It’s the last day of 2015! We hope you’ve had a wonderful reading year and that our work here at FanLit helped you achieve that.
Now we want to know: What is the best book you read in 2015?
It doesn’t have to be a book that was published in 2015. Just read in 2015. It doesn’t even have to be speculative fiction.
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.
If you haven’t yet, please check out our favorite books published in 2015. And, as always, we have plenty more reading recommendations on our Fanlit Faves page and our 5-Star SFF page. And we’ve also got a constantly updating list of new and forthcoming releases.
One commenter will choose a book from our stacks.
We’ve got a couple of giveaways still current.
Happy New Year!!
The best two books I read in 2015:
The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence
and
Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher
Both are amazing books!
My Best of 2015 blog post is here:
https://mightythorjrs.wordpress.com/2015/12/30/the-best-books-of-2015/
Thanks! Happy New Year!
Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher! Most fun I’ve had reading a book all year.
The Fletcher is one I hadn’t heard of before, so thanks to you and James for bringing it up! Bargain priced on Kindle, too!
Top Ten lists are hard. Top One is understandably harder. Faced with hard, hard decisions in narrowing down a list of many fine books I read this year, it occurs to me that rather than choose one of many recognizable and lauded-by-consensus releases that others might offer later in these comments, my choice here might expose a lesser known and self-published author to FanLit readers. And, truth be told, it really is the novel that pleased me (quite unexpectedly, mind you!) the most this year. Or at least a triple or quadruple tie with much better-known works.
It may not be for everybody. But if you are a fan of the Mongoliad series by Neal Stephenson and others, which spawned a dozen or so shorter Sidequests and a fascinating collection of comics before relinquishing control of the Foreworld universe to fan writers on Kindle Worlds, you might like to return to the time period of The Mongoliad, where it all started, and read a prequel that serves as origin story for one of that series’ pov characters, Cnan the Binder, and read C.B. Matson’s excellent trilogy-opener The Broken Sky. It’s a great debut, with plenty of original characters to support Cnan’s early journeys – and inexpensive too! Kindle only, unfortunately, but so goes Kindle Worlds. Maybe one day they’ll expand to allow pod.
Whew, I have a few candidates: Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Oath Bound, My Real Children, but I think I’m going to go with the one that I just finished: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.
I was very excited when Bujold announced a new entry in the Vorkosigan universe, and no less excited to read it. She remains one of the finest writers in the field, offering an entire novel in which, compared to any other in the series, virtually nothing happens :-) GJ&TRQ still kept me awake reading over the two or three nights I took to read it. All three of your other mentions are on my TBR list, btw.
Its so hard just to say one book because I read a lot of good ones this year. Some of my favorite books from 2015: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, The Fold by Peter Clines, and The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard.
Like Melita in the comment above yours, your mentions are all on my TBR. The House of Shattered Wings was one I recently crossed off the list, and was it ever a fine read! A very unique take on the consequences of a War in Heaven. The two currently available related shorts were also very cool, and I believe a third is coming in some anthology or other soon as we wait for the novel’s sequel.
I just finished The Green Rider by Kristen Britain, totally loved it! Last book of the year, so perhaps that’s why I’m picking it, but it really was an excellent read.
And now I have some ideas for next year!
I’ll stick with published in 2015 for the favoritr, because I can’t remember when I read some of the books that were published earlier. So that has to be Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley, sequel to Mirror Empire. When the third book comes out I’ll drop everything to read it.
I think I didn’t get around to reading Europe in Autumn until this year. That one stands out also, and I’m looking forward to Europe at Midnight. Also want to see what comes next from Frances Hardinge after reading Cuckoo Song and A Face Like Glass.
The best book I read this year was actually one first I read: Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. It was actually my first Sanderson novel ever, and ended up being the first of seven Sanderson stories I would read this year :)
Hope that includes the sequel Firefight, which I enjoyed even more, and the short Mitosis. Looking forward to Calamity. Some of my favorite works this year were YA or MG, with Django Wexler’s Forbidden Library books high on the list. So I’m very happy that the folks I follow on Twitter are nice enough to keep me abreast of the field.
I cannot name just one. 2015 was an incredible year for books. Grace Draven’s Radiance and Ilona Andrews’s Sweep in Peace were blog serials that absolutely deserve recognition as fantastic stories. Although I did not like Christina Henry’s UF series, Alice was a gory, horribly fascinating book. Blood Diamond by RJ Blain had me laughing, crying, and riveted to a thrilling, twisty plot. Anne Bishop’s The Others series continues its unique adventure. Seriously, pick one??!!
The Wind-up Girl. I’ve read it twice. That said, the review still escapes me.
I had my first experience with Robin Hobb this year. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known how good she is! So I’m going to vote for The Farseer Trilogy. In a very close second would be The Golem and the Jinni. And in a very close third I’m going to say Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.
Uprooted, by Naomi Novik, and Court of Fives, by Kate Elliott. I can’t decide between them, as they were both fascinating page-turners.
Best book of 2015 for me has to be Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie, which I first read as a draft. Such a satisfying ending to a trilogy. I especially liked Presger translator Zeiat, for reasons.
Michael Voss, if you live in the USA, you win a book of your choice from our stacks.
Please contact me (Marion) with your choice and a US address. Happy reading!