Fantasy Book Club discussion

How was your year (bookwise)

So 2012 is coming to an end (yeah I know it's only november, and no apocalypse puns here), and I was thinking about my the 2012 reading challenge.
How did 2012 turn out to be for you guys? Did you exceed your goals? Or perhaps you set the bar a tad too high this year?

For myself I can say that it's been a great year literary. I set out with the very much conservative hope of reading 35 books over the course of the year, last year I read 38 books, and so I though that 35 was realistic... but so far I've already far exceeded this. At the moment I'm at 54 books (a staggering 154 % according to goodreads), and a handful more will be added before the year is over I'm sure.

In number of pages the statistics is clear too. My bookcount of 54 books totals 25110 pages or 465 pages per book.
The genre I've been reading the most is by far fantasy, with more than half of my total books being in this genre. It's followed by Horror>Sci-Fi>Biographies....

As I can see on my rating statistics, this year have offered quite a few books I loved too. I've awarded no fewer than 22 books with the maximum of 5 stars (I still think the rating system on Goodreads could be more nuanced though), and 16 books have gotten 4 stars from me.

I would like to mention a few of the books on my list too. My reread of The Wheel of Time: Boxed Set has been very entertaining, although I'm not quite done with it yet (I still have 1½ months to read the rest).
Also I've at long last begun reading The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher ... And I absolutely love it!
This year has also introduced me to Brandon Sanderson ... and I've loved everything I've read of his.
I've been trying to read some of the Science Fiction classics I've missed over the years, and that they've all proven to be worth the hype (It's Roadside Picnic , Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , Ender's Game and Flowers for Algernon which has all been more than just enjoyable)
2012 did offer some dissappointments for me, mainly 1Q84 , The Night Circus , The Passage and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War )

So what am I blabbering on about? I would just like to share my thoughts on the books I've read this year, and maybe be inspired by what you've read and what you think about this year's literary offerings.

The Best Book I Read This Year: The Way of Kings

Suprise of the year: Boy's Life

Dissappointment of the year: 1Q84

My book count wasn't high but I read a ton of Indies this year in a variety of genres, many outside what I would usually read. Some of them were great, some were pretty good but needed editing, some were really not good. Some were really weird ("Campaign Zen: 500bc - 2012.", a book of political and election-year poetry by Peter Prasad, for example). I think the only fantasy titles I read were The Lies of Locke Lamora (great!), it's sequel Red Seas Under Red Skies (pretty good), and Elantris (not bad). Right now I'm reading The Great Hollywood Double Hustle.

A little disappointing with my book count, was trying for 100 and I'm at 71 now, granted I did move two states in the middle of the year so that slowed me down quite a bit. I read mostly fantasy and Parranormal, and got through quite a chunk of my TBR tower! read 25336 pages, my longest book was A Storm of Swords no surprise there

I only gave out 8, 5 stars and 26, 4 stars

highlight of the year: Good Omens

surprise of the year: How to Kill a Rock Star / Warm Bodies

worst book: Nightshade

I'm moving this to General Group Discussions since it's not really good under 'Recommendations.

I'm doing better this year than last year at 167. Last year I read 156. Most were fantasy, but not all. I've also read some historical fiction, mystery/detective, and romance of various types.

set my challenge quite realistic... 20 books and I'm nearing finishing the 20th before this year is done...

this year I made it through the rest of A Song of Ice and Fire, aka books III-V, then Art of love/Cures for love... then most of the year spent reading Malazan book of the fallen, all 10 tomes... also did Night of knives and finishing Return of the Crimson Guard

so it might as well be over 15000 pages

cant say which one was a disappointment for me, cos since I chose carefully, I had the luck of picking up only good stuff

but best? hm... MBOTF in its entirety

This year I'm at 154 (55,000 pages) so far, which is about twice as many books as I read last year, but believe me, I've read some absolute crap to get here. In 2013, I plan to go for quality over quantity.

