2023 Booklist

Honestly, this year has had a lot of television and a lot of comic books, as some energy diverted into projects of music, making stuff, and some other stuff.

1. Hid From Our Eyes - Julia Spencer-Fleming.
2. A Peculiar Combination - Ashley Weaver. A fun throwback to the days when a government would have to find actual criminals for a black bag job instead of maintaining the skills in-house.
3. The Island That Disappeared: The Lost History of the Mayflower's Sister Ship and Its Rival Puritan Colony - Tom Feiling.
4. Station Eternity - Mur Lafferty. Scifi mystery!
5. Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters. An archeology-mystery by a woman who got her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago—in 1952.
6. Light From Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki. I'm not crying. You're crying. Shut up.
7. The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters.
8. The Sinister Booksellers of Bath - Garth Nix.
9. The Last Graduate
10. The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik. Well done!
11. The Prefect (a.k.a. Aurora Rising)
12. Elysium Fire - Alastair Reynolds. More delightful books in the Inhibitors Universe.
13. The Last Smile In Sunder City - Luke Arnold. Fantastic novel by the guy who played Long John Silver in Black Sails.
14. The Power - Naomi Alderman. Jesus, that was a hell of a thing.
15. Lesser Beasts: A Snout-To-Tail History of the Humble Pig - Mark Essig.
16. The Last Heir to Blackwood Abbey - Hester Fox. I was not expecting this to be horror-ish, but it’s good. "Gothic fiction."
17. Translation State - Ann Leckie. Another fine entry (standalone) in the vast Imperial Radch universe started in her Ancillary novels.
18. Keeper of Enchanted Rooms - Charlie N. Holmberg. I enjoyed this, but am weirdly ambivalent about starting the sequel.
19. The Quantum Magician - Derek Künsken. mmm space opera
20. Magic Claims - Ilona Andrews. I can always count on a Kate Daniels novel.
21. Children of Memory - Adrian Tchaikovsky. SPACE RAVENS
22. The Last Fish Tale - Mark Kurlansky. I grew up 90 minutes and a world away from Gloucester, MA, so I learned all kinds of stuff from this.
23. Lords of Uncreation - Adrian Tchaikovsky. Different series. Gods damn, he’s good.
24. Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett.
25. Foundation
26. Foundation and Empire
27. Second Foundation - Isaac Asimov. A rare re-read, sparked by the TV adaptation. My assessment is correct, that no vaguely watchable adaptation is possible without writing immense amounts of fanfic, and they did a great job.
28. The Book That Wouldn’t Burn - Mark Lawrence. 197,000 words of juicy weird goodness.
29. The Ward Witch - Sarah Painter. An excellent new series in the Crow Investigations universe.
30. The Copper Heart - Sarah Painter. From the primary Crow Investigations series. Took a long time, for some reason.
31. Starter Villain - John Scalzi. Few authors can write like they’re loving their job as much as he does.
32. The Blighted Stars - Megan E. O’Keefe.
33. Infinity Gate - M.R. Carey. This turns out to be Mike Carey, of the Lucifer comics.
34. Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - Patrick Radden Keefe. About the family that pioneered the opoid crisis. Holy. Fucking. Shit.
35. Chaos Terminal - Mur Lafferty. The delicious and long-awaited sequel to Station Eternity. So good.
36. Ovid: A Very Short Introduction - Llewelyn Morgan. Don’t give me that look. I didn’t really know anything about Ovid.
37. Shadow Baron - Davinia Evans. I waited SO LONG for this book, and was satisfied.
38. Paladin’s Faith - T. Kingfisher. Amazing, of course.
39. Burner - Mark Greaney. 12th installment in the reliable Gray Man spy series.
40. Written In Red - Anne Bishop. Started this one a couple years ago, but was drawn to finish it.
41. Blitz - Daniel O’Malley. A fine sequel to the earlier The Rook and Stiletto.
42. Hearing Homer’s Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry - Robert Kanigel. So nerdy, so good.