It’s the first Thursday of the month. Time to report!
What’s the best book you read in December 2023 and why did you love it?
It doesn’t have to be a newly published book, or even SFF, or even fiction. We just want to share some great reading material.
Feel free to post a full review of the book here, or a link to the review on your blog, or just write a few sentences about why you thought it was awesome.
And don’t forget that we always have plenty more reading recommendations on our 5-Star SFF page.
One commenter with a U.S. mailing address will choose one of these prizes:
- a FanLit T-shirt (we have sizes M, L, XL)
- a book from our stacks.
- a $5 Amazon gift card (this is the only option for non-USA addresses).
Subscribe to our posts here (you can filter for giveaway posts if you prefer).
The best book that I read in December was actually Stand Alone: Wolfhounds by John Van Stry. There were a lot of problems with the book that a good editor would have fixed, but the world building and the concept was something new enough that I was completely blown away. I think that the author self published and I found it on Kindle Unlimited, but I have not enjoyed a book in this genre since Kloos started the Palladium Wars series. Sometimes an intriguing world with moderately well developed characters can be real brain candy for me.
Is this military SF? I’m thinking I might like to branch out. I’m considering the “Coast Guard in space” series, too.
The best book I read last month was Killers of the flower moon by David Grann. Very fast paced , well documented account of the Osage murders and birth of the FBI . Was impressed how well it juggled multiple characters . Featured some very complex real-life characters . Made my experience watching the Martin Scorsese movie even better .
I don’t read a lot of nonfiction but that book caught me right up. It’s strange to call historical people “characters,” but he was so respectful of them, and allowed them time on the page to have their stories. And it’s a fascinating, if disgusting, period in US history.
I finally got ahold of a copy of “Return Of the Mad Mangler” by Susan Gates. Like her other books, this is a collection of random silliness and “horror.” This one involves a researcher who is obsessed with “natural fibers” who steals a large tree with the past embedded in its wood fibers, including a crazy 18th-century washerwoman, who is accidentally brought back to life.
The best book I read in December was Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea. It’s a novel based on his mother’s experience as a “Donut Dolly” during WWII. These were women who volunteered with the Red Cross to drive trucks supplying donuts, coffee and a friendly face to GIs near the front lines. It was interesting reading about a service I’d never heard of.
Best read for December was Jim Butcher’s The Olympian Affair, second installment in his Cinder Spires series, where humans live in miles high spires that look down on the cloud tops, with airship battles among the hostile powers and rare visits down to a gloom-shrouded surface. The battling sides are strongly reminiscent of Britain and Spain at the time of the Spanish Armada (down to the ethnic character names), but with a type of magic added on. The closest thing to a runner-up was Monstress (Vol. 8) by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, although I loved this mostly for the illustrations, since I have pretty much lost track of what is happening plot-wise. My reading really tailed off in 2023, but I will hold comment on that for the “best of year” thread when that is posted.
My best read in December was Starhawk by Jack McDevitt, an excellent prequel novel to his long running Academy series telling how the main character Priscilla Hutchinson gets her start flying the Interstellars while getting her nickname Hutch all interwoven throughout a great story of exploration, conspiracy and sabotage. It’s one of my favorite Academy novels!
The best fantasy novel I read this month was Brian McClellan’ “In the shadow of lightning”, book 1 of a new series, of which I can’t wait for the second installment to come out. It’s a pretty original world/magic system where everything is based on glass, which I really liked. The book follows four main characters who for the most part are in separate locations, and each one of them is exciting to follow and very well written. Loved it.
My favorite books from December were:
– System Collapse by Martha Wells. Honestly, it wasn’t my favorite Murderbot book, but it was, indeed, still Murderbot, which is still very good. :-)
– Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie. It ended up really having nothing at all to do with Christmas other than the murder occurred at Christmas time, but it was a good Christie mystery.
The Vanishing Tower (The Elric Saga #4)- Michael Moorcock
A Morbid Taste for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #1)- Ellis Peters
The third trilogy of Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels after “The Promise” and “The Search” is “The Rift”, wherein Aang and Toph have a disagreement over the importance of tradition when Aang wants to revive an Air Nomad festival held in the name of Avatar Yangchen; meanwhile, Toph discovers that her estranged father has gone into business founding a jointly owned Earth Kingdom-Fire Nation ore refinery.
I didn’t get a notification about this giveaway, either, and I’m still subscribed.
Professor Odd #5, “The Dragons of Geda”, was a truly exciting read. Sci-fi and fantasy collide as the multiverse-traveling Professor Odd and her companions encounter dinosaur-descended “orks” at war with colonialist elves from another planet.
Scott Turow’s attorney/judge/impromptu investigator Rusty Sabich doesn’t seem to be able to escape accusations of murdering those close to him, because here he goes again in the aptly named “Innocent”.
Lee Pfahler ,if you live in the USA, you win a Fan Lit T-shirt (please specify 1st and 2nd preferred sizes) OR a book of your choice from our stacks, OR a $5 Amazon gift card. If your address is outside of the USA, you will get a $5 Amazon gift card.
Please contact me (Marion) with your choice and a US address. Happy reading!