The year has come and gone, and so has January of the new year it seems. I normally try to get “The Year in Review” type posts out in the month of January, but a bunch of other priorities were taking up my time during January. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading though.
This list are some (but not all) of the books I read in 2018. The books that made this list are the memorable ones and/or the ones I had enough of an opinion to talk about. Whole series are grouped together to save on space.
The Expanse by James S. A. Corey
I love both the novels and the TV show of the same name, but each for different reasons. In the novels, the narrative often follows multiple characters, which sometimes makes any development in the plot take 50 or more pages. The third book Abbadon’s Gate is the slowest of them all, though Cibola Burn also took forever to get through. If I have any complaints, it’s that the backstory of Naomi Nagata is used as a plot device. Otherwise, The Expanse novels have a bunch of really cool characters in it. When I grow up, I want to be Christjen Avasarala, who is my absolute favorite literary character in the galaxy.
The TV show, meanwhile, is a fantastic adaptation of the books. It doesn’t try to fit a whole book into a single season, instead taking the time necessary to develop characters and ideas before acting on them. Whatever flaws the books had are fixed in the TV show, which means Naomi Nagata is given more nuance and motivation (and I am here. for. it.) We also see more beloved characters. Imagine my joy when Gunnery Sargeant Bobby Draper of the Martian Marine Corps appeared at the gate for the third season. It went something like this: XD Unfortunately, Avasarala’s penchant for swearing all but disappeared, which is a disappointment, but the rest of her character remained in-tact.
I will finish this series with the rest of the world. I eagerly await the coming fourth season of the TV show, and the next two installments of the novels. Recommended to fans of space opera and epic fantasy.
The Refrigerator Diaries by Catherine M. Valente
This is the feminist comic book manifesto we’ve all been waiting for. It plays on the concept of women who have been “fridged,” which are women who are maimed or murdered for the development of a male superhero. This phenomenon is seen a lot, and not just in comics: Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke and Vanessa in Deadpool 2 are the two examples I can think off the top of my head.
In The Refrigerator Diaries, (in)famous comic book women who have been fridged are given control of their own stories. If you know your comic book stories, you see through the veil like it wasn’t there. For someone who doesn’t know the stories, and I don’t for some of them, prior knowledge is not required.
Recommended to geek feminists and comic book fans.
Autonomous by Annaleigh Newitz
I remember this book getting a lot of hype in what I see of the sci-fi literature world. I’m normally receptive to all of that, meaning I tend to agree with everyone when they say “this book is awesome.” But the romances in this book bugged me and that severely took away from my overall enjoyment. There were vast differences in power for each romantic couple, and I couldn’t get passed that. I finished the book, and I followed the story to some extent, but I don’t remember it with fond memories.
Recommended to fans of classic sci-fi literature.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
This book is memorable because it’s the first nonfiction book I read from beginning to end. I wanted to read this book because it played a role in the Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Netflix special. So I borrowed it from a friends and read it within a week of starting. It made me cry twice and I felt as though I too went on an emotional healing journey in California and Oregon. There’s something about spending a couple months in the wilderness as a means to heal yourself. This book documents the journey of one woman, but I know at least one other person off the top of my head who has done something similar.
I recommend this book to your book club.
Speaking of, the movie Book Club features four women who attempt to discuss this book at the very beginning. They are all dismissive of it, and that’s when I decided that I didn’t like the movie Book Club. Not only was it about four women reclaiming love at some wise ages, but it’s written by a dude (though a woman shares a writing credit) and directed by a dude and I’m convinced men cannot get the female experience right. Full stop.
The Black Tides of Heaven / The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Lang
I hear there is more to this series coming out very soon.
Between you and me, Black Tides of Heaven is my favorite of the two. It’s about the childhood and young adulthood of an individual who chooses to become a man and has to deal with being underestimated at every turn. The Red Threads of Fortune is about a woman overcoming the trauma of losing her child, which is just as compelling as its companion. These novelettes are marvelous. If they were visual, they would be nothing less than gorgeous. They’re gay as hell, based in a silkpunk world, and focus on very human experiences and their relation (or lack thereof) to an overall resistance movement against the government.
