Yeah, that name thing threw me for a loop for a while. The explanation was that >!memories are passed down through generations, so they kept names as well since they are kind of a continuation of the same person!<. I also read the second book, Children of Ruin, and it also plays around with similar names for different reasons. If the trend continues, I expect similar on the other books in the series.

I’ll need to read the other books you mentioned. They sound interesting! I’ve come to enjoy the books I’ve read with people living through long stretches of time. It’s a completely different genre, but Circe by Madeline Miller also deals with this.

Children of Time was an interesting concept that I thought came together well. It’s a science fiction book with a split narrative where one half is about science experiments on a distant planet, and the other is about a colony ship that is searching for a new home. Because of the vastness of space, there are long stretches of time that are covered (I believe the book ultimately takes place over a thousand years). The two narratives overlap at different points.

Dungeon Crawler Carl may have one of the weirdest and fun plots I’ve read in a while. A guy named Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat named Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk are given the opportunity to be on the galaxy’s favorite game show. The show is very similar to an RPG with fighting monsters, level ups, rare items, etc. Also, due to unfortunate timing, Carl is participating in the game without wearing any pants.

Right now, I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson (physical book) and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky (e-book), as well as listening to Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (audiobook).

I haven’t gotten far enough into Neuromancer to form an opinion yet, but I’m enjoying the other two books. Children of Ruin is the second book in a series about future humans trying to speed up evolution on distant planets and dealing with the consequences thousands of years later. Alexander Hamilton is a biography on the US founding father from childhood until his death. It has a lot of interesting facts I never knew.

I have a hard time picking just one favorite of anything, but I think my favorite book might be World War Z by Max Brooks or Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.

World War Z is a novel about a zombie apocalypse. It stands out from other books in the genre by having a frame narrative where a journalist is compiling a bunch of interviews with survivors telling their stories. Each chapter is its own short story with new characters from everywhere on the globe, and you get a lot of different perspectives this way. If you pick up the audiobook, each chapter is voiced by a different person, and there are some famous people lending their voices.

Annihilation is about a mysterious zone that appears in a remote wilderness. Things in the zone begin to act strangely and mutate into otherworldly objects. Over time, a government agency closes down the area and begins sending in expeditions to try to discover its secrets.