Bone Silence - Alastair Reynolds. Third book of the Revenger series. Two sisters run away to become space pirates in a far future, fragmented solar system, one for freedom, one for the love of her sister. The Ness sisters are chased down by a naval hunting party while they try to find out some of the desperate secrets of the many worlds in the solar system. A good resolution to their story that leaves it open to more in the future.
Empire of Silence, Howling Dark - Christopher Ruocchio. First two books of the Sun Eater series. Sixteen thousand years into the future, a feudal empire spans the stars, with a few more little outlying civilizations along the edges. Humanity is in a war hampered by time dilation with the only other intelligent race ever discovered. The first born son of a minor aristocrat is deemed too sensitive and thoughtful to inherit his father's title, and is shipped off to join the powerful clergy. He runs away to become an explorer, only for all his carefully laid plans to go horribly awry. This was a strange book, as although it's written like a fantasy book, the story is all sci-fi, and reminds me a lot of Dune at the beginning. The main character does some dumb things to further the story, but as his fortunes go up and down, you can't help but wanting to see where his tangential thinking takes him in efforts to make his own fortune, and try and stop an interstellar war.. I wanted to keep turning each page, but strangely found it hard to go back to after putting it down. As soon as I picked it up again, I'd want to read chapter after chapter as the characters travel across space in an effort to make the universe a better place. Outlandish characters and good locations make this feel like an epic journey through a galaxy spanning fantasy setting. Oh, and there are light-sabres (exotic matter swords for the nobility).
Cry Pilot, Burn Cycle - Joel Dane. First two books of the Cry Pilot trilogy. In the future, earth is trashed after a massive war, and is now ruled by a few large corporations all working to rebuild the planet. People live in massive towers and restricted urban areas. Poor people at the bottom, the corporate members at the top, with a business/military type of social structure. One man with a shady past as part of a terrorist organisation has to get out of the bottom-feeder life, and the only way is to join a corporate army. It turns out he's the only man who can pilot combat vehicles built by long lost AIs, just as a bigger threat to humanity is resurrected during the repair of the earth. This reminded me of Starship Troopers, The Space Eater, The Forever War, and Full Metal Jacket. The first part of the story is the training, the hiding of the main character's past and that of his genetically altered squad mate. Dane isn't afraid to throw his characters into wildly inventive and dangerous situations, and he's not afraid to kill off characters you've got to know and like. The book is sharply written, and moves along at a clip. You never get bored, and always want to see what happens next as the main character gets pulled around by his multiple loyalties, secrets, and mad action sequences. Highly recommended.
Ex-Heroes, Ex-Patriots, Ex-Communication, Ex-Purgatory, Ex-Isle - Peter Clines. The very underrated "superheroes vs zombies" genre. A zombie outbreak infects the world, and a few superheroes manage to rescue survivors and hole up in a massive film studio turned fortress. Many of the superhero archetypes are represented as they battle to keep survivors alive against the millions of shambler zombies wandering around LA. The books progress as the fortress is expanded into a safe zone part of what used to be LA, and the various challenges and bad guys faced by the heroes. You get not just the current story, but flashbacks into the past of the various characters to see what brought them to where they are now. Generally good fun, just staying on the right side of wacky, with characters you really come to care about.
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits - David Wong. A young woman from a no-name little town escapes a man sent to kill her, and finds that the estranged father she's only met twice has died and named her as the inheritor of his massive criminal empire that he used to build and control a futuristic city in Nevada (ie Las Vegas 2.0). Typical Wong, it's funny, clever, sassy, with a great story and wild characters as Zoey tries to stay alive and hopefully come out of things a little ahead. Recommended.
The Rig - Roger Levy. I found this quite hard going, but the story eventually gets going and a sci-fi mystery eventually unfolds to a satisfactory conclusion. The main characters is an organisational savant who is happily running his bosses criminal empire, until they try to bump him off, and he has to find a way to use his talents to survive and get revenge on those that killed his parents and threaten his life.
Dissidence, Insurgence, Emergence - Ken Macleod. The Corporation Wars trilogy. In the future a drone pilot cum terrorist is double crossed while working for the government, and then finds his consciousness wakes up far across space and deep into the future, inside a simulated planet environment. He's there to help battle other corporations in order the be the first to mine resources and terraform the earth-like planet for future colonisation. His reward will be a download into a new body and a new life on the planet, but he'll have to fight in downloaded robot bodies. As with all Ken Macleod books, the sci-fi setting is combined with politics, and the wheels within wheels keep you guessing what's real and what's not, and what tricks are being pulled to get people to act for the corporations, instead of their own self interests. Like most Macleod books, it's full of clever concepts and ideas, corporate tricks and back-stabbing, and makes you think about where our society could go in the future.
Ball Lightning - Cixin Liu. Slow, thinky book from China's foremost sci-fi writer about a scientist's obsession with ball lighting, and using it as a weapon. Quite clever in places, by rather slow in others, and so my interest waxed and waned, and I found it a bit of a slow read, but it has lots of interesting ideas if you're willing to have a little bit of a struggle to get through it.
Artemis - Andy Weir. A young woman grows up on the moon and does a bit of delivery and slightly dodgy side deals to make ends meet, but finds herself stuck in the middle of an attempt to take over the governance of the city by force. Good fun and well written, but much less science-y than The Martian, so reads more like a regular sci-fi adventure, rather than an astronaut's diary.
Provenance - Ann Leckie. Written more conventionally than her Ancilliary Justice series, this standalone book follows a somewhat disgraced daughter of a politically powerful family returns home to try and carve out some success of her own at a time when her own planet is in turmoil. Well written, some clever ideas, a good read, but didn't grab me massively. Not one that you're going to think about afterwards.
