to-read list

sci fi

the luminous dead by caitlyn starling - scifi/horror. psychological tension of having someone above control the caving suit that keeps you alive while underground for weeks at a time and the economic pressures of being trapped on a dead-end planet, leaving you no choice but to keep delving deeper… and deeper…

the outside by ada hoffman - cosmic horror scifi. humanity is ruled by AI gods throughout the stars, the angels are cybernetic post-human cogs in a repressive machine, and Yasira accidentally makes a scientific leap that invites in a disruptive, heretical, reality warping presence that destroys a space station. things spiral out of control from there.

the eyre affair by jasper fforde - mystery novel set in a 1980s with rampant literary fandom, cloned dodos, an apparent national dislike of toast, featuring a detective who’s tasked with rescuing Jane Eyre from a terrorist who wants to erase it from history, and that’s only skimming the surface of the weirdness.

the space between worlds by micaiah johnson - a sci-fi multiverse novel about a woman who is the most prolific world jumper bc her parallel selves seem to constantly die, but even then she can’t outrun her past.

finna by nino cipri - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.

the empress of forever by max gladstone - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress.

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar & max gladstone - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality.

escaping exodus by nicky drayden - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit.

the archive undying by emma mieko candon - a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.

ancillary justice by ann leckie - In the empire called the radch, each spaceship is sentient, crewed by legions of ancillaries who are all connected to the same central mind. after her spaceship is destroyed, the one surviving ancillary swears revenge on the empire.

all systems red by martha wells - a self-aware secunit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “murderbot.” scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their murderbot to get to the truth. (have read this one, but not the rest of the series. def recommended.)

ninefox gambit by yoon ha lee - protag is a military commander who must retake an important station to redeem herself. to do this, she must use a secret weapon: she downloads the consciousness of a never-defeated general who has been dead for thousands of years. the only problem: this general was consigned to cold storage because he went mad and massacred two armies, one of them his own. can shhe control the new voice in her brain? Can she trust it, or keep from being taken over? and how will she defeat an unknown heresy?

hands of the emperor by victoria goddard - about the emperor's secretary who extends a small gesture of kindness to his employer in a highly hierarchical and ritualised society, and accidentally sets into motions events that change the functioning of their world and maybe also ensure universal income in the process.