Series to Start and Finish in 2021 – YA Sci-Fi

This is a mini series I’m doing at the beginning of the year to recommend some series you ‘should’ be able to start and finish in the year.

I know a lot of people have a lot of series on the go and are maybe still wanting to add to their TBR so I can recommend the massive series out there but thought it would be a fun twist to look back and see what I started and finished in the span of twelve months.

I did not read all these series at once and it has been spread over 3-5 years of my reading history. I am mainly an adult sci-fi and fantasy reader having moved over from YA in the last 3 years so I haven’t covered everything and would love any recommendations you may have.

Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, Deborah Biancotti

Synopsis:

Who are the Zeroes? Six teens with powers that set them apart from the ordinary, and definitely not heroes.

When a bank robber goes wrong, the scattered Zeroes must agree to come back together to save one of their own.

But what if there was someone else that could help too? Perhaps there’s a new Zero on the block?

Filled with high-stakes action and drama, Zeroes unites three powerhouse authors for the opening installment of a thrilling series.

Number of books: 3

Average page count: ~500 pages

Recommended for: Those that love a twist on superpowers. This shows that powers can be in the personality traits of the individuals and that’s not always a good thing.

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The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson

Synopsis:

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics… nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart – the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning – and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

Number of books: 3

Average page count: ~430 pages

Recommended for: If you love the idea where the superheroes are in fact villains and that they’re not out to save you but to rule the world then this is the best you’ll find. Its also my recommendation for people that want a good place to start with Brandon Sanderson.

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Lunar chronicles by Marissa Meyer

Synopsis:

A forbidden romance.

A deadly plague.

Earth’s fate hinges on one girl . . .

CINDER, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She’s reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen – and a dangerous temptation.

Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth’s future.

This is not the fairytale you remember. But it’s one you won’t forget.

Number of books: 4

Average page count: ~560 pages

Recommended for: Anyone that loves retellings. This takes the traditional princesses and turns it on it’s head and gives it all a sci-fi twist with a civilisation also based on Earth.

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Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Synopsis:

The year is 2575 and two mega-corporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice covered speck. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them Ezra and Kady have to make their escape on the evacuating fleet. But their troubles are just beginning. A deadly plague has broken out on one of the space ships and it is mutating with terrifying results. Their ships protection is seriously flawed. No one will say what is going on.

As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth its clear only one person can help her. Ezra. And the only problem with that is they split up before all this trouble started and she isn’t supposed to be talking to him.

A fantastically original, heart-stopping adventure where everything is definitely more dangerous than it seems.

Number of books: 3

Average page count: ~630 but reads quicker due to being mixed media

Recommended for: A fun ride where it’s a good sci-fi story that I think is a good starting place but also the mixed media just makes it a fun and unique experience.

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Would love to know if you’ve read any of these or have any recommendations.

Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff

Series: Nevernight Chronicles

Pages: 478

Rating: 4 stars

Time taken: >1 week

Format: Physically owned copy

 

 

 

Background: This is the conclusion to the Nevernight chronicles so if you’ve read the first two then you know this is finally the culmination to the story and you’re not guaranteed to have a happy ending.

Much of this book still revolves around revenge and killing. It’s just about how Mia is going to pull it off and who is going to make it herself not necessarily included.

Summary: Overall I really enjoyed this because I went in knowing that we shouldn’t really be getting a happy ending. I am not a mega-fan of Nevernight – I think it’s decent but I do think that it’s a bit over-valued. I really enjoyed how dark and gritty this was and seeing all the different threads from the first two books all coming together.

It felt like everything that happened in the first two books had a lot of meaning. I have two main gripes with this book – one is Ashlinn – because I really don’t like her as a character or her interactions with Mia and I’m just not on the Ash train (sorry, not sorry). And the second thing was that I thought the ending was just a bit too sweet.