I can’t wait to see what this author does next. Recommended to all the nonbinary-identifying folk I know.
Uprooted/Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
I’ve only read 1-1/2 books of the Temeraire series, and that’s all I knew about Naomi Novik’s work going into Uprooted. It had a fairy tale premise with that vague familiar-but-not-to-me feel about it. I loved Uprooted, and I loved Spinning Silver, each for their own reasons.
Uprooted features a young woman coming to terms with her magic and falling in love with her teacher, who’s a wizard and has been for a couple hundred years and has a bigger heart than he lets on. I was a bit too focused on the romance but only because the narrative was not. It also equalizes the power dynamic between the two romantic leads. I otherwise loathe student/teacher romances.
Spinning Silver is about the daughter of a money lender who starts collecting the debts her father refuses to collect. This draws the attention of an ice elf, and that leads from one thing to another. This is also about the daughter of an alcoholic farmer that reclaims her life by working at the house of the money lender, and a low-tier noble’s daughter becoming the unexpected princess of the land. These three young women hold the fate of the kingdom in their choices, and the balance between them all was marvelously done.
I recommend both books to fans of fairy tales and high fantasy.
The Indranan War Trilogy by K. B. Wagers
In a sentence: A gunrunner (smuggler) survives an assassination attempt and is called home to her empire to be the next empress. Featuring a matriarchal society, a men’s organization calling for more rights for men, a main character that navigates her nobility by using tricks she learned as a gunrunner, and (my favorite worldbuilding trope in the history of literature) aristocracy in space.
I literally read all three books within a week of each other. It’s edge-of-your-seat action, compelling characters, more assassination attempts you can shake a gun at, and every moment is a wheeling good time. If I have any criticisms, it’s that the protagonist’s gunrunning background could have played a bigger role than it did (perhaps she recruits some gunrunning buddies as spies instead of learning gunrunning buddies were spies to begin with). Otherwise, it’s a good series that needs more attention.
Recommended for fans of Star Wars and Firefly.
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Behold, a lone heroine who must learn the value of friendship/family/teamwork/etc. the hard way. I loved that this was a fantasy setting featuring Navajo culture and folklore. And the heroine’s method of solving problems was pointing a gun at it and firing. Her new partner (though she’s loathe to call him that) is a silver tongue with magical abilities. Her grandfather-figure is a medicine man. And the story is about this woman attempting to outwit the gods. It’s good. Go read it.
Recommended to you. Yes, you. Read it.
Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
The works of Becky Chambers hold a special place in my heart for a reason I will one day write an essay about. Chambers’ characters are born from an innate compassion; everyone has this belief that life is sacred and you should be good to your fellow sentient beings. Despite that kindness, there is quite a lot of conflict that happens, and that’s all part of being human. Chambers knows how to weave typical human problems into a science fiction setting without losing focus of the characters’ humanity.
In Chamber’s Wayfarer series, of which this is the third installment, the Exodus Fleet has been referenced multiple times. We finally visit it in Record of a Spaceborn Few, and we do it by following a small ensemble of characters dealing with life after a disaster strikes one of the Fleet’s ships. What I find most compelling is the culture around the Exodus Fleet, particularly the lack of currency, which is born from floating through interstellar space for a couple hundred years in a very limited environment.
Don’t just read this book, read the rest of Chamber’s work too. Recommended for fans of space opera and people who like a literary twist in their genre fiction.
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
If you’ve met anyone who’s read All Systems Red (the first installment), then you’ll probably hear them rave about this series. It’s about a security robot that hacked its governor module (so The Company can’t tell it what to do) so it can slack off on the job and watch soap operas.
It’s the most relatable robot I’ve ever read and their adventures through space are a delight to read. Murderbot deadpans their emotions and gets frustrated with both humans and itself. They come to care for a group of humans that care about them, and that love drives them away in search of themselves. Read the Murderbot Dairies not for the existentialism, but for lines like “I was having an emotion and I hate that.”
Recommended to everyone.
What did you read this year? Give me recommendations in the comments!
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