Top Ten reads this year (2013)

[Fried Egg]

It's that time of year again. What are you top ten books you have read this year?

Although the year's not yet finished, it looks like I'm down on last year again, going below 50 books for the first time since 2008. But it's been quite a good year for reading, filling in some notable gaps in my reading. Here's my top ten:

1) The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales - Samuels, Mark
2) The War of the Worlds - Wells, H.G.
3) The Croning - Barron, Laird
4) Imaro - Saunders, Charles R.
5) The Grin of the Dark - Campbell, Ramsey
6) The Demolished Man - Bester, Alfred
7) The Land of Laughs - Carroll, Jonathan
8) Cat’s Cradle - Vonnegut, Kurt
9) The Red Tree - Kiernan, Caitlín R.
10) Dark Eden - Beckett, Chris

Also, some short stories that stood out (in no particular order and where not already included in a collection above):

• The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes - Kipling, Rudyard
• The Lighthouse - Williams, Liz
• Bonds - Reed, Robert
• The Damned - Blackwood, Algernon
• Marriage - Aickman, Robert

Biggest disappointment of the year: Floating Worlds - Holland, Cecelia.

 

[thaddeus6th]

In no especial order:
Republic of Thieves, by Scott Lynch
Roman Warfare, by Adrian Goldsworthy
The Hundred Years War, by Christopher Allmand
Marlowe and the Spacewoman by Ian Dudley
By Sword and Fire, by Sean McGlynn
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. IV-VI), by Edward Gibbon
Viking: The Norse Warrior's Unofficial Manual, by John Haywood
House of Shadows, by Walter Spence
Vanished Kingdoms, by Norman Davies
The last two Mistborn Trilogy books, by Brandon Sanderson

To be honest, I haven't read that much this year.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

No particular order:

Tai Pan by James Clavell
Noble House by James Clavell
The Twelve by Justin Cronin
House of Chains by Steven Erikson
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson
Night of Knives by Ian C Esslemont
The Wolf's Hour by Robert R McCammon
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven
Fevre Dream by George R R Martin

And some graphic novels:

Absolute Sandman by Neil Gaiman
The Walking Dead Vol 1 by Robert Kirkman
The Crow (Special Edition) by James O'Barr
Freakangels by Warren Ellis
American Vampire Vol 2 by Scott Snyder

 

[Ogma]

My top ten (in no particular order) for 2013:

Greener Than You Think – Ward Moore

Rogue Moon – Algis Budrys

Stone – Adam Roberts

Voyage To Arcturus – David Lindsay

Time And The Gods – Lord Dunsany

The Game Players of Titan – P.K. Dick

The Jewels of Aptor – Samuel R. Delany

Deathworld I – Harry Harrison

Century Rain – Alastair Reynolds

The Body Snatchers – Jack Finney



The best short story I read this year was Unknown Things by ReginaldBretnor.

 

[J-Sun]

I've had a remarkably unproductive year, myself. I've read 51 books so far this year but, if I finished all the ones I'm in the middle of, that would add at least 8 more. The top 10 SF/F/H so far are (alphabetically):

• Blue Champagne (1986 collection) - John Varley
• "Eclipse trilogy" (1985/88/90) - John Shirley*
• Incandescence (2008) - Greg Egan
• The Line of Polity (2003) - Neal Asher
• Mars (1992) - Ben Bova
• Night's Black Agents (1947 collection; read 1978 ed.) - Fritz Leiber
• Prador Moon (2006) - Neal Asher
• The Secret of Sinharat/The People of the Talisman (1964 dos) - Leigh Brackett
• Sister Alice (2003 fixup) - Robert Reed
• Zima Blue (2006 collection; read 2009 ed.) - Alastair Reynolds

Noteworthy stories from sources not listed above:

• "Brigantia's Angels", "Downstream", "The Blood of Angels", "Zemlya", "Moon Six", "Something for Nothing", from Traces by Stephen Baxter
• "Nerves", Lester del Rey (This was a re-read in both its original novella form and its expanded book form (the novella is better) - I've been reading and re-reading a lot of del Rey - "The Day Is Done" and "The Coppersmith" and some others were also above average.)
• "Lobsters", "Troubador", "Tourist" and, maybe to a lesser extent, "Halo" and "Curator" from Accelerando - as well as "Antibodies" from Toast - by Charles Stross.
• "Between a Rock and a High Place", "Houseguest", "Time Bomb", and likely others from Time Bomb by Timothy Zahn. (I neglected to take notes, so I'm not sure.)
• My favorites from this year's Dozois Annual were "Sudden, Broken, and Unexpected" by Steven Popkes, "Close Encounters" by Andy Duncan, "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi" by Pat Cadigan, and "The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward" by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
• My favorites from this year's Analogs were "The Chaplain's Legacy" and "The Exchange Officers", both by Brad R. Torgersen, and "Wavefronts of History and Memory" by David D. Levine

___
* I re-read Eclipse (1985) which is a kind of masterpiece but only a re-read. I finally read Eclipse Corona (1988) which was not quite as good but still excellent. It could have made the list by itself but I'm counting it as one to make it fit. Eclipse Penumbra (1990) was still okay but wouldn't have made the list by itself.

