I consider myself a harsh grader, and while I may give more scores of 8 or above than you'd think from chance (even assuming that I'm good at selecting books to read), I rarely give books a perfect score. But of the over 200 books that I've read, I have given at the moment FIFTEEN books a perfect score of 10 stars. Are these books perfect? No. But these are the books that I have loved so much that I consider any flaws to be so minor compared to the rest of the book as to be irrelevant.
I'm going to keep this post up top on my blog so it's easy to find (and hopefully I will update it a few more times as I find other such books, but I generally add a book to this list maybe once every three months), but here are the books that so far I've read over the past 2 years that I've considered to be absolute masterpieces. I will update this post if I come across other books worthy of this list, naturally.
NOTE: Each of these books earned by highest ranking, so please don't think I like any of these books more than the others just because I wrote more below on a specific book (books I reviewed on this blog will necessarily get less writing here since I've written about them before):
Annhilation by Jeff Vandermeer
--Set to be a film by the direct of ex Machina in February of 2018, Annihilation is a SciFi book that verges on psychological horror featuring a lonely scientist named only as "The Biologist" who is part of a quarter of female scientists who are the latest explorers into a strange alien area, known as Area X, that has manifested on Earth and caused strange phenomena to occur....as well as the disappearance and strange behavior of the humans who have attempted to enter the area. Annihilation is very short (it's 208 pages) but maintains an incredible tense atmosphere throughout. While this is the first in a trilogy, the book also works as a stand-alone and is easily the best of the three books.
The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Inheritance Trilogy Book 2)
--The second book in Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy is a stand-alone story, although the reader undoubtedly would be better off starting with the first book (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which is incredibly good, but not as good). Taking place around 10 years after the first book, the story follows the blind Maroneh (Black) Woman Oree, whose life has interconnected with the world's gods due to her romantic relationship with the Godling Madding, the Godling of debts. But when she takes home a seemingly mute man with the strange ability to automatically resurrect every time he dies and then finds a dead godling in an alley, she finds herself hunted by a conspiracy to destroy one of the Three, the gods who created and sustained the world. The worldbuilding and the characters of the story are beyond fantastic, and the story drew me in all the way until the end.
--The second book in Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy is a stand-alone story, although the reader undoubtedly would be better off starting with the first book (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which is incredibly good, but not as good). Taking place around 10 years after the first book, the story follows the blind Maroneh (Black) Woman Oree, whose life has interconnected with the world's gods due to her romantic relationship with the Godling Madding, the Godling of debts. But when she takes home a seemingly mute man with the strange ability to automatically resurrect every time he dies and then finds a dead godling in an alley, she finds herself hunted by a conspiracy to destroy one of the Three, the gods who created and sustained the world. The worldbuilding and the characters of the story are beyond fantastic, and the story drew me in all the way until the end.
The Kingdom of Gods by N.K. Jemisin (Inheritance Trilogy Book 3)
--The final book in the Inheritance Trilogy is again a stand-alone story, although you should read the first two books first for full enjoyment. The story follows Sieh, the godling of childhood and trickery (a character from the first two books), who befriends and falls in love with the latest two members of the Arameri clan that once imprisoned him: Shahar and Dekarta. But when a blood ritual done in jest between the three of them seems to cause Sieh to lose his divinity and start aging rapidly, Sieh finds himself in a situation that once would've been his worst nightmare (Literally, as it would've caused him pain): Growing up. Add to that the fact that a mysterious Godling with a connection to Sieh is taking steps to try and remake the world, and the very universe of the Inheritance Trilogy is threatened with destruction. I've seen some readers not love this book as much as the others as Sieh is by definition a bit of a whiny character, but to me it was so well done that it was hard not to love him as he grapples with changes and romances he doesn't fully understand, not to mention the other minor characters who are just so so terrific. A Phenomenal ending to the trilogy.
Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone (Craft Sequence)
Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence series features a fantasy world where magic (or "Craft") is based basically upon law and economics. Four of the Six books in the series are perfectly stand-alone and require no prior knowledge to appreciate, including this book and the next book on this list.
In Three Parts Dead, new Craftswoman Tara Abernathy is recruited by experienced Craftswoman Elayne Kevarian to the craft firm of Kelethras, Albrecht and Ao to resurrect a dead god, Kos, who mysteriously died in the city of Alt Coulomb when he suddenly didn't have enough power to satisfy his creditors (the whole thing is a metaphor for bankruptcy). But Tara soon finds that Kos' death was not an accident and that Kos was hiding a secret that could change the city forever. And when Kos's creditors hire Alexander Denovo, the megamaniacal professor who got her expelled (and thrown off a cliff) from the Hidden Schools where she was trained, she finds herself forced to team up with a junior Priest, a Cop who is addicted to outside power, a vampire pirate and a gargoyle in order to not only save the City, but to prevent herself from falling under Denovo's evil control.
