The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

This is the thread where you can submit reviews for the Best Review contest. The thread is open for submissions and will close at Midnight EST on May 20. Voting will start the next day and run until the end of the GR day on May 31. The person whose review gets the most votes will get to design a 20 point task for the Summer Challenge.

To be eligible for this task opportunity you must have achieved at least 100 points on the Readerboard by midnight Eastern Time on May 19, 2017.

Just a reminder that each person can only submit one review - but you can make edits to your review up until the end. The review does not have to be any particular length and doesn't have to be a positive one (i.e. you can choose to review a book you didn't like).
Please include your Readerboard Name.

PLEASE DO NOT comment on people's reviews in this thread - this is for submissions only - you will be able to comment when voting begins.

SPOILER ALERT!- These reviews may include spoilers.

My Review is for the book: Company Town by Madeline Ashby

I read this book as it was one of the selections for the 2017 Canada Reads Debates. I loved this book. It is a dystopian novel set in the future. The story takes place in a city which is actually huge oil rig, and the city has just been sold to a new corporation. I think it is a timely reminder that society cannot afford to let whoever has the most money make all the decisions. It is very difficult these days to find a fresh and innovative book, and I found this to be an outstanding cautionary tale.

The book has a very strong female protagonist. In world where most humans have had some type of biological engineering to enhance themselves, Hwa had made a choice to remain organic, and live a healthy lifestyle, practice marshal arts, and work as a body guard. The book has a mystery element to it as Hwa tires to figure out who is murdering women. It raises many ethical questions about bioengineering, and just because science has figured out a way to do things, does not necessarily mean that we should.

Another interesting aspect explored in this book is the legalization and normalization of the sex-trade.

Listening to the Canada Read debates after reading this book really enhanced the appreciation of the many layers of this book. I agreed with some of the debaters that the ending of the book where Hwa has relations with a man, and that is what ultimately saves her is a bit of a disappointment. The rest of the book focuses so much on her strengths.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an intriguing mystery, future societies, and strong female protagonists.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers
Reviewed by trishhartuk - four stars.

It’s Hugo voting season again: the time of the year when I catch up on my science fiction and fantasy reading. One of the 2017 Hugo best novel finalists is A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers. But alas, it’s number two in a series, so I felt honour bound to read book one first! Enter The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

One of the tropes of science fiction is the various ways to get from Planet A to Planet B without taking forever to do it, be it through faster than light travel, or some kind of gate system. But how do the gates get there in the first place? That’s the basic premise behind The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

The story centres around the crew of the Wayfarer, an old but much modified starship, which takes the long route and puts the gates in place: a simple premise, but one that is open to so many possibilities. From that basis (and backed by a Kickstarter, so she could have time to write), Becky Chambers has written a really good, relationship-based space opera, in the "rag-tag band" mould of the likes of Firefly.

The author has built a rich universe full of differing alien species, each with their very differing cultures, and the majority of which go a long way beyond the prosthetic forehead favourites you see so often in TV and movies. The main crew includes representatives of several of these, as well as a smattering of humans (one of the least important species in the Galactic Commons), and we get a glimpse of some of the other races among the supporting characters.

During the “road trip” to the small, angry planet of the title, the crew get into a variety of scrapes which keep the plot moving, from pirates, to a plague of alien locusts, to being the unwitting cause of a war. However, first and foremost what’s important are the characters and their relationships. The author manages to brings them all to life with sufficient skill that you care about what happens everyone, including the AI that runs the ship! Moreover, given that there is a group of strong female characters within the crew (including the pilot, the engineer and the administrator who keeps everything in order), as well as the supporting cast, it passes the Bechdel test in spades.

The result is something fresh and original - always a challenge with space opera - which I really enjoyed reading.

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes strong character-driven stories (even if you aren't fans of SF), and/or space opera of the "independent trader" school. I’m definitely looking forward to reading the sequel in the next SRC.