2017 Year in Review - SF/Fantasy Reading, Part 2: My Favorite Books and Characters

As I mentioned in my last post, I think I did a pretty good job at selecting books for me to read this year.  Out of 149 books in the genre that I read this year, 88 I graded as 8 out of 10 or better.  That's a pretty high mark for me believe it or not - on my scale, an 8 out of 10 is a book that I liked a lot; a 9 out of 10 is a book I liked a lot and feel is a must-read for anyone who doesn't dislike the genre or sub-genre the book belongs to; while a 10 out of 10 is a book that I feel is an absolute must-read for basically anyone.  So these are all books I liked a lot.  For the sake of space though, this post is mainly going to deal with only the books that earned 9s or above.

Again these are books that are either my must-reads for those who enjoy the genre/sub-genre or just absolute must-reads in general:





The Books (* indicates Hugo Eligible for 2018):

10 out of 10 Books:
1.  Rosewater by Tade Thompson (Review)
2.  Amatka* by Karin Tidbeck (Review)
3.  The Stone Sky* by N.K. Jemisin (Review)
4.  In Other Lands* by Sarah Rees Brennan (Review)
5.  The Tiger's Daughter* by K. Arsenault Rivera (Review)

9.5 out of 10 Books:
1.  The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Review)
2.  Phantom Pains* by Mishell Baker (Review)
3.  Raven Stratagem* by Yoon Ha Lee (Review)
4.  An Unkindness of Ghosts* by Rivers Solomon (Review)

9 out of 10 Books:
1.  A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (Review)
2.  vN by Madeline Ashby (Review)
3.  A Green and Ancient Light by Frederic Durbin (Review)
4.  Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal (Review)
5.  The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu (Review)
6.  Redshirts by John Scalzi (Review)
7.  Bane and Shadow* by Jon Skovron (Review)
8.  Six Wakes* by Mur Lafferty (Review)
9.  Borne* by Jeff Vandermeer (Review)
10. His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik (Review)
11. An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows (Review)
12. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold (Review)
13. The Prey of Gods* by Nicky Drayden (Review)
14. The Ruin of Angels* by Max Gladstone (Review)
15. Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik (Review)
16. The Legends of Luke Skywalker* by Ken Liu (Review)
17. The City of Brass* by S.A. Chakraborty (Review)
18. Magic for Nothing* by Seanan McGuire (Review)

These 27 books comprise of a nice mix of sub-genres - there's several weird SF books, foreign SF/F books, comedies, romances, action/adventure books, epic fantasies, alternate histories, etc etc.  Only one author appears twice (Naomi Novik, of whom I read 6 books this year) and many of these books were from authors who were totally new to me.

Favorite Characters of 2017:

If you've read my reviews, you know I'm very much a character-first type of reader - if I have a choice between a book with great characters and little plot or one with a great plot but forgettable characters, I go for characters every time.  And there were some tremendous characters I discovered this year.  First up, the main characters:

Favorite Lead Characters:
1.  Elliot Schaefer, In Other Lands - You've seen the type before - the kid from our world who discovers he has a connection to a magical land and gets to leave the normal world to go to school in that new world.  But not like Elliot - sarcastic, incredibly obnoxious, insanely pacifistic, love-seeking, and more interested in reading than trying to ever perform anything that could be construed as physical activity.  He's insufferable....and yet so goddamn lovable in his growing experiences as he tries to bring peace to a land where the default approach to conflict is war and to find love despite his own insecurities and well....obnoxiousness.

2.  Antimony Price, Magic for Nothing - For five books, Seanan McGuire's inCryptid series has had its main character's describe their little sister Antimony as if she was a crazy if not homicidal sibling, more apt to respond to a situation with dynamite or booby-traps than rational thinking...even if her family was in the way of those situations.  And then we get Magic for Nothing, which stars Antimony as its first-person narrating protagonist, which reveals her siblings are totally off-the-mark.  Sure, Antimony feels naked without the ability to draw knives from inside her clothes and would prefer to dig pit traps when time-permits to defend herself, but she's also an insecure kid sister with a crazy family that seems to know what they all want to do, when she doesn't know herself and can't seem to find out without her family getting in the way.  When she's sent on a very likely suicidal infiltration mission, she finds love, heartbreak, and a better understanding of who she really is, and the book's cliffhanger is just heartbreaking because I love her so much. 

