5typos.net
Books of Winter 2016
Here are the books I read over the past 6 months. As usual, the fiction ones were on Kindle, and the non-fiction as audiobooks.
Fiction
Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle. |
★ recommended
I was in the mood for a disaster book that dealt with the aftermath, and on that it delivers. The book is from the 70’s, which is fun for the prehistoric tech enviroment, but not so much for some flat (and sexualized) female characters.Killfile by Christopher Farnsworth. |
★ recommended
Fun action-thriller page turner with believable superpower (as in good balance of superpower versus its downside). This is a perfect weekend vacation book.Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past) by Cixin Liu, Ken Liu |
★ recommended
The final book in The Three-Body Problem trilogy. Among the best Sci-Fi I’ve read. I don’t think it is my favorite of the three, but that’s not saying much given how I love the first two. If you enjoy mind-stretching Sci-Fi, read these books.Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. |
☆ skip it
Great premise, powerful start, but it lost me in the second half. Maybe I was expecting more Sci-Fi, and it ends up being more action thriller. If you like do-over books give it a try, but I just went through the motions in the end.The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty) by Ken Liu |
★ recommended
Borderline fantasy — or as much fantasy as Game of Thrones is. This feels more of an early Roman or Japanese empire story set in a fantasy geography. Fun story with very strong characters.The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth Book 1) by N. K. Jemisin. |
★ recommended
Fascinating fantasy world. Actually, the world itself is a character, which in a novel with very strong characters says a lot. I’m likely in for the whole series.The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth Book 2) by N. K. Jemisin |
★ recommended
Suffers a bit as a sequel, but still a great read. It advances the story nicely to the next book, which I’ll read for sure.Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky |
★ recommended
A new classic hard Sci-Fi about humans leaving earth for the stars… without much of the usual cliches involved. While never dense, it gets a bit slow sometimes, but it’s for good reasons and you get rewarded for it. Among my favorite books of 2016/2017.Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. |
★ recommended
Not my typical fiction book, it’s basically a combination of deeply studied viking folklore stories put together, which makes a somewhat coherent book — as much of folklore does. I read it because I love Gaiman and was somewhat intrigued by the topic. I enjoyed it a lot more than expected.
Non-fiction
How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise by Chris Taylor |
★ recommended
Rogue One was coming and I wanted a Star Wars fix. It’s a journalist view of the Star Wars property, written by a fan. It worked really well for me, since it steps back and look at the big holes in the universe, without loosing the love for it.A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories) by Nigel Warburton. |
★ recommended
I thought this was going to be a copycat of A Little History of the World1, but was gladly disappointed. If you struggle like me to put historic characters in context — or in a timeline — this is a great book. Complex concepts are explained as simply as possible, and very dense ones are highlighted enough so you can look for more if interested.
Just realized I didn’t review that book, will add soon.↩︎