Going into this you know you shouldn’t be getting a happy ending. You’ve know how this series ends since the first book and if you’ve forgotten then this book is really hammering home that point. However, it just wasn’t the bitter-sweet moment I wanted. It just turned out a bit too nice for my liking. I’m more than happy not to have a happy ending.

Story: Overall the story in this was solid. We did have a pit of a lull where some pirate antics happened and quite frankly halfway through book 3 is not the time to introduce this new element. There were so many different things going on and a lot of setbacks and things to overcome and I thought it was solid overall.             

I also got really invested in the story and what it all meant and I liked how things weren’t simply achieved and the amount of work our characters had to put in in order to achieve their goals.

Plot: This is your good old revenge plot. It does grow a little bit more in this book to encompass revenge on a greater scale so we did have another thing for Mia to contend with and work out how she was going to accomplish it.

There was also a separate plot element that seemed to really come more to the forefront in this book away from the revenge but more so around the greater world in general (I’m trying really hard not to spoil things here). It’s been a while since I’ve read Nevernight and Godsgrave so I’m not sure if this was introduced in these but it did have threads that came back to these so it wasn’t as jarring as it could have been.

Characters: So the characters in this are dark and gritty and flawed. They’ve all gone through things and pretty much everyone is a killer. I think I can name one character who hasn’t killed someone and they’re still only a child and I don’t think I can honestly say that they won’t kill someone in the future.

The good thing about this is that it brought in characters from both the first and second book and then brought in a third group so it was a really nice mix in terms of side characters and each of them having their own strengths in order to lend to the overall goal.

My one big character issue is Ashlinn – I think she is my most disliked character that I think we are really meant to love that I’ve come across in any story. I’m totally not on board with her character – she does not feel authentic and it just doesn’t work for me. I just find it really hard to care about her or really have much sympathy for her. She is really selfish and self-centred and is just a really unhealthy person, she also goes through a bit of remorse near the end of this and it just feels so fake. It gets harped on throughout the book that she won’t apologise for what she did or regret it so many times that when she then starts saying she does it just feels so forced and untrue.

I think Mia was a bit overshadowed in this due to the amount of central focus characters and everything that’s going on with them. I can’t really say she had much growth in this. There was some regarding her coming to terms with who she was and who she loved but it didn’t quite ring home as true to me. It just felt like Kristoff was trying to give her some redemption and that doesn’t really feel like her character from the first novels.

Also she get presented with a greater purpose and this was something I really enjoyed the way it was handled as it was quite different to a lot of other books and it was done really well.

Setting: So the world is really explored in this novel. We get to see a much larger scope in this as well as returning to some locations from the first book. For me the first two books seemed really contained to one area but this really pushed us out into the world a lot more and for the better really.

It’s still dark and gritty and it perfect to read with the dark nights slowly coming in. I love how much the atmosphere really adds to the overall story and plot and the relationships the characters have with the environment.

Writing: The writing was still great. Just for reference I skip the footnotes because it’s just overdone and it never added anything for me. It really made me hate reading Nevernight having to read those footnotes.

There was a horrible amount of 4^th wall/ nods to the reader. I think it was a strange choice because it never really existed in the first two. It just felt a bit off to me. But it was minor and didn’t really detract too much from the overall story.

Ending: As mentioned previously I was not exactly satisfied with the ending. It just ended a little bit too nice for me. Going into this and throughout it was constantly mentioned that this had a finite end. It was going to be a sacrifice and not everyone was going to make it out the other side.

It went that way for most of the book and then most of the ending and then there was just a little bit after the event and I thought it was pandering. I don’t think the author fully committed to the unhappy/devastating ending. I do admit that I like unhappy endings – it just feels more authentic to me so I was really on board with this and how unapologetic Jay Kristoff was about what was going to happen and for me he just pulled out a little bit.

 

 

Author Portfolio – Jay Kristoff

So back at it. I’ve actually read quite a few of Jay Kristoff’s work and was first introduced to him through the Illuminae series. I have had some mixed feelings about his writing and books but that’s sort of what drives me to reading his works.

