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ladybusinessHow is the year half over? I know part of this for me was because I spent an entire month arguing with a Man about a topic I know more about than he does. I DID turn into Home Depot Ron Swanson in my head multiple times. It was exhausting. It basically ended the reading streak I had. I'm determined that it won't happen again!
I saw this survey on a Youtube vid. This is more of a BookTube thing, but I'm recounting all the reading successes I get this year. If you've done this one or a version of it, let me know in the comments. 😊
The best books I've read this year is a tie for me between How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith and The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.
I listened to How the Word is Passed in audio from the library and didn't save all my annotations before it got returned. Unfortunately, my library system gets ebooks and audiobooks for a certain number of checkouts and then their license expires. I couldn't check it out again because my library ran out of check outs for the audiobook and they're probably not going to get more after the budget cuts due to fascists defunding them in 2022. Boo, fascists. I'm rereading it in hardcopy, also from my library, so they at least have that copy remaining. I'm ordering my own copy once I decide between hardcover/trade (it depends on how the annotations in the library copy go).
Clint Smith is a poet, and his love of language comes through so well in this book. It's a harrowing book to read, but he guides you through it with such beautiful imagery of the places he visits and thoughtful reflections of the environments he's describing that the journey itself feels gentle. That's good because the topic itself is rough to read about. Half the things I highlighted on my first read-through were gut-wrenching descriptions of an inexcusable past that still resonate even in 2024.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera was on my TBR after someone tweeted about it in 2023, but of course the hold lines everywhere were massive. ADHD strikes again! Once it made the Hugo ballot, I was like, "It is time". I talked about it recently and the farther I get from the story the more thoughts I have about it. Not necessarily the plot, which is good, but the conversations about change and power and religion and history.
I remember the fandom reaction to Ancillary Justice, The Fifth Season, Gideon the Ninth, and Ninefox Gambit. Those books were engaging in science fiction and fantasy as one thing rather than "this is science fiction" and "this is fantasy". They stretched out the meanings of the genre trappings and challenged reader assumptions. The Saint of Bright Doors does the same thing. It really deserves the buzz it's getting if you like challenging books.
This is easy, because the only new-to-me sequel I've read so far is Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer, the fourth book in the Finder series. I loved it so much. I wrote about it recently and plan to reread it again soon for annotations and see if I can still track down hardcover copies of all the books, because the mass market paperbacks are just awful, insulting quality. These books deserved better.
Also, because I'm bad at series reading, I only just realized that the release of Ghostdrift means that the whole series is eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2025 (indeed, I have already put it on the Hugo Rec sheet. I apologize now for how unbearable I'm about to be about these books, even more so than I was already planning to be.
Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase, which looks to be another science fantasy thriller. It's been on my radar since last year before it only had a description and no cover. (And what a cover they gave it.) Another book is Unexploded Remnants by Elaine Gallagher, which comes out next week. I'm including it because we're close enough to its release date!
There's also Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, out this week. Normally I'm very skeptical of reincarnation stories because I find them incredibly depressing with few exceptions, but after The Saint of Bright Doors was so good I'm willing to give one a shot just to see what Chandrasekera does with the trope.
More cheating from me. These questions should really say "releases".
I'm most excited for The Relentless Legion by J.S. Dewes, the third book in her Divide series. It drops in November 2024, but I was given an eARC recently so the only hold on my anticipation is me. I'm trying to save it for next weekend, where I'll have a large chunk of free time. There's also Swordcrossed by Freya Marske, which I've started as an eARC (the annoying men draining all my energy derailed my reading of this one) but haven't finished yet.
There's so many great books I know about coming out, like The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey (August 2024), the start of a new series. I admit I haven't finished The Expanse. I got bogged down after Babylon's Ashes, which is standard for me with long series. I'm still excited to see what new things these dudes cook up.
There's also The Nightward by R.S.A. Garcia (October 2024), which I only found by accident while browsing StoryGraph. The cover is banging, and sounds like it's also going to be a mix of fantasy/science fiction?
And then, A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna (December 2024) hits at the end of the year. I am honestly boggled by this date choice. It's at the end of the month? Not even at the beginning so people could pick it up as a gift for Christmas? I guess maybe they're banking on people spending holiday gift cards on it. Truthfully, I'm just big mad I have to wait this long. I loved The Secret Society of Irregular Witches so much and was stoked to see her writing additional stories! But! So long!
This doesn't include the books I don't know about yet. Yet.
Starter Villain by John Scalzi. 😭 Time for a restorative re-read of The Android's Dream?
Probably Rose/House by Arkady Martine, because the blurb led me to believe it was going to be some angst-fest between a dude professor and his female student (big yikes) with some AI window dressing. I should have had more confidence in Martine, honestly! It was not that at all and in fact given Rose House itself, I'm not sure it would have been. I talked about it here. It was more a character study, an examination of personhood and humanity, and various types of greed. Also, I liked the nods to a future where it seems like maybe we don’t have to be solidly "ACAB" all the time?
