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2015 SFF Novels Read
Feb. 3rd, 2016 10:36 amThese are SFF books from 2015 which I read in the past year (i.e. those which could be nominated for Hugos), unranked, but with a few comments on each.
Foxglove Summer (Ben Aaronovitch)- I wrote about this when it came out. It's a good installment in a solid urban fantasy series.
The Dread Wyrm (Christian Cameron) - I posted about the whole cycle of books earlier this year. This installment opens up the scope of the work considerably, while maintaining the high standards and the specific strengths of the first two volumes.
The Vorrh (Brian Catling) - Certainly the most beautifully written of the Hugo-eligible books I have read, and a fantasy which strikes out in a direction which is very much its own. (This was published in 2012 in the UK by Honest Publishing, but is eligible because its first US publication, by Vintage, was in 2015.)
The Clockwork Crown (Beth Cato) - The second volume of a well-received duology, right on the boundary between YA and adult in tone and content. A nice light read in a steampunk world which has limited depth but enough charm to carry the narrative.
Crooked (Austin Grossman) - A clever and enjoyable crossing of a Lovecraftian universe with a Secret History version of Richard Nixon's life (bits of it are reminiscent of Stross's "A Colder War", although it is not nearly so dark).
Veiled (Benedict Jacka) - Like, seemingly, all the other UF series I read this is developing a strong overarching plot arc as opposed to a model of full episodic closure in each volume. Verus is getting more squeezed and less able to back away and stand free of things. I found this enjoyable and will happily pick up Burned when it comes out (currently scheduled for April).
Ancillary Mercy (Ann Leckie) - This wraps up the series quite nicely, and includes space battles plus really alien aliens. If you read the first two novels, it's probably enough to say that it maintains the level of quality and brings off a satisfying conclusion; if you haven't, this is certainly not the place to start.
If we go by popularity for all three of the parts of this trilogy on sites like LibraryThing (not to mention all those awards for Ancillary Justice), Leckie shows signs of being one of the really major new talents of the 2010s in terms of reception as well as quality.
A Red-Rose Chain (Seanan McGuire) - Another solid entry in this series. I enjoy reading them; they hover right on the edge of mind-candy. Characterization is good, plot twists are effective; though (as with several other writers in this general field) the plot device of solving the crime / problem by getting beaten up, venerable as it is, begins to get a bit old.
Uprooted (Naomi Novik) - This has received a ton of positive comment, and I thought it a good read, and excellent for its first two-thirds, but I was disappointed by the resolution, which felt a little too facile , bordering on ex machina. It is what it sets out to be, an effective telling of a fairy tale, but it pays the price for it by sticking to types for the main characters (every one of them with the possible exception of the narrator can be summed up in a couple of sentences) which is appropriate for a fairy tale but weakens it as a novel. Furthermore, the relationship between the main characters, taken as a realistic rather than a fairy-tale one, borders on abusive but this is (in a fairy-tale way) pushed to one side ... which leaves one with the choice between abandoning reading this as a novel rather than a fairy-tale, or treating the first-person narrator as deeply unreliable (which brings its own problems).
The Shepherd's Crown (Terry Pratchett) - Understandably weaker than most other Discworld books, given Pratchett's death before it could be finished, but it is still an effective and attractive story, closing off two important arcs in the Discworld narrative.
A Succession of Bad Days (Graydon Saunders) - Reviewed in full here.
A Darker Shade of Magic (Victoria Schwab) - I thought that this should have captured my attention much more than it did. I didn't get anywhere near the Eight Deadly Words, but I put it down to pick up something more appealing from my TBR list and have not yet picked it back up again.
Seveneves (Neal Stephenson) - This is basically a pair of very different stories connected by an intervening timeline. I liked it well enough while recognizing the considerable problems that existed with the genetics and related biological sciences handwaving. It seems to me that the core of the work is not "what would we do if the moon blew up?", but rather, "what would a world shared between variant human species look like"? (I say species because although they seem to be interfertile Stephenson has rigged his backstory so that the closest parallel to his seven-plus-two types of human is not modern "races", whose divergences are literally only skin deep -- other distinctions cut across "race" lines and there is more diversity within any modern "race" than between any two of them -- but rather the Africa of a million years ago where there seem to have been many variant hominin species.) To get there, he needs a very elaborate setup -- requiring not only heavy (and unrealistic) use of genetic engineering but the provision of a set of environments where subgroups could grow in relative isolation -- so that he can then examine cooperation and conflict between these radiating groups with the background of a common "epic". It is more a return to SF roots than anything else I've read recently: engineer's fiction.
The Annihilation Score (Charles Stross) - This book continues the movement (beginning with "Equoid" and The Rhesus Chart) away from a spy-pastiche towards an urban fantasy alignment for the Laundry stories. From unicorns and vampires we have now moved on to superheroes. Well, that and policing, as the flip side of the same coin. This also makes explicit the overall arc regarding CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN: general thaumaturgical power is rising in the population, with the superhero phenomenon an effect of that general increase. Stross throws into the mix a change of narrators -- this episode is seen through the eyes of Mo, Bob's wife -- and that allows us both to see things from an angle we haven't seen them from before and to check Bob's reliability as a narrator. I like the direction in which Stross is taking the series, although it is becoming more and more suited to an audience which is also wild about Peter Watts (Watts considers Stross a more depressing author than he is himself).
