Having pleasant memories of Novik’s earlier books, I thought I’d give Uprooted a try, and I quickly fell in love. I had read and enjoyed the first couple of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels some years ago, but hadn’t really followed her work very closely until I saw Uprooted getting an enormous amount of buzz in the early months of 2015. It’s funny, smart, and poignant in turns, and while it’s a book that wears its progressive ideals very much on its sleeve, it never turns sanctimonious. It’s a book about family that exemplifies the old adage that home is where the heart is, but it’s also a book about gender and sex and war and politics and what it means to have humanity. It’s a sort of space road trip story told in vignettes that take place over the space of some months on a ship that is traveling to a remote part of the galaxy to drill a wormhole that would connect an unstable but resource-rich planet to a kind of galactic federation. This delightfully original space opera is the only book I read twice this year. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers There’s very little to say about it without spoiling the whole thing for those who haven’t read it, but I will tell you that it’s the most devastating thing I read in all of 2015. If only for Jemisin’s mastery of her craft, this is one of the most important novels of the year. Jemisin didn’t disappoint, delivering a new fantasy epic that is both enormous in scope and deeply personal. Jemisin quickly became one of my favorite authors when I discovered her a couple of years ago, so The Fifth Season was one of my most anticipated 2015 releases. Obviously, “reasonable” is a subjective term. It was a good year, and it was tough to pare this list down to a reasonable number of favorites. While most of what I read was excellent (Yay, me, for making good choices!), there were a couple of disappointments (I’m looking at you, The Dinosaur Lords). Still, I made it through over ninety books in 2015, most of them new releases, though I did read a couple of classic sci-fi novels and check out a few things that were being adapted to film or television. I came in right at ten books behind on my goal of reading two books a week, and I can think of probably twenty books off the top of my head that I would love to have gotten around to this year. "A quietly profound, humane tour de force that tackles politics and gender issues with refreshing optimism.2015, just objectively, has been an amazing year to be a reader, and it’s highly unfortunate that breaking my foot in May sent me into a reading slump that prevented me from getting to enjoy as much of what was published this year as I hoped to. And along the way, Rosemary comes to realize that a crew is a family, and that family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe. The journey through the galaxy is full of excitement, adventure and mishaps for the Wayfarer team. Sure, they’ll earn enough money to live comfortably for years, but risking her life wasn’t part of the job description. That is, until the crew is offered the job of a lifetime: tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet. And nothing could be further from what she’s known than the crew of the Wayfarer.įrom Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the chatty engineers who keep the ship running, to the noble captain Ashby, life aboard is chaotic and crazy-exactly what Rosemary wants. The patched-up ship has seen better days, but it offers her everything she could possibly want: a spot to call home, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy and some distance from her past. When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn’t expecting much. THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET by Becky ChambersĪ rollicking space adventure with a lot of heart The "Beyond Bestsellers" book discussion group pick for May is New, gently used & out-of-print books for readers of all ages.
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