So, we have arrived at the first Reading Roundup post for November! According to Goodreads, I am well ahead of my target number of books for 2021, although there are a few on the list that I didn’t finish, for a variety of reasons. This week, I read two books from the Science Fiction genre…

My first book was The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray. I chose this at random from our Library ebook collection and I am glad that I did. Here is the blurb:

”The world has stopped turning. The hunt has just begun.

It is 2059, and the world has crashed. Forty years ago, a solar catastrophe began to slow the planet’s rotation to a stop. Now one half of the globe is permanently sunlit, the other half trapped in an endless night. The United States has colonized the southern half of Great Britain–lucky enough to find itself in the narrow habitable region left between frozen darkness and scorching sunlight–where both nations have managed to survive the ensuing chaos by isolating themselves from the rest of the world.

Ellen Hopper is a scientist living on a frostbitten rig in the cold Atlantic. She wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into casual violence and brutal authoritarianism. Yet when two government officials arrive, demanding she return to London to see her dying college mentor, she accepts–and begins to unravel a secret that threatens not only the nation’s fragile balance, but the future of the whole human race.”

This was a really good read and a well written first book by the author. I will definitely look out for further books by him. Here is the review that I posted on Goodreads:

The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought that this was a well-written and thoughtful addition to British science fiction. The setting was interesting and unusual: living in a situation where the planet’s rotation has slowed and then stopped altogether. I questioned whether it would be possible for life on Earth to survive this dreadful catastrophe, but saw in the author’s notes that scientists had been consulted.

The political and social responses were well thought through and I enjoyed the fact that the main character was a strong woman. As the book developed into a thriller, it became more exciting, although the ending was quite sudden.

All in all, for me the book was really worth reading.

View all my reviews

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Whooooop! This was sooooooo good! What (you may ask)? Tiamat’s Wrath by James S A Corey, #08 in The Expanse series, one of my most favourite series of Science Fiction books of all time. First we have the blurb:

”Thirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper.

In the dead systems where gates lead to stranger things than alien planets, Elvi Okoye begins a desperate search to discover the nature of a genocide that happened before the first human beings existed, and to find weapons to fight a war against forces at the edge of the imaginable. But the price of that knowledge may be higher than she can pay.

At the heart of the empire, Teresa Duarte prepares to take on the burden of her father’s godlike ambition. The sociopathic scientist Paolo Cortázar and the Mephistophelian prisoner James Holden are only two of the dangers in a palace thick with intrigue, but Teresa has a mind of her own and secrets even her father the emperor doesn’t guess.

And throughout the wide human empire, the scattered crew of the Rocinante fights a brave rear-guard action against Duarte’s authoritarian regime. Memory of the old order falls away, and a future under Laconia’s eternal rule – and with it, a battle that humanity can only lose – seems more and more certain. Because against the terrors that lie between worlds, courage and ambition will not be enough . . .”

Please read other reviews of this book and this series, in addition to mine. And then read the books! The TV series is pretty good, but nothing comes close to actually reading. This are my thoughts:

Tiamat’s Wrath by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, what a read! And I wish I could go on to read the final book in the series straight away, but I will have to wait a few weeks.

Having read all of the series up to number 7 a couple of years ago, I have since had a stroke and somehow forgot about these brilliant books. So, I was browsing through an ebook listing and found that I had somehow missed that volume 8 had been published. It was like finding an amazing treasure!

I had a little difficulty when I began to read. I could remember most of the main characters, but had entirely forgotten the plot of the previous book. Perhaps I should have re-read that one first? Anyway, a lot of the story began to re-emerge from my brain fog and I really immersed myself in this cracking tale.

It is sad that the TV series won’t reach these later books and tell the whole story. I really love the main characters and the relationships between them, although my mind now gives them the faces of the TV actors!

I really hope that one day my younger son will read this series as I am sure his scientific brain would have a greater understanding than mine and it would be great to be able to discuss it all with him. In the meantime, I will read more of the reviews on here.

Oh, the nail-biting wait for book 9!!!

View all my reviews

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After that I found it very difficult to choose my next book. How on Earth could anything live up to such a brilliant read?

Well, you will have to wait until next week to find out my choice, or take a quick peak at the sidebar…

Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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