S2E20 Summer Reading List 2022

It’s summer, so let’s grab some books, head to the beach/lake/mountains and read!

Main Topic: Summer Reading List

• The Empire’s Ruin (Ashes of the Unhewn Throne, Book 1) by Brian Staveley (Ken’s pick)
  • Follow up-to Staveley’s Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, in which an Empire tries to survive against conspiracies within and enemies without, as well as an ancient threat returned to dominate the world. This book picks up five years later … and things haven’t gone well for the Empire. The Kettral are all but wiped out and rebellion against the Empire is wide-spread. I wasn’t in the right head space to read this book – which starts off dark and gets darker – in the spring, but I’m back into it now.
• METAtropolis edited by John Scalzi (David’s pick)
  • A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment…a bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement…a courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city…a slacker in a “zero-footprint” town gets a most unusual new job…and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes. Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to METAtropolis.
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, Book 1) by Becky Chambers (Ken’s pick)
  • Ken’s giving into friendly peer pressure and reading this book. Just about everyone he knows who enjoys science fiction has read the novels in this series, so he figured he’d better get with the program.
• January Fifteenth By Rachel Swirsky (David’s pick)
  • A book about the possibly positive and negative consequences of universal basic income, told through stories of four people.
• Star Wars: Lesser Evil (Thrawn Ascendancy, Book 3) by Timothy Zahn (Ken pick)
  • Star Wars books are Ken’s go-to beach read, so it’s good that we’ve got a new Zahn novel out. The Thrawn Ascendancy books are prequels taking place between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, and detail everyone’s favorite blue-skinned, red-eyed admiral’s rise to power.
• The World Atlas of Coffee by James Hoffman (David’s pick)
  • Talking about coffee from around the world. It’s become an interest of David and his daughter’s.
• The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, Book 2) by N.K. Jemisin (Ken’s pick)
  • Ken had a hard time getting into Book 1 on this series. Jemisin does an incredible job of world building, but the pacing of the first book threw him off. He pushed through, and he’s glad he did. Now Ken’s back for more with Book 2, in which we find out what the heck happened to a certain celestial body…
• A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (David’s pick)
  • Reread of the classic
• Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (David’s pick)
  • More Discworld!
• Horror Graphic Novels (Ken’s picks)
  • After wrapping up Hellboy and B.P.R.D., Ken’s looking for new horror graphic novels.
    • Something is Killing the Children Vol. 1 by James Tynion IV
    • The Swamp Thing: Becoming by Ram V
    • The Me You Love In The Dark, by Skottie Young
    • Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing
• Escape from Yokai Land by Charles Stross (David’s pick)
  • The Laundry Files book 12, haven’t read them all, but this seemed like a good place to jump back in.
• Galaxy the Prettiest Star by Jadzia Axelrod (David’s pick)
  • An alien princess, disguised as a human boy going to high school, in hiding from the people who took over her home planet. A story about growing up, finding your true self, and the people who accept you for whom you truly are.

Looking for more summer reading inspiration? Check out our Summer 2021 reading list.

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Cover art for four of our summer reading list books. Credit their respective publishers.

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