I’m curious about the zeitgeist here, and would like to see how it fits with my own perspective. I’ll give the standouts a try.
Leaving my own list in the comments.
1. The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton: Incredibly well written prose. I’m surprised this book isn’t more well known. Definitely an overlooked classic.
2. We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow by Margaret Killjoy: A collection of short stories, often featuring punks, anarchists, and those on the margins of society. A lot of these stories went in a surprising direction, in a good way.
3. Chrysanthe (complete saga) by Yves Meynard: Starts out urban fantasy, shifts to high fantasy. This is a fantasy series about figuring out who you are and what you believe. The beginning is a pointed commentary on the satanic ritual abuse moral panic.
4. And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin: A post-zombie-apocalypse novella with a twist. I had the twist spoiled before I read it, but still enjoyed it a lot. Some reviews say the politics are way too ham-fisted, but I thought it was good.
5. Echopraxia by Peter Watts: Hard sci fi horror, but in some ways I feel the author tried too hard with incorporating real science at the expense of storytelling. This is the sequel to the much more famous Blindsight (available free on the author’s website), but the two books are different enough they would work if you read them in any order.
6. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper: Sci fi about a family going to an isolated, insular planet where no one really understands what’s going on. I liked the way the deeply flawed characters were written, and the way the worldbuilding unfolds. This book is *extremely* critical of organized religion used as social control, but is friendly to the concept of spirituality and believing in a god. I wanted to rank this book higher, but the author’s lack of real scientific knowledge holds it back.
7. A Pride of Monsters by James H. Schmitz: Some fun short stories about human ingenuity versus the unknown.
8. Hardfought/Cascade Point Tor Double by Greg Bear and Timothy Zahn: Both these novellas were pretty good, but IMO not must-reads.
9. Nine by Laumer by Keith Laumer: It’s funny I ranked this ninth, but that’s just a coincidence. These short sci fi stories were probably more groundbreaking at the time, but so long after release, they don’t stand out from the mass of other sci fi stories I’ve read. Depiction of women is also comically dated. For example, like a lot of older sci fi, there’s food-synthesizing machines that make anything you want, but in these stories, the wife always pushes the “make food” button and then carries the meal to her husband.
10. The Godwhale by T. J. Bass: I did not like this. It had some good ideas and parts were done well, but the pro-eugenics message and rape scene written as a joke were just awful.
Yolandi2802 on
Of the last ten books I’ve read:
– loved it 5 🌟…Flowers For Algernon
– started and realised I had already read it – 4 🌟…Educated
– started and realised it was the last in a series of six, will read entire series…The Saga of Darren Shan
– started the next three and disliked them … We Need to Talk About Kevin, Demon Copperhead, Twins of Auschwitz
– eventually got through the next book – 4 stars 🌟…The Night Circus
– read the next book and didn’t like the ending 3 🌟…Whatever Happened to Betsy Blake
– started next book found it oddly childish 3🌟…An English Ghost Story
– started next book and can’t remember what it’s about 1 🌟…The Revenge of the Stoned Rats
– reading book at the moment and really liking it 5 🌟…The Snow Child
3 Comments
1 Isabel Wilkerson: the Warmth of Other Suns
2 Mary Doria Russell: the Sparrow
3 John Le Carre: the Spy who Came in from the Cold
4 Patrick and Henry Cockburn: Henry’s Demons
5 Rachel Clarke: Your Life in my Hands
6 Roger Loewenstein: Buffett – the Making of an American Capitalist
7 CJ Sansom: Winter in Madrid
8 Neal Ascherson: the Death of the Fronsac
9 Giles Tremlett: Isabella of Castille
10 Arnold Bennett: Anna of the Five Towns
Yours don’t seem to have appeared yet.
The last ten books I’ve read, which I keep track of [on Storygraph](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books-read/heliopteryx), ranked from best to worst:
1. The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton: Incredibly well written prose. I’m surprised this book isn’t more well known. Definitely an overlooked classic.
2. We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow by Margaret Killjoy: A collection of short stories, often featuring punks, anarchists, and those on the margins of society. A lot of these stories went in a surprising direction, in a good way.
3. Chrysanthe (complete saga) by Yves Meynard: Starts out urban fantasy, shifts to high fantasy. This is a fantasy series about figuring out who you are and what you believe. The beginning is a pointed commentary on the satanic ritual abuse moral panic.
4. And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin: A post-zombie-apocalypse novella with a twist. I had the twist spoiled before I read it, but still enjoyed it a lot. Some reviews say the politics are way too ham-fisted, but I thought it was good.
5. Echopraxia by Peter Watts: Hard sci fi horror, but in some ways I feel the author tried too hard with incorporating real science at the expense of storytelling. This is the sequel to the much more famous Blindsight (available free on the author’s website), but the two books are different enough they would work if you read them in any order.
6. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper: Sci fi about a family going to an isolated, insular planet where no one really understands what’s going on. I liked the way the deeply flawed characters were written, and the way the worldbuilding unfolds. This book is *extremely* critical of organized religion used as social control, but is friendly to the concept of spirituality and believing in a god. I wanted to rank this book higher, but the author’s lack of real scientific knowledge holds it back.
7. A Pride of Monsters by James H. Schmitz: Some fun short stories about human ingenuity versus the unknown.
8. Hardfought/Cascade Point Tor Double by Greg Bear and Timothy Zahn: Both these novellas were pretty good, but IMO not must-reads.
9. Nine by Laumer by Keith Laumer: It’s funny I ranked this ninth, but that’s just a coincidence. These short sci fi stories were probably more groundbreaking at the time, but so long after release, they don’t stand out from the mass of other sci fi stories I’ve read. Depiction of women is also comically dated. For example, like a lot of older sci fi, there’s food-synthesizing machines that make anything you want, but in these stories, the wife always pushes the “make food” button and then carries the meal to her husband.
10. The Godwhale by T. J. Bass: I did not like this. It had some good ideas and parts were done well, but the pro-eugenics message and rape scene written as a joke were just awful.
Of the last ten books I’ve read:
– loved it 5 🌟…Flowers For Algernon
– started and realised I had already read it – 4 🌟…Educated
– started and realised it was the last in a series of six, will read entire series…The Saga of Darren Shan
– started the next three and disliked them … We Need to Talk About Kevin, Demon Copperhead, Twins of Auschwitz
– eventually got through the next book – 4 stars 🌟…The Night Circus
– read the next book and didn’t like the ending 3 🌟…Whatever Happened to Betsy Blake
– started next book found it oddly childish 3🌟…An English Ghost Story
– started next book and can’t remember what it’s about 1 🌟…The Revenge of the Stoned Rats
– reading book at the moment and really liking it 5 🌟…The Snow Child