[stone monkey]

Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others". Everyone and his or her dog must read this; Chiang is an genuine literary treasure and I will absolutely be reading everything he produces for the rest of his (or my) life.

[Maark Abbott]

Overall top picks for the year have been The Bakakkening II: Books 1 -3 and Fall of Light.

It was also the year I suffered through Wank of Kings so let's be glad that Bakker and Erikson came to my rescue.

[HoosierDaddy]

Eh, Way of Kings isn't bad. It's fairly formulaic Sanderson, but he does action and magic pretty well; even if his characters are all chaste prudes.

[EmperorMagus]

HoosierDaddy, on 07 January 2017 - 05:01 PM, said:

Eh, Way of Kings isn't bad. It's fairly formulaic Sanderson, but he does action and magic pretty well; even if his characters are all chaste prudes.

I would call his characters robots rather than chaste prudes.

Chaste prudes can be interesting in some situations, he writes people that are dead inside.

[Mentalist]

HoosierDaddy, on 07 January 2017 - 05:01 PM, said:

Eh, Way of Kings isn't bad. It's fairly formulaic Sanderson, but he does action and magic pretty well; even if his characters are all chaste prudes.

Way of Kings was alright, although it dragged a lot, and in certain points it was plagued by internal cliffhangers.

Words of Radiance really pissed me off b/c Sanderson committed the near-mortal sin of using the same

Spoiler

Break a character down in order to build him up to OVER NINE THOUSAND

technique of "character" development to a certain char for the SECOND time. In two books.

That, and the cringe-worthy "witticisms" almost made me put the book down several times.

[HoosierDaddy]

By no means do I think Way of Kings or Words of Radiance was great, but they aren't really bad per se. They definitely drag at times and Ment's spoilered post is true. Sanderson's strength has never been in his characters, it's always been systems of magic, action, and world-building, and in that sense, the two are decent.

[Abyss]

Brandon's characters tend to be archetypes. Within that context, I have no problem with them. I don't expect Whiskeyjack.
Admittedly, one particular character in TSA does whine a LOT tho.

[Morgoth]

stone monkey, on 06 January 2017 - 09:31 PM, said:

Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others". Everyone and his or her dog must read this; Chiang is an genuine literary treasure and I will absolutely be reading everything he produces for the rest of his (or my) life.

I could have sworn you made me read that book around a decade ago. Is age catching up to you?

[Mentalist]

HoosierDaddy, on 08 January 2017 - 06:55 PM, said:

By no means do I think Way of Kings or Words of Radiance was great, but they aren't really bad per se. They definitely drag at times and Ment's spoilered post is true. Sanderson's strength has never been in his characters, it's always been systems of magic, action, and world-building, and in that sense, the two are decent.

Which is precisely why he's a very solid B-list author for me.

[stone monkey]

Morgoth, on 11 January 2017 - 11:43 AM, said:

stone monkey, on 06 January 2017 - 09:31 PM, said:

Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others". Everyone and his or her dog must read this; Chiang is an genuine literary treasure and I will absolutely be reading everything he produces for the rest of his (or my) life.

I could have sworn you made me read that book around a decade ago. Is age catching up to you?

I'm pretty sure I've never made you do anything (anything you didn't want to at least)

[Cause]

Mentalist, on 08 January 2017 - 09:05 AM, said:

That, and the cringe-worthy "witticisms" almost made me put the book down several times.

OMG yes. Stop telling me she is witty. Stop telling me other characters think she is so witty if you cant make her say even on witty line in the whole book. It makes you feel embarrassed for reading the 'witticisms' and realizing no one had the heart to tell him how wrong he was.

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 08 January 2017 - 07:07 PM, said:

Brandon's characters tend to be archetypes. Within that context, I have no problem with them. I don't expect Whiskeyjack.
Admittedly, one particular character in TSA does whine a LOT tho.

Eh. I'd say that SE also tends to write in archetypes and traditions of myth and fiction- he just does it much better than Sanderson.

[Abyss]

And here we are, the near end of the universe, sorry about that i wasn't expecting the dark matter to explode when i blended it with the mayonaise and dijon year 2017.


As we had fun in the upthread last year, hey, let's do this again because it saves me the trouble if sneaking into your bedrooms and scanning your thinkymeatz for the yearly update and share what we read and enjoyed, or the opposite of that, this past year.

As last year, posts are by no means restricted to books published in 2017. If you used your eyeballs or earballs on a book in 2017, and feel like blabbing about it, do so.

If you feel like commenting on what other people liked and disliked, do so.

