Challenge TBR: Reading 22 Books by My Favorite Authors in 2022

Apart from my usual yearly challenges, which I will soon be talking about here in the blog, I decided to read more by my favorite authors in 2022.
Why? First, I want to read as much as possible of these authors backlog because I’m sure most books will be five star reads, and second because in 2022 I’m following Niki Hawkes mantra that states “Read the best books first.”

So here are the books I’ll make a priority this year:

By Adrian Tchaikovsky:

1-The Doors of Eden
2-Dogs of War (Dogs of War #1)
3-Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture, #1)
4-The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall, #1)
5-Guns of the Dawn
6-The Expert System’s Brother (Expert System, #1)
7-Elder Race

I don’t know if I will really manage to read seven books by the same author in one year, but I’ll do my very best. 🙂
So far though, I started this part of the challenge well and I already finished The Tiger and the Wolf, and the two Novellas: The Expert System’s Brother and Elder Race now in the first two weeks of January. All three books were five star reads for me.
Stay tuned for a blog post focused on all the books I read by this author when I finish reading all of these.

By Silvia Moreno-Garcia:

8-Velvet Was the Night
9-Signal to Noise
10-Love & Other Poisons

I slowly run out of books to read by this author so I hope she comes out with a new book next year. A blog post focused on all the books I’ve read from this author is in my future plans too.

By Brandon Sanderson:

11-Secret History (Mistborn, #3.5)
12-Cytonic (Skyward #3) – Planned br February
13- Evershore (Skyward #3.1)
14- Legion (Legion #1)
15- Skin Deep (Legion #2)
16- Lies of the Beholder (Legion #3)
17- Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5)
18- Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4)
19- Firstborn.

Last year I read around nine books by this author and this year I’m planning to read even more books by him. A lot of these are Novellas so I think I can be confident and even overly ambitious. 🙂

By Peter Newman:

20-The Vagrant (The Vagrant #1)
21-The Malice (The Vagrant #2)
22-The Seven (The Vagrant #3)

In 2021 I finished the The Deathless Trilogy and really liked it, so I’ll try his previous trilogy too.

And which are your favorite authors? Let me know in the comments.

The Best Books of 2021 Part Three: Science-Fiction

I had many Science Fiction favorite books in 2021.

I’ve already talked about my favorite Sci-fi Novellas in my 2021 Novella Favorites post and about The Final Six (The Final Six #1) by Alexandra Monir in my A to Z Challenge Wrap-up post so I’ll not repeat myself here but only write about the books I haven’t recently reviewed.

The Ghost Brigades (Old Man’s War #2) by John Scalzi

This was very interesting and I liked it as much or even more than the first book in this series because it talked more about the Special Forces. And stories with humans developed by technology are among my science fiction favorites since I read Brave New World.

I’m curious about how this series will resolve its bigger scope questions so I’ll continue it for sure.

The Vela (The Vela #1) by Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, S.L. Huang

This serial has four things I really liked:

1) Great writers collaborating in a cohesive and well done narrative,
2) Well written, multi-layered, characters,
3) A surprising and fast paced plot that never gets boring and
4) Food for thought of extreme, utmost importance. Many of the questions this story asks could be translated to our current world situation and how we handle world problems like refugees and climate change.

This serial packs a punch. I liked how it made me think about a lot of important things and I recommend it to anyone who wants to get out of their comfort zone while reading a very entertaining science fiction story with fast paced action.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Prime Deceptions (Chilling Effect #2) by Valerie Valdes

With a plot that goes, happens and explodes and funny, relatable characters, this was a very entertaining sequel.

The Spanish expressions were as extremely funny to hear on the Audiobook as they were to read on the book. And it even has a Portuguese dialogue, we always need more of that. And I need more books in this series, which is great because a third book is scheduled for August this year.

The Chimera Code by Wayne Santos

A very original and interesting science fiction story world with fantasy elements, multi-layered characters and well written and fast paced battle scenes. The Audiobook narration was very well done too.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga (Publication Order) #1) by Lois McMaster Bujold

I am really enjoying this series so far and will continue it for sure.

I like the writing style, the multi-layered characters and surprising situations. This is the second book I read by Bujold that balances fun and important themes in a masterful way.

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

I liked the dialect, the characters (especially Mami) and the plot. It was a fast paced urban fantasy dystopia, and in any case an original read that I could not put down.

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

This was a poetically and beautifully written Apocalyptic book with Anishinaabe cultural elements that I wanted to take my time and hear slowly. I wish it had been longer. I can fully understand why this book was an John W. Campbell Memorial Award Nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel (2019). I can’t understand why it wasn’t a winner though. I’ll surely keep an eye for more books by this great author.

Starsight (Skyward #2) by Brandon Sanderson

This was a great sequel that expanded the already awesome story world in the first book of this series and introduced new interesting characters and plot developments.
I will not write more not to spoil anything, but I’ll surely continue this very surprising series now in 2022.

And you? Did you have a favorite book last year that you would recommend to everyone? Let me know in the comments.

The Best Books of 2021 Part Two: Fantasy

Books By Brandon Sanderson

The Stormlight Archive
Words of Radiance and Oathbringer were very good sequels.

