Good Reads & Views

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Fiction

For readers who like: Space operas, the TV show Firefly, found family, and ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

What it’s about: Loner Rosemary Harper joins the motley crew of the Wayfarer, an aging and patched-up spaceship tasked with constructing wormholes for interstellar travel. When the rag tag crew members—who are wildly and imaginatively diverse—are offered the job of a lifetime, they agree to take on the challenge, despite the enormous risks involved. Narrated by multiple characters, this warm-hearted debut novel is a delight and a joy to read.

Series alert: This is the first book in the Hugo award-winning Wayfarers series. Titles can be read in any order—each title also works as a stand-alone. The follow-up titles—A Closed and Common Orbit and Record of a Spaceborn Few, and The Galaxy, and the Ground Within—are equally focused on character, complex relationships, and asking tough questions.

Visit Laura’s My Librarian Page

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Fiction

What it’s about: Set in post-apocalyptic Panga, tea monk Dex leads a satisfying life wandering the road, serving tea, and listening to their clients—until the urge for something more takes them off-road and on this gentle adventure. Then Dex encounters Mosscap, a wild-built robot, “offspring” of the robots that became self-aware and left Panga’s civilization centuries ago. Mossback has been sent to answer the question, “what do people need?” If they join forces, will either of the two find what they are looking for? A delightful, companionable read about friendship and discovery.

Who is this for? Fans of comfort-punk and hopeful science fiction will enjoy the excellent, effortless world-building, and the simple, whimsical, and introspective story with deep character development. It’s like a nice cup of hot tea—but exactly the right tea as prepared by a tea monk like Dex.

You might also like: The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune, The Bear by Andrew Krivak, The History of Bees by Maja Lunde, and The Wild Robot by Peter Brown.

Visit Laura’s My Librarian Page

 

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Fiction

The elevator speech, short version: There is a library between life and death. The books shelved there represent an endless variety of possible lives—each one offers the reader a chance to live a different life.

Wait—what?? Nora Seed is unhappy with her life and decides to end it, but instead of dying she lands in the Midnight Library, where she has the chance to try different versions of her own life—like new books—until she finds a life she truly wants to live. Guided by a thoughtful librarian, Nora makes new choices with each attempt at an alternate life; which decision will lead to her best life? Haig’s playful tone approaches difficult subjects—suicide, mental illness, and the quantum physics that make the Midnight Library theoretically possible—with a gentle hand. An engaging and whimsical story about living a fulfilling life.

You may also enjoy: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, another thoughtful story featuring a character living multiple versions of their own life; and Or What You Will by Jo Walton, starring another protagonist that attempts to re-write their story while hovering between life and death.

Visit Laura’s My Librarian Page

The Resisters by Gish Jen
Fiction

Read this if you: Like your dystopian fiction served up with a healthy dose of humor, think that a good game of baseball solves everything (can you say underground baseball league?), and believe anything can represent the Resistance, even knitting.

What it’s about: Imagine a future America—AutoAmerica—flooded due to climate change and watched over by an artificial intelligence known as “Aunt Nettie.” Society is divided into the “Netted”—those who live on dry land, and have work and college opportunities and privileges, and the Surplus—mostly people of color, or who aren’t Christian, or who are “odd-bodied,” eking out a living on soggy ground or on water. The story focuses on a Surplus family—former teacher Grant, activist Eleanor, and their baby daughter Gwen, who displays amazing baseball pitching ability from her crib. What gifts or consequences will Gwen’s golden arm bring to her family in an unequal society? Sensitive and thought-provoking yet charming.

What critics say: “The magic of Gish Jen’s latest novel, The Resisters, is that, amid a dark and cautionary tale, there’s a story also filled with electricity and humor.... Rippling with action, suspense and lovingly detailed baseball play-by-plays, there’s a sense throughout the book of both celebration and danger” (Diana Abu-Jaber, The Washington Post); “Jen has too much humor and heart as a writer to do a full-out futuristic nightmare. Instead, the feel of The Resisters is more like that noir sequence embedded within It's a Wonderful Life....” (Maureen Corrigan, NPR).

Visit Laura’s My Librarian Page

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Fiction

What it's about: Set in 1950s USA, a huge meteorite strikes off the East Coast, obliterating Washington DC and upsetting the climate. The International Space Coalition is created to get as many people off Earth as possible before it becomes uninhabitable.  But Dr. Elma York, a pilot and a "computer" for the ISC, can't help but notice only men are being selected to be astronauts. After an appearance on a children's show to explain rocketry, Elma finds herself dubbed the Lady Astronaut by the press. Now if only she can convince the ISC to take women seriously.

