SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

How was your reading year in 2023? I know we have a few who track stats and data for their reading, what do those look like? Did you meet your goals?

Did you have any stand out favorites (old or new)? Anything disappointing?

I’d love to see what everyone else has been reading!

You can already look at your Goodreads Year in Books, in case you care about how it looks and want to fix something 😄

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_i...

How weird, when I click that link in the app, it brings me right back here, to this very thread! 🤪

To share a few of my stats from Anna’s link (it seems to be working now!):

My average book length was 311 pages.
My average rating was 3.7
My shortest book was A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark At 43 pages
My longest was It by Stephen King at 1,168 pages.

Some of my favorites this year include:

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk - I think every story was 4 or 5 stars for me. I want to say it was a crowd funded book? There wasn’t a single story I wanted to skip. (Honorable mention to Out There by Kate Folk and also Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele)

Rouge by Mona Awad - A standout horror read for me. It was weird but I found it a more cohesive story than Bunny. Took me through all the emotions! (Honorable mention to Black River Orchard and Natural Beauty)

Favorite Fantasy: Herc by Phoenicia Rogerson - A retelling of Hercules through a very modern (somewhat feminist) lens. I think it’s probably divisive because of the modern language and I think maybe Greek mythology is trending out but I enjoyed almost every word (except that bit of unpleasantness at the beginning). (Honorable mentions to:The Will of the Many and The Spear Cuts Through Water).

Favorite Scifi: Whalefall by Daniel Kraus - this one is pretty dark (avoid if squeamish) but I thought it was both well researched and kind of moving. I loved the pace and thought it was well written. Honorable mention to The Ferryman.

I guess I’ll stop there because this post is getting long. I think my goal next year is to read less, because I feel like I put too much pressure on myself and my reading felt a little unhinged (even though it was a good year!).

Hilarious! My Year in Review tells me that my shortest book is 2 pages long, but it doesn’t have a title. My longest book was the Book Thief at … 14 pages. Well, I have been reading a lot of shorter works lately (short stories, poetry chapbooks, children’s picture books) but I could swear the Book Thief had more than 14 pages.

41,492 pages over 157 books.
Shortest - The Boogeyman at 25 pages.
Longest - The Running Grave at 960 pages.
Average rating - 4.0 which is completely because of Goodreads. I tend to choose books I will like based on others recommendations and reviews. That was not always the case!

So, I am "new" to Good Reads (I would use the website, but didn't have an account) so I don't have a lot in my stats, but I got into a variety of books that I normally wouldn't read. Some of them weren't worth it, most of them were. My favorties have to be 'The Martian' by Andy Weir and 'The Three Body Problem' by Liu Cixin. They're hard Sci-Fi and I am LOVE LOVE LOVE hard Sci-Fi. It honestly has spoiled just general Sci-Fi books for me.

How was your reading?

Does anyone read/have any good hard (doesn't have to be, but prefered) Sci-Fi books similar to those two? Also, for fantasy fans, I really dislike fantasy, I can never get into it, but I really would like to try. Does anyone have any good fantasy books?

I wanted to add too- I don’t know if I just read more of it, or it was just my attention span, but I thought the short fiction this year was exceptionally outstanding. I have one more anthology I hope to get to in 2023 and I’m really looking forward to it.

DivaDiane wrote: "Hilarious! My Year in Review tells me that my shortest book is 2 pages long, but it doesn’t have a title. My longest book was the Book Thief at … 14 pages. Well, I have been reading a lot of shorte..."

Are they the audio editions Diane? I find a lot of the audio editions only have the 2 - 14 pages. You can switch editions on the book’s page I think.

AJ wrote: "My favorties have to be 'The Martian' by Andy Weir and 'The Three Body Problem' by Liu Cixin. They're hard Sci-Fi and I am LOVE LOVE LOVE hard Sci-Fi. It honestly has spoiled just general Sci-Fi books for me."

I read The Three-Body Problem in 2022 and it quickly became one of my favorite scifi books. I also REALLY enjoy hard sci fi. One of my personal favorites is Anathem by Neal Stephenson, which has lots of exposition about math and science. This year I enjoyed Ancillary Justice and Children of Time very much.