If you want a book that's a fantasy adventure/mystery, with some real world thoughts alongside several fantastic characters and a story with amazing pacing all the way through the end, Three Parts Dead is for you.
Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone (Craft Sequence):
Full Fathom Five is the fifth book chronologically (3rd by publishing order) in the Craft Sequence, but again it is fully stand alone and requires no background knowledge to read. It is similarly fantastic.
The Island of Kavekana is well known for its building of idols to order for customers to invest their soulstuff into (the whole thing is a metaphor for offshore banking and shell corporations) instead of investing in actual gods with actual uncontrollable wills. Kai is a priest of Kavekana, experienced in the creation and maintenance of these idols. But one day Kai sees an idol which failed due to bad investments and on instinct tries to jump in and save the idol - and while she fails, she seems to hear a series of strange words from the idol in the attempt. Meanwhile, Izza is a street urchin who has come to worship, being drawn by dreams, a strange new set of gods who are constantly being killed by the mysterious Smiling Jack. As the two of them independently investigate what is happening, the two discover a conspiracy on Kavekana which threatens to destroy the Island's very existence - and the ones behind the conspiracy will stop at nothing to prevent the two from revealing the secret.
Full Fathom Five is far less action packed (like that book our heroes are guile heroes, unlike that book our heroes don't use magic) than Three Parts Dead, but contains just as terrific a set of characters, a fascinating mystery, and a perfect conclusion. Again the pacing is extremely well done and everything comes together really nicely - Kai and Izza are some of my favorite characters ever at this point.
Amatka by Karin Tidbeck
Review on this blog posted HERE.
Amatka is short, but really really interesting. For more details, see the above review, but in short, like Annhilation it is probably fitting under the SciFi sub genre of "Weird" science fiction. That said, it has very different themes - it uses its dystopian setting to tell a story of the importance of language and freedom of such. Again it's a very weird book, and yet the overall story is tremendous.
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
Review on this blog posted HERE:
The Stone Sky is the conclusion to Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, and it is masterful. A new reader will be hopelessly lost if they haven't read the first two books, but if you have, this is a masterful conclusion to a fantasy trilogy featuring themes of oppression/discrimination/hatred-of-the-other in a fascinating dystopian world where the very Earth and humanity seem to be at "war."
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth J Dickinson
Review on twitter begins with this Tweet here:
The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a book that won't be for everyone - it tells the tale of Baru, a young woman in a world largely ruled by an Oppressive Empire which killed one of her fathers for his homosexuality (and would do the same to her if her own sexuality was known), who decides to try to change the world not by fighting the Empire, but by joining it and attempting to rise in power to change it from within. But when she's noticed by one of the secret counsel that rules the Empire, Baru is given the chance to govern and pacify a rebellious territory, leading to the question of how far (and how cruel is she willing to be) is she willing to go in order to affect change? How many people - whether they be simple allies or her actual lovers - is she willing to betray in pursuit of her goal? This is a tremendously dark tale that naturally does not end lightly (a sequel is now scheduled for 2018), but is absolutely tremendous.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Nearly every Octavia Butler book is well worth reading, but Parable of the Sower (and its sequel below) is particularly impactful in my opinion. In a dystopian near future, the United States has turned into an incredibly dangerous place where jobs are scarce and poverty, drugs, and crime makes it unsafe to be out in the open, only the wealthy are able to feel safe. Lauren Olamina was born the daughter of a preacher in a gated but far from wealthy community, but has come to devise her own religion: Earthseed, which worships the very idea of change. When her community is burned down and she is separated from her family, Lauren and a few stragglers takes a journey up the coast of California in search of safety, while Lauren attempts to preach her religion to those she comes upon. This is not a fun tale or even one with any promise of a happy ending, but it is incredibly impactful, and the dystopian world feels VERY relevant to today in light of the rise of Trump and open white supremacist rhetoric and the rise of inequality.