Words of Radiance is centered in one of my favorite characters, Shallan, and the world of Roshar and the Cosmere Universe was again a place so fascinating that the 1087 pages went by extremely fast. I did a mistake though by starting Oathbringer right after finishing the second book and that was probably too much reading in a series all at once.
Please don’t ‘hate’ me, I did like Oathbringer a lot too, only that I considered some of the character developments of Dalinar quite jarring with the character he seemed to be on the first two books of the series. I also got the impression that his arc wrapped up too neatly and too fast at the end without enough foreshadowing. There were too many battle scenes and not enough character interactions, and I missed more character and relatioship development between Shallan, Adolin and Kaladin. It all got decided too quickly for me.
Maybe these impressions will change once I have reread this series with some breaks between the sequels. I usually don’t reread books but this series, with its fascinating world, qualifies for this surely.
Still a great series that I’ll go on reading for sure.

Warbreaker

I heard the GraphicAudio dramatized Audiobook version of this book and I must say that this is one of my favorite fantasy books of all time now.
This was awesome epic fantasy, full of cute, witty and beautiful moments, and very surprising twists! The characters were also so unforgetable, I will happily read sequels to this book when they happen to be published.

The Deathless Trilogy by Peter Newman

In 2021 I read the second and third books of this awesome trilogy.

Peter Newman is again an author that deserves much more recognition and reviews. The series story world is intriguing, the characters relatable and multi-layered. I enjoyed reading all POVs.

The Ruthless (The Deathless Trilogy #2)

I liked the writing style a lot. It had a bit more horror than I’m used to in my fantasy reads and the plot moved a bit too slow but I was continuing this series because I really wanted to know how this would end. The Audiobook narration of Emma Newman was awesome, she’s one of my favorite audiobook narrators.

The Boundless (Deathless, #3)

This third and final book was awesome and beautifully epic in so many ways. The characters are rarely done in such relatable ways and I really liked how this story wrapped up. One of the best fantasy series I ever read!
And again a trilogy which is a serious candidate for a reread.

House of Dragons (House of Dragons #1) by Jessica Cluess

This YA book was so entertaining that I could not put it down. Jessica Cluess has become an auto-buy author for me because all her books become my favorites! I’ll continue this series next year for sure.
I also read the Kingdom on Fire trilogy by her and it was so well done.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy #1) by N.K. Jemisin

This was so surprising and original! I’ll be continuing this trilogy for sure and will soon read more books by this author!

Spoiler alert: The story world is very interesting and the political intrigue and main character interaction with the enslaved gods keeps you intrigued for sure.

I like the gender roles swap in the Darre culture very much and how is shown that other kingdoms hate and want to destroy the Darre solely due to that. They are like Amazons but with men in a nurturing role, very interesting since the Amazon’s myths mostly say that there weren’t any men in their society, with the Amazon’s occasionally meeting with men outside their kingdom only to get pregnant and afterwards abandoning them with the baby girl or leaving their baby boys behind with their fathers. But Darre is a compromise where the women are powerful and warriors and the men are mainly involved in the nurturing role. Food for thought.

I also very much liked the ending.
End of spoiler

Stay tuned for my favorite science fiction books in my next blog post.

The Best Books of 2021: Fantasy of Manners

I have an incredible number of favorite books this year, therefore, so that none of the following blog posts becomes extra long, I’ll write three different “favorites of 2021” posts.

This first post has fantasy of manners books, the next will have fantasy books with other subgenres and the third will have my science fiction favorites. Fantasy of manners seems to be a somewhat fluid subgenre and perhaps some of the books I’ll talk about in my next blog post could belong in this subgenre too, but in the interest of not making this post way too long I’ll group them in the broader fantasy genre together with my epic fantasy books.

Most of the following books were five stars for me or even if four stars, original enough that they secured a place among my favorite books of 2021. In this post I’ll talk about three of my favorite fantasy of manners authors: Emma Newman, Genevieve Cogman and Theodora Goss and their wonderful series that I surely recommend.

Emma Newman

The two Novellas, Brother’s Ruin, and Weaver’s Lament by Emma Newman were a very interesting beginning to a new series that I sincerely hope one day will be continued.

I also read four books in the Split Word series by this author that were extremely well written: Any Other Name, All Is Fair, A Little Knowledge and All Good Things.
This series was one I could not put down. It had very important themes and was heart-wrenching at times. In any case, one of the best book series I’ve read in a very long time. Emma Newman is an awesome writer and her audiobook narration of this series is perfect too!

Genevieve Cogman

In 2021 I read five books in the The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman: The Burning Page, The Lost Plot, The Mortal Word, The Secret Chapter and The Dark Archive.
This series was very entertaining, I especially liked the fourth book in the series, The Lost Plot, but I was disappointed by the seventh book, The Dark Archive because yet again every time a ‘personal character moment’ was about to happen it seemed to be quickly looked over, and instead a life or death action scene intruded. At a certain point I was tired of not getting more depth in the relationships between the characters.
Perhaps I was just tired of the series after reading too many books of it one after another, therefore I’ll give this series a second chance and I’ll be reading The Untold Story (The Invisible Library #8) eventually, but this time I’ll be definitely done with the series if this book doesn’t surprise me with some character arcs resolution. Even though this is an extremely entertaining series and I surely recommend it.

Theodora Goss

I also continued the The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club series by Theodora Goss by reading European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman.
I plan to read the third book of this trilogy, The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl.
A friend of mine didn’t like the character commentaries interrupting the narrative in this second book, and that may indeed need some time getting used to, but I considered them extremely funny and very original. As if the ‘writer’ herself -in this case one of the characters- would not take herself very seriously, and it was right down hilarious when the other characters told her she wasn’t telling the story the right way or when the character herself ‘advertised’ her other fictitious books in the middle of the narrative.
This series is a very surprising and well done retelling and I will surely read more books by this author in the future.

Stay tuned for my next blog posts with my other favorites of 2021.