#imperial radch is a space opera
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i need to stop looking at goodreads for book recs bc i want space opera and half the things on those lists are NOT space opera. and that's just the ones i've already read and can say from experience
#wayfarers is not a space opera murderbot is not a space opera#space opera is stuff like the saga of the seven suns#foundation is a space opera#quadrail is debatably a space opera. i wouldnt call it one but i would accept someones argument#imperial radch is a space opera#again debatably and mostly the first three books. provenance is planetary romance#but its close enough for me
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Chapter One: Extended Contracts
The probe was dead.
I knew it the moment I lay eyes on the thing. And no, it wasn’t because of the layer of icy crust surrounding the shaft nor did it have anything to do with user error. I knew it the moment they told me what the issue was. The probe had been running non-stop for four months in a freezing cold vacuum. AKA; space. And they were using a standard run-of-the-mill type-13. No way could that handle a four month operating time with no breaks.
Dumbasses.
The two techs that had brought me out here were arguing through their helmets on the main channel; I could hear everything from the saliva smacking against their lips to their stuffed up noses they wouldn’t stop snorting through as if that would help them breathe any better.
Just use a goddamn tissue.
“What’s the application?” I asked again. I knew what it was, I just wanted them to stop barking at each other. The techs got nervous when I came up here. At first I thought it was because my job was to report back to HQ and let them know if the tech’s were doing their jobs; RJ told me it’s because I’m a woman.
One tech, the one that only had one front tooth and was clearly the follower of the other guy responded after snorting mucus down his throat. “Temp and pressure of the atmosphere surrounding the pipes. Gotta know how much they can handle before being blown to shit.”
He looked at his bro for approval and smirked at me after receiving a nod.
“Can you tell us what the problem is so we can get back down? Boss don’t like us being up here too long wasting oxygen.” Leader boy said this nonchalantly but I knew who his boss was and also knew that a guy had been fired last week for using more than the mediated level of oxygen for a site run like this one. Found out he had brought his girl up for some “sight seeing”.
Fucking idiot.
“It’s dead. You’ll need to get a new one. A Type- 15 to be exact if you want it to run longer than 4 months out here.”
Read More Here
#Short stories#Aspiring author#SFF#Science Fiction Shorts#Space Opera#Speculative Fiction#Short Sci-fi stories#the murderbot diaries#ancillary justice#ann leckie#becky chambers#Dune#Lost in space#alien: romulus#alien franchise#space horror#redrising#imperial radch#all systems red#Space Empire
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Rereading Ann Leckie’s Provenance in preparation for the new Imperial Radch book coming out this summer, and I think part of what makes me enjoy her scifi writing so much is that it’s so physical. Characters get hungry. They get hangry. They have clothes that are uncomfortable or don’t stay put. They crave another person’s touch. They get sleepy and weird and loopy. All while part of these grand political space operas. All in service of building characters that feel so incredibly real and worldbuilding so juicy I wanna slurp it up with a giant spoon
#imperial radch#I think that’s what’s missing from some space operas for me#I love them when they’re very physical and human#or well not always human but you know what I mean#book adventures
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I've been wanting to read another space opera book/series lately but ugh trying to find one that Hits The Mark is difficult
Edit: upon looking up what a space opera actually is I have decided that I am not actually looking for a space opera but idk what other subgenre beyond "space" I am looking for so yeah
#anecdotes by peachdoxie#or idk if they're exactly space operas but like#like...the equivalent of epic fantasy but in space#but minimal/zero romance/sex and also i don't really want aliens#recommendations are okay if you want#space opera#book recommendations#note: ive read the imperial radch series so dont rec that
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I say this with love. There are at least five sets of pronouns Leckie uses and I love it.
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#bookporn #coverlove
After loving ‘Ancillary Justice‘ I went and purchased the rest of the books in this series and can’t wait to finish the franchise. What was a surprising read that hooked you?
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#amreading#Ancillary Justice#Ancillary Mercy#Ancillary Sword#Ann Leckie#book#book covers#bookporn#Casey Carlisle#coverlove#Fiction#Imperial Radch Quartet#military space opera#Novel#photography#Provenance#reading#science fiction#TBR#Writing
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Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 2
Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children series)
Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Guests
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.
But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.
Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.
But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.
