Well, the last decade sure has flown by, and I can’t quite believe how fast. A decade ago I was still reviewing and posting on my own site, www.walkerofworlds.com, though that was winding down from its high point in the late 2000’s and my output was dropping considerably due to the usual suspects of less time and more going on. In 2014 Mark and Rob kindly let me start contributing reviews to SFFWorld and the rest, as they say, is history. I can’t say I’ve been the most consistent reviewer, or the most prolific, especially over these past few years, but I’ve managed to dip in here and there with a review or three each year, with science fiction my genre of choice, and one I stick to almost exclusively these days.
Looking at my reading over the past decade has also been interesting, with my tastes evolving and consumption rate going up and down over the years. I religiously track my reading so I can see at a glance how I’m doing, where my tastes take me, and just how many books I read and rate. Gone are the highs of over 120 books a year, and nowadays I’m lucky to hit half that, but it means I am also a little more choosy when deciding on my next read. Of course, there is often never enough time in the day and so many novels fall by the wayside.
However, after sitting down and looking at what I’ve read over the last decade I find that the books I remember the most are not necessarily the ones I rated highest at the time. There are books that I didn’t initially read during their year of release and only caught some time down the line that jump high up the list of that year’s best. There are other books that I thought were fantastic when I read them, but looking back – and sometimes after a reread – my opinion changed.
Narrowing down my list of my favourite reads of the decade was an interesting – and time consuming – task. I found that some years were easy to narrow down because I had a small number to choose from, while other years had so many I could barely choose. I’ve tried to include both science fiction and fantasy here, though some years I just didn’t read any fantasy novels of note, and equally too many science fiction novels to count! I hope there’s something here you’ve not heard of, or one that sounds interesting enough to you to go out and pick up.
I’m also going to push myself to give a top five of the decade, so scroll on down to the end to see that…
I read a good few books in 2011, but those that stuck with me the most were The Kings of Eternity by Eric Brown and 11/22/63 by Stephen King. Both fantastic novels and ones I’m really looking forward to revisiting in the future. But these weren’t the only ones of note that year, and Final Days by Gary Gibson, Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi, Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey, Messiah by S Andrew Swann (the final book in the excellent Apotheosis trilogy), and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline all stand out for me.
In 2012 and 2013 my reading dipped, and I never quite got round to reading as many of the releases as I’d have liked. 2012 brought Libriomancer by Jim C Hines, The Wind Through The Keyhole by Stephen King, and Great North Road by Peter F Hamilton, while 2013 gave us Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed, Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer, and Phoenicia’s Worlds by Ben Jeapes, an excellent novel that I felt didn’t get the love it deserved.
2014 had many good reads, and I struggled to narrow them down to the best I read, but I finally settled on The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, Skin Game by Jim Butcher, The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F Hamilton, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, and The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R Carey. Yes, five books, and it doesn’t end there, with some other honourable mentions: Extinction Game by Gary Gibson, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, and The Martian by Andy Weir.
In 2015 I discovered that spiders weren’t all that bad when Adrian Tchaikovsky gave us the amazing Children of Time, while The Rogue Retrieval by Dan Koboldt, and FantasticLand by Mike Bockoven were both satisfying. I also think that Artefact by Jamie Sawyer, Barsk by Lawrence M Schoen, Macaque Attack by Gareth L Powell (the final book in the hugely fun Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy), and The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson are all very worthy reads.
From 2016 onwards my reading started to slow and skewed even more towards science fiction. However, with Night Without Stars by Peter F Hamilton, Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel, Arkwright by Allen Steele, Chasing Shadows by Tom Delonge & A.J. Hartley, and Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson, I had plenty to enjoy!
2017 gave us the finale to the Greatcoats series in Tyrant’s Throne by Sebastien de Castell and also introduced me to one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read, Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. The Bobiverse trilogy also came to a close in All These Worlds by Dennis E Taylor, while Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill and Valiant Dust by Richard Baker ticked my boxes too.
The Outsider by Stephen King hit the shelves in 2018 and continued to give me what I enjoy from King, while Eric Brown released Buying Time under the E.M. Brown name, and it was just as good as I’d expect from him. Peter F Hamilton kicked off a new series in a new universe with Salvation, and the best Alien novel I’ve read was released: Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White. There was also One Way by Simon Morden, Outpost by W Michael Gear, Semiosis by Sue Burke, and The Quantum Magician by Derek Künsken, each of which have spawned sequels that I’m still trying to catch up with!
2019 and 2020 were two of my lowest reading years since I started tracking, though Magebane by Stephen Aryan was released and brought a fantastic conclusion to the Age of Dread series, while Wanderers by Chuck Wendig and Salvation Lost by Peter F Hamilton ticked my SF boxes. 2020 saw the release of two new Dresden novels in Peace Talks and Battle Ground by Jim Butcher, while Hamilton brought his Salvation Sequence to a stunning close with The Saints of Salvation. Heaven’s River by Dennis E Taylor also revisited the Bobiverse and reminded me why I enjoy the setting and characters so much.
Top 5 Books of the Decade
Purely personal choices here. I’ve not necessarily read, or reread, all of these recently, but they’re the ones that have really stuck with me and I would pick up tomorrow without hesitation, for good or bad! This top five is going to include complete stories (e.g. a full complete series) rather than purely individual novels – yes, I know that’s cheating!
- The Kings of Eternity by Eric Brown
- The Chronicle of the Fallers (The Abyss Beyond Dreams/Night Without Stars) by Peter F Hamilton
- The Bobiverse Trilogy (We Are Legion (We Are Bob), For We Are Many, All These Worlds) by Dennis E Taylor
- 11/22/63 by Stephen King
- Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer
Mark lives in North Wales with his wife and two cats and has been an avid reader for as long as he can remember, with science fiction his genre of choice. Prior to joining the team at SFFWorld he ran www.walkerofworlds.com, a blog that focused on genre reviews and allowed him to shout about all the books he read and enjoyed. Other than reading, he can often be found gaming to trek across all sorts of imaginary worlds to further escape the normality of day-to-day life.
Some great choices there. And some for me to look at. The amount of new published books makes it hard to find stuff I like. Many reviews are really just marketing. The result being that long time readers like me resent spending money on good stuff and wait until the Kindle books are reduced.
Perhaps you would like to review some of the audiobooks out there. Becky Chambers, for example, I found hard to read but mesmerised but the audiobook. I hate military scifi but the audiobooks of Joel Shepherd’s spiral war are pretty good.
Thanks Bob – hopefully you’ll find some in there you’ll enjoy! And thanks for the audiobook recommendations. I haven’t read all the Becky Chambers books, but will definitely get around to them on audio. And agreed re: Joel Shepherd – have listened to a number of the Spiral Wars books, though not up-to-date… so many books, so little time!