SciFi Month 2021 TBR

It’s one of my favorite times of year – SCIFI MONTH!! This annual event hosted by imyril and Dear Geek Place is a chance for people to come together and celebrate all things science-fiction, from books to movies to video games. Although I do love a good space opera, sci-fi only makes up about a quarter of my reading every year, so I’m glad for this extra excuse to focus on the genre. While a few fantasy reads are likely to sneak into November (hard not to, there’s some good releases that month), I’ve got high hopes for knocking out a few things that have long been on my TBR!

All of the covers below link to Goodreads, so if you fancy giving them a read of your own, have at it!

    

A SPARK OF WHITE FIRE/A HOUSE OF RAGE AND SORROW/A WAR OF SWALLOWED STARS by Sangu Mandanna
So here’s the deal: I’ve read the first two books in this YA trilogy. I had a fun time with book one, but know that my enjoyment of book two was hampered by the fact that book does not hold your hand AT ALL when it comes to reminding readers of what happened previously. This is a series full of family curses, secrets, and betrayals, so the lack of reminders left me floundering, even though I enjoyed the book in the end. Which led me to my resolution for the final book: I’m going to treat these three books as one big book and just start the whole thing over and read them back-to-back-to-back so I won’t need to remind myself what happened. They’re fairly short reads, about 300 pages apiece, so it’s not an insurmountable goal, just one I need to dedicate some time to. So what better time to do so than SciFi Month?

So what are these books about? They are an adaptation of the Indian tale the Mahabharata, set far in humanity’s future, but with a twist. In this world, gods exist alongside space ships, and things like curses are a very real threat. It’s a fascinating blend of sci-fi and fantasy, inspired by a non-Western culture. This will be my biggest priority for Sci-Fi Month, looking forward to finally finishing the trilogy!

  

BINTI: THE NIGHT MASQUERADE by Nnedi Okorafor
There’s really no excuse for how long this novella has been on my TBR. I’ve been meaning to finish this African-inspired sci-fi trilogy for going on two-years now, and things just keep getting in the way. No more! This is probably my second-biggest priority for SciFi Month, as I really should have prioritized this read months ago.

ILLUMINAE by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
I’ve had ILLUMINAE recommended to me by multiple friends over the years, and have been intrigued by the way it tells its story through things like chat transcripts, emails, interviews and more. The first in a trilogy, it’s the story of two teens trying to escape a planetary war who end up in a conspiracy way over their head. There’s a mutating plague, a potentially evil AI, and a secret nobody wants to talk about, all jammed into this first outing.

  

THRAWN ASCENDANCY: GREATER GOOD by Timothy Zahn
I’ll be real, the first book in the new Thrawn trilogy was simply…OK. The prequel that looks at the origin of the STAR WARS villain (made most famous in books) simply didn’t give Thrawn a worthy adversary. But I am a sucker for Thrawn stories, and I’m willing to give the second book in the trilogy a try. We’ll see if I get to it this month, but with the third book, LESSER EVIL, releasing in November, I wanted to give it a shout out!

CYTONIC by Brandon Sanderson
I may not get to this one in November, as it doesn’t release until the end of the month, but I simply had to give it some love. Sanderson’s YA adventure has followed Spensa as she becomes a fighter pilot defending her planetary home. I LOVED SKYWARD, and STARSIGHT was a solid follow up that ended on a hell of a cliffhanger. The series, in typical Sanderson fashion, has expanded from a trilogy to a quartet, so Spensa’s adventures won’t fully be done yet. Either way, I’m eager to see where she ends up in this third installment!

And that’s my pile for SciFi Month! Are you joining in? What sci-fi reads are you looking forward to?