Fantasy Book Club discussion

I'm stealing this idea from another group!

What were your stand out reads of the year. And I'm allowing series to count as one choice, otherwise I'll fail!

This may change over the next 11 days but:
and the Powder Mage Trilogy (I think).

I'm not finished yet. Well...maybe. I've rated these books all five stars

2015 is the year I was "Hobbed". Top 5 books:

Assassin's Apprentice
Royal Assassin
Fool's Errand
Golden Fool
Fool's Fate

I left out Assassin's Quest because, for me, it just did not measure up to the others.

And I'll give a mention to The Night Circus, which I enjoyed quite a lot.

One of the Fool books had me crying like a baby!

Hmmmm...I think everyone cries at that one Helen.

My top 5 of the year:

Watcher of the Dead
Promise of Blood
A Dance of Shadows
The Skull Throne
Deadhouse Gates

My favourite releases of 2015:

Ruin
The Liar's Key
Beyond Redemption

And Golden Son

Weird, I'm trying to decide which book to read next and that's one of my narrowed down list.

I think I've rated six books this year with a full 5 stars:

The City of Silk and Steel
The Invisible Library
The Ships of Merior
Cinder
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Lovers and Beloveds

Don't think a single one of them was actually published this year! The Invisible Library was at the end of last year, though, so that's closest. That's probably also my book of the year, for sheer inventive fun, and it's the only one I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel to. Hoping The Masked City is one of my Christmas presents, actually!

I keep wanting to add Binti, it was such a good, short read.

Throne of Glass series
Red rising series (especially golden son)
The nightingale
Vicious
Tower Lord

I also have to say Daughter of Smoke and Bone was a really close contender for top series, if I had 6 choices I'd include it

My top five read of this year are:

The Godfather
Lonesome Dove
The Way of Kings
Skin Game
ASOIAF (Read first 3 books in the series this year)

Let's see ...

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Sea-Kings of Mars (a.k.a. Sword of Rhiannon) by Leigh Brackett
The Barrow by Mark Smylie

And also:

The Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker
Swordspoint et al. by Ellen Kushner
Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance

just because the three of those are always going to be in my top five in any year in which I read them. But the five on top are all books I read for the first time in 2015.

My top 6 reads for this year were:

Ready Player One
Academ's Fury
The Martian
The Night Circus
The Republic of Thieves
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (yea, never read it before :) )

I'm still reading Uprooted , it's not what I expected (based on the reviews and hype I thought it would be better), but I am liking it so far..

I started writing this, and in the process, I've added 4 other books to my "to be read," list for 2016. My best reads of 2015 are:

Wonderful Lips of Thibong Linh
Darkness Descending
The Collected Jorkens Volume 1
The Collected Jorkens Volume 2
Horton Hatches the Egg
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

Started to write this, and have already added two new titles to my, "Read in 2016," list.

My five favorites for 2015 are:
When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II
Wonderful Lips of Thibong Linh
Horton Hatches the Egg
The Collected Jorkens Volume 1
The Collected Jorkens Volume 2

I love how many of us simply can't keep the list to five books. Ah, the perils of being an avid reader! :D

My five favorites of 2015

The Death of Dulgath (Michael J. Sullivan)
To Green Angel Tower (Tad Williams)
The Hero of Ages (Brandon Sanderson)
Marrow (Preston Norton)
The End of All Things (John Scalzi)

My top 5

Summer Knight (Jim Butcher)
The Way of Kings (Brandon Sanderson)
Words of Radiance (Brandon Sanderson)
The First Chronicle of Druss the Legend (David Gemmell)
Red Country (Joe Abercrombie)

I read a lot of great books this year, but only a few I rated five stars...

Zodiac
The Round House
An Autumn War

and my favorite? Life During Wartime
and just to round up to 5, I really enjoyed City of Stairs a lot!

Im resisting changing mine on a daily basis!