3.  Sissex/Rosemary/Jenks/Kizzy, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Okay this is an ensemble cast book, and I'm mentioning basically half the cast, but I can't help myself.  This book is basically the textbook definition of an all characters, barely-any-plot book, and it works because the cast is so damn amazing.  Jenks and Kizzy are your quirky engineers who are just so damn cute, and while Rosemary starts off as the newbie viewpoint character, she grows into just an amazing lovable character.  And then there's Sissex, who believes the worst thing in the world is for a person to be in solitude, and really makes her race's approach to intimacy (more = normal) seem logical.

Best Supporting Characters:
1.  Raymet, Ruin of Angels:  Quote:
"Yesterday she saw me reading Cawleigh and interrupted to talk to me about the gender ratios of the people murdered in those books, and damnit, I don't care if she's being friendly, I need her out of my house for an afternoon.  Just one afternoon to, I don't know, run around and pee on the furniture."

Yeah that's the type of person Raymet is - hilarious, driven to protect her friends, and in love with Gal, the serious supernaturally strong knight of their group (and seemingly Raymet's opposite).  Raymet borders on a main character - as she gets parts of the book written from her own perspective, but regardless, she is amazing and I hope to see her in future Craft Sequence books.

2. Burqila Alshara, The Tiger's Daughter: Quote:
"I am Burqila Alshara.  O-Shizuru entrusted me with the care of her daughter.  If you doubt me, you are welcomed to try and stop me.  I have killed in front of my children before."

Burqila Alshara is the mother of one of the protagonists of The Tiger's Daughter and in some ways she's the typical mother character.  She cares about her daughter Shefali and wants for her to grow up strong and safely.

Oh and she's also the leader of a horse-riding people (think a female Genghis Khan/Mongolian Warlord) who took an oath of silence so speaks via writing or sign language, who killed her own brothers for not avenging her family, took control of her clan and united her people, blew a hole in a wall meant to keep the clan out, invaded a country that had used biological weapons on her people despite a massive disadvantage in numbers and so put them on the defensive they had to sue for peace in order to stop her.  The badass female warrior trope is so common these days as to be overdone, but Burqila Alshara is the perfect example of that trope and I love her so much.  And hell, unlike many similar characters, she even manages to survive the novel's events so we might get to see more of her in the sequel.  I can't wait.

3.  Rachel Sunborn and Commander Woodsinger, In Other Lands

Imagine Molly Weasley - you know the mother of a family steeped in the traditions of the magical land, who cares so much for all of her children and wants the best for their well being and for the well being of their friends.  Except she's a leader of a military force dedicated to safeguarding the magical world and is in an open marriage and will absolutely have sex with anything - human, centaur, harpy, whatever - when away from her husband.  Oh and she's hilarious.  That's Rachel Sunborn.  She's the best mother a fantasy character could ever have.

And then there's Commander Woodsinger.  It would be perfectly normal for her to be an extremely bitter serious commander of the military training camp she runs - after all, she's a war hero who still had to face a coup as soon as she took command because some others didn't want a woman (and a Black woman at that) in charge.  Instead, she's a deadpan snarker of epic proportions who still cares for her charges, even when they're absolutely insufferable.  I love her so much.

4.  The Aeslin Mice, from the inCryptid series of Seanan McGuire

Aeslin Mice are fantastic.  Sentient Mice who worship the main characters of the inCryptid stories (the Price Family), they manage to lighten up the story so damn much.  As I noted above, I loved Magic for Nothing, but if there's one thing I don't look forward to in the sequel, it's that the expected plot is likely to have a massively reduced role for the Mice.  I just want to learn more of their crazy religious rituals ("The Feast of Daddy I swear I'll kiss the next boy who walks through that door!") and see them "Hail" their way through even the most serious of situations.  The Price-Healy family may be the main characters of the series, but the Aeslin Mice are the series' soul.

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I could go on and on, but I think I'll stop here.  I loved all of the above, and even more in this year, and hope to find as much I will love in next year's reading.  My next post will be shorter, as it's dedicated to the books I did not love and my thoughts on that.