[Zetubal]

2018 was a great reading year for me. After years of not really reading all that much (fantasy) literature I feel like I finally got back into it. Now since I missed out on tons of supposedly great series, I spent most of 2018 reading older books but there were some fantastic ones among them.

If I had to name some, I'd probably settle on one of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth books (probably Obelisk Gate), and City of Blades by RJ Bennett.

On a technical side, getting an ebook reader for my birthday turned out to ramp up the speed at which I devour books by like 200%. This is to the point where I think the money I save on ebooks compared to paperbacks is actually fully re-invested into more books. Which is awesome.

[Mentalist]

It's been a pretty good year for books. Best discoveries for me were The Traitor Son Cycle by Miles Cameron and The Gates of the World series by K. M. McKinley.

I wrapped up a bunch of series I've been reading. Really liked the ending of Alex Marshall's Crimson Empire trilogy after a weaker Book 2. Sebastien De Castell's Greatcoats was a pretty amazing series all the way through. And of course, Glen Cook's Instrumentaliteis of the Night a batshit brilliant series that will probably never have its ending see the light of day. The Far-Called eequences felt like it ended with a sequel bait.. but aside from that it was a good trilo.

I got caught up with the Kate Daniels books and tried a whole bunch of other UrbF writers. My preference probably goes to Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant books, but Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus novels were also quite good.

I also did a lot of re-reads. Hal Duncan, Tolkien, Hamilton, Ken Scholes... in each case I also finished whichever series it was- Psalms for Isaac actually ended quite well, for a series that seemed to be going nowhere.

I didn't really read a lot of standalones this year- it was mostly a year focused on series. Dervish House was classic Ian McDonald, tangled, topical and entertaining; Who Fears Death was interesting, with a novel setting, but not as dark as I was led to expect; Willful Child was hilarious; Gone Away World was just pure fun; Worm Ouroborous was dated but interesting. The Metro Trilogy was quite good, if appropriately depressing.

Felix Castor was underwhelming, A. J. Smith's The Long War feels formulaic; "Farlander" also failed to impress.

So overall, a good year, but not amazing.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 22 December 2018 - 01:31 AM

[Tsundoku]

Thoroughly enjoyed (in no particular order):

Patrick Weekes 'Rogues of the Republic' trilogy.
Dancer's Lament and Deadhouse Landing.
Rejoice, A Knife To The Heart.
Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn.
The Warmaster by Dan Abnett.
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson.
Brief Cases by Jim Butcher.

[worry]

I read 30 books total, some were novellas, but some were real monsters, so I'm counting them all!

2018 releases I liked the most:
Rejoice a Knife to the Heart (SE)
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir (Nicole Chung)
How Long til Black Future Month? (NKJ)
A Winter's Promise (Christelle Dabos)

Best other stuff:

Hyperion (Simmons)
La Belle Sauvage (Pullman)
The Sympathizer (Nguyen)
Assassin's Fate (Hobb)
Who Fears Death (Okorafor)
The Judging Eye (Bakker)
Road Brothers (Lawrence)

And I'll give a special mention to Incarnate. It has its pluses and minuses in my regard, which I went into in my original post, but regardless it's still another cool achievement for a boarder here. I don't really know JRPGs post-SNES, or whatever Thief is in particular, but I really appreciated the detective fic element in a fantasy setting (as I did with Stonewielder) and that was my favorite POV/story line.

This post has been edited by worry: 01 January 2019 - 07:25 PM

[acesn8s]

Some of my highlights for 2018 were:

Deadhouse Landing - I think this is my favorite from Esslemont, so far.

The Expanse series - I haven't completely caught up, but I only have 1 or 2 books left.

The Children of Earth and Sky - more excellent Kay prose.

The Powder Mage trilogy - While I wasn't completely sold after book 1, books 2 & 3 were excellent. Looking forward to reading his follow up series this year.

[Abyss]

My turn...

