Hi! My name's penny and as usual I'm here to talk about some bookish things
specifically today I'm going to talk about some of my favorite books from
2019. As I said in my previous videos I read 250 books this year so picking the
top books was very difficult so I've decided to split it into genres. So
for this video are we gonna be talking about my top science fiction reads of
the year. I will say I actually felt like I read a lot of science fiction this
year but then when I went and looked through what I'd actually read there wasn't
that much science fiction after all. So I think in 2020, especially for the year
2020, which is such a significant year in terms of what we think of when we think
of the future, I'm definitely going to be needing to read a lot more science
fiction. But I still managed to come up with a top 5 science fiction books that
I read this year so let me tell you about them. Number 5 is All Rights
Reserved by Gregory Scott Katsoulis. So this is a dystopian where once you
turn 15, every word you speak you will be charged for. So everybody has a little
wristband that tracks everything they say and charges them. Also physical
gestures will be charged for. And it really analyzes what effect this might
have on a society if we took copyright to this level of extreme. Primarily we
follow this girl named Speth. Her name is Speth because there was a cheap name and
her family can't afford a more expensive name. But she decides that she is just
going to refuse to speak and this has quite a big impact, a bigger impact than
she was expecting. This book is actually part of a duology and unfortunately I
thought the end of All Rights Reserved and the second book weren't quite as
well put together but I still really enjoyed at the beginning of this book
and just the ideas that it explored in the story. And isn't that always what
you want from science fiction? At least, it's what I want. Then number four is the
Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. This is somewhat a time travel book and I do
like time travel although I will say it for this particular book I was a bit
disappointed in the time travel overall. Basically we follow this person
and their gender is not mentioned until about halfway through the book. They or
join the army in this war against Mars and the Martians, although it's pretty
clear right from big at the beginning that the Martians are perhaps not aliens.
They are in fact just humans living on Mars. And the planet is now run by these
seven main corporations and if you are not a citizen of one of those
corporations then you are going to really struggle in the world. So it's
very dystopian but at the same time once our main character joins the army, they
will be beamed down to where they're supposed to fight and our main character
starts getting beamed down not only into a different location but also to a
different point in time. And so the story isn't necessarily told in a linear way
although it's linear to the way that the character experiences it. I love the way
that the dystopian world was put together with these corporations and I
thought the realities of war were quite well depicted. As I said I was just a
little bit disappointed in the time travel because I wanted it to be
something completely mind-blowing and instead it didn't quite get there. But
still this was a very enjoyable read and if you like time travel and you like
gritty dark space war stuff then I think you would like this book as well. Number
three is the Themis files, which I read on audiobook from the library. I would
actually really like to read the physical books at some point and see how
the reading experience differs because the story is told from different
interviews transcripts and files and documents. It's not quite as much of a
multimedia experience as Illuminae files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
although that might just be because I listened to the audio books and didn't
read the physical books, so I'd love to read the physical books at some point. So
in this story we follow this young girl who's riding her bicycle through the
forest, falls into a hole, and realizes that she's on top of a giant hand. And
then they start finding the rest of the parts of the robot.
The story throughout the series really goes in unexpected directions and
sometimes I thought the way that it was told meant that you were a little bit
disconnected from the characters but in the end I still did manage to get that
connection. And there were some very extreme parts. I will say for book number
two there is a torture scene and listening to that an audiobook was quite
intense so if that's something you think you might be sensitive to it's something
to watch out for. But I just thought these books did a really great job of
looking at what it means to be human and what it might be like when we finally do
touch base with aliens, especially if they're already aware of us. There were
some really great characters and some really great action and the audio book
narration is full cast and I thought it was done in a really good way so I would
definitely recommend the audiobooks for the series as well. Then number two I
don't have here but I do have the spin-off series so I'll hold that up
instead and that is this graphic novel... not this one the other one, the
prequels. So Descender by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen. I probably said that
wrong. But this is a graphic novel series all about a war between robots and
humans. Basically some giant robots turned up and just killed a whole bunch
of humans and humans then retaliated by culling all the robots even though they
depend on robots for their survival and do a lot of things for them. And throughout
the story we follow this young companion robot
Tim 21 as he tries to find out what happened to his brother and his mother
who are both human. These books made me feel very emotional. I got very
emotionally attached to the robots and I think it really looks at what the
relationship could be or should be like between robots and humans. And so far the
spin-off series Ascender, which follows the daughter of two of those
characters, it looks like it's going to be just as amazing and will probably be
on my top books for next year. In fact, I just read this so it's December so this
is also top science fiction for the year. It counts.
Then number one science fiction that I read this year would definitely be Skyward by
Brandon Sanderson. And also sequel Starsight was released this year.
Unfortunately, my library copy hasn't turned up yet so I probably won't read
it until next year but I am very excited to get my hands on that second book
because the first one was so great. Did that sentence even make sense?
Anyway number one is Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. This follows a girl named
Spensa who wants to become a pilot and protect the humans that now live in
these caves on this desolate planet from the aliens that regularly attack them.
Unfortunately, her father was also a pilot and he ran away in the middle of
this big fight and so now people don't really think that she should be allowed
to be a pilot. But then while she's out exploring the desert she discovers
something which changes everything. Of course it's Brandon Sanderson so at
the end of the book everything changes. You learn things that just change
everything. There is also an AI character in this
book series that is just my favorite and he's so funny and I love him and I
can't wait to learn more about that character. They're just my absolute favorite.
And if you haven't picked up Skyward by Brandon Sanderson, you really should
because it is gonna be an amazing series. I can just tell already. So those are the
top 5 science fiction books that I read in 2019.
Do keep an eye out for the rest of my top books of 2019 videos and let me know
if you've read any of the books that I talked about. What did you think about
them? Or are there any other science fiction books that you would recommend
to me? As I said I am going to be needing to read some more science
fiction in 2020 so I need some recommendations! Otherwise thank you so
much for watching. I hope that you're having a wonderful day and I will see
you next time :)