[jon.kiparsky]

As we get to the end of the year, people start talking about "the best X of the year". I'm not that bothered about when something was made, but I'm interested in what books people got a charge out of in the last year. I'm still working out what my list looks like, but I'd love to know what people read that really hit them over the last twelve months. No rules, no magic numbers, no need to limit yourself to fiction or books about computers or anything of that sort. Just - what were the best books you read in the last year?

[modi123_1]

Insert your goodreads list?

[jon.kiparsky]

My what now?

[depricated]

I enjoyed a lot of what I read this year.


Calamity is probably my favorite book from 2016. The finale of the Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson. While Mistborn is still my favorite of his series, Bands of Mourning just wasn't as good. Which isn't even saying it wasn't good. It'd put it at a close second.

Some others I read this year that I really enjoyed were Year of Wonders, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Go Set a Watchman, and Dead Souls.

A couple compilations I read that I really liked were Arcanum Unbound, a collection of short stories set in Sanderson's Cosmere, and Shadowed Souls, a collection of shorts from a writing prompt by Jim Butcher (which includes a Dresden story).

[xclite]

I think mine has been "Gardens of the Moon", which is really just some super nerdy fantasy, with a decent amount of complexity and mystique. I think it has a better payoff than Game of Thrones, though it also tends to have very badass characters, which is less realistic than a world where anybody can die fairly easily. American Gods and Casual Vacancy are honorable mentions for me.

[NeoTifa]

No books, but his series was great https://www.reddit.c...y_fiancee_isnt/

[BetaWar]

The good:
Defender by Robert J. Crane
- Your standard D&D/ RPG style book. A fun read, though possibly a bit long winded at times.

Calamity by Brandon Sanderson
- An amazing finish to a good series. I won't claim it to be my favorite work of his, but it was well worth the time to read through.

Mitosis by Brandon Sanderson
- A nice little filler. Not super long, but still fun and in the same tone as the rest of the Reckoners books.

Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
- Great writing, good amounts of action, intrigue, and comedy. It may not replace the original Mistborn for me, but it is probably my second favorite book on Scadrial.

Sixth of the Dusk by Brandon Sanderson
- Great short, which I really can't say much about without wrapping in spoilers

Arcanum Unbounded by Brandon Sanderson
- An amazing collection of shorts from around the Cosmere, which contains tons of interesting information that you may not have picked up elsewhere.

Infinity Blade Awakening by Brandon Sanderson
Infinity Blade Redemption by Brandon Sanderson
- A great and fun little "videogame turned book" story.

The Emperor's Edge (1-4) by Lindsay Buroker
- A fun series that seems to go on forever. In a world where magic doesn't exist (and yet, is punishable by death) and the government is corrupt beyond belief, what is a good cop to do?

Balanced on the Blade's Edge by Lindsay Buroker
- This was my first time reading a "romantic fantasy" book (my own genre definition), but it wasn't bad. The sex scene was a surprise, but outside of that it was your standard fantasy novel.

Deathmaker by Linsay Buroker
- The second book in the Dragon Blood series, and greatly improves on the issues I had with the original book. While there is still some romantic attraction between a couple of characters, the sex scenes were cut and I feel that them not being there in now way detracted from the book.

Blood Charged by Lindsay Buroker
- Book 3, offering new interesting challenges and experiments. Builds on the second book and improves in some areas.

Heirs of Empire by Evan C. Currie
- A nice mix between science fiction and fantasy. There _may_ be magic in the universe, or it could just be significantly more advanced technology than we are used to... that hasn't been made clear exactly. Intrigue, war, and a military coup are front and center in this book, and it makes for a fun ride.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- A really interesting world and frame story about the most notorious magic user of the day and his backstory.

The bad:
Magic of Thieves by C. Greenwood
- This is a really... boring book. It took me two attempts to actually finish it instead of wandering off to read _anything_ else.

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
- For me to put the first book in the good, and the sequel in the bad, something drastically wrong has to happen. In this case, it was nothing... literally. Lots of words, and a bit more on the backstory, but no plot movement and it felt like reading a stream of consciousness without having an editor look at it first. Most of the detail in the book was unnecessary and didn't actually help anything out.

