Yudhanjaya Wijeratne Archives

The Best #SciFi and #Fantasy Books I read in 2021

These books weren’t published in 2021, but I read them this year, and I enjoyed every word. I read others but if I don’t like a book, I don’t review it.

The Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone. What an imaginative, creative, marvelous read. If you’re looking for original space opera, this novel certainly fits. Full Review

2. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor. I read this Hugo and Nebula winner cover to cover in one sitting. It deserves the awards. Full Review

3. The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne. What started as a simple mission to recover ship parts became more and more immersed in problems and complexity. Full Review

4. The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley. From a realistic start, the story evolves into the more mystical and magical. The town of Bedlam is quite fantastic: glass cliffs; pollen that is bioluminescent; trees that can float on air; and stone statues that move. Full Review

5. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. The galaxy it’s set in is awe-inspiring and full of novelty, yet it is also very familiar, which makes it an easy read. Full Review

6. Flex by Ferrett Steinmetz. Most of us love to get lost in the beauty of our daydreams, which is very much like how the magic works in this book. It’s a great adventure with a great dose of self-discovery. Full Review

7. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. The plot twists were fun and the action exciting. The character journey was as pivotal as the mystery of finding the witch creating the monsters. Full Review

8. Tentacles and Teeth by Ariele Sieling. Starts off at a gripping, intense pace and doesn’t let up. Full Review

#SciFi Worth Reading: The Salvage Crew #BookReview

Book Review, Science Fiction Books, Space Opera / By M Pax / September 28, 2021

The Salvage Crew by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne was an exciting read. What started as a simple mission to recover ship parts became more and more immersed in problems and complexity.

Filled with adventure and the thrill of exploring an alien world, the story’s main character is an AI. He used to be human and is now an overseer. It’s his responsibility to keep the mission on track. He also enjoys writing poetry.

The crew of three humans is deeply flawed, and they have varying reactions to the adversity they face. Their human-ness makes the story interesting and kept me turning the pages. There was mystery, exploration, discovery, disaster, pain, and evolution. I liked the grit and flawed nature of the characters and the universe in which they operate. So many themes and ideas in this novel resonated.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. As you’ve probably guessed, I highly recommend adding this book to your library. I’ll have to see what else this author has to offer as a reading treat.

They thought this was just another salvage job. They thought wrong.

An AI overseer and a human crew arrive on a distant planet to salvage an ancient UN starship. The overseer is unhappy. The crew, well, they’re certainly no A-team. Not even a C-team on the best of days.

And worse? Urmahon Beta, the planet, is at the ass-end of nowhere. Everybody expects this to be a long, ugly, and thankless job.

Then it all goes disastrously wrong. What they thought was an uninhabited backwater turns out to be anything but empty. Megafauna roam the land, a rival crew with some terrifyingly high-powered gear haunts the dig site, and a secret that will change humanity forever is waiting in the darkness.

Stuck on this unmapped, hostile planet, lacking resources, and with tech built by the cheapest bidder, the salvage crew must engineer their way to payday…and beat Urmahon Beta before it kills them all.