Novel recommendations for September 2015
Last month I named my favorite science fiction and fantasy novels for the first part of 2015. As a continuing effort to highlight novels worth reading, I've updated the list by asking people to recommend their own favorite SF/F novels of 2015.
I've arranged the list starting with those novels which received the highest number of recommendations. The people who made the recommendations are listed at the bottom. While a number of authors recommended novels, none of them were allowed to name their own works.
I plan to update this list on a monthly basis through the end of the year, so if you have SF/F novels to recommend send them my way. Please limit recommendations to two novels per month per person. Yes, this means people who already recommended novels can send more recs each month. And before anyone even tries, it's not hard to figure out when people are trying to game my tally system. So don't ask people to flood me with recs for your novel.
In addition, I'm also compiling lists of recommended 2015 short stories, anthologies & story collections. So send those recs to me.
Novels with multiple recommendations
- Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear (5 recs)
- The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard (4 recs)
- Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (4 recs)
- The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (4 recs)
- The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (4 recs)
- Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (3 recs)
- Uprooted by Naomi Novik (3 recs)
- Updraft by Fran Wilde (3 recs)
- Court of Fives by Kate Elliott (2 recs)
- The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins (2 recs)
- Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor (2 recs)
Novels with one recommendation
- The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
- Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak
- Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
- Long Black Curl by Alex Bledsoe
- Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs
- Tracker by C.J. Cherryh
- Time Salvager by Wesley Chu
- Gemini Cell by Myke Cole
- White City by Seb Doubinsky
- Unseemly Science by Rod Duncan
- Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
- Dead Ice by Laurell K. Hamilton
- Day Shift by Charlaine Harris
- Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
- Dark Heir by Faith Hunter
- Angles of Attack by Marko Kloos
- Cold Iron by Stina Leicht
- Labyrinthian by Sunny Moraine
- The Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naam
- Touch by Claire North
- The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
- Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
- Windswept by Adam Rakunas
- Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas by Kazuki Sakuraba
- All That Outer Space Allows by Ian Sales
- Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
- An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
- Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer
- A Headful of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
- Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig
- Weathering by Lucy Wood
Many thanks to everyone who shared with me their favorite SF/F novels of 2015: Aliette de Bodard, Richard Bowes, K Tempest Bradford, Maurice Broaddus, Adam Callaway, Shaun Duke, Andy Hedgecock, S.L. Huang, Aidan Moher, J. Oliver, Jeffrey Petersen, Joe Sherry, John H. Stevens, Charles Tan, Jetse de Vries, Eddi Vulić, Sean Wallace, Paul Weimer, Cynthia Wentworth, AC Wise. There were also a handful of people who asked to remain anonymous.
If anyone sees errors on this list (such as novels which weren't first published in 2015), let me know.
Update: I removed Pivot by L.C. Barlow and Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett because they were published in previous years. I also moved The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson to my pending short story post because it is a novella.
Praise for my short story "Duller's Peace"
My short story "Duller's Peace" is now available in the September 2015 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. So far the story is receiving rave reviews.
- Bob Blough at Tangent calls my story a "moral indictment of other nations trying to control a people or a country" and adds that "This is a powerful story that is extremely relevant in the world today, yet is clearly true SF as well. Well done, Mr. Sanford, well done."
- Sam Tomaino at SFRevu says "Duller's Peace" is "another well-crafted story from Sanford" with a real chilling ending.
- K. Tempest Bradford calls the story "Highly Recommended" on io9, adding: "An intense distopian world in which a government achieves control through nanotechnology that reaches into everything, including your thoughts. The concept is creepy, mostly because it’s not far fetched. I can see people balking at the ending, I say it’s perfect."
- Author Suzanne Palmer says
The print edition of Asimov's is available in store while the digital edition can be purchased for the Amazon Kindle and many other ebook formats. But don't wait — if you want to read the story you need to do so before single-issue copies disappear from stores and online in the next week or two.
Why no unsweet iced tea in Canada?
I was told something today which disturbed me to the bottom of my tea-drinking soul. I stopped by the Tim Hortons near work and ordered an unsweet iced tea. Turns out the store manager is Canadian and was amused by how many people in the United States drink unsweet iced tea.
"Did you know you can't even order unsweet iced tea in Canada," he said. "People wouldn't even know how to make it for you. All the iced tea in Canada is sweet."
I'm sure that last part was hyperbole, and mind you the manager wasn't hating on unsweet iced tea. After all, it's far more healthy than almost any other cold beverage aside from water.