Nearly every book I read is of the fantasy variety and sometimes it spills over into YA paranormal as a diversion, especially if I've read something really heavy, like GRRM or Joe Abercrombie.

Worst YA Paranormal of the Year: This is a tough one, because as I said, I read some really horrible stuff. I think it would tie between Chosen (Seeker Saga #1) because of plot and Forbidden (The Arotas Trilogy #1) because of both plot and editing.

Most Alike YA Books I read this Year: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead and Covenant by Jennifer Armentrout. Runners up is Matched by Allie Condie and Insurgent by Veronica Roth.

Most Original YA I read this year: This is so hard. I would have to go with either Cinderby Marisa Meyer or Poison Princess by Kresley Cole.

Best YA Literary Contribution: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater--no question.

Most unintentionally funny YA: Wicca series by Cate Tiernan

Best independent author I read this year: Elizabeth Hunter and the Elemental Mysteries series. Just lovely.

Most disappointing fantasy I read this year: The Dragonprince's Heir by Aaron Pogue. And it was too bad.

Most Shocking moment: The Buttsecks in One Foot in the Grave by Jeaniene Frost.

Most fun I had reading a book this year: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.

Series I should've read a long time ago: The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan.

Most Interesting Plot: Control Point by Myke Cole

Book I read that was a few hundred pages too long: The Baker's Boy by J.V. Jones. But in her defense, the trilogy is called The Book of Words.

Unnecessary cliffhanger of the year: My Name Is Memory by Ann Brashares.

Best Fantasy Literary Contribution: City of Dragons by Robin Hobb

Hands down best book I read all year and maybe EVER: King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. It was outstanding.

2nd best book I read all year: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie.

I still have some heavy stuff to go. I have The Blinding Knife, Red Country and Hounded queued up in the Kindle, so obviously some things could change before the end of the year.

Some things I'm committed to in 2013 in my quality over quantity promise:
Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
Odalisque by Fiona McIntosh

I read 62 books this year and my 2012 reading challenge was switched on 60, so I'm satisfied. As always I read various genres. Best books I read 2012:The Night Circus,The Club Dumas, 1Q84. The book which surprised me Night Train to Lisbon: A Novel.
My fantasy list:The Name of the Wind,The Curse of Chalion,The Traitor Queen.
There were also disappointments but the tastes are tastes.

Next year I wish to read some Peter V. Brett and Steven Erikson books.

How does the reading challenge thing work?

mine was not a very interesting year, oh, no that would not be right
I'd say the highlight of the year is reading the Wheel of Time Series, I was caught up in the fever of waiting for the last book and wanted to be part of it, I also read many of Sanderson's books so I was looking forward to see his work in finishing the series, i ended up being a fie hard fan of Robert Jordan and did my share of complaining about Sanderson :D but I have to admit, he did a splendid job and it wasn't easy

the best book for me this year was The Warrior's Apprentice it was also a great surprise for I read it reluctantly after many assurances from a friend
the worst is definitely Mister B. Gone, God but I hated this one, the only reason I kept reading was to give it a chance to end well, it it disappointed me to the end, I wish I never read this horrible book

I wish I'd kept track of it before October. I've slowed down since starting graduate school. I have no idea how many I've read this year. But, considering how much I've read in the last month or so and how much busier my schedule has been, I'd say I've had a slow year at somewhere in the range of 100-150 books.

Jute wrote: "How does the reading challenge thing work?"

The reading challenge, I mean the thing at your home page of your profile which counts how many books have you read this year.

