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Devour Your TBR - Sci-Fi July Wrap Up & Avid August TBR

Happy Thursday everyone!  This year I'm taking part in Devour Your TBR which is hosted by Kathy @ Books and Munches and destiny.  Each month the Goodreads Group for the challenge dedicated to knocking out our ever growing TBRs comes up with a themed challenge. Keep reading to see mini reviews of my Sci-Fi July reads & my potential TBR for Avid August (all about catching up on ARCs and reading books that were on previous TBR lists but you never got around to reading):





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I think The Custard Protocol is going to become a new favorite series. I loved seeing Prudence all grown up, favorites popping up from the prequels, and more of the wider supernatural world. Gail Carriger's brand of steampunk is one of the best.

I read Prudence (The Custard Protocol #1) by Gail Carriger from July 11 - 13, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.


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I've heard so many great things about The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past #1) by Liu Cixin and had high expectations.  Unfortunately, though, this wasn't just quite for me.  I had a difficult time making it through it.  I guess hard sci-fi just isn't for me.

I read this novel from July 21 - 24, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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Wow! Redshirts by John Scalzi was so much fun. I love Scalzi's style and his dark sense of humor. Plus, it's just about as meta as it gets as well. As a fan of classic Star Trek, this was a real treat. It's short, but it's a real page turner that keeps you laughing. I have a feeling you'll also like it if you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Galaxy Quest.


I read this novel from July 13 - 17, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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Marissa Meyers does a fantastic job writing YA superheros and Archenemies, the sequel to Renegades is no exception.  Her world-building is pretty fantastic and I absolutely love having a morally gray villain leading the story, especially a female villain at that.  My only issues with this is that it slows down for a good chunk in the middle and that I wish we got to know a little more about the rest of the teams members aside from Nova and Adrian.  Overall, though, I'm dying to know what's going to happen in Supernova.


 I read this from July 19 - 21, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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I love the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books and I usually like Eoin Colfer so I was hoping that I'd enjoy Colfer's continuation, And Another Thing...,  of the classic series.  Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out for me.  I suppose my expectations were a little too high.  There were some spots where everything felt authentic, but this didn't happen often enough for me.  This probably would have been a two star read for me if it weren't for the Norse mythology aspect.  That's always fun, and can you blame me if I totally imagined Thor and all the rest to look like their MCU counterparts.

I read this on July 19, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen is an absolute gem of a time travel novel.  I can't say that I've read a time travel novel quite like this, but I enjoyed getting to know Kin, the ex-Temporal Correction Bureau special agent who got stuck for eighteen years after a mission to the 1990s went wrong.  He had no choice but to accept his situation and he built a new life for himself.  The longer he's stuck there the more he suffers the debilitating side effects.  When a TCB rescue team finally comes for him, he doesn't know how he can leave behind everything he has now regardless of his health even if could finally go back to his old life.  The science stuff gets pretty technical in some spots, but either way the story has a lot of heart.  It's quite a roller coaster ride of emotions when it comes to Kin and his predicament.  This flawed character is one of the most relatable I've had the chance to meet.  If you're a fan of thought-provoking time-travel that's a fast-paced, fun adventure as well, then you'll absolutely need Mike Chen's debut novel.  I can't wait to read his next release due out this coming January, A Beginning at the End.


I read this novel from July 21 - 24, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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This series opener has a strong beginning and an intriguing concept and setting that really kept me turning the pages, but none of the characters really stood out all that much.  There's a lot of potential for this to be great but it never quite made it there for me.  If you're for a lesser known YA sci-fi dystopia though you may want to give this a shot.

I read The Pearl Wars (Skyship Academy #1) by Nick James from July 17 - 19, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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Exo (Exo #1) by Fonda Lee is my second book by this author and I'd say she's solidly on the path to becoming an auto-buy author for me.  I quite enjoyed her brand of a post-alien invasion world and what that means for us.  It's very unique and original.  I can't say I've ever seen aliens quite like the zhree before now.  Her world-building especially is fascinating.  Plus, this dystopian definitely raises a lot of important questions and each side makes many valid points.  I only wish we got a bigger picture of the wider universe.  I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series, Cross Fire.

