Best Fiction Reads of 2021

I'll be back to add mine later, just wanted to start the threads.

Edited to add: You can pick as many as you need to. I try to keep my list to around five or six, but some people need much longer lists. (And some can narrow it down to one!)

The Silent Patient could be my best read of 2021. I will be reviewing my 2021 reading list later, but I still think The Silent Patient will be in the Number One Spot.

I rated two titles at 5-stars in 2021...

- The Gone-Away World
- Lucifer and the Child

>3 ScoLgo:
I must say, those are both excellent books. I loved them both.

Not sure about “best”, but best remembered would be Piranesi And This Is How You Lose the Time War.

The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
A Night in the Lonesome October* by Roger Zelany
The Secret Place by Tana French
The Bear and the Nightingale series by Katherine Arden

My best audio fiction was The Hobbit read by Andy Serkis.

* Probably not the best written but I loved it for the atmosphere.

>4 pgmcc: Those should both be BB notches in your belt, Peter. I know I first heard of the Ethel Mannin book from you and I'm equally certain you were involved in discussions that made me aware of Nick Harkaway when Gnomon first arrived.

>5 haydninvienna: I have not yet read Piranesi. Really enjoyed This is How You Lose the Time War.

>6 clamairy: I have already mentioned how I feel about The Scapegoat, (*chef's kiss*). The Zelazny is one of my favorites as well but I didn't mention it here because it is a re-read for me just about every October.

I really enjoyed Project Hail Mary, The Grapes of Wrath, Howl's Moving Castle and The Curse of Chalion.

My two standouts for this year would be...

The End of the Day by Claire North
&
Seed to Harvest by Octavia E. Butler

I’ve had a really good reading year but the standouts for me are:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
All the devils are here by Louise Penny
The hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

Imprimatur and sequels -- a series of BBs from pgmcc
The Vintage Caper and The Marseille Caper
A succession of Cat Who... books
Mythos and Heroes
Valley of the Shadow and two other Sister Fidelmas

Which is an outrageous cheat if we're only allowed five.

>11 hfglen: "Which is an outrageous cheat if we're only allowed five."

Why did you even think this? Read what I added to that OP yesterday. And I just saw what you wrote in the other thread, so please add to this one if you need to...

>12 clamairy: Old habits from the first year's best reads ...

I weeded my favourites list down to 5 (with great difficulty and I'm still having second thoughts) for the official LT "best of 2021" list but you guys get the full blast. I mostly took out the ones that weren't published in 2021:

Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
The Velocity of Revolution by Marshall Ryan Maresca
Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire
Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher
Out Past the Stars by K.B. Wagers
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
Angel of the Overpass by Seanan McGuire
The Assassins of Thasalon by Lois McMaster Bujold
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
Hard Time by Jodi Taylor
Plan for the Worst by Jodi Taylor.
Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly
Knot of Shadows by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed
What's the Matter With Mary Jane? by Candas Jane Dorsey

>6 clamairy: >10 Athabasca: Glad to see people enjoying The Goblin Emperor.

I've been semi absent from LT in 2021 but my favourite books of the year were:

1. A Song of Flight by Juliet Marillier
2. Thorn by Intisar Khanani
3. Crownbreaker by Sebastien de Castell
4. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
5. Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
6. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - a reread
8. English Passengers by Matthew Kneale - a reread

I also listened to Wheel of Time on audio but haven't quite finished it. I will be glad to tick it off as a classic fantasy read but I have had so many issues with it in plotting, pacing and characterisation that it has never scored more than 4/5 for me and often lower. So not a favourite at all.

>16 infjsarah: I'm sorry you're not enjoying The Eye of the World. I am listening to it as well, but my audio book is the newest version read by Rosamund Pike. I've been enjoying mine so much that my ears are getting earbud fatigue!

>17 clamairy: That must be a big improvement over the version that I listened to years ago, it never really caught my attention.

>18 Karlstar: That would explain why >16 infjsarah: isn't enjoying it very much. It would also explain why they released a new version. I did wonder about that...

My five star fiction of this year, in no particular order and not including rereads or children's books:

There weren't any. Five stars for me means it caused me to examine life and my beliefs in some way and I would read it again for sure.

Here's a four and a half star read:
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

Four stars: In my rating system, four means I liked it, might reread, and would recommend.
People of Darkness by Tony Hillerman
The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien
Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg
A Dog's Life by Peter Mayle

Here are my top 5:

The peacock by Isabel Bogdan
The drowning girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan
The highest frontier by Joan Slonczewski
Piranesi by Susannah Clarke
The Makioka sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki

Close runners-up:

A crooked tree by Una Mannion
We ride upon sticks by Quan Barry
There's no such thing as an easy job by Kikuko Tsumura

>6 clamairy: The Scapegoat made your list!! Isn't it marvelous. I mean once you swallow the whole premise. I loved it.

The Silent Patient? Really? It pops up so relentlessly all over amazon that I immediately discounted it. Hm. Maybe I should reconsider.

Pelagia and the White Bulldog

Pelagia and the Black Monk both by Boris Akunin

A Sort of Traitors by Nigel Balchin

Bear Head by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Third Eagle by R. A. McAvoy

And, as usual, it seems that (apart from Bear Head) yet again I have failed to review the books that I liked most!

I have finally gotten around to looking at my fiction reads for 2021. 2021 must have been a time-warp for me; when I looked at the books I read in 2021 I thought I had read some of them before 2021, and I am not talking about re-reads.

The books I enjoyed most in 2021 were:

Reynard the Fox by Anne Louise Avery
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (BB from MrsLee)
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (Lockdown book club read)
Seven Demons by Aidan Truhen
Silverview by John le Carré
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (BB from a colleague at work.)
Beyond The Hallowed Sky by Ken MacLeod
The Likeness by Tana French
The Bookbinder's Daughter by Jessica Thorne

If I were to be asked to identify the top five:

Reynard the Fox by Anne Louise Avery
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Seven Demons by Aidan Truhen
Silverview by John le Carré
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Beyond The Hallowed Sky by Ken MacLeod
The Likeness by Tana French
The Bookbinder's Daughter by Jessica Thorne

Mine are:
Circe
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City
Saga of the Seven suns
Intervention - the Julian May trilogy
Dragon Haven
The Lost Man

My absolutely best book of 2021 was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

>26 mysterymax: That was a good one. Especially the ending!

>27 clamairy: Agreed!

It's a lot of fun to see these lists. I'm definitely hoping to get to some of these this year, including The Scapegoat and The Goblin Emperor, which I wonder if my granddaughter might like.

I didn't read a ton of great fiction last year, but I really enjoyed these:

The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden

The first two were from our community book club, and the others were bullets I took from y'all.