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
The Sequel to Parable of the Sower begins with Lauren Olamina and her husband and baby daughter trying to make their new community work. However, White Christian Fundamentalists, emboldened by a President promising to Make America Great Again, take over the town, imprison them, and abduct Lauren's daughter. As Lauren and her community attempt to get free and rebuild, will Lauren ever be able to find her daughter again? And if she does, will her daughter even know who she is? And what will become of Earthseed? Maybe the most devastating ending of any book I've ever read, but like its predecessor, incredibly relevant (it's probably the better of the two, but read Sower first).
Necessity by Jo Walton
Review on twitter begins with this tweet HERE.
The final book in Walton's Thessaly trilogy is not a stand-alone, but is clearly the stand-out book from the trilogy (I greatly enjoyed the first book "The Just City," but didn't love the middle book "The Philosopher Kings alas, though you should read it before reading this book.) The series features an odd premise - Athena gathers a bunch of individuals from different time periods and places them on an isolated Island so they can attempt to actually carry out Plato's Republic. The original people gathered from different times act as the original teachers in the City, while children originally being sold as slaves are purchased to be taught as per Plato's ideas. In the meantime, the god Apollo decides to take a human form in order to understand humanity and free will better, only to learn far more than he bargained for.
Necessity concludes the trilogy, with the original city having split into a few competing visions of Plato's ideas and having been moved by Zeus to a faraway planet, named Plato, in the future. Apollo's human form finally dies, but when he searches for Athena, he cannot find her anywhere. To solve the mystery, he is forced to work with an Alien god to take his family members throughout time and space to find clues Athena left with other philosophers as to where she went. Meanwhile, humans from Earth have finally discovered Plato, forcing the philosophical city into communication with the rest of the species for the first time.
My description of this book is horribly inadequate - the series is what I like to call "Philosophical Scifi/fantasy," concerned more about characters debating ideas than action. That said, unlike some other examples of the genre, the characters are fantastic and are not left out in favor of the philosophy. And the book features one of my favorite chapters of any work I've read....ever, in the concluding chapter written from the point of view of a robot who is also striving to live by Plato's ideals.
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Review on twitter begins with this thread HERE:
Rosewater is a very strange story that is hard for me to describe beyond what's in that twitter review (since I haven't reread it in quite some time). Unlike most scifi/fantasy that gets highlighted in the U.S., Rosewater takes place in a future Nigeria, where an alien being appeared and now lives in a dome. The world is oddly changed by the presence of the alien - people have manifested psychic like abilities and can interact in a strange psychic sphere. But these sensitives are seemingly beginning to die, and protagonist Kaaro, one of these psychics who helps the dystopian government with interrogations, has begun to see on the psychic plane a being whose avatar looks like a butterfly.
I don't want to try to describe any further without a reread, but this book is definitely freaky (Sex with psychic butterflies is strange) and very non-western-centric, and comes together to make a powerfully gripping if cynical narrative. Really recommended for someone who wants a SciFi book that is from a different perspective and doesn't mind it being a little weird.
One thing to add that wasn't in the above review: the author has since signed a new deal to write and have published two sequels to this book. So this will be the first book in a trilogy, and I highly look forward to it.
An Earthly Crown/His Conquering Sword by Kate Elliott
Review on twitter begins with this thread HERE:
This Book is technically two books, but the author originally intended for them to be one book titled "The Sword of Heaven" and I read them both as part of a collection, so I'm including them together on this list (neither forms a complete book without the other). This story is the second part of Kate Elliott's Jaran series, a scifi/fantasy (there are elements of both) and romance story. You need to read the original Jaran first before reading this story, but Jaran is excellent and well worth reading on its own.
As with the rest of the series, this book features a persistent conflict caused by Tess Soerensen, a human whose brother Charles is the leader of humanity in its hidden resistance to the alien empire which has subsumed it, and her love of the more primitive Ilya Bakhtiaan, the leader of a clan of nomads - the "Jaran" - on the interdicted planet of Rhui, who knows nothing of the conflict in the stars. Tess is torn between her duty toward her brother and her husband Ilya, and by her knowledge of technology that could possibly be used to expand his life....but whose use could possibly cause him great mental distress and could massively affect the balance of power on the planet. And when Charles visits Tess and the Jaran alongside a theatre troupe, the resultant combination of peoples and loves threatens to tear everything apart.
Phenomenal characters, great romance and an excellent story make this two-book story a near perfect combination that I strongly recommend to anyone who enjoys the romance/genre combination. Sadly the Jaran series only goes one book further before the author had to stop due to them not selling well enough to justify more books, but this duo itself manages to be a perfect story beginning middle and end.
