I'm afraid I've mostly been reading series last year. Since I was going through cancer treatment I had a lot more time for reading, and that gave me a fair bit of catch-up time. That said though, I did manage to squeeze in a couple of stand alones.
These are the twelve books I enjoyed the most, and in the order I read them. My top three picks of the year are marked with an asterisk (*).
The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher
I was introduced to Ursula Vernon via her short fiction, and knew that she wrote her books for older readers as T. Kingfisher. She's always been a pleasure to read and from her Twitter I've become familiar with her sense of humor and passion for gardening, so when one of her books went on sale I figured I should pick it up. The Seventh Bride has a lot of funny asides and jumps in logic to dress up what is otherwise a retelling of the Bluebeard fairy tale. I never got entirely attached to the protagonist Rhea, but the narration was snappy enough to keep me moving along.
On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard *
I've been meaning to read this one ever since it came out, and finally got it as a Christmas present. It primarily follows two characters, Quyen and Linh, during their stay together at the rapidly fading Prosper Station. What's amazing is that both characters are sympathetic, but both of them are carrying such incredible amounts of baggage that it prevents them from ever fully understanding or wanting to understand the other's point of view. It's set in Bodard's Xuya universe, so it's a spacefaring future based on predominantly Vietnamese and Chinese culture. I really liked this one and I'm not surprised it was nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards.
The Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 2: Ambition by Yoshiki Tanaka *
I really enjoyed the first volume of LotGH last year and bought Vol 2 almost immediately after, not knowing when I'd get around to it. This time we see Reinhard and Yang operating on parallel tracks to do similar jobs in their respective nations, though for vastly different reasons. As such the core conflict isn't between the Galactic Empire and the Free Planet Alliance, so enjoyment may vary depending on which side you enjoy reading about more. I really loved Yang's chapters, but Reinhard's probably have more setup for what's going to happen later in the series. There's no cliffhanger though, so you won't be left hanging at the end, and I like that.
All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka *
I'd been wanting to read this for a while, even before the US movie adaptation came out as Edge of Tomorrow. Even if you've seen the movie, it's worth reading as it's tonally different (much less funny) and forgoes the Hollywood ending. Keiji is a hapless private set to head off into his first ever battle with the alien mimics when he finds himself caught in a time loop that always seems to end with him getting killed. Frustrustated with the whole thing, he decides that the only thing to do is become so damn good he can make it out of the meat grinder alive, and he spends well over a hundred attempts trying to do just that.
Baccano! Vol 5: 2001 The Children of Bottle by Ryohgo Narita
This is a rather odd time jump that brings the series up to modern day, though it's more understandable after you realize the author's notes and realize this could have been the second book instead what became the start of The Grand Punk Railroad duology. It doesn't make much use of the modern day setting, it probably could have been set in the 30s without much of a difference, but what the time skip allows is for many of the series' original immortals to reunite after they no longer have to fear being killed (since the source of that concern died in Vol 1). It's a decent stand alone, and we finally learn the number of surviving immortals from the ship, but I'm also looking forward to going back to the 30s in the next volume.
Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone
Third book in the Craft Sequence. As always, Max Gladstone's world building is impeccable. I love the island setting for the third book and how such a small nation has to manage its power and security against more powerful, larger nations outside its borders. As in Two Serpents Rise, change and colonization by outsiders is very much a thing, with foreigners kicking back on this world's equivalent of a Hawaiian vacation. Kai and Izzy are good protagonists, and Teo comes back for a second round, though it took me a while to remember who she was.
Serpentine by Cindy Pon
This had been sitting in my Kindle backlog a while, but the Kindle is really nice for reading when you're not feeling up for the weight of a regular book. I don't read a lot of Chinese fantasies, but this is one of the better ones. I mostly found it weird how all the servant names are translated into their English meanings, but the other names are not. It's hard for me not to like a snake girl though, and Skybright is easily the highlight of the book. Not only can she take on a demonic half-snake form, but she figuratively kicks real ass with it too.
Sacrifice by Cindy Pon
This was a spur of the moment pick because I was still recovering from surgery while I finished reading Serpentine on Kindle, and it was literally a button push and $0.99 to get the sequel, so I figured I'd go ahead while the first book was fresh in my mind. It was a good choice. The change to multiple POVs was different, but I didn't mind too much except that I found I didn't care about Kai Shen enough to really enjoy gaining his POV scenes. What was going on around Skybright and Zhen Ni was always more interesting. There's a bit of a love triangle in this one and I don't quite like the way it resolves, but it implies that eventually the resolution I would have liked will happen.
Spice & Wolf Vol 14 by Isuna Hasekura
I picked this up because I still wasn't well enough for gaming and I realized that I really wanted to do a better job of catching up with Spice & Wolf since Vol 13 was just an anthology and reading Vol 14 would let me get back into the main story. Spice & Wolf is always at its best when Lawrence is fretting over a future with Holo, and now that the end of their journey is looming he finds himself daydreaming about one day living with her, while also assuming that once they part ways they will likely never see each other again. This is probably the best volume I've read since the first half of the series, and it helps that it takes place in Lenos, where Lawrence first told Holo that he loves her.
Spice & Wolf Vol 15: Coin of the Sun I by Isuna Hasekura
And then I couldn't stop, because I already had the book in my backlog and Vol 14 left me wanting to plunge into the two-part finale. For a two-parter it actually has a pretty good resolution except for the obvious cliffhanger dropped at the end of the last chapter. Though there are the usual economic shenanigans going on, it's nice that at one point Lawrence is encouraged to stop looking for everything that could potentially go wrong and take a step towards realizing his dream of owning his own shop.
Spice & Wolf Vol 16: Coin of the Sun II by Isuna Hasekura
Unfortunately this volume was a bit of a letdown. It would have been fine as a middle book, but a lot of the dramatics force Holo and Lawrence into reacting rather than acting themselves. While I understand the realistic message that there are some things that a single person cannot change, I think Hasekura was trying to up the stakes, but didn't do it in a way that really served the characters, making the final book a lot less personal despite all the callbacks and obvious trust the two leads display in each other.
The World Awakening by Dan Koboldt
The last book in the Gateways to Alissia trilogy. I was on the fence with this one, but had some Amazon ebook credit and a long wait at the DMV ahead of me so I picked it up for my Kindle. I was pleasantly surprised and this is definitely the best book of the series. Still got some nits, and the decision-making of most of the major characters from the Earth side of the portal is pretty predictable, but overall it was a fun read.
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