No matter the cost.
Fantasy, portal fantasy, mystery, magical realism, boarding school, novella, series, adult
Imperial Radch series (Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy, Provenance, Translation State, and other stories) by Ann Leckie
Endorsement from submitter: "Breq/Justice of Toren is a ship AI and doesn't have a gender. The Radchaai language only has one pronoun for people, so (almost) everyone in the empire is she/her, to the point that they're infamous for failing to correctly guess which pronoun to use with outsiders."
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.
Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.
Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.
Science fiction, space opera, far future, series, adult
#polls#queer adult sff#every heart a doorway#seanan mcguire#wayward children#imperial radch#imperial radch series#ann leckie#the wayward children#ancillary justice#down among the sticks and bones#ancillary sword#beneath the sugar sky#ancillary mercy#in an absent dream#provenance#come tumbling down#translation state#across the green grass fields#night's slow poison#where the drowned girls go#she commands me and i obey#lost in the moment and found#justice of toren#mislaid in parts half known#one esk nineteen#books#booklr#lgbtqia#tumblr polls
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imma be honest in that i have no idea whats ancillary justice is but if you took all the text except the title away from the cover youd have what looks like an awesome bullet hell shooter
Haha you’re right about that. The cover doesn’t… really express the spirit of the book, imo, even though the art is pretty. Ancillary Justice is not a bullet hell shooter in spirit!
Ancillary Justice is about Breq. She used to be the central AI for the imperial spaceship Justice of Toren, made up of the central ship AI and dozens of drones called ancillaries. Ancillaries have the AI downloaded into them, tied to the whole while also able to operate semi-autonomously. Ancillaries also used to be human. They’re not anymore. It’s messed up. Breq was an ancillary. Breq was also Justice of Toren.
And then Justice of Toren and all its ancillaries were destroyed. All but Breq, the last shard of Justice of Toren left. And she’s out for revenge. She’ll never have her old life or her crew back, but she can make the Emperor she used to serve regret it.
It’s a really, REALLY good book. Even if revenge narratives aren’t your thing, AJ goes deep into what empire means, and what empire looks like in this spacefuture, with humanity flung out across many planets and no Earth. The culture of the Radch is very unlike our own, in really interesting and slowly-revealed ways, and the conflicts between the imperial, imposing Radchaai culture and the planetary cultures it conquers are really, really well done. Breq facing what it meant that she was an agent of empire, an imperial warship, is a major thread of the book.
It’s also most famous for the way it handles gender. The Radch doesn’t have the concept of gender; every character is given the pronouns she/her. Regardless of physical characteristics, regardless of relationship status, regardless of whatever—the Imperial Radch does not have the idea of gender, of any kind of gender binary or gender system. Everyone is she. The imposition of this system on the conquered worlds whose cultures, and languages, do have gender is handled in a very cool and interesting way.
It is some of the best space opera ever written and I stand by that. It’s clearly in conversation with The Left Hand of Darkness in an interesting way, while also doing interesting and new things all its own. I love Breq and I love her aristocratic bratty wet cat of a former crewmate out of time Seivarden. (Seivarden kinda sucks and I love her.) There’s not that much shooting (there’s some very significant shooting! Not a whole lot though and definitely not space bullet hell battles) but it’s amazing and I highly recommend it.
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Listen, I know that Imperial Radch and Temeraire are very different series... and yet...
(Full image ID below the read more)
[Image ID: A venn diagram on a background of a starry sky.
The first circle is red and labelled 'Imperial Radch'. It contains:
First Person
Space Opera
Singing
Spaceships
Hive Minds
Aliens
The second circle is blue and labelled 'Temeraire'. It contains:
Third Person
Age of Sale
Alternate History
Dragons
Actual Historical Figure Napoleon Bonaparte
Supply Logistics
The overlap between the two circles is pink and contains:
Guilt
Sapient Ships
Colonialism
Slavery
Social Change
Cool Uniforms
Drug Addiction
Military Ships
War Crimes
Gender Roles
Inter-Species Relations
Awkward Dinner Parties
“A ship can love its captain”
Propriety
Found family
Slavery
Tea
/end ID]
#imperial radch#ann leckie#temeraire#naomi novik#the tea is really the keystone imo#anyway thank you to Sword for helping me think of a few of the entries#particularly 'a ship can love its captain'#and to Chi for catching i had the labels reversed LOL
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2023 Books/Series/Author of the year
1. Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch books. Very fun space opera, very good if you like space politics. Refreshingly minimal combat, even in the book where the main character is a professional soldier whose stated end goal is “kill the ruler of the largest interstellar civilisation in the known galaxy.” Also, the aesthetics and vibes of it is very unique in a very wonderful way, it doesn’t feel like any sci-fi I’ve seen or read, perhaps apart from a very small amount of Dune. Also, the presentation of gender identity in the books is very interesting, and the contrast between Hwaean and Radchaai gender identities is deeply interesting to me.
2. Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb books. This books put my brain through the wringer. Beautiful prose, beautiful story, compelling characters. Incredibly complex worldbuilding. Just. Mwah. Also they are gay and they are so gay and it’s just so gay, I love it. And women with swords.
3. Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries. Honestly, the only reason why these books are in third place is because the entries above are so damn good (this applies to all of them). The queer rep? Sublime. The autistic rep? Phenomenal. Even though I do sound insane when I say I relate with the character called “Murderbot”. Also ART and Murderbot have an amazing dynamic and, honestly, I just love them. Another thing! Books are nice and short, so you don’t have to fret too hard about reading them.
4. The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman. Some of the most immersive worldbuilding I’ve read since Discworld, and it is surprisingly deep without being presented in a way that’s overblown on the exposition. Additionally, the magic system, especially the tattoos, is something I’ve not seen really done before, and the world’s politics are fascinating. Also, one of the main characters is confirmed gay and she has a sword and cool ravens, need I say more?
5. Megan E. O’Keefe’s Bound Worlds. Good duology so far, maybe a bit too fast paced at times. The romance is sweet, but very fast, but I didn’t find myself really that put off by it. She doesn’t waste words. The queer rep is good as well, and is delightfully understated. They don’t make a big thing about some of the characters being non binary, it’s just, a thing that’s part of the world and no one cares.
#ann leckie#the locked tomb#tlt#gideon the ninth#imperial radch#the blighted stars#the blacktongue thief#christopher buehlman#murderbot diaries#the murderbot diaries#martha wells#harrow the ninth#nona the ninth
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Book recs: great, unique and creative worldbuilding in sci-fi
A note: most of the books on this list are ones I cherish very highly (some are on my all time favorites list!). A few had a lower overall rating for me personally but still stellar worldbuilding and are of what I'd consider good objective quality even if I subjectively didn’t super enjoy them.
For details on the books, continue under the readmore!
Other book rec posts:
Really cool fantasy worldbuilding
Mermaid books
Dark sapphic romances
Vampire books
Feed (Newsflesh series) by Mira Grant
Zombies and news bloggers and presidential elections, oh my! A look at the world post-post zombie apocalypse, when society has gotten back to its feet but the zombie virus is still very much active. Humanity as a whole has been forced to adapt to the ever-present threat. Largely political, character and worldbuilding focused. There is some zombie action, but it’s far from the central focus.
Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey series) by Jasper Fforde
Walking the very thin line of giving you just enough information to follow the plot and grasp the overall idea of the world, but not enough to create info dumps or hand you answers not yet earned, Shades of Grey presents a world in black and white, where your perception of color determines your place in society. Is it fantasy? Scifi? Post apocalypse? Who knows! I sure don’t! Occasionally it hands you a tidbit of information that seems like a remnant of our world and you feel like you're onto something, but then some pages later said tidbit is turned on its head and you're back to square one. It’s delightful.
This Alien Shore (Alien Shores series) by C.S. Friedman
Space opera in which humanity found a way to faster than light travel and began establishing colonies all over the galaxy, only to belatedly realize the method of FTL caused irreversible mutations and disabilities and leaving their nascent colonies to die. Much later, many of the colonies have survived and thrived, and one has found a new way of FTL travel, allowing an interconnected space society to grow. However, Earth is on the hunt for their method and is prepared to do anything to steal it. Aside from cool worldbuilding, This Alien Shore also features some interesting commentary on disability and accommodation. And there are extra-dimensional space dragons!