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
Review on this blog posted HERE.
In Other Lands is a Young Adult Fantasy Novel that focuses in large part (though not wholly) on romance. Originally published piecemeal on the author's blog before she was convinced to turn the story into a full published novel, it is an incredibly sweet and fantastic tale of an incredibly awkward, obnoxious, opinionated, yet somehow lovable (to us at least), young boy named Elliot as he goes to magic school in a magic land - the Borderlands - that seems to believe war is the best default approach to relationships between different species. Each part of the book deals with a different year in Elliot's life, as he grows from age 13 to 17, as he attempts to try and convince the Borderlands to give peace a try instead of war, and more importantly, to find a place where he belongs and a person who might really love him.
Utterly sweet and joyous in its conclusion, it's the type of book where you'll be torn between not wanting to read onward because you care so much about the characters you don't want to see them hurt, but also can't help but read further to see what happens to them - the book's humor mind you really helps the reader get through the heartbreak Elliot suffers at times. And the end result is so lovely that all the heartbreak is easily forgivable.
The Tiger's Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera
Review on this blog posted HERE.
The Tiger's Daughter is a love story set in an Asian-Inspired Epic Fantasy world. Shizuka is the heir to the Imperial Palace of Hokkaro (basically fantasy China), the daughter of a legendary warrior and the Empire's most famous poet, who shows even at an early age some seemingly divine powers. Shefali is the daughter of the leader of the Qorin (basically Mongolian hordes) with a brilliant talent at using a bow to hunt. Since sharing the same omen at birth, the two have been driven together by fate as being destined for greatness, and as they grow they come to love each other. But the world they are in is a dangerous one and Shizuka is not one to cower at its perils - instead driving the two of them forward to meet their apparent destinies as saviors of the land. But what she did not count on was the hardships their love would face as a result of the Beasts, Demons and other Humans who roam the land.
Often sweet and often heartbreaking, The Tiger's Daughter grabs you from the get-go with some absolutely incredible characters, even the minor ones. It's the first in a trilogy, but hardly needs any sequels to be an absolutely fantastic love story, with an ending that feels so deserved it just made ma happy. And the book even contains a short story at the end of the prior generation, which is just charmingly delightful.
Impostor Syndrome by Mishell Baker
Review on this blog posted HERE
Impostor Syndrome is the final book in Mishell Baker's "Arcadia Project" trilogy, a series featuring Millie Roper, a double amputee with Borderline Personality Disorder who is drafted into the Arcadia Project - a global organization that handles interactions between humans and Fae, who live in a parallel world - known as Arcadia - but have a need to come to our world to find their "Echoes." Through two books (Borderline and Phantom Pains), Millie finds herself discovering a forgotten truth about the Fae and Arcadia, and causing a civil war between branches of the Arcadia Project, and being looked to for leadership in the result.
Impostor Syndrome concludes the trilogy as Millie attempts to plan and lead her colleagues in pulling off a pair of major heists - one in the human world and one in the Fae world - in order to resolve the conflicts in both worlds. But Millie's emotional balance, as well as the emotional balance of her friends (who also have their own mental issues), is not exactly ideal for pulling off such complicated schemes - nor to deal with the crazed fae and humans who have their own agendas.
The book goes from a crazy heist novel with incredible personal stakes to an incredibly personal climax as Millie struggles to identify who she is as a person and leader through her own disorder, and while bittersweet at the end, finishes perfectly. It makes reading the merely good first novel in the series (Borderline) absolutely worth it.
Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman
Review on this blog posted HERE:
Tess of the Road is technically the third book set in Rachel Hartman's "Seraphina" universe, but it is essentially a stand alone novel that requires no prior background knowledge. Which is good because nearly everyone* should read this book. The book follows its lead character, the eponymous Tess, who was once an adventurous child who wanted to follow in the footsteps of a fictitious adventure/pirate hero....but now finds herself miserable, treated as the shame of her family due to a mistake, having lost her own child from her teenage pregnancy, and on the verge of being committed by her family to a convent. Instead, she takes a pair of good walking boots from her sister Seraphina, leaves behind her beloved twin sister and tries to walk on the road, alongside a childhood friend - the pseudo-dragon-like creature Pathka, with the eventual long term goal of finding the mythological World Serpents. Along the way, Tess and Pathka come across people in various states of distress and happiness and Tess beings to learn more about the World and herself.