Thirty-one books this year, most wholly or in part earbook...


Best That's Putting The Epic In Epic Fantasy: OATHBRINGER. In a year full of strong books i utterly enjoyed, i cannot pretend any other book hit the same sheer holy fucking fuck THAT is what I read EPIC FANTASY for level that Sanderson hit here. I know some of you have your wrong issues dipped in wrongsauce with a side of wrong fries with the author or the series, but he hit all the right notes for me with the few flaws (oh god Kaladin please just shut up and stab already) easily overlooked.


Best Tentacles in your brainsssss Original: A fun year for Lovecraft... ok that sounds weird, still Emerys' WINTER'S TIDE surprised me with a relatively quiet book that took Lovecraft's Elder Beasties and made them... nice. Ish. Bennet's AMERICAN ELSEWHERE made them sort of human (ish), and Stross' latest Laundry Files THE LABYRINTH INDEX kept them as hostile and creepy as ever but made them political too. Great books, and while I'm already a Stross fan, i'll be getting to more from the other two.

Biggest Disappointment: HP AND THE CURSED CHILD. Meh. Feh. Yawn. If we toss that aside (as i wanted to more than once) then Hearn's Iron Druid shorts collection BESIEGED wins for me not making it through two stories before bailing out.

Best Worse Cliffhanger: Brown's IRON GOLD edges out Abraham/Franck's PERSEPOLIS RISING because while the latter end with characters on the run or in jeopardy, the former ends one storyline with

Spoiler

a plane crash actually in progress... plane is falling... not hit ground yet...

and i'm sorry but that's just weak storytelling in an otherwise strong series.

Best Series Resurrection: Bancroft's ARM OF THE SPHINX. I did not like SENLIN ASCENDS very much. The novel setting just barely held my interest with some skimming. But i loved ARM and will jump all over HOD KING shortly.

Best Most Fun Reads: So much in this category this year... Gailey's RIVER OF TEETH and TASTE OF MARROW Hippos Westerns were just great fast reads, Butcher gave us a Dresdencrack fix w BRIEF CASES, and Eames' BLOODY ROSE had me laughing out loud more than once. STill, i'm giving the Most Fun award to Weekes' ROGUES OF THE REPUBLIC trilo... which was an absolute blast to read in one swoop this year, and would be a serious contender for best overall but for...

Best Of The Year: I have to give this to Jemisin's BROKEN EARTH trilo. This book just nailed all the things i read sf/f for... compelling characters, novel concepts, serious risk to the cast, great twists i did not predict.

Best Thinkymeatz Ouchie Ouch Ah Hah!: SE's REJOICE! A KNIFE TO THE HEART wins for book that made me think the most this year. It's an accomplishment in itself to hold my attention in a book that flat out tells you at the start there will be little/no action, but to also hold my attention on so much sheer, deep, dialogue... yeah, nicely done.

Honourable Mentioningses: The Andrewses for wrapping up the always fun Kateamine series with MAGIC TRIUMPHS in satisfactory manner while using the opportunity to start a whole other same world series with IRON AND MAGIC, taking a major baddie from the Kate series as their protagonist no less. Richard Morgan for THIN AIR, probably my favorite 'noir on Mars' story in ages. And Aaronovich's latest Peter Grant book, LIES SLEEPING, because everything about that book was awesome fun.

Best I'm Trying I Swear I Am: Rachel Armstrong's ORIGAMY... this is a brilliant book, but my ability to stick with text on screen or dead tree lately is pathetic and thus this book has suffered thru no fault of its own. Ah well, maybe this year.



Some comics...

DESCENDER blew my mind but failed to stick the landing.
HORIZON blew my mind but failed to generate sufficient sales to have a landing, alas.
DREADSTAR was brilliant until it wasn't.
IRREDEEMABLE/INCORRUPTIBLE were a great read right through.
The ALIENS mega-bundle had its up and downs but overall was great fun.
INFINITE HORIZON... meh.
SHERIFF OF BAGHDAD... semi-meh.
NEW WOLVERINE was a welcome surprise, as was OLD MAN LOGAN. Thank you Marvel for not letting me feel like that Unlimited subscription is a waste of money.
DC NEW FRONTIER wheeeeeeee!