According to Goodreads, I've read 40 books so far this year, which is pretty good for me. That was more books than last year. I don't care to do those reader challenges because I'm into quality over quantity. Although, I might change my mind about it for next year. I'll also probably read a couple more before the year is up. I read a good mixture of fantasy, sci-fi and classics mostly. Some of those were Edgar Allan Poe short stories I counted as books, so maybe that doesn't really count towards my total :P The large majority of the books I gave 4 stars. 8 books I rated 5 stars, 5 books I rated 3 stars, and 2 books I gave two stars. My favorite book of the year was probably Replay by Ken Grimwood, which I thought was amazing. My biggest disappointment was The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind. The Green Rider series by Kristen Britain became my new favorite series. :D

Since I got my Kindle last year, I've been able to get through a bit more books than usual. Overall this was a pretty good year for me. :) For next year, I'd like to get through more series, but who knows if I'll stick to any of them lol. The Kindle does make it easier though because when I'm in a bookstore I change my mind a lot, spend over an hour just looking at the books and not grabbing any, then changing my mind again. Sometimes I'll leave the store with no books or sometimes 2 or 3. Then they just get added to my enormous TBR pile anyway. So, for that reason I've been bad about completing series. With Kindle it has helped me just buy the next book in the series right away without thinking about it.

And then of course I've added tons of books to my TBR pile. Locus Online tells me which books are coming out every week, so I find myself adding any that look interesting lol. And so I have the unconquerable problem of having too many books I want to read :P

Sorry, got off on a tangent there...

I went over my goal of 500 books as I also did last year.

Kevin wrote: "I went over my goal of 500 books as I also did last year."

holy guacamole man... I am reading my 20th only lol... it is true, yes that except maybe Art of Love it was all 600, or better said 800-1000+ page tomes, but still :)))

Razmatus wrote: "Kevin wrote: "I went over my goal of 500 books as I also did last year."

holy guacamole man... I am reading my 20th only lol... it is true, yes that except maybe Art of Love it was all 600, or bet..."

I have read and are still reading some of the tomes that you read this year.

I never set a specific number goal anymore (I used to get stressed out over that when I was in university, because I didn't count the books I read for uni), and I seem to count a little differently than Goodreads (in my system they belong to the year I finish them, not when I started them), but it looks like I'm going to be around 60 books again as per usual. I usually average 50-65 per year or so, unless I've read a lot of mindless drivel or a lot of very slow going books.

I have reached some of my other reading goals though, I finally cleared my physical unread books shelf completely (yay!) and started filling it up again of course. ;) i finally got around to reading a Sheri Tepper, knocked off a few more titles from Ursula LeGuin's back catalogue and I've also re-read WOT in its entirety. I still have Towers of Midnight (which I haven't read before) left, but I'll get to it before AMOL is released.

I set my goal this year at 52 and I'm currently at 74 and counting. If I can hit 80 by 12/31 I'll be pleased, but if not, I'm still happy. 20,928 pages thus far.

Granted some of them were actually standalone short stories that GR counts as "books", but others were omnibus editions of 3 or 4 separate novels, so it kind of averages out. Looks like I tend to rate almost everything at 4 stars, with 5 and 3 close behind and only two 2-star books, which means either I select pretty well or I just don't like saying bad things.

Highlights (and here I'm limiting myself to books I hadn't read before) were probably Seven Princes by John R. Fultz and The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction. Oh, and of course Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy.

And thanks to Fantasy Book Club, I finally got around to reading The Last Unicorn and Legend.

I have read and are still reading some of the tomes that you read this year.

Yours is a very impressive number. Curious if you don't mind: How fast do you think you read on average? (Pages per hour might be a good metric) And how many hours do you read a day?

I actually read more last year.

Pretty flipping awesome. 1 name Brandon Sanderson awww yeah! and i reached my book challenge :D

I'm still 4 books ahead of my goal (1 book per week, or 52 in total, over 25k pages) and I may yet exceed it, although that remains to be seen as I've started a slow re-read of the Wheel of Time cycle with a hope that I may actually finish it this time.

This was definitely a year of cycles with me trying to catch up on the Harrington series, reading a (surprisingly good), a set of books starting with Theft of Swords and reading the entire Eli Monpress cycle (the last of which, Spirit's End I've just finished reading).. oh, and Codex Alera.. so yeah, a lot of series..