Illuminae – 3 books – 1876 pages

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

This is a collaborative work that I absolutely love and because of that it’s sort of hard to truly see each authors writing. This is a really good si-fi written in a really unique format.

The Nevernight Chronicles – 3 books – 1325 pages (incomplete)

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

So I had some issues with this. This doesn’t seem like as short a series that the page count would suggest. The first two books took me ages to get through. It was a really dark and gritty series but some of the elements in here I was pretty apprehensive about. I am looking forward to the final book that’s coming out.

The Locus Wars – 3 books – 1598 pages

Arashitoras are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father Masaru are sent to capture one for the Shõgun, they fear that their lives are over – everyone knows what happens to those who fail the Lord of the Shima Isles. But the mission proves less impossible and more deadly than anyone expects. Soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in her country’s last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled arashitora for company. Although she can hear his thoughts, and saved his life, all she knows for certain is he’d rather see her dead than help her. Yet trapped together in the forest, Yukiko and the beast soon discover a bond that neither of them expected.

Meanwhile, the country around them verges on collapse. A toxic fuel is choking the land, the machine-powered Lotus Guild is publicly burning those they deem Impure, and the Shõgun cares for nothing but his own dominion. Authority has always made Yukiko, but her world changes when she meets Kin, a young man with secrets, and the rebel Kagé cabal. She learns the horrifying extent of the Shõgun’s crimes, both against her country and her family.

Returning to the city, Yukiko is determined to make the Shõgun pay – but what can one girl and a flightless arashitora do against the might of an empire?

So I’ll be honest I didn’t realise that this was such a long series. I am really wary about this because I was not particularly fond of the way different cultures were portrayed in Nevernight. However, that being said it doesn’t have bad ratings on GoodReads so I feel that I should maybe give it a go.

Lifelike – 1 book – 416 pages

On a floating junkyard beneath a radiation sky, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap.

Eve isn’t looking for secrets—she’s too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she’s just spent six months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, and the only thing keeping her Grandpa from the grave was the fistful of credits she just lost to the bookies. To top it off, she’s discovered she can destroy electronics with the power of her mind, and the puritanical Brotherhood are building a coffin her size. If she’s ever had a worse day, Eve can’t remember it.

But when Eve discovers the ruins of an android boy named Ezekiel in the scrap pile she calls home, her entire world comes crashing down. With her best friend Lemon Fresh and her robotic conscience, Cricket, in tow, she and Ezekiel will trek across deserts of irradiated glass, infiltrate towering megacities and scour the graveyard of humanity’s greatest folly to save the ones Eve loves, and learn the dark secrets of her past.

Even if those secrets were better off staying buried.

So I am really looking forward to this but unfortunately I live in the UK so it’s not due out for a while. I don’t know if this is a series but I’m hoping that it will be good.

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If you have read The Locus Wars let me know what you thought.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff (The Nevernight Chronicle #1)

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

Rating – Try It, 3.5/4stars

Published August 9th 2016

580 pages

Read from 1st to 15th February

This is where my rating system gets a bit funny. I would say to try this book but I pretty much would call it a four star review and for me it is all down to the beginning and the unique style of it. I think you need to be of a particular mind-set and reader to enjoy this. You will notice that this whole review is from my very personal perspective because I know that my nature has affected my opinion and it wouldn’t be honest to not state that up front.

Ok so I want to preface a few things first before getting into a full scale review:

1. This is not a YA book; there is a lot of violence, sexual and graphic content. It is an adult or new adult book, however, depending on your disposition you should know this before going in. I was reading this type of context at 15 or so but I come from a culture that allowed me to.
2. There are a lot of problematic themes within this and I struggled with the cultural miss mash portrayed. I would recommend reading this post to gain some understanding http://anjuliewritesstuff.weebly.com/blog/racism-author-accountability-and-nevernight. This was not my personal problem with it but I had some trouble with the Scottish feel to it due to the use of language.
3. You need to read a quarter in before you can make the decision to continue or quit. I hate that about books and I was lucky enough to be buddy reading it so was encourage to continue and after the fact I was fully involved in the story.