In ongoings, DEADLY CLASS sucked me right in, SEVEN TO ETERNITY, EAST OF WEST, BLACK SCIENCE all continue to blow my thinkymeatz. SAGA... oh fuck you Vaughan that was just mean. Brilliant. But also mean.

[Hammerhead88]

Best books of the year:


Dresden 6-13 (am currently finishing off Cold days, will read Skin game after and then patiently wait for Peace Talks
Malazan - Bonehunters and Reapers Gale
China Mieville - City and the City - Loved this book.
Ready Player One - really fun book, read in 2 sittings. Film was horrible.
Tattooist of Auschwitz - don't usually read many bestseller types, but this book was really great and I would highly recommend it.
The Great Gatsby
The Stand by Stephen King - this should be at the top as it was my favourite book of the year (just behind Bonehunters actually)

Other books read:

Dune Messiah - was good in parts, but not anywhere near the level of the first book.
Grand Theft Octo - some random book i bought in a very cheap kindle sale (might have even been free actually). Very odd.
Wasp Factory - Ian Banks


Comics (only got into comics in about August and they basically took over the rest of my reading year):

East of West, Deadly Class, Saga, Paper Girls, Injection, We3, recently read the first Locke and Key. Also quite a few Batmans, Blankets by Craig Thompson, Transmetropolitan 1&2, and about half way through the complete BONE collection.



My reading priorities for next year (mainly gained from this forum...):

Finish Malazan
Finish Transmetropolitan
The Raw Shark texts, which i recently picked up
The Library at Mount Char
Ex-Heroes series
Don Quixote
Gemmel Legend books.

[Abyss]

Alright peoples.... it's December, you know what that means....

...it's time to share what reads blew your thinkymeatz this past year... what disappointed, what was extra shiny, double-weird, offputting, engaging, what new author went straight onto your 'must pre-order' list with their debute about sword-wielding lesbian necromancers in spaaaaaaace, what old fave surged back, who sucked, what re-reads reminded you of why you loved the book the first time, what lost you a few pages in, what came highly recommended and ended up tossed.... earbooks are fair game, comics are just as valid, and while we're at it, feel free to drop in what you're looking forward to in 2020...

I enjoy the hell out of this thread every year and always pick up a few that i missed.

Speak.

[Salt-Man Z]

I also had a tough year, book-wise. I basically went book-less all of March-July, in which all I managed was a book of short stories (read entirely in May.) On the other hand, I read an absolute shit-ton of comic books. Still managed to (mostly) stick to my read-only-women-or-minorities challenge (comics don't count.)

I show only 12 books tagged as finished in 2019. I am currently in the middle of a novel, as well as a short story collection I've been slowly working on for most of the year. I also started two other books back in the spring, one of which I hope to finish soonish.

I'll also note that 4 of the 12 books I read were of the dead-tree variety, which has gotta be a record for the me in the past few years.

My favorite reads of 2019 were:

4. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
3. Touch by Claire North
2. Silk by Caitlín R. Kiernan
1. Murder of Angels (Silk sequel) by Kiernan

Most disappointing read was Rhett & Link's The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek, which I still more or less enjoyed (3/5 stars) but for more meta reasons than any quality of the story/writing.

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 03 December 2019 - 10:21 PM

[Chance]

2019 has been rather disappointing in the number of books read 72 but few where re-reads and at least a few very enjoyable ones where in dead tree. Quite a few of them where also rather good with a few stinkers in among them.

The best of the bunch was Anarch, Tiamat's Wrath, the Hod King, The Wolfs Call, Read Player One, The Howling Dark, Redemptions Blade, This is how you loose the time war, Ravens Tower, Quenslayer, Shadow of What Was Lost, Seven Blades in Black.