 

[Vince W]

Top ten reads this year, hmmm. That's a thinker. In no particular order:

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
The Happy Return - C. S. Forrester
The Man in the High Castle - P. K. Dick
Dune - Frank Herbert
Nova - Samuel Delany
The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
All You Need is Kill - Hiroshi Sakurazaka
The Man-Kzin Wars - Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Dean Ing
World of Ptavvs - Larry Niven
Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian

 

[Bick]

That's a very tricky one to answer. I shall apply a rule for myself: no more than one book by any one author. On that basis, in the order I read them in the year, I will pick:

George R. R. Martin - A Game of Thrones
Herodotus - The Histories
William Golding - Rites of Passage
Magnus Mills - All Quiet on the Orient Express
Frederick Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth - The Space Merchants
Henning Mankell - The Man Who Smiled
John Steinbeck - Travels with Charley in Search of America
Richard Russo - Bridge of Sighs
P. G. Wodehouse - The Code of the Woosters
C. J. Cherryh - The Faded Sun: Kesrith

Honourable mentions (by way of cheating to quote 14):
Honoré de Balzac - Cousin Bette
Laurie Lee - Cider with Rosie
Robert A. Heinlein - Double Star
David Weber - The Honor of the Queen

EDIT: I notice everyone else is listing almost exclusively SF/F books. Oops; Maybe I did the wrong list...

 

[Montero]

Quite a few of mine are re-reads:

Julie E Czerneda - Species Imperative (trilogy) - first re-read and it was still very good.

An Owl Came to Stay - Claire Rome - first read many years ago. It is by an artist who raised two tawny owl chicks, and then a further one. Lovely book with lovely illustrations.

Terry Pratchett - Night Watch, The Last Continent

John O'Farrell - An Utterly Impartial History of Britain (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge)


A first time one -

Lois McMaster Bujold - Captain Vortpatril's Alliance. Speaking as someone who has re-read LMB many times, it was perfect. Ivan Vorpatril has been an important secondary character for a long time and having a book entirely about him was brilliant. How things happen for him and to him were just perfect for me. (Don't want to put in any spoilers - so gushing a bit without detail ) The cover is gloriously appropriate both to the book and to anyone who knows Ivan.

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

Embarrassingly I've barely read 10 books this year... so they'd all be in there:

She Who Waits - Dan Polansky
Tomorrow, The Killing - Dan Polansky
The Daylight War - Peter Brett
Breach Zone - Myke Cole
The City - Stella Gemmell
Grim Company - Luke Scull
Swords of Good Men - Snorri Kristjansson
The Bull and The Spear - Michael Moorcock
The History of the World in 100 Objects - Neil MacGregor
A History of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr

 

[martin321]

The top ten books this year were (in no particular order):

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
The Dragon in the Sea - Frank Herbert
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Peace Machine - Bob Shaw
Orbitsville Judgement - Bob Shaw
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Doctor Thorne - Anthony Trollope
Bleak House - Charles Dickens

 

[Mangara]

From goodreads:

Books read: 48. Last year: 35. Target next year: 55.



More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon

HHhH - Laurent Binet

Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut

A Storm of Swords part 2 : GRRM

Touching the Void- Joe Simpson

The Sheep Look Up - John Brunner

The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham

Dune - Frank Herbert

The Dervish House - Ian McDonald

Death by black holes and other cosmic quandaries - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Not far behind: I am legend, 1984, DO androids dream of electric sheep, time out of joint, watchers, salems lot, wool, the stars my destination, star maker, snow crash, A Canticle For Leibowitz, 1812, the light between oceans, synners, jurassic park.... etc

 

[Ivanya]

1. Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett
2. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
3. A Dance with Dragons by George R. R Martin (re-read)
4. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
5. The Armageddon Rag by George R. R. Martin
6. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
7. Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey
8. Nation by Terry Pratchett
9. Master and God by Lindsey Davis
10. The Assassin's Prayer by Ariana Franklin

I actually really struggled to come up with ten good ones. Some of the books I've read this year were huge disappointments.

 

[Juliana]

My top ten reads, in no particular order. Several of these are part of trilogies or series, and I read other books in the same series this year but have picked out one to represent the author. Mixture of SF, F, urban F, military F, YA and MG for good measure.

