Completion of the Space reading challenge

This is the conclusion of my sci-fi reading challenge!

It was a lot of fun picking out the books to try and complete all the rules set. It got me really thinking about how I choose books to read and shook up the TBR a little. I will definitely try to do another one the future but potentially in a different genre.

So lets see what books I got too:

I started with: Sleeping Giants which hit the challenge of ‘Read a scifi novel not based in space’

The cover of this book and also the rest of the series are absolutely gorgeous, you can take a peek in my previous post: Scifi Reading Challenge

The story was interesting but I didn’t enjoy the way it was presented to the reader. The book was written as a series of interviews with the main characters with the occasional chapter that was more traditionally written. I found it hard to get into the story and characters like this as it felt like you were missing a lot of the possible depth. It had a lot to do with exploring alien technology and I liked the way they looked at the political nightmare that would occur if something extraterrestrial was discovered by a particular nation. It was an interesting idea and quite different to the usual space operas I get into

3 out of 5

Artemis

This was my audiobook for the month and it was brilliant:

Blurb: Jazz Bashara is a criminal.

Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she’s stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.

I think everyone enjoys a good heist story if done well and this one was done well.

I loved the main character, thought she was fantastic. I loved her humour and approach to life. Throughout the story the science behind how things work was added into the descriptions and it helped to make Artemis feel like a real place that could almost exist now.

The friendships she comes to find in the story are really well written, I particularly liked the interactions between Jazz and her pen pal from Earth. The relationship between them added an interesting dimension to her character and allow the reader to see a different side of her.

5 out of 5 biscuits- also made me want to live in a city on the moon.

Saga

I was lent this graphic novel by a good friend and thought there was no better time to jump in than during the reading challenge. I am quite new to reading graphic novels but I have always enjoyed and appreciated the art involved. This one gave a strong start to the story and introduced a HUGE universe involving many races and worlds. I’m definitely interested to continue the series and see where it goes.

4 out of 5 biscuits

Books that I started during the challenge but didn’t quite finish:

Empire of Silence

This has been on my TBR pile for such a long time I’m pleased that I’ve finally got around to starting this within the challenge. I’ve made a good start, am enjoying it so far and can see myself waning to continue with the series.

I have also started The Sirens of Titan, which was my scifi classic read of the month. I always just seemed to pick up the other books first. I think its because the writing style is so different in older scifi books and I really have to be in the mood to get into them. Let me know if you have ever read a ‘scifi classic’ and felt the same.  Not sure it will be a 5 star book for me however, I am enjoying the read and will definitely finish it.

The one challenge that I failed within the scifi challenge was – pick up a book just from just the cover. I made a decision to not complete this part of the challenge because when looking for scifi books for the read I realised just how many I already owned that I hadn’t yet read and it just seemed silly to add more!

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Let me know if you have ever completed any reading challenges and what you think of the idea 🙂