If you feel like sending your friendly neighborhood modgods/admins money and alcohol and baked goods and praise and kudos and money and drugs and fried foods and alcohol and money and art and money, do so. Again, it saves us the trouble of hacking your brainz and bank accounts and all the usual break and enter nonsense.

We had a fairly epic year of awesome and less than awesome books this year - the READING AT T'MOMENT thread never slowed down - so i for one am looking fwd to what the Malazafans have to rant and rave about.

As a related starter, EX-HEROES/14verse author Peter Clines, whose recent PARADOX BOUND will utterly be in my top reads of this year, made the following post and i was astounded to find i knew almost none of the books he ref'd...
http://thoth-amon.bl...omer-books.html



Proceed.
Also, send money.

[QuickTidal]

BEST NON-FICTION: ATLAS OBSCURA by Joshua Foer. What a phenomenally interesting (and useful) volume of all the weird things and places on the planet that you can see or visit.

BEST SHORT STORY COLLECTION: I gotta give this to Sanderson’s ARCANUM UNBOUND. There is a LOT to love in that book.

BEST HISTORICAL FICTION (that I read, that is not new): Wilbur Smith’s RIVER GOD. This was a stunning book start to finish that I’d often heard about, but had never read. Enjoyed every last page.

BEST COMPLETELY FUCKED UP, WEIRD ASS, AMAZEBALLS book: THE LIBRARY AT MOUNT CHAR by Scott Hawkins. By all rights, this book should be terrible because of how insane and off-kilter it seems at first glance. But it’s utterly amazing, esepocialy once things start to click. RUNNER UP: THE VAGRANT by Peter Newman. Not nearly as weird as the winner, but strange and wonderful enough to get a mention for sure!

BEST NEW AUTHOR I’D NEVER READ BEFORE: Brian McLellan. I totally devoured PROMISE OF BLOOD, and immediately bought the sequel AND nabbed the first book in the follw-up trilogy (SINS OF EMPIRE) on a kickass amazon sale. Just a fantastic new voice in genre fiction. Can’t wait to keep reading his stuff.

BEST LONG SEQUEL (AKA RETURNING TO YOUR OLD FANTASY WORLD [30 years later and telling a new story]): Tad Williams return to Osten Ard was super welcome, and we got two books! A Bridging novella between the original series and the new one called THE HEART OF WHAT WAS LOST, and the first new complete volume, which I LOVED, THE WITCHWOOD CROWN. It just felt like we’d never left. I picked up on every easter egg, and got emotional at old characters reuniting.

BEST BOOK 2017: and I’m NOT just saying this because we are on the Malazan boards….ICE’s DEADHOUSE LANDING. Just a phenomenal book for start to finish. I have very, VERY minor complaints, but nothing that even registers much as such. I waited for it patiently, and it didn’t disappoint at all!

…

And because they all can’t be best.

BIGGEST SLOG/DISAPPOINTMENT: I waited for this book so patiently. I looked to see if it was in the bookstore early. I was so excited for it. But OATHBRINGER…thou arte a slog that I had to put down after a few hundred pages. I will pick it back up at some point…but for now this is EASILY my biggest disappointment. There is nothing in those first 500 pages that I would call anything but pedestrian, largely uninteresting slog.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 13 December 2017 - 06:50 PM

[Macros]

Hmmm.

Best short story collection
Abercrombie Sharp Ends

Best new (to me) author
Max Gladstone, really enjoyed the craft sequence books.

Best book I read
Catch 22, wonderfully off the wall

Best NEW book I read
Tough call, I loved DeadHouse Landing. But for sheer page turning more was, probably McClellands Sins of Empire

ETA
I think this was a year of no rereads for me. Possibly, I imagine I reread Legend in there somewhere.
According to good reads I've read 40 books this year, but of those 3 where short stories, and 1 collection of short stories
I'd say I'll have another 3/4 read by new year. A considerable amount short of my (admittedly ridiculous) reading challenge target of 120

This post has been edited by Macros: 13 December 2017 - 07:20 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

I might get in another book or two this year, but as it stands, my 2017 looks like this:

32 books read, including:
2 short story collections
2 rereads
1 nonfiction
and the stat I'm most proud of:
15 by female authors (after 3 last year, and 2 the year before)

Favorites:

Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia
Crash by Guy Haley
Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner

Best comic books read:

Locke and Key series by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez
Wild Blue Yonder by Mike Raicht & Zach Howard

Series more people here should be reading:

Wayfarers by Becky Chambers
Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire
Fallen Empire by Lindsay Buroker

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 13 December 2017 - 07:20 PM

[Mentalist]

I'm looking all set to meet my Goodreads challenge of 60 books this year. Granted, probably like a fifth of those were re-read ( I re-read a bunch of Perumov, as well as Bakker's first 2 "Aspect Emperor" books and probably some other series refresher, too, knowing me. )

Off the top of my head, most epic would have to be "The Unholy Consult". The Battle of Golgoterrath is just ridiculous epic fantasy at its best.

