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Which were your favorites?
I’m curious if Witch King will be standalone or not. That might change my answer. The Ile Rien ones were good, the Emilie ones would make good YA fare. The Raksura books are told by a nonhuman culture, but things get very dark at some points. I’d say that one of the main characters in that series is a bit of a prototype for Murderbot, and another the prototype for Ship.
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It's entirely possible that there's never any point where "observed gender" is even implied and my mind just filled in some blanks when it talks about passing for human. To be honest I never gave it an ounce of thought before this whole conversation.
I think that's what happened. Your mind filled in the gaps and assumed Murderbot's gender. I'm pretty sure it's never stated it looks like either a man or a woman. I mean, if it can pass for human it must like either or at least androgynous, but Martha Wells never tells us which.
What I do find interesting though is how many people chimed in here with a very strong sense of this detail but it was all a mix of responses! :)
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I read the first three books of the Imperial Radh (Ancillary Justice) series and for all of the love they get online I found them rather dull. There's this fairly dramatic collapse of a galaxy spanning empire happening in the background while the protagonist frets over the level of offense she might cause at the tea party if she chooses to wear the more scandalous gloves. The last book gets a bit more into the fractu…
Definitely don't read the most recent one, Translation Space. It's some very bad "I like you but I don't know how to say it!" YA-vein tropes and the climactic scene is, essentially, people walking around a circular hallway a couple times. It was so bad it caused me to re-read the original three, and I realized that only the first was one was any good.
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If it's a masterclass in anything, it's proven to be a low-risk, revenue-generating productization formula with options that I've noticed Tor has leaned heavily into for roughly the past decade, e.g. Seanan McGuire, Becky Chambers, Ursula Vernon, Nghi Vo.
Do they have any male authors you describe that way?
I cannot stand Becky Chambers. I've tried to read her three times, and after about 20 pages I give up. Of the thousand or so novels I've read in the last 20 years, I've done that with about 5 books.
One of my friends asked my why I was so vituperative about Becky Chambers. I said it was just so bad.
They pointed out that I really, really sounded like I was channeling the "I am a man and I really want everyone's favorite things to be what men like in Sci Fi" trope.
I don't think this is accurate! I like all sorts of feminist sci-fi.
But I loath characters who sit around and don't do anything much while some low-stakes activity is happening and there's a bunch of angst that strikes me as unimportant whining not driving any plot.
So, fair enough, I have only encountered that style of writing from female authors. But I don't think it's a particularly damning individual preference.
I happened to love Murderbot (and A Memory Called Empire), though, per the original point of discussion for this post.
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I read the first three books of the Imperial Radh (Ancillary Justice) series and for all of the love they get online I found them rather dull. There's this fairly dramatic collapse of a galaxy spanning empire happening in the background while the protagonist frets over the level of offense she might cause at the tea party if she chooses to wear the more scandalous gloves. The last book gets a bit more into the fractu…
This is pretty amusing but true. I enjoyed the series for its quirks (unable to detect many character genders) but it’s very young adulty with focus on social things and stuff. I think the concept of non-human-minds is better explored by Linda Nagata’s series. You can kind of start in the middle with Edges and go with that.
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I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual problem is that the work is just OK but gets talked up like it's great. Sometimes, it's outright bad. I've got enough past actually-greats—genre and otherwise—to catch up on, I don't need 100 "OMG it's so good!" comments from a dozen sites steering me toward a newer book that turns out to be p…
I agree. Letterboxd makes this easy to accomplish with movies, and there's enough people covering videogames out there that you can usually find someone to dial-in on your taste (or find a Steam curator that lists a lot of stuff you love). TV is a bit harder, but you may be able to find a critic with a consistent voice that matches your own through Rotten Tomatoes (not the aggregate score alone) or maybe a podcast ab…
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A Memory Called Empire was so good! Seems like nobody has heard of it.
It won the Hugo and was shortlisted for the Nebula, so at least some people have heard of it. Those are the two most famous sci-fi awards. Sometimes I look at their shortlists for ideas on what to read next.
I'm a bit mystified by the hype for murderbot. I read it and thought it was OK but a lot of people rave about it. Still not every book is for every person, it didn't connect with me but it very obviously has its fans.
i found it good, but definitely pretty pulpy and also clearly relying on the trope of 'minimal protag personality so the reader can slot themselves in'
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Do they have any male authors you describe that way?
[not the original person you asked the question of] I cannot stand Becky Chambers. I've tried to read her three times, and after about 20 pages I give up. Of the thousand or so novels I've read in the last 20 years, I've done that with about 5 books. One of my friends asked my why I was so vituperative about Becky Chambers. I said it was just so bad. They pointed out that I really, really sounded like I was channelin…
I really liked A Psalm for the Wild-Built but was hoping to learn more about the robots but then the second one came out and it was a lot of shallow philosophizing on the meaning of life that was more aimed at a level for YA books. There's nothing wrong with YA novels but that's not what I was looking for.
I found this series a pulp read. Found it because one either won or was nominated for a Hugo. It’s no match for the old Hugos. It’s light fiction in a future universe rather than the kind of novel sci-fi I most enjoy.