Because of that, I can't really tell which book was the best. My rating suggests that it should be Replay, but I wonder if I didn't enjoy it so much because it was just completely different from other books..

Surprise of the year: Definitely "The Riyria Revelations" set, which I've enjoyed much more than I've expected not knowing anything about it, or the author.

The book I've enjoyed the least was probably Broken Blade, which read more like a D&D session than a fully fledged book.

As for the 2013 I'm going to continue re-reading the WoT cycle. I should probably work on my to-read list too (probably the Demon cycle, as I've enjoyed The Warded Man, but for some reason dropped the second book after 50 pages or so). I should also check a list of new releases for year 2013 to see what should I watch out for.

Krzysztof wrote: "I'm still 4 books ahead of my goal (1 book per week, or 52 in total, over 25k pages) and I may yet exceed it, although that remains to be seen as I've started a slow re-read of the Wheel of Time cy..."

What book of WoT are you up to? I abandoned the series not even halfway through book 2 last year, but gave it another shot this year and I haven't been able to put them down!

Just finishing book 5 now, I really owed it to myself to read through the series. I've heard some bad things about some of the later pre-Brandon Sanderson books, but I'm quite sure I'm good for the whole journey, I'm invested enough to really want to know how it all ends.

When I was reading it the last time I've finished around book 5. It was years ago though, so I'm starting from scratch and I'm halfway through the first book, so there is no chance of me finishing all twelve in time for AMoL...

Yes, the supposed decline in quality of further books was one of the reasons I've dropped the cycle back then, and my love of everything Sanderson wrote is the reason I'm giving the cycle one last chance. :)

I haven't kept track of my reading really, and just joined Goodreads recently. I kind of guessed when I was putting in what books I had read under the "My Books" section to tell you the truth. My favorite books this year have been The Iron Druid series by Kevin Hearne. Most of the books I've read have been fantasy. I like to collect books and I acquired some nice books this year, notably first printings of all the Song of Ice and Fire novels; and a Signed/Limited edition of Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance, which I read this year and really enjoyed.

I think I probably read 20ish books. I played Skyrim A LOT the first half the year. The other half I read about a book a week. When I wasn't really feeling a book I put it down for another. I have a lot on my shelf with bookmarks in them.

I love being on Goodreads, I think that's the best part of my year bookwise. It gives me more purpose for reading, to be able to share the experience. Out here in the mountains nobody reads fantasy books (or books for that matter, they make moonshine and pray with rattle snakes, which is freakin' awesome, but I wanna talk lit sometimes ya know?).

Next year I'd like to get in a book a week. And to get better at using Goodreads.

Other Highlights: The Dying Earth, Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance, The Eye of the World, Pump Six and Other Stories,

So today (a day after I wrote the above) I went to the giant trade your used books in for more used books store. I wanted a copy of this book people on here had said was really good, a ballin maybe the best of the year, super quality piece of work. But I couldn't remember the name except that it had King in it, and it was a four word or so name. I saw the audio book for The Way of Kings and thought that was probably it, but it was 30 bucks. I only had $18 in credit so I went for nice copies of Ready Player One and Iron Council. I'd have bought it had there been wi-fi so I could've checked. Anecdote, topic thoroughly strayed. Prechiyatchtye.

The years not over so I have done my stats yet. It has been an interesting year, thought I've had more 2 and 3✰ ratings than usual. Most of my favorites this year were older books.

My Favorites were

Tapestry of Bronze Series by Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood

Comfort and Joy by Jim Grimsley

Ballad of Beta 2, Empire Star, The Einstein Intersection and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders all by Samuel R. Delany

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Clicking Beat on the Brink of Nada by Keith Hale

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

The King of Ys series by Poul Anderson and his wife Karen, an Historical Fantasy.