Cheryl L wrote: "I read The Three-Body Problem in 2022 and it quickly became one of my favorite scifi books. I also REALLY enjoy hard sci fi. One of my personal favorites is Anathem by Neal Stephenson, which has lots of exposition about math and science. This year I enjoyed Ancillary Justice and Children of Time very much."

Ooo, I've heard of Neal Stephenson before, all positives too! I'll put the those three books on my list to read soon, I'm so glad I am seeing more people interested in hard sci fi.

69,974
pages read so far

191
books read so far

Shortest Book = A Sign of the Times by Joe Hill
11 pages

Longest Book = The Big Book of Science Fiction by Ann VanderMeer
1,216 pages

Average book length in 2023 = 366 pages

Highest Rated by everyone of the books that I've read on Goodreads = The Longmire Defense by Craig Johnson (books are much better than the show even though I enjoyed the show
4.62 average

Shortest book: Artificial Condition at 158 pgs
Longest book: A Court of Wings and Ruin at 703 pgs

My standouts were definitely Ancillary Justice and Children of Time. I was completely unprepared for the "new masters" that are "one of mankind's worst nightmares". I thought the biological context for the new masters was extremely well done.

I was moderately underwhelmed with Martha Wells' The Cloud Roads, being a huge fan of Murderbot.

ok, the 192 makes no sense compared to Amazon which says I've read 492 books (they often count them twice)

my spreadsheet says 189 books plus 35 books in other books (omnibus/collected works) = 224

CBRetriever wrote: "69,974
pages read so far
"

Holy moly!! (Jaw drops and mouth hangs open)

CBRetriever wrote: "69,974
pages read so far

191
books read so far

Shortest Book = A Sign of the Times by Joe Hill
11 pages

Longest Book = The Big Book of Science Fiction by Ann VanderMeer
1,216 pages

Average boo..."

Wow that is SO much! congratulations! Is this on par with what you've read in the past?

As of today, (and thanks for the link, Anna!:

-48,269 pages read
-146 books read
-Shortest was Compulsory at 8 pages
-Longest Tasmakat at 954 pages
-Average length 330 pages
-Favorite is really hard to pick! I'd say there's a tie, with The Queen of Attolia, Bernard Cornwell's War Lord, multiple Lost Fleet books by Jack Campbell, and several Robert McCammon books.

I had more 1-2 star reads than usual as well as a scattering that I DNF, yet somehow my average rating was 4 stars. It's probably because they're balanced out by some of those 5 star authors above!

Sarah wrote: "Is this on par with what you've read in the past?"

yes

My Books > Stats
2023 = 191 so far
2022 = 207
2021 = 257 - covid
2020 = 259 - covid
2019 = 351 - just moved to a new city and state
2018 = 189 - I retired in August of this year
2017 = 122

Michelle wrote: "As of today, (and thanks for the link, Anna!:

-48,269 pages read
-146 books read
-Shortest was Compulsory at 8 pages
-Longest Tasmakat at 954 pages
-Average lengt..."
I've been purposely putting off War Lord because I don't want it to end.

Also because i'm really scared for the how of the ending. I need more books with young Uhtred or something. lol

CBRetriever wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Is this on par with what you've read in the past?"

yes

My Books > Stats
2023 = 191 so far
2022 = 207
2021 = 257 - covid
2020 = 259 - covid
2019 = 351 - just moved to a new city and ..."

that's cool thanks for sharing! It's funny during Covid I found it so difficult to read I only read about half my usual. (I think my mind was just on other things.)

Sarah wrote: "Michelle wrote: "As of today, (and thanks for the link, Anna!:

-48,269 pages read
-146 books read
-Shortest was Compulsory at 8 pages
-Longest Tasmakat at 954 pag..."

Sarah, that's so funny because I was so afraid of the potential ending that I put it off for almost 2 years! What a pair of sissies we are when it comes to Uhtred 😂In hindsight I'm really glad that I finally read it. In the new non-fiction book Uhtred's Feast: Inside the World of The Last Kingdom Bernard Cornwell included some short stories. I want to read the darned thing just for those, and apparently I'm not alone because there are a bunch of readers in the library queue ahead of me.