Best book: Ravens Tower

Most Entertaining Book: Seven Blades in Black

Best "new" series/author: Probably Licanus trilogy or maybe Grave of the empire or possibly Sun Eater its been a good year for good series/authors I've not read before.

Worst Books: Forgetting Moon is in the lead easy but Turtledoves American Front and sad to say it Cook one of my favorit authors Shadow of all Nights Falling gave it some competition down in the 1-2 star below mediocre pile.

This post has been edited by Chance: 02 January 2020 - 11:48 PM

[Dadding]

2019 was a good year for me, I've nearly doubled my goal of 25, which may be modest by some standards but I'm happy about it!

Worst Read: Wheel of Time. I'm on Book 8 now, it's a slog. I've had it with his weird battle of the sexes, no-plot, overly-expository style, but I'm committed to finishing the series any way.
Best Read: Book of the New Sun. Everything I ever wanted in a series since Malazan. I finished Citadel of the Autarch last night and I'm obsessed.
Best non-fiction: Moonwalking with Einstein or Meditations. Memory is whacky, also Marcus Aurelius is a smart dude.

Other noteworthy books I read and enjoyed were: Guards! Guards!, The Broken Earth series, The Dying Earth, & Gormenghast.

[Maark Abbott]

I mean the only books I have read this year have been Coldfire 1 and some light novels, so I feel like I can't really comment beyond that I finally got back to reading.

[Slow Ben]

My 2019 list is so depressing i'm not even going to attempt to list it. Between starting a new business and moving my TRP got put in a box and never made it out.

[Abyss]

Maark Abbott, on 04 December 2019 - 08:04 AM, said:

I mean the only books I have read this year have been Coldfire 1 and some light novels, so I feel like I can't really comment beyond that I finally got back to reading.

You could do worse than having COLDFIRE bk 1 as your best book of the year.

[Macros]

I thought I did few rereads this year.

Checked my list. Reread the Low Town Trilogy, all Harry Potter and Legend.

Not sure what a low point was scrolling through that list. I'd say the Prince's of Amber books that I read, didn't really enjoy them very much.

High point? Mmmm Senlin Ascends was pretty awesome in the weird almost Gaimen type way, Calgary's Siege was awesome in the 40k mashed with Kearney's action writing way and Legend was awesome because it's Legend.


Only on 42 books as well which is disappointing. Need to average 4.5 a week to hit my target of 60!

[End of Disc One]

Best book I read released this year: Dark Age by Pierce Brown
Best book I read this year: Either Dark Age or Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Followed closely by Tigana.

For other highlights, I was really impressed by my first K. J. Parker book, Colours in the Steel, which means I have a ton of goodness ahead of me. I'm also enjoying the Licanius Trilogy, and had a great time with Tchaikovsky's Spiderlight.

[Tiste Simeon]

Best book I read this year was probably Gideon the Ninth followed by Senlin Ascends but both of those are recent. Really enjoyed Peter F Hamilton's The Great North Road & my reread of Malazan and Harry Potter.

[JPK]

I had a couple books that hit DNF this year, but I'm currently at 41 books completed with 9 of them being graphic novel tpbs.

DNF: Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente (not revisiting)
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (will likely revisit at some point as I've been assured it gets much better)

Highlights: Finishing Hobbs' Elderlings series.
De Caatell's Greatcoats were great indeed.
Finally, Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko was a gorgeous piece of magical realism that I need to purchase a hardcover of.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I've done a lot of re-reading this year, just been ill a lot so reading without needing to concentrate for comfort more often that not.

Best new book(s) were The Bear and the Nightingale (and trilogy) by Kate Arden. Just a really beautiful story and a great deep dive into Russian and Slavic folklore.

[Tsundoku]

Rejoice, A Knife to the Heart.