Best Series 2021
Nov. 18th, 2021 12:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
factitiousFor each of these, I started with the first installment. In some cases I read more, but due to time limitations this didn't track how much I liked them very well - I would have wanted to read more books in some of these series if I'd managed to get around to it.
I've only read the first Daevabad book, but I picked up a copy of The Kingdom of Copper from a little free library in my neighborhood, and would have read it by now if time management worked differently. Book one ends with a big series of reveals, making me eager to see what happens next. Especially what Nahri's planning. The worldbuilding was nice (lots of djinn factions, but decent job keeping which ones you need to keep track of fairly manageable), but the main strength was the characters: they've all got their own incompatible goals, and play off each other in fun ways as all sorts of political intrigue unfolds. This is the series I'm the most motivated to read more of.
I rated Network Effect low in Best Novel, but I like Murderbot as a series more. I went into it worried it might be one-note, because I'd heard it was about some robot designed for murder who just wants to watch TV instead. That's a premise that could be taken in a horribly lazy direction so easily! I was pleased that there turned out to be more to it than that, but I'm concerned the series is starting to drag. If I'm being honest, the first four novellas could have been done as three novellas with no real loss, and Network Effect was much longer than it needed to be. I don't think Murderbot's character arc is staying compelling, and that's the main thing I cared about here to begin with. My rating is "series that I enjoyed and would happily recommend some installments of, but that's probably going on longer than it should," which is to say, just above No Award.
The Poppy War is a tricky one for me to rate. I haven't had time to read more than the first book, and I don't know much about where it goes as a series. The warrior school portion of the book was my favorite; bitter rivalries, demanding training, mentor who plays the fool but is more than he seems, all that stuff. The fantastic elements were fine, and fit well with Rin's ruthlessness character arc. Seeing events that were obviously taken directly from real-world history felt a little odd, and in some cases uncomfortable; this increased a lot later in the book. Turns out reading about the Rape of Nanking is still unpleasant when it's lightly fictionalized.
I suspect having historical atrocities happen in Fantasy China is kind of the series's thing as a whole; it would be strange if that was just for book one. So I think I should rate the series lower than I would rate this book alone, but that's making my ratings about guesswork, which seems like a bad plan. I should at least check some reviews of later books… OK, I think my guess was right. I do think I'll check out book two eventually. My enthusiasm for the series is about at "best of the ones below No Award" level, but the error bars on this one are high.
The Lady Astronaut Universe is another series with a Best Novel finalist. I ranked The Relentless Moon above Network Effect, but Network Effect was worse than average for its series, and The Relentless Moon better than average for its. I think. I haven't read The Fated Sky, so I guess what I really mean is that I disliked The Calculating Stars in comparison. The series is obviously about overcoming sexism as one of its main themes, and it's done in a way that feels self-congratulatory, like the series is too certain of its importance and wants the reader to know it. I realize this is a subjective "it insists on itself" kind of complaint, and it's not as though I think that's a bad theme to have. I just felt like I was being invited to applaud more than I was comfortable with. I probably won't read more of these.
The Interdependency series felt like pretty generic Scalzi. It worked as popcorn reading for me, and lined up well with some traveling I did, so I went through the whole thing. The plot was engaging enough to keep my attention despite clunky prose and some awkward exposition. No standout characters, and I was annoyed by how much of Kiva's characterization was that she likes sex. I was also annoyed about how one of the villains is constantly described as being amazing at people skills, yet literally everyone who interacts with him immediately despises him. If it were just that he believes he has people skills but doesn't, that would be fine, plenty of people are like that. But it was everyone else's assessment of him too, and the plot is built around it being true. Anyway, I found this series readable but not any kind of standout, so I'm ranking it low.
The October Daye series, however, was not readable. I started at the beginning, with Rosemary and Rue, and wasn't able to bring myself to get all the way through even one book. I realize hardboiled detective stories get to have some cliche-heavy writing as a genre convention, but there are limits. Nearly every paragraph tried to end with a dramatic sting and fell flat. Some of them were on the level of Lyttle Lytton entries: "It was like playing a game of Hot or Cold with the rules reversed: the closer I got to my goal, the harder it got to know where I was going." "This case was like a puzzle box: Every time I pushed a piece aside, there was another one waiting." It just kept going like that, and eventually I couldn't take more of it. Maybe the series gets better later on? There are over a dozen of these, and hopefully they're not all like this, but I'm not inspired to look into it more.
