Tim's Top (14) Reads of 2023
Year 2023 reading stats: 287 books, 58980 pages.
Top 12 favorites (plus 2 alternates) in no order
Sorry, LJ cut doesn't seem to be working accurately? -
They Told Me I Was Everything (The First Quarto), by Gregory Ashe
Mystery, LGBTQIA+
Auggie is a new 18 year old freshman at Wroxham College in remote Missouri. He's also a social media darling, one of the first wave of influencers in the year 2013. Over the past few months he's been grappling with the realization he's gay, which is antithesis to his very heterosexual Beaver Cleaver persona. Also, he's secretly prone to smoking, drinking, and driving a little too recklessly... until a car accident puts end to that. Meanwhile, 29 year old Theo, a grad student at Wroxham, has had a really bad year. Four months ago his family was in a car accident. His husband Ian was killed, and their daughter Lana was left with injuries she will never recover from requiring round the clock permanent care. Theo now has a bum leg that requires him to walk with the assistance of a cane.
Theo and Auggie meet most inauspiciously the night before classes begin. While is Auggie pledging to a fraternity, he gets a little drunk, and meets another guy who encourages him to get wild and steal a car. Auggie drives erratically and nearly hits Theo, who is walking in a drunk haze on the side of the highway. The other guy completely disappears... so Auggie and Theo agree to blame That Guy for driving recklessly, part ways, and forget everything. Which works great until Auggie shows up for his King Lear literature class and discovers that the hot, bearded bear teaching is Theo.
Then they are both tagged in a video claiming that That Guy was murdered. But they know he was alive after that car accident. Then people show up at Auggie's dorm and Theo's home demanding answers: where is That Guy or whatever "it" was that he had. This first volume of the series has Theo and Auggie working together to figure out what, exactly, is going on and how they're involved.
The Last Sun (Book 1 of the Tarot Sequence), by K.D. Edwards
Urban Fantasy, LGBTQIA+
This refreshingly queer series was recommended multiple times on BookTok. One reviewer kept claiming it was a queer YA fantasy (I suspect he never read the books but was pushing it for clout.) It is NOT YA but read with some caveats.
Twenty years ago the entire Sun court was mysteriously and violently wiped out as Rune went through horrifyingly vicious attack by a group of masked men. Today, with his (non-sexual) partner Brand, his magically bonded for life Companion-slash-bodyguard, Rune operates quietly as a magic user for hire, nominally employed by their former guardian, the most powerful man on the island, the Lord of Tower. Only trouble keeps finding Rune, and now he's forced to become guardian to a wayward seventeen year old, the last of another wiped out court, and he has to find the kidnapped youngest son of another court.
Start with the Last Sun if you plan to read the series. Highly recommended.
This was probably my favorite read of 2023.
Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher
Fantasy
In a distant land there's a seaside city-state ruled by a King and Queen with three daughters. At age 20, Princess Damia, the eldest, is sent to the Northern Kingdom to marry the Crown Prince Vorling, and the youngest, Princess Marra, is sent to a convent. Within six months, Damia is dead and buried by her parents. Then Vorling demands the middle princess, Kania for his new replacement bride. When Marra visits Kania in the Kingdom's castle for her firstborn niece's christening, and she quickly realizes something is terribly wrong. She's determined to set things right, but doesn't know how yet.
Years later, this leads her to the dust-wife, someone who speaks with the dead and has a chicken with a demon inside of it. Marra is set three impossible tasks; weave a cloak out of nettle, bring a dog made of bones back to life, and catch the moon in a jar... Then the dust-wife will help her figure out how to kill the evil prince.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow
Fantasy, LGBTQIA+
Deep in Vermont is a large mansion filled with all kinds of unique objects, curious things, and a lonely girl named January Scaller. She's unusual not just because her mother is dead or her father is traveling across the globe searching for things his employer wants, but because she's described as the red-brown color between hot coals and cinnamon, with wild frizzy hair and a serious attitude.
Her guardian, Mr Locke, arranges for her education, her clothing, even her nursemaids, but deliberately limits her access to other children or books. Naturally, January is deeply interested in the ideas of escape, and Doors that lead to otherworlds, after seeing one as a child. When her father comes home so infrequently, he rarely says anything to her. They're not close.
As she turns 18, she's told terrible news: her father has died. Mr Locke assures her, she need not worry, he will keep protecting her, if she joins his archeological group in place of her father. But January ferociously and publicly rejects him, them, and all of it. Then she runs away and begins to find out just exactly what kind of people that has her in their clutches... and how far they'll go to get her back.
The Library of the Dead (Book 1 of Edinburgh Nights), by T.L. Huchu
Urban Fantasy, LGBTQIA+
In the late 21st century, after years of worldwide climate change, political turmoil, and social unrest, life is nearly a dystopian nightmare. Belfast is gone. The government of Scotland is gone, after their failed rebellion was wiped out by the forces of the King of England. London rules with a very heavy-handed iron fist. Food and supplies are scarce, and wild animals have largely disappeared from nature. And, oh yeah, turns out that ghosts are real and have unresolved needs.
