SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

What were your favourite scifi and fantasy books that you read during 2013?

They don't have to have been published last year but this is about which books you read and enjoyed during 2013.

My list of favourites that I read last year, a fair number of which were group reads:

The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Dune by Frank Herbert
Embassytown by China Miéville
The Song of Ice and Fire series
The 4 books in the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch which are Midnight Riot, Moon Over Soho, Whispers Under Ground, and Broken Homes

I read a lot of good books last year but my top 5 were:

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
Pure by Julianna Baggott
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Great North Road by Peter F Hamilton
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

Stray by Andrea K. Höst
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Top 5 Books Read in 2013
1. A Memory of Light
2. The Way of Kings
3. The Lies of Locke Lamora
4. Heir of Novron
5. The Wise Man's Fear

Honorable Mention: Alif the Unseen

These were all 5 star books for me.

Top 5 Books Published in 2013
1) A Memory of Light
2) The Crown Tower
3) Joyland
4) The Rose and the Thorn
5) The Republic of Thieves

And for my first post in this group, I am pleased to announce my top (relevant) books were:

Hull Zero Three
The Twelve
The 5th Wave
The Last Werewolf
Talulla Rising

I've long read Greg Bear, but I'm newly astounded by Glen Duncan and Justin Cronin. Read some other truly remarkable books in other genres this year, too.

Penny wrote: "What were your favourite scifi and fantasy books that you read during 2013?

They don't have to have been published last year but this is about which books you read and enjoyed during 2013.

My l..."

That's easy - Debora Geary's books published in 2013, bc I read them shortly after learning they've been published :-). So that would be the last books of her Modern Witch series, and the first of her Witch Central series.

And Hugh Howey's Silo Saga, Wool Omnibus, Shift Omnibus Edition (Silo, #2), and Dust :-).

I had read much more books than I had in previous years. They are mostly sci-fi novels and these are the most loved/adored ones according to me. Here goes the list:

Flowers for Algernonby Daniel Keyes

War With the Newtsby Čapek, Karel

The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

Lord of Lightby Roger Zelazny

High-Riseby J.G. Ballard

A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories by Ray Bradbury

Dying Insideby Robert Silverberg

The Illustrated Manby Ray Bradbury


In addition to these, I had read Ender Series which I loved very much and totally devastated by the incredible imagination of Card. This year my main aim is to finish all robot,galactic empire and foundation series by Asimov

This was my year to realize my true love for fantasy. For whatever reason, in all my years of reading, I'd never really given the genre a chance except for The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. Then I joined goodreads, read about some books that seemed interesting and decided to take the plunge into it. So glad I did. Some favorites:

The Last Dark - Stephen R. Donaldson

The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss

The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies and The Republic of Thieves - Scott Lynch

Mistborn Trilogy Boxed Set - Brandon Sanderson

The Night Angel Trilogy - Brent Weeks

Hounded - Kevin Hearne

Grave Peril - Jim Butcher

Very excited about catching up on all the fantasy I've missed out over the years! I'm thinking about maybe trying Song of Fire and Ice once more as well ... I read the first book and second book a couple years ago and could not get into it. Don't know if it was Martin's writing or the characters or the flow of the books or if I just wasn't in the right mindset. Might be in a better place to get through those now and appreciate them more.

My favorites (all five star books or woulda-been-four-and-a-half-stars-if-GR-played-that-way) were:

Black Widow: The Name of the Rose by Marjorie M. Liu
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver
Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler

Ghost Story and Cold Days by Jim Butcher

The First Bird Series by Greig Beck

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin (I actually re-read this whole series to get to this book)

Corcitura by Melika Dannese Lux

The Kindres Series by Nicola Claire

The Asylum Series by Jocelynn Drake

Kitty Rocks the House by Carrie Vaughn

The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green

Some old, some new last year. The top 5:

Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft
Hal Clement, Mission of Gravity
Jo Walton, Among Others
Max Gladstone, Two Serpents Rise

I think my favorite reads last year were Ancillary Justice for sci-fi and Sharps for fantasy.

There were a LOT of really strong contenders for honorable mention slots (I just can't decide), but they would include Asimov's Caves of Steel, Heinlein's Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers, Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron, Jacqueline Carey's Santa Olivia books ... and more ... that's not to mention short fiction ...

I read quite a lot last year (160 or so books) and started a few more that I will be finishing off over the next few weeks.

The Drowning Girl and House of Leaves were probably my two favorites - each darker than what I often read but utterly superb and I will probably reread both this year.

Graham Joyce was a new discovery this year and I loved both Some Kind Of Fairy Tale and The Silent Land.

I finally read the first part of Gene Wolfe's book of the new sun which I have a slight love/hate relationship with but once I have read the rest of the series looking back it may well have a place as one of my favorites for the year.

My favorites of the sf/ f out of the 173 books I read...

The Graveyard Book
Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl
Two Boys Kissing
The Coldest Girl in ColdtownColdest
The Walking Dead, Compendium 2
The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Golem and the Jinni
Zoo City
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish
Wool Omnibus

Best 2013 SF reads, in no particular order:

Dreamsnake - Vonda McIntyre
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Children of Men - P. D. James
The Player of Games - Iain M. Banks
Cuckoo's Egg - C. J. Cherryh
A Case of Conscience - James Blish
Among Others - Jo Walton
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea - Ursula K. Le Guin

I read a lot of outstanding books last year:

Abaddon's Gate
Great North Road
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
From Russia With Love
The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA

I also went on an Iain Banks tribute read, so here are my favorite Banks novels that I read last year:

The Player of Games
Use of Weapons
The Hydrogen Sonata
The Wasp Factory
Look to Windward

New reads:
Necessity's Child by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Limits of Power by Elizabeth Moon
The Heart of Dog - anthology, edited by Deanna Durgin
Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (I have this shelved as a re-read, but that's because I read it about 20 years ago. I didn't remember anything, so mentioning it as new)

Re-reads:
Crystal Soldier by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Balance Of Trade by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold

I read all of Michael J. Sullivan's books

Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern (the first 6 books)

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstoreby Robin Sloan

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Hmm, my 5-star books of 2013 break down into 3 graphic novels, 3 art books and 1 non-fiction book. Interesting.

