SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I discovered Sci-fi and Space Opera Novellas this year and would like recommendations. Plus points would be originality, interesting characters and good pacing/plot.

Please no books defending racism, misogyny and other forms of bigotry.

Sci-Fi in general? Or only in combination with Space Opera?

I liked

Firewalkers by Adrian Tchaikovsky: climate changed Earth with extreme temperature and droughts in certain areas. Firewalkers are a group of (mostly young) people who go out and repair stuff in areas other people wouldn't survive in.

The Stone Wētā by Octavia Cade: Follows clima scientists who try to rescue their data from being edited by the powerful companies. All of them are only referred to by their code names.

I'll add these to my TBR, thanks Gabi! I was interested in The Stone Wētā since I saw a review in the internet by Kalanadi but I didn't know it was a Novella.

I'll give you some freebie recs that I enjoyed earlier this year:

"Dave's Head" by Suzanne Palmer http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/palme...
Source: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 156
"The Work of Wolves," by Tegan Moore https://www.asimovs.com/assets/1/6/AS...
"Waterlines" by Suzanne Palmer https://www.asimovs.com/assets/1/6/AS...
Source: Asimov's Science Fiction July/August 2019

Thanks Silvana! I'll check them out.

I really liked Wool and Perfect State (these are SF, but not space opera).

Space Opera I liked:
The Tea Master and the Detective
Acadie
Walking to Aldebaran
The Vorkosigan series also contains some good novellas.

And the following are space opera novellas I'm planning to read:
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (two combined in one book)
Firstborn and Defending Elysium by Brandon Sanderson (free on his website)
The Undefeated
A Walk Between Stars
The Ghost Line
The Expert System's Brother
On a Red Station, Drifting

Dune

@Eva I read Walking to Aldebaran and liked it very much. I haven't heard of Acadie tough, I'll check it out. The Tea Master seems interesting too. On a red station seems to be in the same universe of Xuya, I wonder where to start there.

The Expert System's is in my TBR too. I started the Vorkosigan series but I'm still in the second book.

@CBRetriever
I read Dune and the following books, awesome novels.

Yesterday’s Kin, by Nancy Kress is a lovely SF novella that has launched a series.

I haven’t read it, but the Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz has good reviews.

I may come back at you with more.

Space Opera seems appropriate (I've never read it)

Have you read the Forward Collection that came out last year and includes “Emergency Skin”? Those are good, novellette a and Novellas.

Dangerous People by Le Guin.

Chasing the Queen of Sassi, by Paul di Filippo.

Diane wrote: "Yesterday’s Kin, by Nancy Kress is a lovely SF novella that has launched a series.

I haven’t read it, but the Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz has good reviews.

I may come back at you with ..."

I bought the whole Yesterday's Kin Trilogy: Tomorrow's Kin / If Tomorrow Comes / Terran Tomorrow Yesterday's Kin Trilogy in May. I knew Nancy Kress only from her nonfiction book Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints but I was curious about her fiction.

I'll add the Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz to my TBR.

Thanks for the recs!

Eva wrote: "I really liked Wool and Perfect State (these are SF, but not space opera)."

I read Wool and liked it very much. Brandon Sanderson Novellas are awesome, I'll add it to my TBR.

Diane wrote: "Chasing the Queen of Sassi, by Paul di Filippo."

Great, and this is even for free at Amazon.de.

Nobody mentioned Murderbot yet or is it too obvious? ;p

Ted Chiang has lots of great novellas too, e.g. The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom. Most could be found in his collections.

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach is a fun one.

I just realized that almost all my recs are SF. Maybe since I have yet to find (m)any space opera SF I enjoyed including all the award winners.

It's OK, I wrote Sci-fi and Space Opera but in fact I meant Sci-fi OR Space Opera.
I read all Murderbot to date. :-) I have Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach in my radar.

CBRetriever wrote: "Space Opera seems appropriate (I've never read it)"

I'll read it eventually. I was confused by the author's narrative style when I read Silently and Very Fast, but I'll give it a try.

Just to confirm, Space Opera by Valente is a novel. Unless, Leticia, you also want novel recs? Seems like some of the recs given are actually novels and novelettes 😁

I am mostly looking for Novellas, but if you are enthusiastic about a Novel or novelette it's OK too. :-)

Noted! Here are some of my favorite novelettes I read this year:

Omphalos; Ted Chiang; Exhalation (anthology)
In This Moment, We Are Happy; Chen Qiufan; Clarkesworld
One Thousand Beetles in a Jumpsuit; Dominica Phetteplace; Lightspeed

The last two are available for free, you only need to google them.