14 year old Ropa is a ghostalker, someone who can communicate with the dead and will pass on messages....for a fee of course. She has dropped out of school to earn a living to pay rent on the plot of land that her family's small caravan is parked on. Her nearly blind Gran knits for medicine money and is reknowed for her magical skill that she tries to pass on, her young sister Izwi is barely in grade school, and their parents are gone. One night, Ropa is approached by the shade of young mother Nicola, who asks for help finding her missing son. At first Ropa curtly says no, she doesn't do freebies. But then Gran convinces her to help Niola. So she sets out on a series of forays into the crumbling Edinburgh neighborhoods to investigate a series of missing children, makes new friends, stumbles upon a secret society (the titular Library,) has a few narrow escapes, and uncovers a horrible plot.
After I finished this I realized there are two more books in the series which I haven't picked up (yet.)
In The Lives of Puppets, by T.J. Klune
Fantasy, Science Fiction, LGBTQIA+
Hundreds (or thousands) of years in the future, in the remote wild woods of what used to be Oregon, a lonely cyborg Giovanni Lawson, raises a human boy. Over the years that boy, Victor, rescues, repairs, and repairs three robot friends. Rambo, a vacuum with the attention span and friendliness of a golden retriever. Nurse Rarched, a sociopathic medical bot whose sarcasm may drill you. For real. And last is Hap, an amnesiac humanoid robot who gets a replacement battery/heart that somehow calms anger and violence caused by the secrets the Hysterically Angry Puppet carries. Hap also has a shared past with Gio that surfaces as a trio of strangers from the distant Land of Electric Dreams arrive. While Hap hides with Victor, this mysterious trio set the family's home on fire before they drag Gio back to where they came from "for rehabilitation." Eerily, they resemble Hap.
In the vein of Pinochio, Wall-E, The Wizard of Oz, and other films, Victor and his friends set off to rescue Gio. But what they find may not be the answers any of them like. I had been looking forward to reading this book since last year when I read it would be almost a Disney pastiche, and it was well worth the wait. T.J. Klune has been earning well-deserved raves for his recent books, including The House in the Cerulean Sea (one of my personal favorites and getting a sequel in 2024) and Under the Whispering Door.
Translation State, by Ann Leckie
Science Fiction, LGBTQIA+
Ann Leckie returns with a stand alone story, her fifth in the Imperial Radch universe, and this features three challenging different POVs of three very different people drawn together to avert a catastrophe
Enae was a caregiver for decades to eir grandmama, only to discover e was disinherited when she passes. To get eir out of the house, the actual inheritor sets Enae up with a cushy ambassadorial job that promptly sends eir off on a wild goose chase, to find a Presger translator, gone missing 200 years ago. What nobody expects is that Enae actually follows through on the challenge.
Reet, found as an abandoned baby and growing up with a loving adoptive family, knows he doesn't fit in on a distant moon. He escapes to a nearly space station and works a series of low paying jobs that keeps him in supply of dumplings and watching soap operas. One day a local group approaches him and claims he's the descended of a long-lost fascist family/leader. Reet is naturally curious about it. What he doesn't expect is how likable he finds Enae as e arrives on er quest.
And somewhere else, Qven, growing up in a cannibalistic alien nursery, uncovers some unpleasant truths about their existence, their own personhood, and struggles to find the courage and the means to rebel against the expectations of their future Presger translator. When they meet up with Reet and Enae, suddenly they see a chance for change... but someone else wants other things.
Untethered Sky, by Fonda Lee
High Fantasy, Novella
Ester was 13 when a rogue manticore killed her young brother, her mother, and the rest of her household in front of her. Her father had nothing to say, nothing left for her except silence. Her anger and desire for revenge on all manticores leads her to the High King's Royal Mews as an apprentice ruhker, in the hopes to become paired with a giant roc, the only natural enemy of manticores.
Over the years, Ester trains with the fledgling giant roc Zahra, and slowly develops friendships with Nasmin and Darius, two older, more experienced ruhkers. When disaster strikes, it comes without warning, without omen, and changes everything.
Time Was, by Ian McDonald
Science Fiction, LGBTQIA+
Time Was is a shorter story, a bit longer than a novella. It was pretty good, but suffers from being not exactly what it is/was marketed as. It would be better to go into reading this without any foreknowledge of the plot. But... if you want:
There are really three stories going on here. The first two are the story of Tom and Ben, a pair of British WWII lovers cast adrift in time by a science experiment gone horribly wrong. They're searching for each other using coded letters hidden in copies of a mysterious book of poetry, Time Was.
The other involves Emmett, a bookseller, who stumbles one of their letters, and becomes obsessed with solving their mystery. The stories of these three men are slowly and inexorably looping together through time.
