#lynnetsnow

[theladyragnell]

I just read through your last year of reviews and I think we have pretty similar tastes but you read far more than I do. Do you have any science fiction recs? Also what are your reading goals for next year?

Going to answer these in opposite order, since the one is shorter than the other!

Reading Goals

I don't have many of these! My town is doing book bingo again this year, so I'll look to do a blackout on that card, that's a nice steady reading goal to have and quite good for broadening some horizons. Other than that, I might go back to finding epistolary books I haven't read that appeal to me? There were at least a few I didn't get to last year that I can take a stab at, even if having the same goal over again feels like cheating.

Overall, I just really hope to find some books that sweep me away this year, I was tragically short on those last year, and judging from my post, the year before as well. I want to get deep into something!

Science Fiction

If you want great action and a great narrative voice, there's a reason everyone's so obsessed with Martha Wells's Murderbot series, and if you haven't read them, they're so great and you should. (I still haven't finished watching the show, but it seems like a bit of a Howl's Moving Castle situation to me, so if the show doesn't work for you the books still might.)

If you're a romance reader and/or love marriage politics, Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell (tumblr's own @avoliot) is a joy of a read, and Ocean's Echo in the same universe is also absolutely worth your time.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh is a strange and deeply angry book, but I was really enthralled by it even if I haven't been brave enough for a reread.

For personal-level stakes and light action, Becky Chambers is an author to check out, the Wayfarers series in particular.

If you want worldbuilding, there's a reason Ursula K. LeGuin is widely considered a master of the genre. I haven't read her whole Hainish Cycle yet, but everything I have read is worth the hype and thought-provoking. Also, a really underrecommended author, if you want really deeply worldbuilt politics, C.J. Cherryh might be for you, her books don't move fast but they're really interesting, try Foreigner on for size if that sounds tempting.

If you want a little breadth on what the genre is currently doing, I read a good collection last year, New Adventures in Space Opera ed. Jonathan Strahan, and most authors in there also have sci fi novels so if someone's writing style appeals, there's likely more from them. I can personally vouch for Arkady Martine and Ann Leckie's full-length books. Oh, and Aliette de Bodard SO much! If you want sapphic sci fi and living spaceships you must read some de Bodard. Just mentioning this collection has made me remember that I want to try some Seth Dickinson based off his short story in it.

I haven't read a ton of the classics--some Bradbury short stories, but I've not really done Phillip K. Dick or Heinlein or any Asimov at all. I've read Dune but didn't enjoy it, and if you're tempted to pick up Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, I would gently counsel you against it.

I feel like I'm recommending all the Trendy Sci Fi from the last couple years, I don't really have any more indie recs other than thinking more people need to read Cherryh, but that's what I've got for you tonight!

[anghraine]

lynnetsnow replied to this post:

I've never seen the episode in question but I was holding my breath for this whole scene. Damn.

Ooh, thank you! That's a fantastic compliment, because the sheer menace underpinning Kirk's reactions is one of my favorite Shatner performances ever, and Nimoy's performance of Spock being quietly upset and then o_O at the whole thing is also one of my favorite TOS performances. So that's what I wanted to get across!

The whole thing is packed within one of the finest TOS episodes IMO, narratively and artistically, so I'd really recommend the whole thing! But this is the original scene:

[theladyragnell]

23

Oh, wrote this novel in my Firefly era! So, some scrappy underdog sci fi with occasional vague Western-inspired overtones. Planet is taken over by militia, which starts shooting any ship that comes through its territory. Heroes are the survivors of a ship that gets shot down and the survivors of a small town that they land near, and they have to figure out survival and rescue (at one point one of them gets captured by the militia and they have to break her out). I tried editing this one a few times, but it never really got anywhere great!

[theladyragnell]

This is driving me insane. Who are the original space blorbos??? I have googled the names and searched in Tumblr and I thought at first it was just a d&d campaign or something but then you said it's from the third novel and I NEED TO KNOW

Oh gosh! Sorry to make you go down a rabbit hole!

Anything you see in my "obligatory original space blorbos" tag or see referred to by anything involving the words "space blorbos" (or anything involving the word "Karn" or "Karnisan") is me referring to a long-term original writing project! The Karn series is five novels and two novellas, and it's not published anywhere because I am a very lax editor and I really want to get this one right. So it's the first drafts of five novels and two novellas, and the second drafts of the first two novels (or, well, the second novel has three more scenes in it yet to edit, thus why I've been posting about the space blorbos so much lately, because thinking about them helps motivate me). The first drafts make up a complete series! (Even if there's a second generation series in the back of my brain. Shhhh.)

I want to publish them someday (probably going the self-publishing rather than the trad-publishing route, these are. fairly unpublishable because I don't tend to write super marketable things), but I've found it really rewarding to be able to edit the earlier books as I learn more things about the characters and know more about the series arc I want to do, so none of the books are going anywhere public for a while so I don't edit myself into a corner.

Which is unfortunate, because I really want to share them! But also I've read too many trad pubbed series over the years where it's clear the author wrote the first book or two with a different plan in mind and then had some ideas and consequently fucked their series over a bit with later books not meshing with what they'd been building up to, so I am very determined not to cause myself that problem.

But, preludes aside, the House of Karn series is what I affectionately pitch as Succession meets Bridgerton in space! It's structured like a romance series, each book or novella built around a different couple (or poly ship in one case) and each book with its own coherent plot that wraps up at the end of the book, with a background series arc about successions and coalitions and familial abuse and terraforming and all that good shit.

I made a comic sans series primer sometime back with @sovinly's help, I should really brush that up and post it sometime.

[artemistartarus]

For the book ask: 3,4 and 5! Thank you!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Crash Test by Amy James

To Clutch a Razor (Curse Bearer, #2) by Veronica Roth

Silverborn: The Mystery of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor, #4) by Jessica Townsend

Between Dragons and Their Wrath by Devin Madison

No Road Home by John Fram

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Amy James, John Fram, Rebecca Ide, and Devin Madison

5. What genre did you read the most of?

Fantasy and LGBT+ always, but I branch out too. I don't like the idea of reading in a bubble.

Thank you for asking, sugar plum!