It's always fun when I write about books because our VIP friends are the best, and you've given me some amazing recommendations over the last few years. My favorite genre of books remains Science Fiction, and I find myself retreating more and more into it in these weird political times.
I just want to deal with aliens that come from other planets sometimes.
A couple of weeks ago I was a little groggy and downloaded a Sci-Fi book on my Kindle just before I went to bed. As I settled into bed with it, I realized that it was the third Sci-Fi book I was currently reading.
Hey, it's a healthy form of reality avoidance.
I wanted to quickly share a few of my favorites from recent months. As always, I hope that some of you will share your recent faves in the comments.
Earlier this year, I stumbled upon the author Adrian Tchaikovsky on Audible while doing a lengthy Sci-Fi scroll through its catalog. The description of "Shards of Earth" piqued my interest, so I took the plunge. It's the first book in Tchaikovsky's "The Final Architecture" trilogy, which I ended up devouring after finishing the first book.
The series features some of the most interesting and original intergalactic aliens I've ever encountered in forty-plus years of reading Sci-Fi. The story is top-notch as well. I found one of the main characters to be a little tedious, but he came through in the end. The ones around him more than made up for him.
Last weekend, I finished Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time," which won Britain's Arthur C. Clarke award. Like a lot of novels in the genre, it's a morality play that takes a hard look at humans and the way we behave. This happens a lot in modern Sci-Fi and, more often than not, it's off-putting. Tchaikovsky, however, pulls it off without being a jerk about it. It's a brilliant story.
And there are mutant sentient spiders.
"Children of Time" would be a fantastic stand-alone book, but it's the beginning of another trilogy. I held off on jumping right into the next one because I could tell that this was a series I was going to want to savor. Just to balance things out, I finally began reading Ron Chernow's "Grant," which I've had on my list for a long time now.
As I said in my Goodreads review, Tchaikovsky is the most imaginative Sci-Fi writer of the 21st century that I've encountered. I'd give him a recommendation just because he doesn't beat the reader over the head with climate change messaging, as so many Sci-Fi authors do now. The fact that the stories are so solid and fun (even when they're serious) just makes it feel like I'm in some sort of bonus round.
So, what are you reading?
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