Michelle wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Michelle wrote: "As of today, (and thanks for the link, Anna!:

-48,269 pages read
-146 books read
-Shortest was Compulsory at 8 pages
-Longest [book:Tasmakat|1001836..."

Haha. Let me know how Uhtred's feast is! I was skipping it because I didn't really need a cook/recipe book but if the short stories are good maybe i'll add it to the collection. My plan next year is to reread them all from the beginning and finally finish it.

Good plan!

AJ wrote: "Does anyone read/have any good hard (doesn't have to be, but prefered) Sci-Fi books similar to those two? Also, for fantasy fans, I really dislike fantasy, I can never get into it, but I really would like to try. Does anyone have any good fantasy books?"

Hi AJ! You should start a new thread in the Recommendations folder! That way more people will see it and reply to it :)

I love stats!

- So far I've read 34,745 pages over 104 books.
- Shortest book: 22 pages (A Dream of Electric Mothers)
- Longest book: 1276 pages (The Count of Monte Cristo)
- Average length: 334 pages
- Average rating: 3,7
- Favourite books (in the order of reading): Harda Horda, Jade Legacy, Carrie Soto Is Back, A Sleight of Shadows, Assassin of Reality, Untethered Sky, Fractal Noise, Kołysanka dla czarownicy, Caliban's War, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Record of a Spaceborn Few, Sleeping Giants

Yay, I love stats too! (Especially book stats.)

This is my year so far:

- 31,562 pages, 113 books
- Shortest book - 8 pages, Compulsory
- Longest book - 1,330 pages, At the Feet of the Sun
- Average length - 279 pages
- Average rating - 4.1

Sci-fi highlights: Translation State, Remnant Population, A Song for a New Day
Fantasy highlights: At the Feet of the Sun, Monkey King: Journey to the West
Fiction highlights: The first four books (there are six) of Dorothy Dunnet's Lymond Chronicles
Non-fiction highlights: The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

I’ve read twenty-two 5-star books this year, most of them older “classics”. Of the new novels I read, I think my favourites were The Mountain in the Sea and Be Mine. I had a good year for nonfiction, really enjoying both We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland and Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.

Alexandra wrote: "Yay, I love stats too! (Especially book stats.)


- Longest book - 1,330 pages, At the Feet of the Sun "

Your review of that book is infectious, the good kind, not the pandemic kind. I doubt I will ever get to it but it is on the stack now.

Mine...


- 32,043 pages, 81 books
- Shortest book - 38 pages, How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobučar
- Longest book - 838 pages, Night Angel Nemesis
- Average length - 395 pages
- Average rating - 3.6

Favorites were The Will of the Many and Infinity Gate. Neither of which have their sequels out so I wait....

Alexandra wrote: "Yay, I love stats too! (Especially book stats.)

This is my year so far:

- 31,562 pages, 113 books
- Shortest book - 8 pages, Compulsory
- Longest book - 1,330 pages, [book:At the..."

Alexandra, Translation State and Remnant Population were two of my highlights from this year, too! (And I loved A Song for a New Day when I read it a few years ago.)

Here is mine (so far - I figure I’ll finish at least 3-5 more this month):

-32,836 pages
-117 books
-Shortest Book Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf - 81 pg
-Longest Book Saint Death's Daughter - 692 pg
-Average length- 280 pg (I read a lot of graphic novels this year, so I think that is why this is so low)
-Average rating - 4 stars

Sci-fi Favorites: The Lathe of Heaven, The Vanished Birds, Remnant Population, Translation State, Ninefox Gambit

Fantasy Favorites: The Spear Cuts Through Water, Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle series (starts with The Empress of Salt and Fortune), and Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series audiobook versions (starts with Rivers of London - the narrator made this series even more fun to read.

Hank wrote: "- Longest book - 1,330 pages, At the Feet of the Sun "

Your review of that book is infectious, the good kind, no..."

Thank you very much for your kind words! I hope you'll like this series if you ever get to it :)

Kaia wrote: "Alexandra, Translation State and Remnant Population were two of my highlights from this year, too! (And I loved A Song for a New Day when I read it a few years ago.)"