But I'm now curious. Why is unsweet ice tea not a thing in Canada?
Novels worth reading, August 2015 edition
So far 2015 has been a very good year for genre reading. During my recent trip to Japan I read two novels which I highly recommend:
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
- Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer
Murakami's novel is obviously amazing, being recognized as a modern classic. But it's also an insightful, beautifully written science fiction story which dazzled me all the way to a very disturbing yet perfect ending. Tanzer's novel is one of the best first fantasy novels I've read this year and a fun, captivating story with a main character I loved. I definitely want to read more adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp.
Earlier this year I read Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings, which I also really enjoyed and highly recommend. The novel is a dynamic epic fantasy which avoids the cliches and inanities plaguing most epic fantasies, which are usually far from being at all associated with the word "dynamic." Hell, most epic fantasies wish they had even a little of Liu's ability at dynamic writing.
Let me repeat that word. Dynamic. Always wanted to use the word "dynamic" multiple times in a review.
I also recently read Marko Kloos' Frontlines series (Terms of Enlistment, Lines of Departure and Angles of Attack) and found it to be a good addition to the space opera genre. I'll definitely read more of the series when new editions are available. This is also a series which improves with progressing novels, with this year's Angles of Attack being my favorite.
I'm also currently reading or about to read the following novels:
- The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard
- Red Girls: The Legend of the Akakuchibas by Kazuki Sakuraba
- City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
- The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
As a side note, I read Okorafor's Lagoon last year and really enjoyed it. I often dislike first-contact novels but Okorafor transcends that subgenre's usual cliches and melodrama by focusing instead on how human interactions would be challenged and changed by aliens. The novel was released last year in Europe but is only now available in the U.S. Highly recommended.
I'm also looking forward to a number of pending releases, including
- Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
- Empire Ascendant: Worldbreaker Saga #2 by Kameron Hurley
I'd love other recommendations of 2015 novels to read, or any good novels from previous years which I've missed. If you have any recs, let me know.
Update: I can't believe I forgot to mention Signal to Noise by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. I really enjoyed the lyricism of this novel but had forgotten it came out this year, not in 2014. I also should have included The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi on my list of novels I'm currently reading or about to read.
Some very good points from a Sad Puppy
Nathaniel Givens supports the Sad Puppy goals but has major disagreements with some aspects of this year's campaign. He's also written a very good post pointing out these issues and making suggestions for next year's Sad Puppy slate:
I support the stated goals of Sad Puppies, and I hope they run the campaign again next year, but only on the following conditions:
- Pick better books. Some of the picks were great. Others were… really not.
- Pick the books for the right reasons: because the work is good, not because the author is important / wrote a lot / etc.
- Make the pre-nomination process more transparent.
- Do not ask for or notify any authors that their works will be included. This puts the authors in a terrible position and is not a standard practice.
- In every category, nominate either 1-2 works or 8+ works. Doing this prevents the accusation of slate-voting and will also make it very unlikely that the Puppies will sweep any categories.
- Tell people that this is the plan, and do so earlier.
If they don’t do this–and it looks like they won’t–then I’m going back to my default position: A pox on both your houses.
I agree with Givens that if the puppies did this then there would be far less backlash to their campaign. And I say that as someone who disagrees with slate voting and opposed this year's puppy slate along with their tactics and political views.
What outraged me the most about this year's puppy campaign is they blocked any non-slate stories or people from making the Hugo ballot in most categories. It was this fact which damned them in my eyes. Yes, I disagree with the puppies' political goals. But I've disagreed with many people in the genre and still enjoyed reading their stories and working with them.
As Givens states in his post, the problems with the puppies' campaign were revealed when The Three-Body Problem was initially denied a slot on the final ballot. When the novel made the ballot after another novel was withdrawn by its author, a number of the puppies said this was exactly the type of science fiction they want to see on the ballot.
So basically there was a novel many of the puppies felt should win a Hugo, and which many others in the genre felt the same about, and it nearly didn't make the ballot because of the puppy campaign. That, in a nutshell, is the problem with blindly voting for a slate of nominees.
I read all the works on the puppy slate and I agree with Givens that many of them were not Hugo worthy. That fact, along with people being outraged about the slate voting, caused the results we witnessed.
I doubt the puppies will listen to me but for what it's worth, Givens is correct. If next year's puppy campaign follows his advice, I imagine they'd be far more successful.