100% Clint Smith, whose How the Word is Passed was my first book by him. It's just so good. It made me want to read poetry. I don't even really like poetry but I sure did bookmark two of his poetry collections to check out.
It's Yumi, the robot friend from The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He. Solid pal, 1000/10, no notes. For humans, it's Maritza from Rose/House, for her absolute legend behavior playing mind games with a mean A.I. in the service of finding a murderer.
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei; I didn't end up liking the book as much as I wanted to. However, I did find the mother/daughter relationship very fraught and relatable, so I was a blubbering mess through several sections of the book. Even across cultures, the breakdown of mother/daughter relationship has something of a universal feeling to it.
Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer. Even though I'm sad that the series has wrapped up, there's something about reading the final book in the series, having a great time, and finishing that last chapter contented about the state of the book's universe and the characters. I will miss space shenanigans with Fergus Ferguson, but this last adventure was exciting, closed a lot of question mark boxes, and left just enough unexplained that it wasn't frustrating. It just felt like, "hey, that's life, and there aren't always easy answers". Very on brand for this series. I can't wait for more people to discover these books and come obsess about them with me. This feels very much like a Yuletide moment even though I would be terrible at Yuletide.
Luckily, I have cut myself free from the restrictions of "need" and "must" and "required". However, I really would like to read Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott and kick off the final bad vibe shackles of books I couldn't finish in 2020 due to 2020 itself. Garbage year.
I also made it a point not to focus too much on 2024 releases, because I often ended up psyching myself out. Instead, I looked toward 2021 releases and made a list of books to read from that year. I'm not doing great (thanks, LIFE), but The Ones We're Meant to Find was on this list. A win is a win. And I've also bought several of those books outright, so they're already on my shelf. I just need to survive Hugo reading season first!
Remember when blogs were cool and we could tag people and they might do it, because we all read each other's blogs? Ah, memories. If you do this over in your space/social media, tag me in or drop a link in the comments. :)
I saw this survey on a Youtube vid. This is more of a BookTube thing, but I'm recounting all the reading successes I get this year. If you've done this one or a version of it, let me know in the comments. 😊
Best book you’ve read so far in 2024
The best books I've read this year is a tie for me between How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith and The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.
I listened to How the Word is Passed in audio from the library and didn't save all my annotations before it got returned. Unfortunately, my library system gets ebooks and audiobooks for a certain number of checkouts and then their license expires. I couldn't check it out again because my library ran out of check outs for the audiobook and they're probably not going to get more after the budget cuts due to fascists defunding them in 2022. Boo, fascists. I'm rereading it in hardcopy, also from my library, so they at least have that copy remaining. I'm ordering my own copy once I decide between hardcover/trade (it depends on how the annotations in the library copy go).
Clint Smith is a poet, and his love of language comes through so well in this book. It's a harrowing book to read, but he guides you through it with such beautiful imagery of the places he visits and thoughtful reflections of the environments he's describing that the journey itself feels gentle. That's good because the topic itself is rough to read about. Half the things I highlighted on my first read-through were gut-wrenching descriptions of an inexcusable past that still resonate even in 2024.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera was on my TBR after someone tweeted about it in 2023, but of course the hold lines everywhere were massive. ADHD strikes again! Once it made the Hugo ballot, I was like, "It is time". I talked about it recently and the farther I get from the story the more thoughts I have about it. Not necessarily the plot, which is good, but the conversations about change and power and religion and history.
I remember the fandom reaction to Ancillary Justice, The Fifth Season, Gideon the Ninth, and Ninefox Gambit. Those books were engaging in science fiction and fantasy as one thing rather than "this is science fiction" and "this is fantasy". They stretched out the meanings of the genre trappings and challenged reader assumptions. The Saint of Bright Doors does the same thing. It really deserves the buzz it's getting if you like challenging books.
Best sequel you've read so far in 2024
This is easy, because the only new-to-me sequel I've read so far is Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer, the fourth book in the Finder series. I loved it so much. I wrote about it recently and plan to reread it again soon for annotations and see if I can still track down hardcover copies of all the books, because the mass market paperbacks are just awful, insulting quality. These books deserved better.
Also, because I'm bad at series reading, I only just realized that the release of Ghostdrift means that the whole series is eligible for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2025 (indeed, I have already put it on the Hugo Rec sheet. I apologize now for how unbearable I'm about to be about these books, even more so than I was already planning to be.
New release you haven't read yet, but want to
Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase, which looks to be another science fantasy thriller. It's been on my radar since last year before it only had a description and no cover. (And what a cover they gave it.) Another book is Unexploded Remnants by Elaine Gallagher, which comes out next week. I'm including it because we're close enough to its release date!
There's also Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, out this week. Normally I'm very skeptical of reincarnation stories because I find them incredibly depressing with few exceptions, but after The Saint of Bright Doors was so good I'm willing to give one a shot just to see what Chandrasekera does with the trope.
Most anticipated release for the second half of the year
More cheating from me. These questions should really say "releases".