Ok, let’s now get into it. I’m going to start with the negatives because they hit at the beginning and then I really started to enjoy it.

So this feels like a really weird Roman/Italian world with different cultures all mixed in. The symbolic facial tattoos could be described as attributed to Maui culture, but the pale darkness of other characters felt very Scottish and it made me incredibly uncomfortable. This may not be the cultural background but due to my reservations this is what I took.

The writing style is very dense and lyrical and at times I really struggled with the large descriptions and paragraphs of thoughts and feelings. I also really struggled with what felt like a third and first person perspective switch. I struggled with the third person in terms that it felt like an overarching narrator but we had characters that spoke in the third person so I got really confused at points and didn’t understand that artistic and writing choice personally.

So I am not a massive fan of the characters, they were good and they were all individual but with such a large cast it can all get a bit muddled along with the uncommon names. I also didn’t really connect with them but I still felt a close enough relationship to care what happened to them. I don’t know if I like Mia and that is purely down to my cultural problems with this book.

When we actually got to the assassin’s school it got so so so good. I loved the system and the brutality and each disciplines and how it was conducted. It really gave me a Throne of Glass feel and I loved that book when I read it first time around. The magical element was not at the forefront and I wonder if it was in fact needed at all. I loved Mr Kindly but and you know what…. That’s probably my favourite character of this book.

I liked the relationships in this book but it all felt so short lived and there was so much going on and so many deaths that the environment was constantly changing. I am upset about quite a lot of the deaths because I believe there was so much room for them to grow and develop and gain their backstory and so much of it goes unanswered. And I think that was the best and boldest move of this book along with the plot.

The plot is good and everything has a meaning. I saw a lot of it coming but the massive twist at the end caught me off guard. It is still sort of hard to see it even thinking back on it but I really enjoyed it and am glad with how it was done because it gave character death meaning.

The ending was good but I’m a bit apprehensive about the sequel. I’m not quite sure the direction would go in. I know the plot but it’s hard to see the story. I did look up the blub of Godsgave and I don’t quite know how I feel about it. I will continue on in the series but I’m still a bit unsure of it.

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Has anyone else read this and struggle with it the way I did?

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WWW Wednesday 15th February

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking On A World Of Words. Simply answer the following questions:

• What have you recently finished reading?
• What are you currently reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

 

Just Finished

I loved this, it was quirky and weird and unique and was just written in a really amazing style. It feels so much like a non-fiction but it’s a fantasy because it has dragons. However, in this story dragons are just like another species and our narrator spent her life studying them and now she’s writing about her adventures and how she came to be one of the most renowned  dragon scientists around. Did I also mention that it feels like it’s set in the Victorian era?

Yeah, people need to pick this up because there is so little mention of it.

Currently Reading

So I’m reading this as part of a buddy read and I hated it for the first fifth of the book. It was just so weird and slow and boring and confusing. I was so close to DNFing it but thanks to my other readers they pushed me to continue because it picked up and they’re so right. I am now loving this and getting so involved in the story and how it is fleshing out. I don’t want to put it down but I’m so busy with other things that I don’t have the choice.

Read Next

I’ve created like a little TBR box to try and spice up my reading and not worry about what I’m reading so much. Set reading will come from new releases and book buddy and book club reads. I actually loved the first book so I’m pretty happy with going back to it. I still can’t believe how beautiful these covers are. They’re probably some of my favourite covers out there. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this story continues especially after how the last book finished off.

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Leave your WWW in the comments down below or let me know what you’re currently reading and what you enjoy about it!