Steelheart, Brandon Sanderson
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch
Emperor of Thorns, Mark Lawrence
Taken, Benedict Jacka
Fortress Frontier, Myke Cole
House of Hades, Rick Riordan
Before the Fall, Francis Knight
The Human Division, John Scalzi
Prince of Lies, Anne Lyle

 

[Bick]

From goodreads:
Books read: 48. Last year: 35. Target next year: 55.

I seem to be increasing in number too, and I keep a listing for each year (saddo that I am):
2010 - 29
2011 - 25 (a dip, my excuse being poor health)
2012 - 43
2013 - 49 (so far)

Another stat (I love stats ): most read author in 2013, PG Wodehouse (7 novels)

 

[J-Sun]

Another stat (I love stats ): most read author in 2013, PG Wodehouse (7 novels)

I'll get in on that: most read author in 2013, Neal Asher (4 novels)

-- Oh yeah: but if I finish all the del Rey I'm in the middle of, that would be the most, with five collections and a novel, but I'm still in the middle of three of the collections (one being a re-read).

In addition to this thread of top 10s there was a year-end thread (or threads) that was all about annual statistics but I forget what the name was (or names were).

 

[Mangara]

My most read this year is GRRM (2) and John Wyndham (2). I love Wyndham's style. Its simple, and has an undeniable quaint Englishness that I love.

 

[elvet]

Sadly, I'm not reading as much as I used to.
2011 - over 100 books
2012 - 85
2013 - only 38 so far.
I did reread the Malazan books this year (many over 1000 pages) so that would account for some of the decrease, but I just haven't had the time since I started a new hobby. That didn't stop me from aquiring books. I have a stockpile of some great reads (I hope) in store including - Rebublic of Thieves, The Name of the Wind, The Warded Man, Shift, The Last Dark, and River of Stars.

2013 best reads so far (not including rereads)
Battle by Michelle West
Wool by Hugh Howey
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
Abbadon's Gate by James Corey
The Red Knight by Miles Cameron
The Great North Road by Peter Hamilton
January Dancer by Michael Flynn
Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence (almost done)
Redshirts by John Scalzi
The Best of all Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

Other honorable mentions:
Sleeping Beauty by Mark Lawrence
The Dagger and the Coin trilogy by Daniel Abraham
Robot series by Isaac Asimov
Tyrant by Christian Cameron

 

[Bick]

2013 - only 38 so far.
I did reread the Malazan books this year (many over 1000 pages) so that would account for some of the decrease

A very good excuse, those are big books! I also maintain the excuse that my lowest year included War and Peace and a Dickens door-stop.

...if I finish all the del Rey I'm in the middle of, that would be the most, with five collections and a novel

That's a goodly amount of Lester... which books? I have only one del Rey on the shelf (unread as yet): The Sky is Falling. Have you read that?

 

[J-Sun]

That's a goodly amount of Lester... which books? I have only one del Rey on the shelf (unread as yet): The Sky is Falling. Have you read that?

It is. Maybe too much. The titles are Early del Rey, And Some Were Human, Robots and Changelings, Mortals and Monsters, and Gods and Golems for the collections and Nerves for the novel, which is all the del Rey I currently have (leaving aside The Best of del Rey which is all drawn from those). I've read some other novels (at least Eleventh Commandment, Pstalemate, Preferred Risk) but I don't still have them and I've never read The Sky Is Falling. He's not well known for his novels, I don't think, but I understand that may be a pretty good one.

 

[Randy M.]

Top 10 for me, no particular order:
Machen, Arthur, Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (reread; col.)
Nevill, Adam, The Ritual
Thurber, James, The Thirteen Clocks
Bellairs, John, The Face in the Frost (reread)
Wellman, Manly Wade, Who Fears the Devil? (col.)
Pangborn, Edgar, Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (reread; col.)
Hill, Joe, NOS4A2
Leon, Donna, Quietly In Their Sleep
Matheson, Richard, Hell House (reread)
Blackwood, Algernon, Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood (reread; col.)


Honorable mentions:
King, Stephen, Joyland
Sokoloff, Alexandra, The Harrowing
Lansdale, Joe R., Deadman’s Road

Noteworthy stories not in above collections:
Karl Edward Wagner, Midnight Sun: “Undertow”; “Two Suns Setting”
John Langan, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters: “On Skua Island”; “Mr. Gaunt”
Ruth Rendall, Collected Stories: “People Don’t Do Things Like That”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Best Supernatural Stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: “Lot No. 249”; “The Ring of Thoth”
from House of Fear (Jonathan Oliver, ed.):
Lisa Tuttle, “Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear”
Stephen Volk, “Pied-a-Terre”
Terry Lamsley, “In the Absence of Murdock”
Adam Nevill, “Florrie”
H. P. Lovecraft, The Fiction: “The Festival”


Randy M.