Books read this year or published this year?

My 2015 top five : (chronological order)
City of Stairs
The Rithmatist
Rivers of London
Thieftaker
The Aeronaut's Windlass

Honorable mention for The Crimson Campaign and The Goblin Emperor.

I read the Malazan Book of the Fallen series at the start of the year.
It made me laugh and cry and gasp like no other series ever has.

I also loved Book of Words and Sword of Shadows series by J V Jones.

Fitz and the Fool.

The Stormlight Archive - can't wait for the next installment

My top 5 books I have read this year are -

The liars key by Mark Lawrence
Traitors blade by Sebastian de castell
The Emperor's blades by Brian Staveley
The vagrant by Peter Newman
The emperor's knife by mazarkis Williams

Uprooted by Novik
The Price of Blood by Bracewell
Of Noble Family by Kowal

They were all 5 star reads for me. Things get more murky after that point... these stuck with me the most from my 4 star reads:
Fool's Quest by Hobb (also her Piebald Prince novella)
Vision in Silver by Bishop
Shadows of Self by Sanderson
The Great Way trilogy by Connolly

Ok......I did get one new book read that I liked.
The Rithmatist!!!!
Yay.......
(Was finished a while ago, but just got around to taking it off my reading shelf.)

I tried Unfettered, but never got through it. Switched to previously read books by Jennifer Roberson and finished a few.

Some of unfettered was really good.

Brenda ╰☆╮ wrote: "Ok......I did get one new book read that I liked. The Rithmatist!!!! ..."

That has been on my "to read" list. I've heard lots of good comments about it. I'll try to get to it this year.

So many books, so little time! :D

I was pleasantly surprised by the duet series of Seraphina and Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman. It portrays dragons in a very unique way.
Also, I'm such a geek when it comes to ancient mythology and I didn't get to read Percy Jackson (plus sequels) when I was younger, but I did in 2015 and I really enjoyed them.
Technically this one is categorized as SciFi, but Ready Player One was also a great read.
Elantris and Shadows of Self (pretty much anything I have read by Brandon Sanderson has been great))

Amy wrote: "I think I've rated six books this year with a full 5 stars:

The City of Silk and Steel
The Invisible Library
The Ships of Merior
[book:Cinder|1123571..."

I added the Invisible Library based on your recommendation! The description sounds great!

Fool's Quest
The Martian
The Beast's Garden
The Last Stormlord
Stormlord Rising
Stormlord's Exile

I love "best of" lists!

Malazan - Steven Erikson
Alex Verus - Benedict Jacka
Locke and Key - Joe Hill/Gabriel Rodriquez
Vicious - VE Schwab
The Autumn Republic - Brian McClellan

I had some really great reads this year but nothing came close to the Malazan Book of the Fallen. There's not enough praise I can give to these books. The scope was stunning, I'm still amazed at how he accomplished it. The characters so lifelike, even if they were only there for a few chapters. The themes of compassion and despair and justice and history were gloriously released. Just, ugh, so good.

Jacka's UF series surprised the hell out of me with how much I liked it. A lot of grey areas to this one, and I've loved it

Locke and Key was the first graphic novel to really blow me away. The mix of story and art was wonderful

Vicious was a well thought out world and felt extremely original. Love her writing

And then The Autumn Republic was a satisfying ending to a good trilogy. Lots of action!

Good choices Scott. Malazan is on my list too, surprise!

I posted my top and bottom reads in another group, but thought I'd go through and check out what caught my eye in terms of fantasy last year:

The Graveyard Book - audio
Uprooted
The Fairyland Books by Catherynne M. Valente
The Southern Witch Series by Kimberly Frost
The Neverending Story - audio

Truthfully, I didn't read much pure fantasy last year, mostly "sub-genre" stuff, or items that border between fantasy and sci-fi. I really need this group (or the next Ice and Fire book to be published!).

One of my top reads isn't fantasy.