Locke and Key, Vol. 1: Welcome to Lovecraft - terrific supernatural storytelling by Joe Hill, Stephen King's son.

Avengers Assemble Volume 1 - just a fun superhero story, the way comic books ought to be sometimes.

Powers, Vol. 14: Gods - also written by Bendis, this is the adult version of superheroes. Very, very adult.

Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross - Alex Ross makes pretty pictures, and here are a lot of them.

Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist - probably my favorite book I read in '13. Great art in a beautifully-designed book.

Elgin Park: An Ideal American Town - I've been a fan of Smith for years, and I've had this book for a while. Finally got around to perusing it. Marvelous miniature work.

Full Upright and Locked Position: Not-So-Comfortable Truths about Air Travel Today - A great compendium of information about airplanes and air travel. I read this right before taking the longest plane ride you can (Dallas to Sydney), which probably wasn't the best idea, but a really interesting book.

The Name of the Wind

Warbound

The Way of Shadows

I mostly read YA books but i am open to new series all the time. my favorite series last year was the divergent series. i also happened to like Partials and Fragments. I also started the softwire series in my book club at school.

Enders Game!

The best by a mile was Hard Magic by Larry Correia.

Runners up include:
Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo
Devices and Desires by K.J. Parker

My top books I read during 2013 were Bridge of Birds, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Warrior's Apprentice, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Wool, and Magician's End.

Penny wrote: "What were your favourite scifi and fantasy books that you read during 2013?

They don't have to have been published last year but this is about which books you read and enjoyed during 2013.

My l..."

I really enjoyed 'The Second Ship' by Richard Phillips as well as the rest of the Rho Agenda series. Sure it's sort of young adult level stuff, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Everyone I've suggested it to has ended up devouring the full trilogy.

OK, I'll bite. Two series captivated me last year:

The first was The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. A fast moving and dark fantasy trilogy in the tradition of George RR Martin.

And three books from The Revelation Space Collection: Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. Nice, hard edged SciFi.

Dreamblood series by Jemisin N.K.. Loved everything about these books. I like my fantasy with well thought out magic systems and this dream based magic was just amazing.

Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) by Hugh Howey. A really good dystopia.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. Great book about time travel.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson Everything this man writes is just pure gold.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness Great dystopian book (and series). Even though the writing style took some getting used to and I still hate the main character for a certain something. (view spoiler)[ Involving a dog (hide spoiler)]

I thought Doomsday Book was quite good... it's been a few years since I read it but it left a nice impact crater.

A Memory of Light by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan - I was happy to finally finish this series and enjoyed it as well! Sanderson really brought back focus to the conclusion of the series.

Changes by Jim Butcher - I read a lot of the Dresden books last year but this one was my favorite.

The Human Division by John Scalzi - I know Scalzi is polarizing but I really enjoy his work and the latest in the Old Man's War series was a lot of fun to read. I will agree that it is missing something but I still enjoyed it.

Aurora: CV-01 by Ryk Brown - I discovered the Frontiers Saga and while there isn't anything truly new here I am really enjoying them, lots of fun to read.

Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins by Randolph Lalonde - Just like Frontiers Saga I also discovered the Spinward Fringe. These books are fun to read.

While most of my favorites would never win any literary awards they were a lot of fun to read and honestly if I'm not having fun reading what's the point?

I would have to say my favorites for 2013 were 1Q84, and Dune.

Glad to hear you liked Jemisin's Dreamblood books, Yvonne. They're on my to-read-soon pile. I thought it was interesting to learn that, though these are more recently published, she wrote them before she wrote The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms books.

Here are my 5 star SFF from last year; unfortunately, only one of them was a group read:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ("reread" audiobook this time, Stephen Fry was brilliant)
Scarlet
The Day of the Triffids
Zahrah the Windseeker
Dreamfever
Shadowfever
Dawn
The Passage

Hal wrote: "Some old, some new last year. The top 5:

Isaac Asimov, The Gods Themselves
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft
Hal Clement, Mission of Gravity
Jo Walton, Among Others
Max Gladstone, Two Serpents Rise"

It's been forever since I read The Gods Themselves, but it is one of my favorites. And Asimov always pointed to that book when people complained he never wrote any sex scenes! (Inside joke for those who have read the book)

Slaves of Spiegel, by Daniel Pinkwater. Short and tasty SciFi. And kind of odd.

My Top 3 were definitely
1. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (to be fair, I'm still reading this, but I finished book 1 in 2013, and I was hooked!)
2. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin (my favorite of the series so far!)
3. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (I have not yet read something of his that I dislike)

My top 5 reads of 2013 were
1. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
2. Blood Song
3. Three Parts Dead
4. Midnight Riot
5. Equations of Life

My absolute favorite book of 2013 was Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz

Top 5 Books Read in 2013
1. Blood Song
2. The Way of Kings
3. Heir of Novron
4. Rise of Empire
5. Theft of Swords