*The sole exception to this I suspect is people who have an absolute aversion to reading any book that includes rape - as rape is a part of Tess' backstory and is the root cause behind Tess' shame and pain throughout the book. But this is a book about Tess trying to find a way to move forward and it does not make light of the topic, and thus I think even those who usually avoid the topic will find this book rewarding. But I understand if not.
What makes Tess of the Road so damn fantastic is that while this is a book about the main character finding herself after a tragic past, it's also a story in which she doesn't quite find the answers at the same time. Tess is in a better state at the end of the book than the beginning, but she is not fully healed, and while the book has provided her with numerous answers to her questions, these answers are not always consistent with one another and the book does not posit that any of these answers are specifically correct. Moreover, the characters that Tess meets and the stories she encounters feel incredibly real, even when we spend very little time with them, making this journey just a fantastic, if sometimes difficult, read. Absolutely recommended.
Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman
Review on this blog posted HERE:
Like some of the other books on this list (The Parable books for example), Terra Nullius is an incredibly brutal book, that is not one that's meant to be enjoyed. Yet it is a book that is incredibly powerful and in my opinion a must read for anyone who can stomach it - and honestly, I think people should try to stomach it, because it's that important and none of the brutality is unnecessary.
Terra Nullius is a book written by an Indigenous Australian author and is clearly based upon the treatment of her people (the title refers to the declaration that Australia was Terra Nullius - No Man's Land - despite the people living there well before the Europeans came). This is a science fiction novel (how it's Science Fiction is a bit of a twist, so I'll be a little vague here) centering around Natives on the run and attempting to survive in a land taken over by Settlers from a distant land with an overwhelming technological and scientific edge - a Settler people who treat the Natives like animals, using them as slaves and attempting to re-educate them for their own good.
Naturally, this is not a book that lends itself to enjoyment. But it does an incredible job showing the horrors of what happened at the hands of colonists, in a fashion that should make an impact on anyone who is an actual human being, regardless of their race or heritage. It never stops being incredibly compelling and powerful and I couldn't put the book down despite my growing dread as it went on that more bad things were going to happen, and really is befitting of being on this list as a must-read.
In Three Parts Dead, new Craftswoman Tara Abernathy is recruited by experienced Craftswoman Elayne Kevarian to the craft firm of Kelethras, Albrecht and Ao to resurrect a dead god, Kos, who mysteriously died in the city of Alt Coulomb when he suddenly didn't have enough power to satisfy his creditors (the whole thing is a metaphor for bankruptcy). But Tara soon finds that Kos' death was not an accident and that Kos was hiding a secret that could change the city forever. And when Kos's creditors hire Alexander Denovo, the megamaniacal professor who got her expelled (and thrown off a cliff) from the Hidden Schools where she was trained, she finds herself forced to team up with a junior Priest, a Cop who is addicted to outside power, a vampire pirate and a gargoyle in order to not only save the City, but to prevent herself from falling under Denovo's evil control.
If you want a book that's a fantasy adventure/mystery, with some real world thoughts alongside several fantastic characters and a story with amazing pacing all the way through the end, Three Parts Dead is for you.
Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone (Craft Sequence):
Full Fathom Five is the fifth book chronologically (3rd by publishing order) in the Craft Sequence, but again it is fully stand alone and requires no background knowledge to read. It is similarly fantastic.
The Island of Kavekana is well known for its building of idols to order for customers to invest their soulstuff into (the whole thing is a metaphor for offshore banking and shell corporations) instead of investing in actual gods with actual uncontrollable wills. Kai is a priest of Kavekana, experienced in the creation and maintenance of these idols. But one day Kai sees an idol which failed due to bad investments and on instinct tries to jump in and save the idol - and while she fails, she seems to hear a series of strange words from the idol in the attempt. Meanwhile, Izza is a street urchin who has come to worship, being drawn by dreams, a strange new set of gods who are constantly being killed by the mysterious Smiling Jack. As the two of them independently investigate what is happening, the two discover a conspiracy on Kavekana which threatens to destroy the Island's very existence - and the ones behind the conspiracy will stop at nothing to prevent the two from revealing the secret.
Full Fathom Five is far less action packed (like that book our heroes are guile heroes, unlike that book our heroes don't use magic) than Three Parts Dead, but contains just as terrific a set of characters, a fascinating mystery, and a perfect conclusion. Again the pacing is extremely well done and everything comes together really nicely - Kai and Izza are some of my favorite characters ever at this point.
Amatka by Karin Tidbeck
Review on this blog posted HERE.
