale through the time when she’d begun to be recognized as a major force in the genre.
A Wizard of Earthsea★★★★★
Ursula K. Le Guin The Earthsea series is one of my regular re-reads. It starts here, with the tale of how a goatherd grew into a wizard in a world where magic is woven through everything from the poorest village to the greatest palace. How he released a terrifying evil in his youth, and how he sailed the world seeking how to make up for his mistake.
A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking★★★★★
T. Kingfisher A fun and original take on the teenage wizard genre. With an immortal carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob.
The Word for World is Forest★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin Infuriating to read…and that’s the point. A story of colonial exploitation, asymmetric warfare, dehumanization and environmental destruction.
The Word of Unbinding and The Rule of Names★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin The original two stories set in Earthsea, before Le Guin wrote the novels. Each stand-alone, each interesting both in itself and in seeing what the series and its themes grew from.
Worlds of Exile and Illusion★★★★☆
Ursula K. Le Guin Interesting to see Le Guin as she’s developing her craft. Not the best place to start with her work, but absolutely worth reading.
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You★★★★★
Janelle Shane A fun, accessible introduction to how artificial intelligence works…and how it sometimes doesn’t!
