…and I was talking of dragons in my previous post. So, talking of dragons, I’m now reading Shadow Scale, sequel to Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman. Seraphina is quite delightful. It’s a fantasy story of a girl who is half-dragon and half-human, and must hide her dragon-ness from people in order not to be lynched. She has scales on her mid-riff and arm, which I think must look pretty, but she obviously does not. Definitely worth reading. And yes, I know these books are for children, but who says adults are not allowed to enjoy children’s books?

Continuing my plan of reading more women authors, I also just read Cyteen, the 1988 Hugo winner by C. J. Cherryh based in her Alliance-Union universe. Cyteen is a tour de force that explores human consciousness, free will, the ethics of genetic manipulation and the political and social consequences of creating a sub-class of cloned humans called azi. It is also 700 hard-to-read (though at times very gripping) pages. There are multiple POV shifts, and the plot is left dangling in the end. Basically the main trigger of all the events (the murder of the major character) is left unsolved. A sequel called Regenesis came out in 2009 but I’m not sure I want to read it – at least, not right away. I need a break.

Next up on my list are The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu (the 2015 Hugo winner) and Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor – a post-apocalyptic novel based in Africa. I am really looking forward to both!