Coming in close are the next 4 books of " Godsdoom-2" by Perumov. These were concentrated awesome, but they probably left slightly less of an impact, b/c there's still 2 books left, and the cliffhanger would be killing me, if I allowed myself to think about it much.

Dancer's Lament was a pleasant surprise, in a sense I devoured it in like 4 days. Really need to pick up Deadhouse Landing.

Best "newly-discovered series"- Glen Cook's " Instrumentalists of Night", which I finally got to - it takes a lot of stuff I love, and adds magic and Cook's style to them, which leaves me super-eager to read more.

Runner-up here would be Hurley's "Mirror Empire" , for being weird and dark, and epic, and dark and I'm sure there's actually way more to write in this world than just a trilo. And did I mention the dark? And the cat-like aliens, and the zerg-like aliens doing all the manipulating?

Most "why the hell am I still reading this?" Moorcock's "Colonel Pyat" books 3-4. There's just so much absolutely grotesque and horrible shit that's in there.

Conversely, the "what the hell am I reading and in what universe(s) is this supposed to make sense?"- Moorcock's "War amongst the Angels" omnibus. For being kinda awesome, but soo confusing, and soooo meta, and also epic, but brain-meltingly obtuse about it and...

Most "these books are crack" series is, of course, Kate Daniels. That's kind of a no-brainer.

"This series imploded early" award would go to "Iron Druid" - book 3 made me lose most interest.

Other notable discoveries: Sébastien De Castell, Brian Staveley.

I'll need to double-check my Goodreads to see if I missed anything important.

Oh, and yeah: I'm patting myself on the back for not giving in to the hype and holding out on grabbing "Oathbringer" on release.

EDIT: oh yeah, and in non-fiction, Fukuyama's 2 books on political order and political decay were jaw-droppingly awesome.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 13 December 2017 - 08:30 PM

[Chance]

Read less then last year which I thought would be unlikely only 72 books mostly but not only audiobooks since thats the only format remotly compatible with full time work and my interests.

Best SF: Convergence don't even know what number in the series it is but it is awesome like the rest.
Best Fantasy: Red Sister there where a lot of good ones but I was really impressed by it and really wants to read the next one.
Best author I've not read before: Peter Newman delivers a truely excellent trilogy with the Vagrant and its sequels one of the best new series I've read in a while.

The best of the rest: Those Below, The Fair Rebel, City of Blades, Half a King, The Fall of Dragons each pretty much expected to be excellent and delivering on high expectations.

Worst Read of the Year: I've technically (a chapter left or so) not finished Oathbreaker and it is possibly not the worst book I've read this year but I'm pretty sure it will be remembered as the least impressive simply becuase there where some reasonably expectations on it. It is also rediculously long...

All in all it have been a pretty good year.

This post has been edited by Chance: 13 December 2017 - 08:57 PM

[Andorion]

Readingwise this was a pretty good year for me. I also discovered audiobooks this year which was an entirely new and lovely experience.

I read a lot of fantasy, some sci-fi, and quite a bit of non spec-fic this year.

So hear are the top ten books I read this year:

1. Deadhouse Landing by Ian Cameron Esslemont

2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4.. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

5. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

6. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

7. The Stone Sky by N.K.Jemisin

8. City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

9. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

10. Saint's Blood by Sebastien De Castell

And here are the best books released in 2017:

1. Deadhouse Landing by Ian Cameron Esslemont

2. The Stone Sky by N.K.Jemisin

3. City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

4. For We Are Many by Dennis E Taylor

5. Legion of Flame by Anthony Ryan

6. Ruin of Angels by Max Gladstone

7. Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan

8. A Dragon of a Different Colour by Rachel Aaron

9. Blackwing by Ed McDonald

10. The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross

Special mention: If you are going to read the excellent Peter Grant books by Ben Aaronovitch, the audiobooks are outstanding.

Worst books:

1. The Fortress at the End of Time by J.M McDermott
2. The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham
3. Emma by Jane Austen
4. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
5. Chasing Embers by James Bennett

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 14 December 2017 - 01:50 AM, said:

How many total?

187 and counting