My votes:
Daevabad > Murderbot > No Award > The Poppy War > Lady Astronaut > The Interdependency > October Daye
I've only read the first Daevabad book, but I picked up a copy of The Kingdom of Copper from a little free library in my neighborhood, and would have read it by now if time management worked differently. Book one ends with a big series of reveals, making me eager to see what happens next. Especially what Nahri's planning. The worldbuilding was nice (lots of djinn factions, but decent job keeping which ones you need to keep track of fairly manageable), but the main strength was the characters: they've all got their own incompatible goals, and play off each other in fun ways as all sorts of political intrigue unfolds. This is the series I'm the most motivated to read more of.
I rated Network Effect low in Best Novel, but I like Murderbot as a series more. I went into it worried it might be one-note, because I'd heard it was about some robot designed for murder who just wants to watch TV instead. That's a premise that could be taken in a horribly lazy direction so easily! I was pleased that there turned out to be more to it than that, but I'm concerned the series is starting to drag. If I'm being honest, the first four novellas could have been done as three novellas with no real loss, and Network Effect was much longer than it needed to be. I don't think Murderbot's character arc is staying compelling, and that's the main thing I cared about here to begin with. My rating is "series that I enjoyed and would happily recommend some installments of, but that's probably going on longer than it should," which is to say, just above No Award.
The Poppy War is a tricky one for me to rate. I haven't had time to read more than the first book, and I don't know much about where it goes as a series. The warrior school portion of the book was my favorite; bitter rivalries, demanding training, mentor who plays the fool but is more than he seems, all that stuff. The fantastic elements were fine, and fit well with Rin's ruthlessness character arc. Seeing events that were obviously taken directly from real-world history felt a little odd, and in some cases uncomfortable; this increased a lot later in the book. Turns out reading about the Rape of Nanking is still unpleasant when it's lightly fictionalized.
I suspect having historical atrocities happen in Fantasy China is kind of the series's thing as a whole; it would be strange if that was just for book one. So I think I should rate the series lower than I would rate this book alone, but that's making my ratings about guesswork, which seems like a bad plan. I should at least check some reviews of later books… OK, I think my guess was right. I do think I'll check out book two eventually. My enthusiasm for the series is about at "best of the ones below No Award" level, but the error bars on this one are high.
The Lady Astronaut Universe is another series with a Best Novel finalist. I ranked The Relentless Moon above Network Effect, but Network Effect was worse than average for its series, and The Relentless Moon better than average for its. I think. I haven't read The Fated Sky, so I guess what I really mean is that I disliked The Calculating Stars in comparison. The series is obviously about overcoming sexism as one of its main themes, and it's done in a way that feels self-congratulatory, like the series is too certain of its importance and wants the reader to know it. I realize this is a subjective "it insists on itself" kind of complaint, and it's not as though I think that's a bad theme to have. I just felt like I was being invited to applaud more than I was comfortable with. I probably won't read more of these.
The Interdependency series felt like pretty generic Scalzi. It worked as popcorn reading for me, and lined up well with some traveling I did, so I went through the whole thing. The plot was engaging enough to keep my attention despite clunky prose and some awkward exposition. No standout characters, and I was annoyed by how much of Kiva's characterization was that she likes sex. I was also annoyed about how one of the villains is constantly described as being amazing at people skills, yet literally everyone who interacts with him immediately despises him. If it were just that he believes he has people skills but doesn't, that would be fine, plenty of people are like that. But it was everyone else's assessment of him too, and the plot is built around it being true. Anyway, I found this series readable but not any kind of standout, so I'm ranking it low.
The October Daye series, however, was not readable. I started at the beginning, with Rosemary and Rue, and wasn't able to bring myself to get all the way through even one book. I realize hardboiled detective stories get to have some cliche-heavy writing as a genre convention, but there are limits. Nearly every paragraph tried to end with a dramatic sting and fell flat. Some of them were on the level of Lyttle Lytton entries: "It was like playing a game of Hot or Cold with the rules reversed: the closer I got to my goal, the harder it got to know where I was going." "This case was like a puzzle box: Every time I pushed a piece aside, there was another one waiting." It just kept going like that, and eventually I couldn't take more of it. Maybe the series gets better later on? There are over a dozen of these, and hopefully they're not all like this, but I'm not inspired to look into it more.
My votes:
Daevabad > Murderbot > No Award > The Poppy War > Lady Astronaut > The Interdependency > October Daye
