SF Books Series
So, another year's worth of reading and time to pontificate on them. This year I've read a record number of books. Okay, first up books where I've read a large number of books of a series, or both books of a duology, or all three books in a trilogy.
The Retrieval Artist Series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (16 books)
The Disappeared, Extremes, Consequences, Buried Deep, Paloma, Recovery Man, Duplicate Effort, Anniversary Day, Blowback, A Murder of Clones, Search and Recovery, The Peyti Crisis, Vigilantes, Starbase Human, Masterminds.
The first three books in this series didn't grab me like her Diving series, so I took a break before starting book four.
Then the story just took off and I was compelled to consume the rest of the books one after the other.
So highly recommended as worth your time.
Xeelee Series by Stephen Baxter (6 books)
Xeelee Omnibus (collecting four novels: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring), Xeelee Redemption, Vacuum Diagrams (short stories).
Baxter is not an author I've read before, and I started with Proxima, which is not a Xeelee book, but afterwards I thought it was time to try.
He's not what could be called a writer of emotional conflict, but a big ideas author, and there are some big ideas here. Mind blowingly big.
Redemption is the last book in the timeline, which means I'm reading the last two books out of order, but this won't be a problem.
Poor Man's Fight by Elliot Kay (6 books)
Poor Man's Fight, Rich Man's War, Dead Man's Debt, No Medals for Secrets, Last Man Out, and the recently No Man's Land.
Another new to me author this year, and I'm currently reading the last book as I write this so, you can take that as another recommendation.
I like the three main characters Tanner Malone, Alicia Wong, and Lynette Kelly.
A rich universe, with plenty of exciting alien shenanigans.
Drop Trooper by Rick Partlow (4 books)
Contact Front, Kinetic Strike, Danger Close, Direct Fire. First four books in an ongoing series with 14 titles published so far.
Recommended to me by Paul of the Man Cave.
I bought the first and ended up read it it one sitting. This meant I had to go buy the next three because I wanted to know what happens next?
Full throttle, high octane action featuring power armour, orbital drops and aliens.
What more do you want?
The Final Architecture by Adrian Tchaikovsky (3 books)
Bought the first as a hardback because it was on sale.
I then ended up buying the rest in hardback to match, because... I don't make the rules.
Really impressive high concept space opera that has pretty solid science ideas.
Loved it so much I bought another couple of his books. See below.
War Dogs by Greg Bear (3 books)
War Dogs, Killing Titan, Take Back the Sky.
Recommended to my by my friend Brian, this trilogy is best described as a fever dream.
It describes a desperate war against aliens set on Mars and across our solar system.
Parts of the combat reminded me of the first half of Steakley's Armor.
Also has some interesting ideas on the Fermi paradox.
Proxima & Ultima by Stephen Baxter (2 books)
I picked up a copy of Proxima for free at an Eastercon a long time ago as a freebie.
It sat on my TBR pile for years, lost under other books.
As I said above, he's not a writer who deals in emotional conflict (the passion of love etc.), rather he writes plots about gig
ideas of what if the universe or reality works like this...where this is
some physics idea or consequence of physics.
This duology gave me the confidence to seek out his Xeelee books.
Redux Duology by Gregg Cunningham (2 books)
Redux: The Lost Patrol, Redux II: The Search For Floyd.
I got the first book because of the intriguing reviews about how the author handled a time-travel war story with cascading causality.
Where each trip creates a paradox as the outcome of each trip takes hold and has to be corrected.
This has a plot best described as a messy ball of timey-wimey time loops that interleave to form a plot that comes to a bitter sweet ending in the second book.
Floyd, Commander Redux's faithful robot is funny to boot. Worth your time if you like adventures through time.
Provenance & Translation State by Ann Leckie (2 books)
Provenance is a low key story that disappointed some readers, but which satisfied me.
Translation state has a terrible cover, but holds a compelling story about the Presger translators.
Fans will enjoy what little is given away here about the Presger and the Radaach.If you liked the original Ancillary trilogy then you'll probably enjoy these.
If you didn't enjoy her previous trilogy, then it's probably best to avoid these two too.
Dogs of War & Bear Head: by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2 books)
Rex is a good dog.
Rex and the other bio-engineered animals in this story are being used as special operations weapons for unpleasant wars in far-off countries.
It will hit you in the feels.
The sequel is arguably better.
So that's a brief overview of the first 46 of the books I've read over the year. Next half tomorrow.
Glad you are enjoying the Droptrooper Series! I've read 11 of Rick's book this year. They really grew on me and the seperate but interrelated characters and events worked really well.
ReplyDeleteGreat post and I'm looking forward to the next instalment. To inform my 2024 reading list (and noting our tastes are very similar), may I request you include your top 5 series recommendations please? Thanks :-)
See tomorrows post.
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