Beyond Reality discussion

One of my favorite things about a new year is hearing what everyone really enjoyed in the old, so I thought I'd see what everyone's favorite books from 2014 were.

I had a lot of books that I loved this past year. In no particular order, they are:
The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey
Saga, Volume 1, Saga, Volume 2, and Saga, Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan
The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
The Last Stormlord, Stormlord Rising, and Stormlord's Exile by Glenda Larke
The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin
Legend and Prodigy by Marie Lu
Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson and Night Broken by Patricia Briggs
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory
Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress by Marissa Meyer

It was a really good year for reading for me. How about you?

Favorites copied from the blog post I wrote yesterday (with Goodreads links added):

Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger. I HAVE to get my hands on the rest of this series, which is a YA prequel to her Soulless books (which made my best-of list last year!).
The Masqueraders, by Georgette Heyer. Cross-dressing regency fun!
A Turn of Light, by Julie Czerneda: an author I've been meaning to try for a long time. Gorgeously written, despite the fact that I didn't like the protagonist very much - but she was SUPPOSED to be sort of a spoiled brat, so very well done!
Code Name Verity: by Elizabeth Wein: For anyone who doubts that YA novels can blow your mind, read this historical fiction about espionage in WWII.
The Martian, by Andy Weir: I didn't think a novel about an astronaut stranded alone on Mars would be this funny! Well-researched, too.
The Shadowed Sun, by N.K. Jemisin: sequel to The Killing Moon, which I'd read and loved several years ago and just got around to continuing - had to re-read the first to refresh my memory because it was a pretty complex plot, but that was no hardship!
An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken: a memoir about moving on from loss that I just really needed to read at that particular point in time.
Pavilion of Women, by Pearl Buck: she's more well-known for The Good Earth, which I've not (yet) read, but I picked this up on a whim and just absolutely loved it. Incredible portrait of a matriarch in pre-Communist China.
The first six books of the Kate Daniels series (beginning with Magic Bites) by Ilona Andrews: just fun! I have to continue the series one of these days.
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison: stunning fantasy debut, this is one to watch.
Hild, by Nicola Griffith: historical fiction about St. Hilda of Whitby which is just fantastic. I had never heard of this woman but was immediately swept up into seventh-century Britain.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne Valente: Valente has a way with language that just blows me away. The only other of her novels I've read is Palimpsest, which is the complete opposite of this one in terms of subject matter (that one is VERY adult, this is YA), but the lyrical writing is the same and it's gorgeous.
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach: Roach is rapidly becoming one of my favorite popular science writers. This in-depth look at the nitty gritty of space exploration (including an entire chapter about defecation in space...for real) was fascinating.

Shel wrote: "Favorites copied from the blog post I wrote yesterday (with Goodreads links added):

Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger. I HAVE to get my hands on the rest of this series, whi..."

The Georgette Heyer sounds so fun! I instantly put it on my to-read list. I've been meaning to read something by her for ages, so maybe 2015 will be the year I finally do.

Also glad to hear that liked the Julie Czerneda. I just finished the last book of her Species Imperative trilogy, which I really enjoyed, so it's nice to hear that her other books are good as well.

I liked everything I've read by Julie E. Czerneda.

My top reads for 2014 are listed in another topic:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

My favorite read this year was Ancillary Justice
Worst, well its tied
The Bear and the Dragon
I could not finish Clancy's book. I tried. This was my third attempt and I could not get over Jack Ryan holier than thou President.
Existence
This could of been a great book but it was all over the place. Nice ideas but rather poorly presented

Tani wrote: "The Georgette Heyer sounds so fun! I instantly put it on my to-read list. I've been meaning to read something by her for ages, so maybe 2015 will be the year I finally do. "

It IS fun! I've read three of her books so far, absolutely loved two of the three, and definitely want to read more (the one I didn't like as much was These Old Shades, but I hear that the sequel is much better).

These were my 2014 favorites:
Parasol Protectorate – Gail Carriger
Dreamsnake – Vonda McIntyre
Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword – Ann Leckie
Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
The Giver – Lois Lowry
The Goblin Emperor – Katherine Addison
The Map of Time, Map of the Sky – Felix J Palma
The Martian – Andy Weir
Fionavar Trilogy – Guy Gavriel Kay
William Shakespeare’s Star Wars – Ian Doescher
Stormlight Archive – Brandon Sanderson (1&2)
Nora Gavin mysteries by Erin Hart
The Three Body Problem – Liu Cixin
The Bell at Sealey Head – Patricia McKillip

Wow! i love these lists. So many books....

Here are some of my favorite reads from 2014:

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
On Being Blue by William H. Gass
The Twisted Worlds of Philip K. Dick: A Reading of Twenty Ontologically Uncertain Novels by Umberto Rossi
The Atlantis Blueprint by Colin Wilson Rand Flem-Ath
Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories by Michael Cox
The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity by Jeffrey Burton Russell
Rice by Su Tong

and rereads of

Dune by Frank Herbert
Souls/Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by Joanna Russ and James Tiptree Jr.
Ghost Stories by Henry James

so many good books here! I recently started reading some Julie Czerneda and really enjoyed it....but that was this year!

Some of my 2014 favorites were:

5 stars:
Pump Six and Other Stories
Range of Ghosts
Endymion
Avempartha
Nova
Assail

those were all by some of my favorite authors. A new author to stand out for me was Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs. It was a real gothic type supernatural horror story that I just devoured!
I also have fond memories of both the Dark Tower and VorKasigan series reads that I did last year.. Fabulous stuff!

I definitely love seeing everyone's lists! So many books I want to read, so little time!