Reviewers say: "Readers will thrill to the story of this ‘lady astronaut’ and eagerly anticipate the promised sequels" (Publishers Weekly);  "A fast-forward thrill ride, Hugo Award winner Kowal's exciting alternate history...highlights the space race and the sexism of the time" (Library Journal).

Visit Kristin’s My Librarian Page

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
Fiction

What it’s about: In a world plagued by seismic upheaval and waves of disasters known as Seasons, there are people, called orogenes, who have special powers to control the land, but are tightly controlled by authorities. Three orogenes are at major turning points in their lives. Damaya has been torn from her childhood home; Syenite's life’s work is challenged; and Essun has set off on a vengeful pursuit of her husband, who murdered one of their children and kidnapped the other. The first of the Hugo Award winning Broken Earth series.

Why you might like it: Come for the excellent and fascinating world-building and the lyrical and gritty prose, but stay for the vivid, diverse, and intensely real characters. Essun is a rarity—a fierce and strong middle-aged heroine in a science fiction series.

Reviewers say: “Jemisin’s graceful prose and gritty setting provide the perfect backdrop for this fascinating tale of determined characters fighting to save a doomed world” (Publisher’s Weekly).

Visit Laura’s My Librarian Page

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
Fiction

Why you might like it: This post-apocalyptic robot western features a deeply sympathetic main character, Brittle, a caregiver model who no longer has a human to nurture. Action-packed, thoughtful, and laced with humor, this is a wild ride through a barren landscape.

What it’s about: It has been thirty years since the last human died, slaughtered by the robots they created. Brittle survives by culling parts of dying and dead robots, just managing to stay ahead of the hive mind of the robot overlords—the One World Intelligences known as OWIs—that are out to destroy all the individual robots that remain. When Brittle is attacked by another scavenger after her own parts, she sustains damage to her core, and will die if she can’t find new parts. Then a group of rebels fleeing the OWIs offer her access to secret treasure trove of parts in exchange for leading them through the wasteland known as the sea of rust. Haunted by memories of the war with the humans, wracked with guilt and ready to face her own death, Brittle decides she has nothing to lose by joining the rebels.

Visit Laura's My Librarian page

Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar
Fiction

This weirdly warm and wacky space adventure takes the reader deep into the psyche of an intergalactic adventurer. Traveling through deep space can be incredibly lonely, but so can life on earth if, like astrophysicist Jakub Procházka, you are burdened by guilt. Feeling the weight of his Communist sympathizer father's sins, Jakub risks his life and his marriage to become the first astronaut for his country, embarking on a mission to Venus and leaving his wife Lenka behind. Lonely and heartbroken by his failed love, Jakub meets (or imagines) a garrulous, Nutella-addicted space spider while en route to deadly cloud of space dust. Existential conversation ensues. As Jakub and his arachnid companion approach the lethal dust cloud, their mutual survival may be impossible. This surprisingly jubilant and touching novel is for adventurous readers.

Visit Laura's My Librarian page

Crosstalk by Connie Willis
Fiction

Want to get more connected with your love interest? Briddey Flannigan does in this quirky novel that blends screwball romantic comedy with science fiction. In the near future, a trendy new surgery known as EED makes it possible to open emotional pathways between two people. Briddey plans to get the surgery with her co-worker and boyfriend Trent, despite objections from her nosey Irish-American family and her nerdy colleague, C. B. Schwartz. But soon after the EED, Briddey realizes that she isn’t connected with Trent; instead, her head is filled with C. B.’s thoughts. Briddey’s desperate attempts to keep her telepathic connection with C.B. a secret lead to a series of hilarious misunderstandings as well as some frightening threats to her privacy and sanity. This satirical yet warm-hearted commentary on modern society dependent on electronic connections might make you want to disconnect with your technology, but you’ll be laughing while you do it.

Visit Laura's My Librarian page

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Fiction

This National Book Award and Pen/Faulkner Award finalist begins its story on the night a famous actor dies on stage and an extraordinarily fast-acting flu emerges on its deadly path to wipe out most of the world’s population.  Kirkus, in a starred review, says that "Mandel's solid writing and magnetic narrative make for a strong combination in what should be a breakout novel." Jumping back and forth between different time periods, this book is literary, suspenseful, and post-apocalyptic. And there are Shakespeare performances,  before and after the calamity. The story made this reader wonder what she would do if a downfall of civilization were to occur during her lifetime. Highly recommended