Hey everyone, it's Jananie, and welcome back to another episode of #EpicBookRecs.
So this is a monthly series that I host here on the Epic Reads channel where I
recommend a bunch of books based on a certain theme.
So I've previously done a bunch of themes, so
you can go check out all of those in the playlist linked down below.
But today's theme is one I'm very excited about, because most of the books in this
video are some of my all-time favorites, because I love sci-fi.
And fantasy as well, but sci-fi, I absolutely, absolutely love.
So I'm gonna be recommending some of my all time favorites today.
And it's just going to be an awesome time.
All right, so the first book that I have for
you today is The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James.
I recently read this and I had so much fun with it.
It's such a cute, fun, light-hearted sci-fi, but
it kind of has a killer twist towards the middle slash end.
And that's not really spoiler because I feel like it sets you up for
the expectation that there is going to be something thrilling about this.
But basically, this book follows her main character,
Romy Silvers, who is the commander of the ship called the Infinity.
And it has been away from Earth for I think about 6,000 days.
And the basic mission of the Infinity was to travel to this other planet that
had Earth-like conditions to basically start another Earth, and start
a new civilization, kind of like an Earth Two, and kind of continue the human race.
So Romy wasn't actually from our original Earth, she was born on the Infinity.
Her parents were some of the astronauts tasked with creating this Earth Two.
But in a freak accident all of the astronauts on the ship die.
But Romy was born before that and she kind of grew up before that.
And somehow she ends up being the only person on this ship with a bunch of
embryos frozen, that are to be born and grown on Earth Two and
to create the new population of Earth.
So Romy is literally the loneliest girl in the universe.
But when a another ship called the Eternity is kind of sent after hers to
kind of help her and
continue with this journey to the Earth Two, she gets really excited.
Because she finally has someone to talk to.
Because she's so far from Earth that any messages that she gets out kind of take
a really long time to get a reply from Earth.
And so this new ship called the Eternity is coming.
And there's a commander on that ship called Jay.
And there might be a romance, there may not be a romance.
I don't know.
But there's also kind of a twist.
And it is such a fun and interesting read.
It was very different from anything I've read before.
So I really enjoyed it.
And it's definitely great if you like space books, if you like a bit of sci-fi.
But if you didn't want something super alien-heavy and
something kind of near future seeming, then this one is a really great one.
All right, the next book that I wanna recommend is a light sci-fi, and
it does take place on Earth, but it does involve some aliens.
And that book is I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi.
This is a very new book.
And I was so excited to read this as soon as I heard about it.
It just seemed super, super cool.
Basically, it follows the three main characters that are pictured on the cover.
It follows Jesse Hewitt, Cate Collins and Adeem Khan.
And we are kind of getting a snapshot of their lives, a week of their lives just
after Earth receives a message from this alien planet called Alma.
And in that message,
they basically find out that Alma has created this kind of a colony.
And they've deemed that humans have not been acting in the best interest of their
planet or of each other.
And so Alma is hitting the kill switch on Earth.
And everyone's gonna die in seven days.
So that is kind of the inciting incident of this book.
And so all three characters are kind of reeling from that news and
dealing with that news in very, very different ways.
And their lives are on very different tracks.
And that news kind of causes them to do very different things.
So in Adeem's case,
he's dealing with the fact that he hasn't seen his sister in a very long time.
She ran away from home after her parents found out that she was gay.
And so he is determined to find her and make things right with her and his family.
In Cate's case, she has a mother with schizophrenia.
And she's always heard wild stories about her biological father.
And so she is determined to find her father before the world ends and
really get an answer to all her unanswered questions.
And then Jesse Hewitt, who lives with his underpaid mother,
both of them who are kind of struggling to pay rent.
He doesn't really believe that the end is coming.
And he's determined to make a few bucks off of this situation.
Because he has reached a point in life where he doesn't really think feel like
anything really matters.
Not the boys that he hooks up with, not the job that he has,
nothing really matters.
And so he is kind of making the most of these last few days because he doesn't
think the world is gonna end.
And he thinks it's just gonna continue trudging on the way it has been.
And it's just so
interesting the way that these characters are dealing with the end of the world.
And I really, really enjoyed that aspect of the book.
So I think it's really, really great if you wanted a book that's kind of sci-fi,
but not really.
It really is about the people in the book and their relationships and
the way that they're trying to salvage them before the end of the world.
All right, and for a sci-fi recommendation video, I can't go without mentioning
the Illuminae Files by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman.
This is one of my favorite series in the world.
Because it was just so cool and so wild and
just unlike anything I've ever read before.
Basically, it takes place hundreds of years into the future.
It follows a different pair of main characters in each book, but
it begins with these two characters, Kady and
Ezra, who have kind of broken up recently and they are each other's exes.
