Books: 20-25

[the_siobhan]

Binti, Binti: Home and The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor

The story take place centuries into the future. Earth is home just one of a multitude of known intelligent species. Binti is the member of a small desert tribe who earns a place in a galactic university famous for teaching the best minds in the universe.

There is an Arthur C Clarke quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." and the Binti series leans heavily on that concept - from the very start Binti's abilities are fantastic. If you like "hard" SF this will not be your thing. Personally I really liked it, it was very much a fantasy set in space.

When a girl goes out into the universe, the girl is changed. But the universe also is changed.



Network Effect and Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

MurderBot is one of my favourite characters ever. He's prickly, furious, addicted to soap operas, capable of incredible acts of violence and he imprints like a baby duck on anybody who treats him like a person.

"[They are] Just clients. And if anyone or anything tried to hurt them, I would rip it's intestine's out."


    

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison I think this was a TOR.com freebie - I can't even remember. The main character Maia is the half-goblin youngest son of the Elf Emperor, the result of an alliance marriage. They don't think much of goblins at the Elven court and he was banished to the hinterlands as a child, which is why he is not with his father and older brothers when their airship goes down and kills everybody on board. Just like that, Maia is the Emperor, barely more than a child and completely unprepared to deal with all the protocol and court drama and internal politics and assassination attempts. I loved the world-building and the story sucked me right in. I read a few reviews that complained that Maia is too good to be true, which made me kind of scratch my head. He's a good kid with an upbringing that managed to be both neglectful and abusive, desperately lonely and wanting nothing more than to be liked. Our standards for empathy are disturbingly low.