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The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin (2012)
My first N.K. Jemisin book was The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, a fantasy story set in a world which does not have European fantasy tropes. The Killing Moon is another fantasy story set in a non-European fantasy world, only this time it’s one based around Egyptian/Mediterranean/etc. cultures. It’s not set on Earth, so really it’s only got the flavor of those cultures, but it’s enough of a flavor to make me really happy. I LOVE it when a fantasy isn’t just another pseudo-medieval Europe expy! More diverse settings/characters/worlds, please!
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The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper (2007)
This was my first Sheri S. Tepper book![1. I was supposed to have read The Gate to Women’s Country for a college class on dystopias and uptopias. I never did, probably because it was the end of the semester and I was tired of all the depressing stuff.] I do know enough about the history of scifi to know that Tepper is one of its major authors, and so I knew I’d pick up one of her books eventually. I choose The Margarets mainly because of its cover, which is cool in an early-2000s sort of way. I was also into the story, which is complicated and multi-layered.
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Liberty and Other Stories by Alexis Hall
After falling in love with the world and characters of Prosperity, I jumped on the chance to read this collection of short stories/novellas. There are both prequel and sequel stories, both origin stories and what-happened-afterwards. All the characters from Prosperity showed up again AND there were some fun new ones!
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A Hero at the End of the World by Erin Claiborne
A Hero at the End of the World has been getting lots of positive reviews lately, and for good reason. It’s funny and cute and hugely enjoyable; past me, why were you so slow getting to this? You’ve had a copy in your possession since October! For shame, past-me. Present-me is totally gleeful, though, because I had such a good time reading it! I found myself highlighting like a fiend in the first ten pages because every other paragraph had some funny thing in it. It was also a weird kind of comfort read, maybe because it has some tropes I recognize from the world of fandom/fanfic.[1. Since Erin Claiborne…
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Prosperity by Alexis Hall
Memory wrote an excellent review of Prosperity back in October, and it was SO excellent that I went on NetGalley and found Prosperity and requested it for review myself! And I’m so glad I did, because I LOVED it. There is steampunk (or maybe gaslamp)! There is alternate history (kinda)![1. It’s actually set in an alternate universe! Love love love alternate universes.] There are air ships and monsters living behind the sky and lesbians and a bisexual protagonist and crime lords and a nonbinary ship captain and a floating city and, really, the only thing missing was a band of sky pirates. (Maybe they’ll be in another book.)
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False Colors by Alex Beecroft
I had a nice chat on Twitter with the author after September’s #WizardBBC book chat[1. about power issues in fictional couples, actually.], and I went looking for her books on Scribd afterwards because another club member recommended them to me. I adore historical romance[1. It’s the only kind of romance I go looking for deliberately.] and I especially adore anything set in the Age of Sail. False Colors had a picture of two sailors and a historical ship on the cover; I was in, even before I read the summary.
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Clariel by Garth Nix
First off, if you’re like me and expecting dragons from the get-go and was VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT– sorry, but it doesn’t show up until way at the end and it’s not even a real dragon, so. Secondly, forget the thing with the dragon because Clariel is AMAZING and WONDERFUL and it was totally worth obsessing over for a year or so prior to publishing. No regrets! I love the Abhorsen series. A LOT. And so I was super excited to find out that Garth Nix was writing another book set in that world. Tbh, the only thing I’d be excited about MORE is if Diana Wynne Jones came back…
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The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson
I really wanted to like this book more than I did! The first third of the story is kick-ass: contemporary setting with wonderful characters, strong protagonist voice, and mysterious foreshadowings. Then the rest of it happened, and I lost the plot. Part of the problem is that the first third is so VERY strongly rooted in contemporary YA language/style. It’s Real Life and it’s totally convincing. And then the Chaos incident happened and things got weird.