I'm most excited for The Relentless Legion by J.S. Dewes, the third book in her Divide series. It drops in November 2024, but I was given an eARC recently so the only hold on my anticipation is me. I'm trying to save it for next weekend, where I'll have a large chunk of free time. There's also Swordcrossed by Freya Marske, which I've started as an eARC (the annoying men draining all my energy derailed my reading of this one) but haven't finished yet.
There's so many great books I know about coming out, like The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey (August 2024), the start of a new series. I admit I haven't finished The Expanse. I got bogged down after Babylon's Ashes, which is standard for me with long series. I'm still excited to see what new things these dudes cook up.
There's also The Nightward by R.S.A. Garcia (October 2024), which I only found by accident while browsing StoryGraph. The cover is banging, and sounds like it's also going to be a mix of fantasy/science fiction?
And then, A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna (December 2024) hits at the end of the year. I am honestly boggled by this date choice. It's at the end of the month? Not even at the beginning so people could pick it up as a gift for Christmas? I guess maybe they're banking on people spending holiday gift cards on it. Truthfully, I'm just big mad I have to wait this long. I loved The Secret Society of Irregular Witches so much and was stoked to see her writing additional stories! But! So long!
This doesn't include the books I don't know about yet. Yet.
Biggest disappointment
Starter Villain by John Scalzi. 😭 Time for a restorative re-read of The Android's Dream?
Biggest surprise
Probably Rose/House by Arkady Martine, because the blurb led me to believe it was going to be some angst-fest between a dude professor and his female student (big yikes) with some AI window dressing. I should have had more confidence in Martine, honestly! It was not that at all and in fact given Rose House itself, I'm not sure it would have been. I talked about it here. It was more a character study, an examination of personhood and humanity, and various types of greed. Also, I liked the nods to a future where it seems like maybe we don’t have to be solidly "ACAB" all the time?
Favorite new author (debut or new to you)
100% Clint Smith, whose How the Word is Passed was my first book by him. It's just so good. It made me want to read poetry. I don't even really like poetry but I sure did bookmark two of his poetry collections to check out.
Newest favorite character
It's Yumi, the robot friend from The Ones We're Meant to Find by Joan He. Solid pal, 1000/10, no notes. For humans, it's Maritza from Rose/House, for her absolute legend behavior playing mind games with a mean A.I. in the service of finding a murderer.
Book that made you cry
The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei; I didn't end up liking the book as much as I wanted to. However, I did find the mother/daughter relationship very fraught and relatable, so I was a blubbering mess through several sections of the book. Even across cultures, the breakdown of mother/daughter relationship has something of a universal feeling to it.
Book that made you happy
Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer. Even though I'm sad that the series has wrapped up, there's something about reading the final book in the series, having a great time, and finishing that last chapter contented about the state of the book's universe and the characters. I will miss space shenanigans with Fergus Ferguson, but this last adventure was exciting, closed a lot of question mark boxes, and left just enough unexplained that it wasn't frustrating. It just felt like, "hey, that's life, and there aren't always easy answers". Very on brand for this series. I can't wait for more people to discover these books and come obsess about them with me. This feels very much like a Yuletide moment even though I would be terrible at Yuletide.
What books do you need to read by the end of the year?
Luckily, I have cut myself free from the restrictions of "need" and "must" and "required". However, I really would like to read Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott and kick off the final bad vibe shackles of books I couldn't finish in 2020 due to 2020 itself. Garbage year.
I also made it a point not to focus too much on 2024 releases, because I often ended up psyching myself out. Instead, I looked toward 2021 releases and made a list of books to read from that year. I'm not doing great (thanks, LIFE), but The Ones We're Meant to Find was on this list. A win is a win. And I've also bought several of those books outright, so they're already on my shelf. I just need to survive Hugo reading season first!
Remember when blogs were cool and we could tag people and they might do it, because we all read each other's blogs? Ah, memories. If you do this over in your space/social media, tag me in or drop a link in the comments. :)
no subject
Date: 2024-06-25 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-25 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-02 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-26 07:00 pm (UTC)I miss the old days of blogging being more of a community with tagging too. Maybe I'll do this, but looking at the books I've read this year, I'm not sure I'd have much to say. I've read 3 or 4 standouts, but other than that everything has been decent enough but not super memorable to me. And that's after dropping quite a few books that just weren't compelling to me.
Kristen (Fantasy Cafe)
no subject
Date: 2024-06-26 07:05 pm (UTC)Highly recommend Rose/House for the female characters. They're all very interesting.
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Date: 2024-06-26 08:18 pm (UTC)It looks like Rose/House is being rereleased later this year, so that's something to look forward to. Like you said, the description didn't do it any favors. I was also unsure about it until I read reviews, but then, I also LOVED A Memory Called Empire.
no subject
Date: 2024-06-26 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-26 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-01 11:16 pm (UTC)https://www.fantasybookcafe.com/2024/07/2024-mid-year-book-freakout-tag/