My 2020 reading year didn't go off as planned, particularly in regards to picking up new reading material, but with all the staying at home that had to be done, I ended up mostly reading backlogged physical and ebooks.
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 Forever War by Joe Haldeman
I picked this up for Kindle a while ago when it was on sale for a quarter (!), figuring I'd never get it cheaper short of going to a library. It's one of those books I'd always heard about, but never read while growing up, and while the Vietnam allegory is pretty apparent once you get to the middle section of the book, a lot of the societal changes come off as insensitive as best and homophobic at worst. Though the protagonist tries to be a decent guy and avoids being a jerk to any of the numerous gay characters that appear later in the story, he never gets comfortable with the thought that a queer society could be just fine even if it's not for him. If you can ignore all that (and it's all over the later parts of the book), it's not a bad story about a soldier just trying to find his own piece of heaven, but it hasn't aged well.
Baccano! Vol 6: 1933 <First> The Slash -Cloudy to Rainy- by Ryohgo Narita
More Baccano! The series works much better in the 1930s than the 2001 of the last installment, and we get to return to the woes of our favorite mobsters. In particular, this book focuses on Tick and Maria, who were minor characters previously, when Luck Gandor sends them to negotiate with some new hoodlums in town, who happen to be Jacuzzi Splot and his gang! Dallas is finally pulled out of the river, Firo has to deal with the psychological burden placed on him by inheriting Szilard's memories, and Ronny from the Martillo family gets to hint at his true colors. There's a lot going on as usual and Narita's sense of comedic timing is on point, knowing exactly when to turn the worst tension into an incredible joke.
Baccano! Vol 7: 1933 <Last> The Slash -Bloody to Fair- by Ryohgo Narita
The second half of the Slash arc ramps up with Vino being called into back into action after having been a non-appearance most of the previous book, and we get to see him and Chané as a romantic couple for the first time, which is a bit weird if you haven't watched the anime, because the specifics of how they became a couple are skipped over for another time in the books themselves. Tick and Maria go through their own bit of character development making them worthwhile additions to the pre-existing cast. Though they're clearly as morally impaired as most of the cast, I can't help rooting for those two.
The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard
I'd been wanting to read this ever since I heard this was Sherlock Holmes in space and Watson is a spaceship. I'm not sure I see the parallel between The Shadow's Child and Watson, other than through being a detective's partner, but Long Chau is definitely a far future Holmes; prickly personality, eccentric habits, and all. This was a really swift read and The Shadow's Child is a fantastic narrator, but the mystery was solved a little too easily for me. Still, I'd definitely be interested in a sequel.
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Roads Lead to Doom! Vol 1 by Satoru Yamaguchi
If you need a light and fluffy read, this is a surprisingly short first volume that serves as a sort of extended prologue to Katarina's plans to avoid getting either exiled or killed. Katarina is initially the spoiled daughter of a duke until she hits her head one day and realizes that in her previous life she used to be a teenager in our world until she got into a car accident while riding her bike. More than that, she seems to have been reborn as the rival character in the last video game she was playing, the otome Fortune Lover, and the rival doesn't have a single happy ending in the game! Now that she's armed with knowledge of her future, Katarina puts plans in motion to change her fate, but she's also prone to overthinking things and/or making strange jumps in logic, making multiple characters wonder just what happened to the duke's daughter.
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
Murderbot continues to be a fantastic narrator, though I wasn't sure where the story was going considering the ending for the first book. Being a construct of few wants (other than good entertainment), Murderbot didn't seem like one to go off on unnecessary adventures, and the answer is searching for what really happened that caused it to start thinking of itself as Murderbot in the first place. The soul searching was worthwhile, but I wished that had been the climax of the story instead of the other plot thread, which I was much less invested in. ART was the highlight of the book though and I'm disappointed the research vessel and Murderbot parted ways at the end.
The Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol 3: Endurance by Yoshiki Tanaka
Though I enjoyed the previous two LoGH volumes, the first third of Endurance was aptly named, spending an enormous amount of time on setup and political maneuvering before getting to the central conflict (the worst part being that the setup ends up being for a future book and not the current one). Yang's chapters continue to be a highlight, given how politicians and enemy combatants alike really don't know what to make of the guy. Reinhard's chapters are unfortunately more distant. Emotionally he's suffered a great loss since the end of the last book, but his loss is also the audience's loss as it makes him a much harder character to relate to. No doubt some of that is intentional, but I found I just didn't like his chapters as much.
86 Vol 1 by Asato Asato *
The first book of the 86 series is surprisingly weighty for a light novel series and was originally conceived as a stand alone so there's no need to commit anything further. Though it's primarily a war story following a remote commanding officer of the ethnic majority and her squadron composed of the oppressed minority, it's laced throughout with an exploration of government sanctioned racism and how privilege can blind otherwise "nice" people. Lena's growth over the course of the story, and realizing that it may be impossible for her to ever truly become a comrade to her soldiers, is quite frankly a conclusion I didn't expect to be reached. The combat and war segments are good too, but it's really the interpersonal relationships between Lena and her squad that make the book sing.
The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez
There are essentially two stories in this book; one following a mining operation on 22nd century Mars with a strong hard science fiction slant, and a one following the crew of the 18th century sailing ship the Daedalus, which is pursuing pirates and a rogue alchemist across the solar system with a golden age science fantasy feel. (Think of the animated Treasure Planet movie or the D&D Spelljammer setting.) The sub-genre mixing is fun and unusual, but I developed a strong preference for one storyline over the other, and the two take a long time to meet, so reading was an uneven experience. I kept wanting to hurry up to get back to the team I liked better.
The Venusian Gamit by Michael J. Martinez
The third book in the Daedalus Trilogy and the one with the best pacing. You can really see how Martinez's craft improved since the first book, and there are fun moments like the two dimensions meeting up again. I wasn't surprised to read in the notes at the end of the book that Martinez wrote the trilogy for Weatherby. You have to really like sailors on 18th century ships to write this stuff! It was an exciting read all the way up until the end when I realized that not all of my questions were going to get answered. But if you don't sweat the details, it's satisfying enough.
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart *
Set in an East Asian themed island nation, The Bone Shard Daughter mostly follows the struggles of Lin, the imperial princess who is desperate to prove herself worthy of being her father's heir, and the smuggler Jovus, who is looking for his missing wife. The world building is quite good, particularly the imperial constructs, and I'm really interested in seeing Lin's path forward after all the upheaval at the end of the book. It's not going to be an easy one!
Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa *
Really impressed by this Japanese-inspired fantasy that introduces just enough Japanese language that the culture comes across, without overindulging. Yumeko and Tatsumi work well as the dual narrators with their differing attitudes and points of view, and they're distinctive enough that they can be told apart by narrative voice alone. This is the first in a trilogy and the end of the book is very much a break before starting another story arc rather than a complete ending.
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