The Just City and The Philosopher Kings (Jo Walton) - Two-thirds of a trilogy (the third, Necessity is due out next June). Very definitely among the best works from last year in my reading list. I provided an extended review of the first here.
The second is at least as good as its predecessor. It is, however, very much a distinct work, not a continuation of the same one in another volume. There is a gap of about twenty years between them; the themes are related but not identical; the shape is different. Where The Just City was about the Republic, about matters of consent and free will, and about what it means to be human, The Philosopher Kings is about the difference between excellence and honour (aristocracy and timarchy), about personal discovery and growth (both physical -- the core of the book is a sea voyage -- and mental), and Justice as well as what may go beyond justice in judgement. Some old scores are paid off; some scores are very deliberately abandoned; and if the first book ended with an abortive debate and the misuse of power, this one ends in a considered and careful scene of judgement. Determining what it means to be human, though, remains a core theme, showing up in a very different way from the previous book.
The Sword of the South (David Weber) - Sort of what you might expect from a new series from Weber set in the Bahzellverse if you knew that he'd been sitting on the story for decades. The good news: it avoids much of the over-padding and infodumps which many of his books have shown. The bad news: in place of the infodumps there is a lot of foreshadowing coupled with Wencit's refusing to discuss things openly. (I have my suspicions that some of the foreshadowing is in fact misdirection; if it turns out to be, I'll think better of it.) Weber is not, in general, a subtle writer, but he does have enjoyable characters, good action, and some interesting worldbuilding. He has promised, cross his heart, that this series will not get away from him and will be confined to five volumes: we'll see.
The Affinities (Robert Charles Wilson) - This felt very typical of the author -- strengths from following people's lives at the everyday level, which is a constant through big-concept and smaller-concept books of his. The book posits a jump forward and a systematizing of the study of the psychology of social interactions, from a ground-level view: the narrator becomes a member of an Affinity, and the early history around the affinity model is told through his eyes. It has windows onto two main periods: the beginning, when the Affinites are new, fairly unknown, and the narrator is just joining, and a secondary point where they are not only generating pushback from society at large but are in conflict with one another. There's a twist at the end -- the book isn't going where you (probably) think it's going. This is nicely written -- good prose, engaging characters, interesting themes -- but it's not as big or shiny as, say Axis or even Darwinia: solid, enjoyable, but not at his best.
Foxglove Summer (Ben Aaronovitch)- I wrote about this when it came out. It's a good installment in a solid urban fantasy series.
The Dread Wyrm (Christian Cameron) - I posted about the whole cycle of books earlier this year. This installment opens up the scope of the work considerably, while maintaining the high standards and the specific strengths of the first two volumes.
The Vorrh (Brian Catling) - Certainly the most beautifully written of the Hugo-eligible books I have read, and a fantasy which strikes out in a direction which is very much its own. (This was published in 2012 in the UK by Honest Publishing, but is eligible because its first US publication, by Vintage, was in 2015.)
The Clockwork Crown (Beth Cato) - The second volume of a well-received duology, right on the boundary between YA and adult in tone and content. A nice light read in a steampunk world which has limited depth but enough charm to carry the narrative.
Crooked (Austin Grossman) - A clever and enjoyable crossing of a Lovecraftian universe with a Secret History version of Richard Nixon's life (bits of it are reminiscent of Stross's "A Colder War", although it is not nearly so dark).
Veiled (Benedict Jacka) - Like, seemingly, all the other UF series I read this is developing a strong overarching plot arc as opposed to a model of full episodic closure in each volume. Verus is getting more squeezed and less able to back away and stand free of things. I found this enjoyable and will happily pick up Burned when it comes out (currently scheduled for April).
Ancillary Mercy (Ann Leckie) - This wraps up the series quite nicely, and includes space battles plus really alien aliens. If you read the first two novels, it's probably enough to say that it maintains the level of quality and brings off a satisfying conclusion; if you haven't, this is certainly not the place to start.
If we go by popularity for all three of the parts of this trilogy on sites like LibraryThing (not to mention all those awards for Ancillary Justice), Leckie shows signs of being one of the really major new talents of the 2010s in terms of reception as well as quality.
A Red-Rose Chain (Seanan McGuire) - Another solid entry in this series. I enjoy reading them; they hover right on the edge of mind-candy. Characterization is good, plot twists are effective; though (as with several other writers in this general field) the plot device of solving the crime / problem by getting beaten up, venerable as it is, begins to get a bit old.