Amatka is short, but really really interesting. For more details, see the above review, but in short, like Annhilation it is probably fitting under the SciFi sub genre of "Weird" science fiction. That said, it has very different themes - it uses its dystopian setting to tell a story of the importance of language and freedom of such. Again it's a very weird book, and yet the overall story is tremendous.
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
Review on this blog posted HERE:
The Stone Sky is the conclusion to Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, and it is masterful. A new reader will be hopelessly lost if they haven't read the first two books, but if you have, this is a masterful conclusion to a fantasy trilogy featuring themes of oppression/discrimination/hatred-of-the-other in a fascinating dystopian world where the very Earth and humanity seem to be at "war."
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth J Dickinson
Review on twitter begins with this Tweet here:
The Traitor Baru Cormorant is a book that won't be for everyone - it tells the tale of Baru, a young woman in a world largely ruled by an Oppressive Empire which killed one of her fathers for his homosexuality (and would do the same to her if her own sexuality was known), who decides to try to change the world not by fighting the Empire, but by joining it and attempting to rise in power to change it from within. But when she's noticed by one of the secret counsel that rules the Empire, Baru is given the chance to govern and pacify a rebellious territory, leading to the question of how far (and how cruel is she willing to be) is she willing to go in order to affect change? How many people - whether they be simple allies or her actual lovers - is she willing to betray in pursuit of her goal? This is a tremendously dark tale that naturally does not end lightly (a sequel is now scheduled for 2018), but is absolutely tremendous.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Nearly every Octavia Butler book is well worth reading, but Parable of the Sower (and its sequel below) is particularly impactful in my opinion. In a dystopian near future, the United States has turned into an incredibly dangerous place where jobs are scarce and poverty, drugs, and crime makes it unsafe to be out in the open, only the wealthy are able to feel safe. Lauren Olamina was born the daughter of a preacher in a gated but far from wealthy community, but has come to devise her own religion: Earthseed, which worships the very idea of change. When her community is burned down and she is separated from her family, Lauren and a few stragglers takes a journey up the coast of California in search of safety, while Lauren attempts to preach her religion to those she comes upon. This is not a fun tale or even one with any promise of a happy ending, but it is incredibly impactful, and the dystopian world feels VERY relevant to today in light of the rise of Trump and open white supremacist rhetoric and the rise of inequality.
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
The Sequel to Parable of the Sower begins with Lauren Olamina and her husband and baby daughter trying to make their new community work. However, White Christian Fundamentalists, emboldened by a President promising to Make America Great Again, take over the town, imprison them, and abduct Lauren's daughter. As Lauren and her community attempt to get free and rebuild, will Lauren ever be able to find her daughter again? And if she does, will her daughter even know who she is? And what will become of Earthseed? Maybe the most devastating ending of any book I've ever read, but like its predecessor, incredibly relevant (it's probably the better of the two, but read Sower first).
Necessity by Jo Walton
Review on twitter begins with this tweet HERE.
The final book in Walton's Thessaly trilogy is not a stand-alone, but is clearly the stand-out book from the trilogy (I greatly enjoyed the first book "The Just City," but didn't love the middle book "The Philosopher Kings alas, though you should read it before reading this book.) The series features an odd premise - Athena gathers a bunch of individuals from different time periods and places them on an isolated Island so they can attempt to actually carry out Plato's Republic. The original people gathered from different times act as the original teachers in the City, while children originally being sold as slaves are purchased to be taught as per Plato's ideas. In the meantime, the god Apollo decides to take a human form in order to understand humanity and free will better, only to learn far more than he bargained for.
Necessity concludes the trilogy, with the original city having split into a few competing visions of Plato's ideas and having been moved by Zeus to a faraway planet, named Plato, in the future. Apollo's human form finally dies, but when he searches for Athena, he cannot find her anywhere. To solve the mystery, he is forced to work with an Alien god to take his family members throughout time and space to find clues Athena left with other philosophers as to where she went. Meanwhile, humans from Earth have finally discovered Plato, forcing the philosophical city into communication with the rest of the species for the first time.
My description of this book is horribly inadequate - the series is what I like to call "Philosophical Scifi/fantasy," concerned more about characters debating ideas than action. That said, unlike some other examples of the genre, the characters are fantastic and are not left out in favor of the philosophy. And the book features one of my favorite chapters of any work I've read....ever, in the concluding chapter written from the point of view of a robot who is also striving to live by Plato's ideals.