I read this book from July 7 - 10, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs #1) by Richard K. Morgan was a fantastic series opener. I don't know why I put this off for so long. I enjoyed getting to explore Kovacs' world and the technology. Plus Kovacs was a pretty great character to go on this ride with as well. I can't wait to continue this series and watch the Netflix adaptation.

I read this cyberpunk novel from July 4 - 6, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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To be honest, my two favorite short stories included here in The Best Science Fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle are The Adventure of the Devil's Foot and The Adventure of the Creeping Man. Both are Sherlock Holmes stories that I was already familiar with as they were featured in His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. I also quite liked the two Professor Challenger stories, The Disintegration Machine and When the World Screamed. They helped remind me that I need to read The Lost World and its sequel.

I read this collection of short stories from July 10 - 11, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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I didn't quite know what to expect from Annals of the Time Patrol (Time Patrol #1-2) by Poul Anderson , but that was actually pretty cool and imaginative.  Of course, it is fairly episodic in nature (the two books included in this collection are actually put together from several short stories the author had written between the 1950s and the 1970s), but I enjoyed reading Anderson's take on time travel.  If you're interested in scholarly time travel where it's clear that the author has done their research, Doctor Who, and The Time Tunnel (a totally underrated 1960s sci-fi show), I have a feeling this series could be for you.

I read this book on July 17, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.



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Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty is tricky, complicated, and cinematic.  I couldn't get enough of the tech, the cast of characters, and the mystery at the heart of everything.  It's particularly to learn about the crew of the ship via flashbacks and what lead them to where they are now.  There are a lot of twists and turns that take you to all kinds of unexpected places.  My only complaint is that the ending wrapped everything up a little too neatly for me all things considered.  If you like Altered Carbon, then I have a feeling you'll enjoy this novel too.  I can't wait to read more by Lafferty in the future.

I read this paperback from July 1 - 4, 2019 and my review is also on Goodreads.


My Avid August TBR:

ARCs:



The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernot - Novels in verse aren't usually my thing, but I think this is going to be a great one.


Bursts of Fire (Addicted to Heaven #1) by Susan Forest - This sounds like it's going to be an amazing fantasy to me.


Crown of Coral and Pearl (Crown of Coral and Pearl #1) by Mara Rutherford - This sounds like it's going to be an epic new YA fantasy.  I can't wait to read it!


The Cruel Stars by John Birmingham - This sci-fi novel is getting a lot of great reviews so far and it sounds like it'll be great for people who like Battlestar Galactica.


The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman - This Israel set urban fantasy sounds like it will be well worth reading.


Swipe Right for Murder by Derek Milman - I'm so excited for this Hitchcockian YA mystery thriller by the author of one of my favorite reads of last year.


The Warehouse by Rob Hart - Have you heard of this near future set sci-fi thriller?  It sounds like it has a lot of potential, especially since Blake Crouch has provided a blurb for it!

From My TBR Mountain:


Breaking the Gloaming (Light in the Gloaming #2) by J.B. Simmons - This has been on my mountain for five years and it's time I get to it especially since I loved book one.  I featured this book on a tbr in 2016.


The Color of Magic (Discworld #1) by Terry Pratchett - This has been on my Goodreads want to read list for a very long time and it's part of my Beat the Backlist Challenge this year as well.


Dreadnought (The Clockwork Century #2) by Cherie Priest - This has also been on my Goodreads want to read list for ages and it's been on shelves practically forever too.  It's time I continue this steampunk series.


Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 1 by Bisco Hatori - This manga has been on my Goodreads tbr for forever, and it's also part of my August plans for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge.


The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters - I included this on my Fall 2017 tbr.  Cat Winters is one of my favorite historical fantasy authors and it's about time I read more from her - after this I'll only have one more novel to read from her before I'm caught up!


Have you read any of these novels?  Are you taking part in this reading challenge?  What should I read first?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!

Comments

  1. I really enjoy reading Carriger's books, because we get to spend so much time in that world, and see some of the characters at all different ages. I have not started The Custard Protocol, but it is a must for me.

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    Replies
    1. It's a lot of fun - I can't wait to read more of that series. I hope you enjoy it. :)

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  2. Wow- you got a ton of reading done in July!! Seems like a mixed bag as far as the reviews went but still mostly good!

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