And when their planet kind of gets attacked by this biotech company,
by their spaceship, they are kind of evacuated onto another spaceship,
and they are running away from the one that attacked them.
And then there's a crazy AI involved in this story, and some really crazy death
tolls, but the interesting thing about this series is the way it's told.
So it's told in this dossier format.
And all the pagers are kind of very unique and strange and interesting.
You're seeing interviews and security cam footage and countdowns and IMs and
messages and emails.
And the story kind of unfolds from the way you are reading these documents.
But these documents have also been curated by someone.
So you are seeing a story unfold the way that someone wants you to.
And as you continue through the series, it kind of gets stranger and
weirder and crazier.
And the stakes only get higher.
But I absolutely loved this series.
And I definitely recommend it if you love sci-fi.
If you wanted something set in space, this series is set mostly in space.
Most of the characters are on spaceships of some kind or another, and
it's just really, really interesting.
But also be prepared to have some of your favorites die and
to have your mind blown with all of the crazy twists that go on in this series.
All right, the next sci-fi recommendation I have for
you is another kind of lighter sci-fi.
This one takes place on Earth, but I absolutely love it to pieces.
It's one of my favorite series of all time, and
that is the Warcross series by Marie Lu.
So this book is kind of like Ready Player One, if you've ever read that or
seen the movie.
But it does have this kind of gaming vibe to it.
It takes place about five years into the future where this game called Warcross has
kind of taken over people's social lives.
It was created by this young man named Hideo Tanaka when he was very young, and
he's only like 21 now.
And in Warcross there are these tournaments and championship games.
And it draws the attention of basically everyone.
But our book follows our main character, Emika Chen,
who is this 18 year old girl who is kind of struggling to make ends meet.
She is a bounty hunter as well.
So she catches criminals who are gambling or doing illegal things on Warcross.
And she catches them in real life and brings them to police and
kind of gets paid for that.
But when she is in a really bad bind, she ends up kind of playing Warcross on one of
her illegal accounts and glitches herself accidentally into a tournament game.
And it catches the attention of the creator of the game, Hideo Tanaka.
And although Emika totally freaks out, Hideo ends up sending her an offer to
come to Japan to play as a member in a Warcross team for the championship.
So she can catch a hacker that has been plaguing the game and
that Hideo is very worried about.
And so Emika is literally a player hunter, hacker and pawn in this book.
She is a spy, but she is also a player in the game.
And she is just up to some really crazy things.
There's also a really great romance in this book as well, and
I really enjoyed that.
But as a sci-fi read, it was super awesome, and I really, really enjoyed it.
I definitely think it's one you can dive into if you're not super into
the spaceships or the alien or outer space type of sci-fi.
If you wanted more of Earth-bound, grounded sci-fi, then this is a great one.
All right, and
the last book that I wanted to recommend today is Scythe by Neal Shusterman.
So this is a sci-fi, but also kind of a dystopian book.
It is set hundreds of years into the future when humanity has basically
conquered death and disease and any kind of thing that can kill a human.
They no longer have to die and they can reset their age back.
And so they can kind of live multiple lives and continue on endlessly.
And so to combat population growth, there's this organization or
set of people called Scythes.
And the Scythes are bestowed the honor and ability to kill people,
which is called gleaning in kind of these certain quotas each year, and
in a spontaneous way or whatever way that they choose.
And so there's always this fear that even though you can continue on living,
there is this fear that a Scythe might one day come knocking on your door.
And so this book follows our two main characters, Citra and Rowan,
who are these young teenagers who kind of get visited by
this Scythe who offers to take them on as apprentices to become Scythes themselves.
And so as Citra and Rowan kind of train together,
they also know that they cannot both be Scythes in the end.
One of them will not get to make the cut.
But they're learning the art of killing, and
they're learning how Scythes kind of go about doing their job.
But the world of this book is just so interesting.
There is an AI that runs all of humanity and all the countries.
There's a strong element of humanity kind of having forgotten what it means to be
human, to have a short life, to be fearful of what's to come, and to be fearful of
your life ending before getting the chance to do all that you wanted.
And so there's this interesting kind of conversation about death and
humanity and all the things.
And this book is just so awesome, and I loved it so, so much.
And there are two other books in the series, and the last one recently came
out, so definitely go check it out, but great, great sci-fi series.
But those are all the books that I wanted to share with you today.
I really hope you enjoyed this video and that you enjoyed getting some sci-fi recs.
I really hope that those of you who do not read sci-fi that often have found
something that you might want to pick up.
And for those of you who are old time sci-fi readers,
I hope you have found something new to pick up and add to your TBR.
So, thank you so, so much for watching, and
please leave me a comment down below with your sci-fi recs.
I would love to hear them, I am always up for more sci-fi reads.
And I will see you in the next episode of #EpicBookRecs, bye.