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Review on twitter begins with this thread HERE:
Rosewater is a very strange story that is hard for me to describe beyond what's in that twitter review (since I haven't reread it in quite some time). Unlike most scifi/fantasy that gets highlighted in the U.S., Rosewater takes place in a future Nigeria, where an alien being appeared and now lives in a dome. The world is oddly changed by the presence of the alien - people have manifested psychic like abilities and can interact in a strange psychic sphere. But these sensitives are seemingly beginning to die, and protagonist Kaaro, one of these psychics who helps the dystopian government with interrogations, has begun to see on the psychic plane a being whose avatar looks like a butterfly.
I don't want to try to describe any further without a reread, but this book is definitely freaky (Sex with psychic butterflies is strange) and very non-western-centric, and comes together to make a powerfully gripping if cynical narrative. Really recommended for someone who wants a SciFi book that is from a different perspective and doesn't mind it being a little weird.
One thing to add that wasn't in the above review: the author has since signed a new deal to write and have published two sequels to this book. So this will be the first book in a trilogy, and I highly look forward to it.
An Earthly Crown/His Conquering Sword by Kate Elliott
Review on twitter begins with this thread HERE:
This Book is technically two books, but the author originally intended for them to be one book titled "The Sword of Heaven" and I read them both as part of a collection, so I'm including them together on this list (neither forms a complete book without the other). This story is the second part of Kate Elliott's Jaran series, a scifi/fantasy (there are elements of both) and romance story. You need to read the original Jaran first before reading this story, but Jaran is excellent and well worth reading on its own.
As with the rest of the series, this book features a persistent conflict caused by Tess Soerensen, a human whose brother Charles is the leader of humanity in its hidden resistance to the alien empire which has subsumed it, and her love of the more primitive Ilya Bakhtiaan, the leader of a clan of nomads - the "Jaran" - on the interdicted planet of Rhui, who knows nothing of the conflict in the stars. Tess is torn between her duty toward her brother and her husband Ilya, and by her knowledge of technology that could possibly be used to expand his life....but whose use could possibly cause him great mental distress and could massively affect the balance of power on the planet. And when Charles visits Tess and the Jaran alongside a theatre troupe, the resultant combination of peoples and loves threatens to tear everything apart.
Phenomenal characters, great romance and an excellent story make this two-book story a near perfect combination that I strongly recommend to anyone who enjoys the romance/genre combination. Sadly the Jaran series only goes one book further before the author had to stop due to them not selling well enough to justify more books, but this duo itself manages to be a perfect story beginning middle and end.
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
Review on this blog posted HERE.
In Other Lands is a Young Adult Fantasy Novel that focuses in large part (though not wholly) on romance. Originally published piecemeal on the author's blog before she was convinced to turn the story into a full published novel, it is an incredibly sweet and fantastic tale of an incredibly awkward, obnoxious, opinionated, yet somehow lovable (to us at least), young boy named Elliot as he goes to magic school in a magic land - the Borderlands - that seems to believe war is the best default approach to relationships between different species. Each part of the book deals with a different year in Elliot's life, as he grows from age 13 to 17, as he attempts to try and convince the Borderlands to give peace a try instead of war, and more importantly, to find a place where he belongs and a person who might really love him.
Utterly sweet and joyous in its conclusion, it's the type of book where you'll be torn between not wanting to read onward because you care so much about the characters you don't want to see them hurt, but also can't help but read further to see what happens to them - the book's humor mind you really helps the reader get through the heartbreak Elliot suffers at times. And the end result is so lovely that all the heartbreak is easily forgivable.
The Tiger's Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera
Review on this blog posted HERE.
The Tiger's Daughter is a love story set in an Asian-Inspired Epic Fantasy world. Shizuka is the heir to the Imperial Palace of Hokkaro (basically fantasy China), the daughter of a legendary warrior and the Empire's most famous poet, who shows even at an early age some seemingly divine powers. Shefali is the daughter of the leader of the Qorin (basically Mongolian hordes) with a brilliant talent at using a bow to hunt. Since sharing the same omen at birth, the two have been driven together by fate as being destined for greatness, and as they grow they come to love each other. But the world they are in is a dangerous one and Shizuka is not one to cower at its perils - instead driving the two of them forward to meet their apparent destinies as saviors of the land. But what she did not count on was the hardships their love would face as a result of the Beasts, Demons and other Humans who roam the land.
Often sweet and often heartbreaking, The Tiger's Daughter grabs you from the get-go with some absolutely incredible characters, even the minor ones. It's the first in a trilogy, but hardly needs any sequels to be an absolutely fantastic love story, with an ending that feels so deserved it just made ma happy. And the book even contains a short story at the end of the prior generation, which is just charmingly delightful.