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Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Series: This is another one where I’m surprised it was only seen as a stand-alone to begin with. I suppose I would have been fine with this ending knowing that there wouldn’t be any more but it certainly left it open for a sequel(s).

Book: I really enjoyed this from the get go. It was conversational and different and funny and was just the making of a good book.

Brief Opinion 9/10

I really loved this. It was a whirlwind of emotions but you really got sucked in and affected by what was happening. I loved the main characters and their interactions and personalities as well as the side characters we got to know. There is a lot of tragedy in this book and I never knew what was going to happen. I loved that there was a few dimensions and layers to this and it really grew as an overall story. If you’ve been putting it off then I would definitely recommend it. It is a bigger book but due to the formatting it only feels like 400-500 pages so I would expect that amount of time to read it.

Full Review

Characters

So our main character Kady and Ezra start off in quite a weird state of relationship but it is not the focal point of the story. They do start off quite distance and separate but they eventually grow to have some interaction and it becomes one of my favourite parts.

I also really enjoyed the side characters and their relationship that developed throughout the story. However, you don’t get much backstory to the characters but with so much going on I suspect it’s pretty hard to develop this but I hope there’s more in the future.

Romance

So this is a weird romance in that it’s about a couple that just broke up. I think it was reasonably well done but it does become quite the main topic later in the story.

Setting

So we are in space in a different time with space warships. It’s pretty darn cool even though there’s not much to space. The setting is not is not the main focus but it is certainly an integral part of the story.

Story

So there are a lot of things going on but it slowly develops making it easier to take. It’s like a si-fi mixed with a pandemic which just makes things extremely tense and uncertain. The best part is how it’s told as the format and is extremely unique.

Plot

Everything is so well thought out and linked together; it really expands to encompass more elements that make the story more intriguing. The basic synopsis of the plot doesn’t do this book justice. I would like to know a bit more about the underlying motives of everyone but I’m not sure how much we will really get in the next book.

Writing

The writing is amazing; it’s just so quick and witty and interesting. I like that the characters feel so different and you can tell their voice. Only once did I get a bit confused due to the style.

Villain

So the villain is a matter of perspective. There is much motive behind the overarching enemy and that goes into my plot thoughts. The book is more about survival but there’s certainly room for growth.

Goal

Spoilers

I’m really looking forward to the next book but this will certainly take some time to digest and get over.

Top Ten Books I Really Should’ve Already Read

So, I am really bad at finishing series but I am also read bad at starting recommended ones.

Falling kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes

I like kingdoms and empires and I like magic. I originally picked this up at my library before knowing anything about it but I was busy so never got to it which is a shame.

Cross Stitch (Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon

I’m Scottish, Glaswegian. Very strong family history of being Scottish. I don’t know if this means that I should have read this or I shouldn’t have because it might not live up to it.

The Martian by Andy Weir

I’ve seen the film (don’t kill me, I didn’t know there was a book) and I love si-fi and my Dad has read it and likes it and he’s a really sciency person so I value his opinion.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

I like this concept but I’ve not really been in a mind-set for reading it so I keep putting it off because I want to love it or at least give it it’s fair shot and not shoot it down just because I’m not in the state of mind to enjoy it.

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

I love fantasy so I should have gotten around to this by now but I think the size of it has put me off so I’m planning on making an effort this summer to get through it when I’m not as busy.

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

I don’t really know much about this but so there’s so much buzz round Alexandra Bracken, I think I tried to start this but I don’t remember.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

I don’t really read male authors. It’s not a conscious decision it just seems to work out that way and I’m not really sure why so I’m wanting to expand my reading this year.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas

The only reason I haven’t read this is because I want to get through the Lunar Chronicles first so that there isn’t a cross over.

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Again I don’t really know much about this but I’m wanting to expand by reading horizons.

The Demon King by Cynda Williams Chima

PeruseProject always mentions this and she really likes fantasy so that’s the reason I’m interested in this.

If you have any recommendations of what I should read first then that would be really appreciated.