My, this will be a busy post.

1. WWW Wednesday
2. Long and Short Reviews’ Weekly Prompt: Whatcha think about mysteries?
3. Sci-Fi Month Prompt #13: Cyberpunk
4. Get to Know the SF Reader Tag

WWW Wednesday

WHAT have you finished reading recently? Hello, Everybody! The Dawn of American Radio.

WHAT are you reading now & WHAT are you reading next?

I included those questions together because I am currently reading The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea and The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, one (Gulf) more ardently than the others.

Long and Short Reviews’ Weekly Prompt: Whatcha think about mysteries?

I’m generally a fan, though I tend to encounter them more in the thriller context. Over the years I’ve read quite a few police procedurals and cozy mysteries, but thrillers from the likes of Greg Iles & Ruth Ware are more common.

Sci-Fi Month Prompt #13: Cyberpunk

In honor of William Gibson’s bday, today’s prompt is simply “cyberpunk“. This is one of my favorite subgenres of SF, in part because of aesthetics, but mostly because it addresses my own concerns with the technological future — the takeover of human bodies and human societies by the cynical machine. We seem to be being pushed further and further into a future where humans are not persons, but commodities.

Get to Know the SF Reader Tag

Alex over at At Boundary’s Edge was thoughtful enough to tag me in a SF reading tag.

1- What is your sci-fi origin story? (How you came to read your first sci-fi novel)

I’ve mentioned this before, but my first SF story would’ve been a Great Illustrated Classics edition of either The War of the Worlds or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea — though at that time, I had no conception of “science fiction” and wouldn’t begin thinking of myself as an SF reader until my mid-twenties, despite reading it my entire life.

2- If you could be the hero in a sci-fi novel, who would be the author, and what’s one trope you’d insist be in the story?

Well, definitely not David Mack. He’s a brilliant author but his characters go through hell and there’s often death. As far as tropes, I’d always up for a man vs machine story, especially if the machine is a haughty AI that gets smashed.

3- What is a sci-fi you’ve read this year, that you want more people to read?

Oh, SHELLI! It’s a this-year release that touched on a lot of interesting themes within a techo-action thriller story.

4- What is your favourite sci-fi subgenre? What subgenre have you not read much from?

Near-future SF and cyberpunk would be my favorite subgenres, and I’ve only ever read one steampunk novel.

5- Who is one of your auto-buy sci-fi authors?

Hmm…I don’t know that any are auto-buys, but if a book has David Mack’s, Daniel Suarez’s, John Scalzi’s, or Andy Weir’s name on it, I will definitely be looking at it.

6- How do you typically find sci-fi recommendations?

I often use amazon’s “related books” feature to explore books that are like a book I already like. Most of the bloggers I follow don’t do SF on a regular basis, though I’ve found some this year that have provided some promising leads. I also search GoodReads for lists of particular themes — novels with AI, near-future SF, etc.

7- What is one upcoming sci-fi release you’re looking forward to?

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds : Asylum just released last week, and I’m looking forward to checking it out. It appears to go into the Pike-Una backstory.

8- What is one sci-fi misconception you’d like to lay to rest?

I suppose most people associate SF with space, aliens, that sort of thing. A lot of my favorite SF, like Daniel Suarez’s DAEMON, or Blake Crouch’s Upgrade, has nothing to do with that at all.

9- If someone had never read a sci-fi book before and asked you to recommend the first 3 books that came to mind as places to start, what would your recommendations be?

I’d have to know the person, really, but I think I’d go with a cross-section:

The Circle, Dave Eggers. Very near-future SF that addresses the power of Amazon/Google/Apple/Facebook on our lives and society.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein. More intermediate SF (not near-future, not far-out future) and a book that showcases SF’s ability to provide political commentary.

Foundation, Isaac Asimov. Not only would this be a taste of the ‘golden age of SF’, but it’s an example of what Asimov regarded as the third stage of SF – the ‘sociological’ commentary.

10- Who is the most recent sci-fi reading content creator you’ve come across that you’d like to shoutout?

Earlier in the year I encountered a SF “visual novel” that unfolds like a video game, and I really like its soundtrack. So, cheers to “Obfusc”, or Joseph X. Burke, for creating music that was perfect for cruising around a Blade Runner type city at night.

Oh! And I’m supposed to tag people, so I hereby dub Cyberkitten (Seeking a little Truth) and Vero (Dark Shelf of Wonders)!