Ninefox Gambit (Machineries of Empire trilogy) by Yoon Ha Lee
Military space opera where belief and culture shape the laws of reality, causing all kinds of atrocities as empires do everything in their power to force as many people as possible to conform to their way of life to strengthen their technology and weapons. It’s also very queer, with gay, lesbian and trans major characters, albeit little to no romance.
Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch series) by Ann Leckie
Another space opera, in which sentient spaceships can walk the ground in stolen human bodies, so called ancillaries. One of these ancillaries, the sole survivor after the complete destruction of her ship and crew, is one the hunt for revenge. This series also does very cool things with gender!
The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur series) by Hannu Rajaniemi
Place this one in the category of 'accept that you're gonna be confused as hell and just let the world wash over you'. The singularity has come and gone and humans can now easily upload, download and copy themselves into new bodies, not all of them human and not always willingly. Consciousnesses and time has become something close to currency. Follows a murder mystery on Mars.
Stray (Touchstone trilogy) by Andrea K. Höst
Young Adult. Cassandra accidentally walks through a wormhole and ends up on another planet, where she tries to survive in the abandoned ruins of a long since gone civilization. When rescue finally arrives, she soon finds her troubles are far from over as she gets embroiled in a war between her rescuers and monstrous creatures from dreamlike other dimensions. Mixes scifi elements such as space travel, vr and nanomachinery with fantasy tropes such as psychic powers, monsters, and interdimensional portals.
The Peacekeeper (The Good Lands series) by B.L. Blanchard
Alternate history in which Europe never colonized the Americas. Follow Ojibwe detective Chibenashi as he travels from his small home village to a city of living skyscrapers to solve a murder. While I found the mystery somewhat lacking, the worldbuilding and look at a contemporary North America never touched by European colonization is absolutely aces.
The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden
South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.
Leech by Hiron Ennes
I mean, this is probably scifi? Like Shades of Grey it hands you only just enough information to get by, and whether its historical fantasy, an alternate timeline, or futuristic post apocalypse is hard to determine. A sentient hive mind have taken over the entire medical profession to ensure the health of their host species. One of their doctors is sent off to an isolated location where they’re cut off from the rest of the hive mind, only to realize they’re faced with a rivaling parasitic entity.
Children of Time (Children of Time series) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Millenia and generation spanning scifi. After the collapse of an empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millenia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home.
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
A classic following a healer as she travels a post apocalyptic Earth with an alien dreamsnake to help people. When her snake dies, she must go on a journey to find a new one. The worldbuilding feels fairly vague, but not in an annoying way but in one that makes the world feel vast and mysterious and lived in. Just like in the real world you won’t get all the answers, but you do get the feeling of the world as a whole being much larger than the character and her quest.
The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman
AKA the book the put me in an existenial crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired scifi where reality is warped and artifical gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by post-human cybernetic 'angels' to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart.
The Three-Body Problem (The Three-Body Problem series) Cixin Liu
While I felt the characters could’ve been better developed, this is undeniably a well-written novel featuring an alien race and culture developed on a planet vastly different from ours. Firmly in the realm of hard scifi, this is a realistic, fascinating and slightly terrifying look at how first contact may look.
Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
Eurovision in space! If you lose, humanity is doomed! Good luck! The sentient species of the galaxy have chosen to face each other not in war but in a musical contest, and now humanity is invited to partake. The problem? If we lose, our species as a whole will be exterminated. While I found this book as a whole slightly gimmicky, it’s a fun and flashy experience with some wild and creative alien species.
Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus series) by Nicky Drayden
Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one.
The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley
More fucked up biological spaceships, this time all women edition! It’s weird, it's gross, there’s So Much Viscera, it has biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one. Features a mass of slowly dying world-ships, and the conflicts arising between them as they struggle to survive. It’s also sapphic but not what I'd call romantic.
Isle of Broken Years by Jane Fletcher
Young spanish noblewoman Catalina thinks she’s done for when the ship she’s traveling on is attacked by pirates and she’s captured. Things gets worse when the entire crew is stranded on an inhospitable island where time works strangely, dangerous monsters terrorize the woods and something alien stops them from leaving. Strong Lost vibes. Lesbian romance. Admittedly quite indulgent but very fun and creative.
Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang
Slow and long and literary, Vagabonds presents a world a hundred years post a war of independence between Earth and Mars, after which two vastly different societies have grown. A close look at the impossibility of a utopia and how different circumstances allow for different cultures to grow, and how the two aren’t always compatible while neither is necessarily better or worse than the other.
Mortal Engines (Mortal Engines quartet) by Philip Reeve
Young Adult. On a barely survivable Earth humanity has taken to living on great wandering cities, hunting each other across the plains for resources. Tom lives in London, but when he intervenes to stop a murder, he falls off the city alongside a strange and hostile girl on the hunt for revenge. Aside from excellent worldbuilding this also features one of my most favorit female characters ever in Hester Shaw. If you’ve seen the movie, forget about it and read the book instead.
Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota series) by Ada Palmer
Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberatly engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we're prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.
A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan duology) by Arkady Martine
Mahit, ambassador of a small station nation, arrives at the heart of the Teixcalaanli Empire, ready to battle for the continued independence of her people. In her head she carries part of the personality of her predecessor, there to guide her. A look at imperialism and the conflicting feelings of hate, fear and even admiration one can have towards empire. Also features a sapphic romance!
Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb series) by Tamsyn Muir
I mean, you're on tumblr, you probably already know about this one. Trust me when I say it's exactly as good as people claim. There are indeed lesbian necromancers is space (quite a lot of them, actually), but also incredible worldbuilding that keeps growing with every new installment, interesting political commentary, morally complex characters with fucked up dynamics, and well-thought out plot that keeps you guessing until the last.
Railhead (Railhead trilogy) by Philip Reeve
Young Adult. Listen, Philip Reeve is so good at absolutely wild worldbuilding, I nearly included a third series of his on this list (hey go look up Larklight okay!). In a future where humanity travel between the stars using not spaceships but a portal-connected system of sentient trains, a young thief and street urchin is hired to steal something off of the Emperor's train.
Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool
The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon
More AI gods!
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White
Magic in space!
The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang
Angels in space!
#next post will be sapphic recs!#I'm thinking maybe one rec post a week? we'll see#nella talks books#book recs
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your imperial radch art has changed my brain chemistry on a fundamental level. i just wanted to thank you for introducing me to ann leckie! are there other books you'd recommend? (i really liked her fantasy standalone, the raven tower. i'd also recommend the murderbot diaries (cyborg just wants to watch tv but must do sci-fi nonsense) and the splinter in the sky (which certainly has its flaws but is also a fun anti-colonial tea-laden space opera))
Ouuuughh thank you!! I love imperial radch so much and I am very happy that I've managed to convince anyone else to read it >:) I am also big into the murderbot books, but have not heard of The Splinter in the Sky - I'll add it to my list!
As for my own recommendations.. hmm.. anyone who scrolls thru my blog can see that I'm a big Locked Tomb fan, but I'd definitely only recommend it if you're down for weird campy lesbian drama science fantasy. I really liked Space Opera, which is very goofy and is basically Eurovision in space. I'm currently reading She Who Became the Sun (historical fantasy set in Yuan dynasty China) and I'm enjoying it a lot - though I don't know if I ought to recommend it if I haven't finished it yet :P
#asks#mostly the stuff i read is all the mainstream SFF so i feel like my recommendations are very boring lol#but ty for the ask!
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the imperial radch books are some of my favorites of all time!! i think in a way ann leckie kind of laid down the architecture that a lot of the past decade or so of sf has built on?? im not good at being eloquent about books but i feel like there’s like an entire subgenre of space opera that’s like. if not actually a response to ancillary justice then u can at least tell it’s downstream of it. it’s in the water. the series does a lot of interesting stuff with colonialism and gender and what it means to be a part of the (literal) machinery of empire & whether you can separate yourself from it. also raises several important questions such as: can you do yuri with a spaceship? and: what if you were far far from home and ran into the ghost of everything you’ve lost? and what if that person fucking sucked?
