Annihilation

My best reads this year: Non-fiction: - The Power Broker by Robert Caro Fantasy: - The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson Sci-fi: - Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio - A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr - Ra by qntm - Jean le Flambeur series by Hannu Rajaniemi - Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (didn’t like the subsequent books of the series so much) Other novels: - Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard

Last year Annihilation and the rest of the trilogy rekindled my passion for reading after almost a decade. Vandemeer really has a way with words but specifically in this novel he manages to describe what I though was indescribable. It was only fair that I tried another one of his trilogies, Borne, The Strange Bird and Dead Astronauts. With Borne being pretty normal (for Vandermeer standards) and the other two reading like pretty ramblings at times if you lack the context. I still loved them but they may not be for everyone. You should read them in the order above so that you have as many pieces of the prose puzzle when you reach Dead Astronauts. But even if you end up not liking the writing of the last two books, Borne can still be enjoyed independently. As for this year. "Blood music" by Greg Bear. Biology scify with a pretty weird concept. "Firefall" trilogy by Peter Watts Usually a scify story revolvs around one core idea, this one does too, but it kept surprising me with new secondary but interesting ones until the end. Read The Colonel between the two main books. "Rifters" trilogy by Peter Watts Exploring sexual abuse, empathy "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang…

Childhoods end - Humanity takes the next step in evolution Anhilliation - Fish out of water like story of exploring a mysterious, horrific, environment (2 sequels drag on for too much after this one though) Many Ray Bradbury stories (Martian chronicles, and the Everyman collection contain the best ones) Infinite Jest (Alternate American future of a culture of addiction and depravity, partly mediated by technology) The Circle (haven't read, but like the author, life inside the biggest tech company of the future)