Impostor Syndrome by Mishell Baker
Review on this blog posted HERE
Impostor Syndrome is the final book in Mishell Baker's "Arcadia Project" trilogy, a series featuring Millie Roper, a double amputee with Borderline Personality Disorder who is drafted into the Arcadia Project - a global organization that handles interactions between humans and Fae, who live in a parallel world - known as Arcadia - but have a need to come to our world to find their "Echoes." Through two books (Borderline and Phantom Pains), Millie finds herself discovering a forgotten truth about the Fae and Arcadia, and causing a civil war between branches of the Arcadia Project, and being looked to for leadership in the result.
Impostor Syndrome concludes the trilogy as Millie attempts to plan and lead her colleagues in pulling off a pair of major heists - one in the human world and one in the Fae world - in order to resolve the conflicts in both worlds. But Millie's emotional balance, as well as the emotional balance of her friends (who also have their own mental issues), is not exactly ideal for pulling off such complicated schemes - nor to deal with the crazed fae and humans who have their own agendas.
The book goes from a crazy heist novel with incredible personal stakes to an incredibly personal climax as Millie struggles to identify who she is as a person and leader through her own disorder, and while bittersweet at the end, finishes perfectly. It makes reading the merely good first novel in the series (Borderline) absolutely worth it.
Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman
Review on this blog posted HERE:
Tess of the Road is technically the third book set in Rachel Hartman's "Seraphina" universe, but it is essentially a stand alone novel that requires no prior background knowledge. Which is good because nearly everyone* should read this book. The book follows its lead character, the eponymous Tess, who was once an adventurous child who wanted to follow in the footsteps of a fictitious adventure/pirate hero....but now finds herself miserable, treated as the shame of her family due to a mistake, having lost her own child from her teenage pregnancy, and on the verge of being committed by her family to a convent. Instead, she takes a pair of good walking boots from her sister Seraphina, leaves behind her beloved twin sister and tries to walk on the road, alongside a childhood friend - the pseudo-dragon-like creature Pathka, with the eventual long term goal of finding the mythological World Serpents. Along the way, Tess and Pathka come across people in various states of distress and happiness and Tess beings to learn more about the World and herself.
*The sole exception to this I suspect is people who have an absolute aversion to reading any book that includes rape - as rape is a part of Tess' backstory and is the root cause behind Tess' shame and pain throughout the book. But this is a book about Tess trying to find a way to move forward and it does not make light of the topic, and thus I think even those who usually avoid the topic will find this book rewarding. But I understand if not.
What makes Tess of the Road so damn fantastic is that while this is a book about the main character finding herself after a tragic past, it's also a story in which she doesn't quite find the answers at the same time. Tess is in a better state at the end of the book than the beginning, but she is not fully healed, and while the book has provided her with numerous answers to her questions, these answers are not always consistent with one another and the book does not posit that any of these answers are specifically correct. Moreover, the characters that Tess meets and the stories she encounters feel incredibly real, even when we spend very little time with them, making this journey just a fantastic, if sometimes difficult, read. Absolutely recommended.
Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman
Review on this blog posted HERE:
Like some of the other books on this list (The Parable books for example), Terra Nullius is an incredibly brutal book, that is not one that's meant to be enjoyed. Yet it is a book that is incredibly powerful and in my opinion a must read for anyone who can stomach it - and honestly, I think people should try to stomach it, because it's that important and none of the brutality is unnecessary.
Terra Nullius is a book written by an Indigenous Australian author and is clearly based upon the treatment of her people (the title refers to the declaration that Australia was Terra Nullius - No Man's Land - despite the people living there well before the Europeans came). This is a science fiction novel (how it's Science Fiction is a bit of a twist, so I'll be a little vague here) centering around Natives on the run and attempting to survive in a land taken over by Settlers from a distant land with an overwhelming technological and scientific edge - a Settler people who treat the Natives like animals, using them as slaves and attempting to re-educate them for their own good.
Naturally, this is not a book that lends itself to enjoyment. But it does an incredible job showing the horrors of what happened at the hands of colonists, in a fashion that should make an impact on anyone who is an actual human being, regardless of their race or heritage. It never stops being incredibly compelling and powerful and I couldn't put the book down despite my growing dread as it went on that more bad things were going to happen, and really is befitting of being on this list as a must-read.
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