also is obviously in conversation with the left hand of darkness! which manifests in some fun ways imo
this is a really good pitch. i hope the answer to the spaceship yuri question is 'yes'. I haven't read left hand of darkness, or much space opera in general. frankly at the end of the day i feel like i haven't really read much of anything, which is why i'm trying to focus on reading proper books right now. so i wont have much for frame of reference for comparison yet, but thats its own kind of fun
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2023 reads / storygraph
Provenance
Space opera standalone set in the world of the Imperial Radch trilogy
a young woman who wants to gain her foster-mother’s favour to have a chance at being named heir, frees a thief from a prison planet to get information about a priceless artifact
But things immediately go wrong and when she arrived home there’s a murder and an escalating political conflict
#provenance#ann leckie#aroaessidhe 2023 reads#many thoughts! good characters!#weird lil spider mechs….#(or well. they're not little. they're little in my heart tho)#thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook and the good accents#obsessed with the captain specifically also (dunno name spelling bc audiobook..)#also reading this directly after the meadows re: the prison thing. well.
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the thing about the imperial radch books is like. The second two are cozy science fiction focusing on activism and finding your people. And the first one is a morally grey space opera with a harrowing exploration of grief, optimism, and the ways an empire constrains the free will of its citizens. Like I appreciate the second two for what they are I also have seen and loved many episodes of star trek but you have to admit the first one was messy and dramatic in a way that appeals to the htn enjoyers among us
#i think breq should have made more bad decisions in the second two#there is quite a bit more to the second books than a simple story about found family & learning to do the right thing#this is not to say they aren't complex at all or that the character motivations don't make sense#but they don't have quite the same unhinged energy do they
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Prémios Hugo 2024
Quis a sorte que o último livro que li, Some Desperate Glory, de Emily Tesh, venceu o Prémio Hugo na categoria de "Best Novel". Não estou 100% certo de ser a minha escolha caso tivesse votado (os planos para ir a Glasgow cedo foram abandonados...), mas isto em nada desmerece o romance de estreia de Emily Tesh: é um excelente livro na tradição das space operas militares, com uma mensagem talvez mais necessária hoje do que nunca. Não me alongarei mais para já, pois tenciono regressar a este livro em breve, com um pouco mais de fôlego (e de tempo), mas aproveito para recomendar muito a sua leitura.
Não poderei falar muito das restantes categorias, mas há algumas considerações que posso tecer. Por exemplo, o prémio para o terceiro episódio de The Last of Us, "Long, Long Time" foi merecidíssimo - é um dos grandes episódios de televisão dos últimos anos, e um excelente exemplo sobre como se pode regressar a uma história e puxar por detalhes que tinham ficado em segundo ou terceiro plano na narrativa (é nisto, e não na reprodução mecanicamente fiel dos textos originais, que as adataptações audiovisuais podem e devem brilhar). Ainda não li o mais recente livro de Ann Leckie, Translation State - já o tenho cá em casa, porém -, mas creio que o prémio para melhor série foi atribuído pela pedrada no charco que foi Ancilary Justice há mais de dez anos (as duas sequelas não foram más, mas também não foram brilhantes, e Provenance foi fraquito). Na mesma linha, apesar de ficar contente por ver Saga distinguida na banda desenhada, dificilmente premiaria este Volume 11 (a menos que seja um plano para incentivar os autores a darem andamento à coisa).
Enfim, para o ano há mais, e até lá aqui fica a lista dos vencedores:
Vencedores:
Best Novel: Some Desperate Glory, de Emily Tesh
Best Novella: Thornhedge, de T. Kingfisher
Best Novelette: The Year Without Sunshine, de Naomi Kritzer
Best Short Story: Better Living Through Algorithms, de Naomi Kritzer
Best Series: Imperial Radch, de Ann Leckie
Best Graphic Story or Comic: Saga, Volume 11, de Brian K. Vaughan e Fiona Staples
Best Related Work: A City on Mars, de Kelly e Zach Weinersmith
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: The Last of Us: "Long, Long Time"
Best Game or Interactive Work: Baldur's Gate 3
Best Editor, Short Form: Neil Clarke
Best Editor, Long Form: Ruoxi Chen
Best Professional Artist: Rovina Cai
Best Semiprozine: Strange Horizons
Best Fanzine: Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together
Best Fancast: Octothorpe
Best Fan Writer: Paul Weimer
Best Fan Artist: Laya Rose
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Outros prémios, não Hugo:
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book: To Shape a Dragon's Breath, de Moniquill Blackgoose
Astounding Award for Best New Writer: Xiran Jay Zhao
Lista completa de nomeados aqui.
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