The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season is an amazing book. It's set on a post-apocalyptic earth that's plagued by constant seismic activity. This leads to frequent near-extinction events called "Fifth Seasons" that keep people always on alert. The evidence of past civilizations litters the planet -- ruined cities, incomplete 'stonelore' handed down from earlier generations, and strange obelisks that float through the atmosphere. The Sanze Empire has survived for centuries by harnessing the power of orogenes -- people born the ability to control their environment. The orogenes can stop earthquakes or start them. They can save cities, or draw power from living creatures and "ice" them. Their powers are terrifying but essential such a volatile world, so the empire develops a caste of Guardians who have the power to neutralize the orogenes when necessary. The orogenes are held in contempt and called "roggas" by ordinary humans. Despite all their power, they cannot control their own lives. They are either hunted down and destroyed...
Read More
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Three-Body Problem is hard science fiction, in that there's a lot of science involved. I don't know where I originally heard about it, probably some "best of sci-fi translations" list, but it's won a fair number of awards and is thoroughly enjoyable. It's also hard to talk about without giving away spoilers. But should I worry about that when the blurb itself, not the one above but the official blurb, gives it away too? Do you like spoilers? Do you hate them? They don't bother me and I honestly sometimes search for them, but I know not everyone feels that way. The story starts off during China's Cultural Revolution. Ye Wenjie's father is killed by the Red Guard and she is eventually shipped off to a remote mountaintop where a government-sponsored group is secretly exploring the possibility of electronic communication with aliens. Flash forward to the present. Wang Miao, a nanotechnology researcher, has begun seeing a countdown clock...
Read More

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, illustrations by Dave McKean (Reading level: Ages 9-12) I just finished The Graveyard Book, and no one warned me. No one told me how attached I would become to the graveyard residents and Bod's life there that I would end up crying when Bod had to leave. A little boy's family is killed, but he escaped and wandered to the graveyard at the top of the hill. The ghosts who live there decided that he can stay and he takes the name Nobody Owens. The Owens become his parents and Silas, who is neither dead nor alive, his guardian. The ghosts are his friends and Silas his protector. He is safe in the graveyard, but no where else, as the killer is still out there. I enjoyed this a lot, more than I expected. I liked meeting all the people and reading about Bod's adventures both in the graveyard and in the real world.  One of his closest...
Read More