Given that it’s set in a world where all the women are dead, it would be easy to think that Aliya Whiteley’s sci-fi novel The Beauty (paperback, Kindle) has a socio-political agenda. But in talking to her about it, Whiteley admits that while the story is about gender, like all good political sci-fi, it’s about other things as well.
For the last two years I’ve kept a log of all the good books I read, regardless of when they were originally published. You can read my 2015 list by clicking here, and 2016’s by clicking here.
And since I’m nothing if not predictable, I decided to repeat this process for 2017.
So, here’s a look at the best novels, short story collections, and other books I read in 2017.
Like a lot of people who write space opera-style science fiction, writer Michael Moreci cites the Star Wars saga as a big influence. But in talking to him about his new novel Black Star Renegades (paperback, hardcover, Kindle), he also — in what I’m assuming is a sign of things to come — mentioned the Guardians Of The Galaxy films as having an impact on his space adventure as well.
Since the last presidential election, the novels 1984 by George Orwell and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale have been selling like hotcakes because people are worried their fictional dystopian futures could soon be non-fiction. Which is good news — though, also, when you think about it, bad news — for sci-fi writer Stanley Bing, whose new novel, Immortal Life (hardcover, Kindle) also posits a future that may not be so futuristic.
Lately it seems like every science fiction novel isn’t a self-contained story, but is instead part of a larger saga. But in trading emails with sci-fi writer Kameron Hurley about her novel The Stars Are Legion — which is newly available in paperback after already being in hardcover and on Kindle — she revealed that while it is a stand-alone tale, it was somewhat inspired by one of Hurley’s own larger sagas.
There are graphic novels, and there are illustrated novels, and there are also novels that have some illustrations. But in his first novel Above The Timberline (hardcover, Kindle), writer and artist Gregory Manchess takes a different approach by telling his story through oil paintings that have been augmented with a bit of text in the form of journal entries.
With Shadow Sun Seven (paperback, Kindle), science fiction writer Spencer Ellsworth, continues the Starfire trilogy he began earlier this year with A Red Peace, and will conclude February 27th with Memory’s Blade. But in talking to him about this sci-fi space opera, and the series as a whole, he revealed that he didn’t write these novels as quickly as they’re being released.
While science fiction and comedy work well together — see Futurama, et al. — the thing about funny science fiction novels is how the humor often takes a back seat to the sci-fi. Not in a bad way, mind you. More just that authors are more inclined to write a sci-fi story that’s funny like John Scalzi’s Lock In or his Old Man’s War series than they are a funny sci-fi story like Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. But in the following email interview with writer Joe Zieja, he explains that with Communication Failure (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) — the second book in his Epic Failure trilogy — he’s actually trying to make science fiction readers laugh.
Three years after releasing The Martian — six if you count when he first self-published his debut novel about an astronaut who’s stranded on Mars — writer Andy Weir is taking another trip to outer space with his new novel, Artemis (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook). But while you might expect this book to be about an astronaut who’s accidentally stranded on, oh let’s say Venus, or maybe Mercury, Weir has actually taking a left turn and veered this new sci-fi tale into the realm of the crime novel.