Very happy to hear that! And it's nice to see Ninefox Gambit on your list :) I am rereading this series with pleasure (book 1&2 this year, book 3 will probably happen next year).

Alexandra wrote: "Longest book - 1,330 pages, At the Feet of the Sun ."

At the Feet of the Sun is one of those quiet masterpieces that I will never stop recommending. I get a little burst of joy every time I see it getting some love.

Misha wrote: "I get a little burst of joy every time I see it getting some love."

That was very nicely said :)

Anna wrote: "Hi AJ! You should start a new thread in the Recommendations folder! That way more people will see it and reply to it :)"

Thank you so much, I will soon!

Misha wrote: "Alexandra wrote: "Longest book - 1,330 pages, At the Feet of the Sun ."

At the Feet of the Sun is one of those quiet masterpieces that I will never stop recommending. I get a little burst of joy e..."

I’ve never even heard of these books, but they seem to be getting so much love I think I have to add them. It looks like a series- are they sequential?

Sarah wrote: "I’ve never even heard of these books, but they seem to be getting so much love I think I have to add them. It looks like a series- are they sequential?"

The Hands of the Emperor is book 1, and At the Feet of the Sun is the sequel. Then there are related prequel novellas, related series etc. But that is for later geekiness, if you become a fan ;)

Sarah wrote: "I’ve never even heard of these books, but they seem to be getting so much love I think I have to add them. It looks like a series- are they sequential."

Yes. Definitely read Hands of the Emperor before At the Feet of the Sun. The novellas are optional but enjoyable and help flesh out some of the back stories.

There's still time to make sure your last review of the year is of a book that you actually enjoyed! Mine is currently a grumpy review of a book I DNF'd. ;)

Meredith wrote: "There's still time to make sure your last review of the year is of a book that you actually enjoyed! Mine is currently a grumpy review of a book I DNF'd. ;)"

Oh no! Don't you hate that?

Meredith wrote: "There's still time to make sure your last review of the year is of a book that you actually enjoyed! Mine is currently a grumpy review of a book I DNF'd. ;)"

If you mean Remarkably Bright Creatures, your grumpy reviews are significantly kinder than mine! :)

I didn't mind Remarkably Bright Creatures so much, but Codex was ... not good. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

editing to add, I might have DNF'd RBC if not for Marcellus though...

I'm in a losing battle against my last book of 2023 being Iron Flame that I'm reading for a work book club.

Quick, someone rec a super cool novella! ;)

Sarah wrote: "I'm in a losing battle against my last book of 2023 being Iron Flame that I'm reading for a work book club.

Quick, someone rec a super cool novella! ;)"

Some fun ones I read recently,
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Beckie Chambers,
A Spindle Splintered by Alix Harrow,
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, and
Even Though I Knew the End by CL Polk.

I second Psalm for the Wild-Built and Even Though I Knew the End!

I would also recommend The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo and Thornhedge by T Kingfisher. (It's one of her more fantasy / darker fairy tale, and not a horror one.)

Kaia wrote: "I second Psalm for the Wild-Built and Even Though I Knew the End!

I would also recommend The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo and Thornhedge by T Kingfisher...."

Yasss, those are both excellent as well. I've really enjoyed Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle novellas.

14,178 pages read
40 books read
Shortest Book 126 pages - Planet of Exile
Longest Book 835 pages - A Game of Thrones
Average book length in 2023 354 pages
Most Shelved - To Kill a Mockingbird - 9,032,970 shelved
Least Shelved - Ham Radio License Manual - 186 shelved :)
My average rating for 2023 4.2
Highest Rated on Goodreads - Morning Star - 4.49 average

I mentioned this before. If I'm going to read at the same rate in 2024 I'll need to decide if I'm going to make the book club's books of the month a priority since they will make up > half my books. Of course I cannot get them all from the library but I might buy some of the ones that I can't check out.

Always do what makes you happiest and remember buddy reads are a great way to get the group read experience but for something else!

Share your stats when you've finished wrestling with GR! (Or your spreadsheet.)