The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, Romance
The narrator in this is Patroclus, a minor name in Homer's Iliad. Born of a simple mother and a brutish father, he's a shy prince who is something of an embarrassment to the king. At age 10, Patroclus accidentally kills a bully, so his father happily exiles him to foster in the kingdom of Peleus, father to Achilles. Patroclus quickly develops a crush on Achilles, who nurtures their friendship and names the new arrival as his best friend. They spend almost all their time together, through schooling and training, and eventually they fall in reciprocal love.
Then they get drafted to go to fight at Troy... and their adventures begin.
A Deadly Education (Book 1 of The Scholomance), by Naomi Novik
Fantasy, Horror
Imagine a world where the mundanes don't know magic exists, where magic draws attacks from nasty beasts (particularly for teenagers), where magic users form enclaves to protect themselves from those wild roaming beasts. About a hundred years ago, a group of powerful magic users built the Scholomance, a school within a pocket universe, to teach their children their skills to survive the world. Hogwarts, it ain't. There are no adults. Food is... not good mostly. There are no days off. From the first day they arrive, the students are enrolled until graduation day, four years later. The nasties regularly invade the school to attack and eat the kids. And the seniors graduation day is a real killer.
This was a grim dark anti-Harry Potter coming of age story. Galadriel, or El, as she prefers, is an outsider in many ways. Her father gave his life to save her mother (and unknowingly, El). She grew up knowing most people didn't like her. She was rejected by her father's family, and her mother's commune wants her gone. Once enrolled in the Scholomance, El's dislike of the entitled, wealthy enclave students is very obvious, and they don't care for her either. Three weeks before the end of their junior year, Orion Lake (the Cedric Diggory of this tale) has saved her life yet again, and she's murderously resentful over it. She wants to kill him. Yet somehow, she resist that and gets drawn into a friendship, then an alliance that ultimately saves the rest of school.
This was probably my second favorite read of the year.
Starter Villain, by John Scalzi
Science Fiction, Comedy
If you've ever read John Scalzi, you know he's almost always a fun read, from last year's hysterically amusing Kaiju Preservation Society, to his very pointed Redshirts novel, or even his Old Man's War series. This year comes a new stand alone, Starter Villain. Just look at that cover. Anyway, onto my review:
Charlie's sweet but kind of a loser. He's divorced, his father passed a few years ago, his half-siblings barely talk to him, and he's not-quite-surviving on what he makes as a substitute teacher. One morning he learns from the news that his distant Uncle Jake passes. Jake was an aloof billionaire uncle he hasn't seen since he was 5. Charlie shrugs and continues to the bank to secure a loan to buy his dream, a nearby pub/restaraunt for sale. That doesn't go well. He comes home to find a very well dressed woman sitting on his porch swing. Turns out she was The Assistant to his Uncle Jake and she informs Charlie that Jake wanted him to do a favor: attend his funeral and accept the sympathies of others who attend. In exchange, the estate will arrange for his financial circumstances to improve. Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Except its not, and comes with murderous thugs who stab dead men, his home being blown up, a mad dash to a volcanic lair, sentient cats who rule and dolphins who want to unionize, and a cabal of evil businessmen that wants to ruin things for the world.
This was my third favorite read of 2023.
We Shall Sing a Song Into The Deep, by Andrew Kelly Stewart
Science Fiction, Alternate History, Dystopian, Novella,
I didn't write a review for this one (weird?) so I'm copying the blurb:
Remy is a Chorister, one of the chosen few rescued from the surface world and raised to sing the Hours in a choir of young boys. Remy lives with a devoted order of monks who control the Leviathan, an aging nuclear submarine that survives in the ocean’s depths. Their secret mission: to trigger the Second Coming when the time is right, ready to unleash its final, terrible weapon. But Remy has a secret too- she’s the only girl onboard. It is because of this secret that the sub’s dying caplain gifts her with the missile’s launch key, saying that it is her duty to keep it safe. Safety, however, is not the sub’s priority, especially when the new caplain has his own ideas about the Leviathan’s mission. Remy’s own perspective is about to shift drastically when a surface-dweller is captured during a raid, and she learns the truth about the world.
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, by Kate Wilheim
Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic
This story begins with the fall of humanity in the near-future. Plagues, famine, viral outbreaks, war, infertility, and nuclear attacks are taking their toll on the population, starting slowly but rapidly accelerating. David Sumner comes home from his studies in Biology to news from the elder generation in his family: The world is ending and he's been selected by his grandfather to help preserve what they can. The first 25% of this covers the apocalypse and through the few years after, including his own desperate race to solve the problems of cloning. Turns out while they can't reproduce sexually, they can clone for a couple generations, but after the fourth generation things go badly. Very badly. They figure they have time to fix the problems, so they continue on with their plan to save humanity. But at what cost?
The rest of the book subsequently focuses on a different character and clone (David, Molly, Barry, Mark) that draws out some of the problems the clones face- individuality, reproduction, mental health, separation anxiety, disconnection to the outer world and trying to explore it at the same time, and the increasingly severe climate changes. In fact there's a lot going on here- at times it reminded me of the damned patriarchy in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
So what were YOUR favorite reads in 2023?