Uprooted (Naomi Novik) - This has received a ton of positive comment, and I thought it a good read, and excellent for its first two-thirds, but I was disappointed by the resolution, which felt a little too facile , bordering on ex machina. It is what it sets out to be, an effective telling of a fairy tale, but it pays the price for it by sticking to types for the main characters (every one of them with the possible exception of the narrator can be summed up in a couple of sentences) which is appropriate for a fairy tale but weakens it as a novel. Furthermore, the relationship between the main characters, taken as a realistic rather than a fairy-tale one, borders on abusive but this is (in a fairy-tale way) pushed to one side ... which leaves one with the choice between abandoning reading this as a novel rather than a fairy-tale, or treating the first-person narrator as deeply unreliable (which brings its own problems).
The Shepherd's Crown (Terry Pratchett) - Understandably weaker than most other Discworld books, given Pratchett's death before it could be finished, but it is still an effective and attractive story, closing off two important arcs in the Discworld narrative.
A Succession of Bad Days (Graydon Saunders) - Reviewed in full here.
A Darker Shade of Magic (Victoria Schwab) - I thought that this should have captured my attention much more than it did. I didn't get anywhere near the Eight Deadly Words, but I put it down to pick up something more appealing from my TBR list and have not yet picked it back up again.
Seveneves (Neal Stephenson) - This is basically a pair of very different stories connected by an intervening timeline. I liked it well enough while recognizing the considerable problems that existed with the genetics and related biological sciences handwaving. It seems to me that the core of the work is not "what would we do if the moon blew up?", but rather, "what would a world shared between variant human species look like"? (I say species because although they seem to be interfertile Stephenson has rigged his backstory so that the closest parallel to his seven-plus-two types of human is not modern "races", whose divergences are literally only skin deep -- other distinctions cut across "race" lines and there is more diversity within any modern "race" than between any two of them -- but rather the Africa of a million years ago where there seem to have been many variant hominin species.) To get there, he needs a very elaborate setup -- requiring not only heavy (and unrealistic) use of genetic engineering but the provision of a set of environments where subgroups could grow in relative isolation -- so that he can then examine cooperation and conflict between these radiating groups with the background of a common "epic". It is more a return to SF roots than anything else I've read recently: engineer's fiction.
The Annihilation Score (Charles Stross) - This book continues the movement (beginning with "Equoid" and The Rhesus Chart) away from a spy-pastiche towards an urban fantasy alignment for the Laundry stories. From unicorns and vampires we have now moved on to superheroes. Well, that and policing, as the flip side of the same coin. This also makes explicit the overall arc regarding CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN: general thaumaturgical power is rising in the population, with the superhero phenomenon an effect of that general increase. Stross throws into the mix a change of narrators -- this episode is seen through the eyes of Mo, Bob's wife -- and that allows us both to see things from an angle we haven't seen them from before and to check Bob's reliability as a narrator. I like the direction in which Stross is taking the series, although it is becoming more and more suited to an audience which is also wild about Peter Watts (Watts considers Stross a more depressing author than he is himself).
The Just City and The Philosopher Kings (Jo Walton) - Two-thirds of a trilogy (the third, Necessity is due out next June). Very definitely among the best works from last year in my reading list. I provided an extended review of the first here.
The second is at least as good as its predecessor. It is, however, very much a distinct work, not a continuation of the same one in another volume. There is a gap of about twenty years between them; the themes are related but not identical; the shape is different. Where The Just City was about the Republic, about matters of consent and free will, and about what it means to be human, The Philosopher Kings is about the difference between excellence and honour (aristocracy and timarchy), about personal discovery and growth (both physical -- the core of the book is a sea voyage -- and mental), and Justice as well as what may go beyond justice in judgement. Some old scores are paid off; some scores are very deliberately abandoned; and if the first book ended with an abortive debate and the misuse of power, this one ends in a considered and careful scene of judgement. Determining what it means to be human, though, remains a core theme, showing up in a very different way from the previous book.
The Sword of the South (David Weber) - Sort of what you might expect from a new series from Weber set in the Bahzellverse if you knew that he'd been sitting on the story for decades. The good news: it avoids much of the over-padding and infodumps which many of his books have shown. The bad news: in place of the infodumps there is a lot of foreshadowing coupled with Wencit's refusing to discuss things openly. (I have my suspicions that some of the foreshadowing is in fact misdirection; if it turns out to be, I'll think better of it.) Weber is not, in general, a subtle writer, but he does have enjoyable characters, good action, and some interesting worldbuilding. He has promised, cross his heart, that this series will not get away from him and will be confined to five volumes: we'll see.
The Affinities (Robert Charles Wilson) - This felt very typical of the author -- strengths from following people's lives at the everyday level, which is a constant through big-concept and smaller-concept books of his. The book posits a jump forward and a systematizing of the study of the psychology of social interactions, from a ground-level view: the narrator becomes a member of an Affinity, and the early history around the affinity model is told through his eyes. It has windows onto two main periods: the beginning, when the Affinites are new, fairly unknown, and the narrator is just joining, and a secondary point where they are not only generating pushback from society at large but are in conflict with one another. There's a twist at the end -- the book isn't going where you (probably) think it's going. This is nicely written -- good prose, engaging characters, interesting themes -- but it's not as big or shiny as, say Axis or even Darwinia: solid, enjoyable, but not at his best.