The UGLY:
Enemy by K. Eason
- This book was raw and gory. It is the first time I had read graphic torture/ graphic human sacrifice and I didn't overly enjoy it. That all being said, it wasn't a horrible book, and if you enjoy Game of Thrones you may wind up enjoying this as well (though this isn't as involved as GoT).

and the "Meh":
Avenger by Robert J. Crane
Champion by Robert J. Crane
- They weren't "bad", nor ugly, but they were also not what I had hoped for based on the original original series.

Legion by Brandon Sanderson
- I love Sanderson's works, but this wasn't for me.

The Wanderer by Vincent Trigili
- Not a bad story, but I am not in to episodic stuff, especially when that means that they want to charge $2-3 per "episode" and typically have fewer than 100 pages.

[depricated]

Oh are we listing bad, too?

I'm gonna name Hard Magic by Larry Correia - my friend Byron recommended this to me, and in the past I've always enjoyed his recommendations so I picked it up. I was deeply disappointed. Great concept, poor writing and execution imo.

Also, the Mechanical by Ian Tregillis - my ex recommended this because I like steampunk, but it was rather bland. Another great concept, but the trappings around it just didn't interest me. It explores the concepts of free will via AI in a way that's been done to death. It's inspired, but not inspiring.

I regret reading both of these.

[modi123_1]

Of the 26 books a lot of 'meh' this year.. Jumped into a few new series; a few were a bust (Iron Druid, Genius, Grimnoir Chronicles), one was better (Craft Sequence). 'Leviathan Wakes' (Expanse #1) was pretty solid as 'Wonderboys' and the art book for Bioshock Infinite. The best this year - Fallout4 art book, and I think the current 'Art of Atari' will be right up there with it assuming I can finish it before the end of the year.

[h4nnib4l]

In a year full of mehs, I'd have to throw Blindsight by Peter Watts out there as my favorite read of the year. It may be the only book that I read this year that I actually looked forward to picking up again. I gave a glowing review of it in the other book thread a while back, but it's entirely possible that it just seemed to shine bright because everything else was so unremarkable. Hopefully I'll have a better feel for Watts as an author after finishing the sequel, Echopraxia.

[jon.kiparsky]

So my list thus far:
On the Run (Alice Goffman): A sociologist spends few years doing field work in a black neighborhood in Philadelphia. Lots of controversy about this one when it came out, but well worth reading if you think books are more interesting for the questions they open than for the ones they close off.
The Defender (Ethan Michaeli): A cross-cut of the American 20th century from the perspective of the most influential Black newspaper in the US. Pretty fascinating stuff.
The Peripheral (William Gibson): Gibson finally writes a science fiction novel that's probably going to stay science fiction for more than a few years. Some of the best writing of his career to date, IMO, and an extremely well made story.
The Three Body Problem (Cixin Liu): Fiction in translation is always a difficult proposition, and when it's science fiction it's even more so. Liu is starting from a different place and building from different premises, and you have to make a bit more effort to come to him than you would for someone like Gibson. It's worth it, though - once I fell into the book, I felt like I was reading a parallel Neal Stephenson (and I love me some Stephenson)
Mazes For Programmers (Jamis Buck): Just simple fun for programmers: let's make mazes! If you've got some spare time and you want to play with some cool ideas, get this book and go to town. The code is in Ruby, but it's a very straightforward style and not hard for a reasonably skilled programmer to pick up even if they have no Ruby experience. (for extra fun, try translating it into one of your preferred languages - this is a surprisingly deep and revelatory exercise)

[Jamo]

One that stuck out for me... That I think is worth a mention,

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell.

Some really awesome thinking points in there. Made me re-think the concept of success.

[supersloth]

"The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck"

"The Sun Also Rises"

"This Is How You Lose Her"



and i read "Ready Player One" but that book sucked ass

[depricated]

supersloth, on 15 December 2016 - 04:09 PM, said:

and i read "Ready Player One" but that book sucked ass

Blasphemy!

The highlight of the book was listening to Wil Wheaton read the audiobook and talk about President Wil Wheaton.

[jon.kiparsky]

Yeah, I've heard mixed reviews on that one - some people liked it a lot, but a lot of people have told me it bored them witless.

Quote

The highlight of the book was listening to Wil Wheaton read the audiobook and talk about President Wil Wheaton.

If that was the highlight of the book, I'm pretty sure there's not a lot there for me.