The only pure Fantasy I read this year has been the Ryria Revelations which I thought fun, but average. I'm into a long space opera series, but may work through some short quickies to get my counts up. My mood will decide. I am going to look at some more of Poul Anderson's historical fantasy (or mythic fiction if you wish).

UPDATE: I just finished The Blinding Knife and...wow...new favorite book of the year!

RuthAnn wrote: "UPDATE: I just finished The Blinding Knife and...wow...new favorite book of the year!"

ahh I really want to start this series, but Im just not sure I can justify $21 for a kindle book!

Melanie wrote: "RuthAnn wrote: "UPDATE: I just finished The Blinding Knife and...wow...new favorite book of the year!"

ahh I really want to start this series, but Im just not sure I can justify $21 for a kindle b..."

$21?! I see the first one in the series on Kindle for $7.99 USD...not too bad. I will warn you though, I was not a huge fan of the first book in the series. I found it really confusing. I almost think it's not totally necessary to read The Black Prism if you can find a review with a good, long summary attached. You can pretty well figure it out.

RuthAnn wrote: "Melanie wrote: "RuthAnn wrote: "UPDATE: I just finished The Blinding Knife and...wow...new favorite book of the year!"

ahh I really want to start this series, but Im just not sure I can justify $2..."
Yea Australia is friggin ridiculous with its ebook prices, actually just book prices in general. I constantly see ebooks for $1.99 to $5.99 in USD but as soon as I click on the them they jump to over $13 AUS.

Its hard to afford to be a reader over here. Hopefully my library will get them in soon and I can stop complaining haha

RuthAnn wrote: "UPDATE: I just finished The Blinding Knife and...wow...new favorite book of the year!"

My second favorite book I read this year only to Snow Crash. Its even better than the first, which I also read this year.

I have done really poor according to my challenge. My goal was to read 50 books this year, but I've only read 27. I started college this year and I used to read everyday during class in high school, so now it's getting harder, but looking at the books I've read this year it has been a good year.

I read my absolutely favorite book of all time this year which was Howl's Moving Castle. I also started ASOIAF which has been really good thus far. I also read my first adult classic without it being assigned to me Farenheit 451 which was really good.

I think the biggest surprise this year for me was The Book of Lost Things. It was really great even though it was kind of weird. Overall I've liked what I've read this year, and hope to do the same next year.

Emily wrote: "I have done really poor according to my challenge. My goal was to read 50 books this year, but I've only read 27. I started college this year and I used to read everyday during class in high school..."

Read during class? That can't be good for business!

Kevin wrote: "RuthAnn wrote: "UPDATE: I just finished The Blinding Knife and...wow...new favorite book of the year!"

My second favorite book I read this year only to Snow Crash. Its even better than the first, ..."

What is the first?

Not been a good year for me at all for books, i will only have read about 3 or 4 books before the years is out !

I have been busy with other things until the beginning of this month when i then picked up my books again.

Naughty boy i know, hehe

Alan wrote: "Not been a good year for me at all for books, i will only have read about 3 or 4 books before the years is out !

I have been busy with other things until the beginning of this month when i then pi..."

tsk tsk Alan. You still have a little over a month left. You can reach 20 books. I believe in you!

I didn't say anything about the books I read other than to provide the number. Fifteen of the now 173 books I've read were five star reads. Several of these were from C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series. Two that linger in my mind the most were Corrag and Cuckoo's Egg. The vast majority were four star books, with three stars leading a close second. I only had a few two and one stars. Another five star read was The Mapping of Love and Death.

I listen to a lot of mysteries and two of them were memorably two stars, two were 1 star. When a mystery is bad, it's bad.

I'm rather choosy about what books I'll spend my time reading, and it's mostly turned out well this year, with so many 4 and 5 star books in my list.

Adam wrote: "Read during class? That can't be good for business! ."

Psh. I did it all the time in middle school. It may have been partly because I was in a 6-7-8th grade combined class, but I was almost always bored out of my mind. At least kids that are reading aren't talking or texting. :P

Carol wrote: "Adam wrote: "Read during class? That can't be good for business! ."

