My Favorite Books Of 2020 Part One: Science fiction

Image by Genty from Pixabay

I read 188 books this year! As far as I can remember this was the year of my life when I’ve read the greatest number of books.

A part of that, but not all, was due to lock down. This year I exchanged my Saturday’s going out shopping for reading, but in reality this staying-at-home trend was happening to me before lock down already and the pandemic just gave me a very strong reason to avoid crowds.
The truth is that I was already tired of the idea of shopping as a leisure activity and lock down gave an extra push to the idea of a no-buy or at least a ‘reduced-buy’ year, the few exceptions being books and of course, textile masks.

Therefore, due to the great number of books read, I’ll divide this year favorite’s wrap-up in two posts:

This first part will be all Science Fiction, Dystopia, YA Sci-fi and Space Opera books and the next will have my favorite books in other genres. Mostly fantasy, epic and historic, since I’ve been out of paranormal mostly for one year now, but with also the occasional romance, thriller and ever so rare contemporary.

Let’s start then,

Favorite Science Fiction books of 2020:

1) Meet Me in the Future: Stories by Kameron Hurley

I would like to thank NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for providing me with the arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This was a page-turner, interesting story collection. The stories were very original and I could not put it down. I surely will want to read more books by this author in the near future.
My favorite short stories were “Elephants and Corpses”, “When We Fall”, “The Red Secretary”, “The Fisherman and the Pig”, “Tumbledown”, “Warped Passages”, “Our Faces”, “Radiant Sisters,…” and “The War of Heroes”.

2) The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

I read book #2 to book #5 of this awesome series this year and I really loved it, especially the fifth book, “Network Effect”, which was a novel and not a novella. I will surely continue reading the next sequels. All characters are so likable that I can’t wait for the next installment in this series.

3) Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

This Post Apocalypse Dystopia with clones was brilliant and the best Sci-fi I’ve read for a long while, and I’m happy that I came across this book though the Lady Vaults Goodreads group, which is unfortunately now not active anymore. This was first published in 1976 but it has aged remarkably well. I’ll read more books by this author.

4) Binti (Binti #1) by Nnedi Okorafor

This was a very original Novella, and I’ll go on reading this series for sure.

Note: At a certain point I was upset at how people touched Binti’s hair all the time, and just felt like shouting: “Leave her hair alone for God’s sake!” Then I could understand why book titles like “Don’t touch my hair.” exist.

5) Falling Free (Vorkosigan Saga (Publication Order) #4) by Lois McMaster Bujold.

This book proved that a story with important themes can be an entertaining page-turner too. And now I understand why so many people recommend the Vorkosigan Saga which I intend to go on reading for sure. This book is the start of the chronological order of the Vorkosigan Saga.

6) Skyward (Skyward #1) by Brandon Sanderson.

This was awesome, and I’ll be continuing this series soon. Brandon Sanderson has been one of my favorite authors this year and I plan to read all his books eventually. I have other two books by him among my next post’s favorite fantasy books too.

7) Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty.

This was a great science fiction mystery story, with clones in a futuristic Locked-room mystery story, and the Audiobook narration was five stars too!

8) Starfarers (Starfarers #1) by Vonda N. McIntyre.

I really liked the writing style of this book and will surely go on reading this quartet. I read the fourth book a long time ago, but even knowing how it will end I am still interested in this story’s characters journey.

9) Chilling Effect (Chilling Effect #1) by Valerie Valdes.

I liked that Captain Eva Innocente was unapologetically foul-mouthed in Spanish when life yet again didn’t give her a break. This made me laugh and it was so very much relatable.
A very humorous an entertaining space opera by a Latinx author! I’ll be reading the next book in this series, Prime Deceptions, next year for sure.

10) The Nemesis (The Diabolic #3) by S.J. Kincaid.

This was a great finale for this trilogy, with all the feels, twists and suspense until the very last page. After this, and the awesome Insignia trilogy, Kincaid has become an auto-buy author for me.
The Audiobook narration by Candace Thaxton was also unforgettable and a five stars experience.

And lastly:

11) The Song Rising (The Bone Season #3) by Samantha Shannon.

This starts with a slow pace but it builds up, escalates into high stakes and it pays off in so many well developed and well written ways! Impossible to put down. I’m in this series bandwagon now for sure. I can’t wait for the next book in this series, “The Mask Falling” to be released in February 2021.

Stay tuned for the second part of this wrap-up still now in December! (I hope…)