Psh. I did it all the time in middle school. It may have been partly because I was in a 6-7-8th grade combined class, but I was ..."

I used to did it until I brought a humor book (really funny, too). It did not look good then I start laughing during the story of nuclear disasters... :(

So far ive read 56 books, 7 more than last year and a total of 18480 pages.

14 - 5 star
11 - 4 star
14 - 3 star
10 - 2 star
6 - 1 star
2 i didnt finish

Most enjoyable books were Scott Lynch's
The Lies of Locke Lamora & Red Seas Under Red Skies, Mortal Engines & The Space Merchants

My least enjoyable books were The Great Book of Amber & the awful The Name of the Wind

I've been on a reading rampage these days.

I read Patrick Rothfuss' books at the beginning of the last year. I also read Kingmaker/Kingbreaker by Karen Miller, I tried to read the rest of her books, but I wasn't overly impressed.

During the summer I had ample spare time to catch up on a lot of reading.

I read the Ryria Revelations and Scott Lynch's amazing books.

First Law series, I'm currently reading Red Country.

Among Thieves.

The Night Angel Trilogy

I also reading Bradon Sanderson's things.

I have been recently continuing on with:

I had been hesitant to get into the Demon War series, since I kept seeing it on the bookstore shelves as 'amazing' which always makes me reconsider.

But no, I was impressed with Warded Man and Desert Spear.

Songs of Earth. - I was very impressed

I also read Jon Sprunk's Shadow's Son, which was fairly enjoyable.

I've started going through the Gemmell series.

I was very impressed with Dark Prism and Blinding Knife.

I also read Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire books.

I read a couple historical fiction books on ancient Rome.

I'd say my least favourite were Karen Miller's books and my favourite book, is either Dark Prism, Warded Man or Joe Ambercrombie's books are amazingly enjoyable.

Tood wrote: "I've been on a reading rampage these days...."

Wow - you had a good year. Lots of good books here.

Adam wrote: "tsk tsk Alan. You still have a little over a month left. You can reach 20 books. I believe in you! "

I wish i could read that fast !

My reading year's been odd. I downsized from my typical year of 50-70 books read to a goal of 30, knowing that my very young child would be attention-needy. I'm at 82 so far but 56 of those are kids' books I've read to my child. So, it's 26 "real" books at this point (might make it to 30).

Only two 5 star reviews, a re-read of Ender's Game and my surprise of the year, What Alice Forgot. I read a lot less sff this year. Hoping to "fix" that next year.

More 2 and 3 star ratings than normal, thanks to local book club picks which I don't necessarily influence. Worst reads were Weir's Captive Queen and Huso's The Last Page (both of which I chose on my own, sadly).

Besides What Alice Forgot I very much enjoyed Kowal's ongoing Glamourist Histories series and Sanderson's Alloy of Law. I also read my first Star Wars book in almost 2 years (you can't go wrong with a Zahn novel).

Overall, it was actually a poor reading year for me. Less books of my choosing, less books I liked. Going to take some time soon to update my reading list and dive back in to something I enjoy! Then I just have to convince a toddler to read books without pictures with me...

I didn't count the books I read this year, but I just glanced at my statistics: 102 reviews and 25 unfinished books. Obviously, I finished more than 102 books since I joined GR - I don't write reviews for all the books I read but for the majority of them I do. And I joined in February 2012. So here it goes - more than 102.
I also discovered several wonderful writers thanks to the GR discussions and other members' reviews and recommendations.
One of my unexpected discoveries was Lani Diane Rich, a delightful romance writer. Another is a famous fantasy writer, although I haven't read her before: Diana Wynne Jones. I'm reading her Enchanted Glass now and I'm absolutely smitten. I know I'll read more of her books, and there's such a wide variety of titles I'm already excited. So much pleasure to look forward to in the next year.