2013 Favorite Reads

What did you read this year and where did you write about it?

I read a lot of different things, but I slacked and put only most of my reading on goodreads. I posted other things at the Between the Bookends columns hosted by Geekmom. And I posted about short stories, novellas, novellettes and novels I read right here on this blog over the course of the year.

So many amazing reads, short and long. As always, I know I’ve forgotten things. As always, I am still catching up on my short story reading so this list is more of a starting point. I am not including stories from Impossible Futures or Unidentified Funny Objects 2, as I had stories in both of those anthologies.

So, at the end of the year, what stands out on your reading lists?

Novels

• Lexicon, Max Barry, Penguin 2013 An international network of poet-spies use words as mind-control weapons. So much yes for this book. Yes I loved it, yes I tell everyone.
• Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie, Orbit 2013* In the age of empire, Breq is at once singular and many. At stake? What it means to be human, to love, and to govern. Outstanding space opera.
• Vicious, V.E. Schwab, Tor 2013* What if, under the right conditions, you could develop superpowers, as long as you were willing to lose everything? Two archenemies battle to survive in a classic battle of good less evil vs. evil.
• Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow, Tor/Macmillan 2013 Young Adult. Creativity and self-expression in the age of draconian copyright law. The families we make for ourselves.
• The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Arthur A. Levine 2013 Young Adult. In a city-state that chooses its future by sacrificing one of its own, youth and technology are about to demand change.
• Drift, Jon McGoran*, Tor/Macmillan 2013 A disgraced cop, an organic farmer, and a deadly new profit-crop growing in the fields. Eco-thriller.
• The Shambling Guide to New York City, Mur Lafferty*, Orbit 2013. Zoe takes a job editing travel books for a very select audience.
• A Natural History of Dragons, A Memoir of Lady Trent, Marie Brennan, Tor, 2013. Victorian age-of-exploration fantasy, with the intrepid Lady Trent overcoming her society’s restrictions in order to pursue her studies.
• Hild, Nicola Griffith, Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2013 Speculative Historical Fiction – the 7th century story of the youth and rise to power of one of the Middle Ages most powerful women, St. Hilda. (I’m still enjoying this one, but I won’t finish before the end of the year because, deadlines.)

Anthologies & Short Story Collections

• Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee, Prime Books, 2013 
• Shoggoths in Bloom, Elizabeth Bear*, Prime Books, 2012.
• Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Editors, Macmillan/Tor 2013

Nonfiction

• Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, And Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid, Wendy Williams, Harry N. Abrams 2011
• The Science of Monsters: The Origins of Creatures We Love to Fear, Matt Kaplan, Scribner, 2012
• Riddle of the Labyrinth, Margalit Fox, Harper Collins 2013

Children’s Books (with assistance from my family)

• The Fairyland Series, Catherynne Valente, Feiwel & Friends 2011-2013
• Dealing with Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede, HMH 2002

Novellas/Novellettes

• “No Others Are Genuine,” Gregory Frost*, Asimov’s
• “The Weight of the Sunrise,” Vylar Kaftan*, Asimov’s
• “Wakulla Springs,” Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages, Tor.com
• “Wormwood is Also A Star,” Andy Stewart, F&SF
• “Katabasis,” Robert Reed, F&SF
• “Boat in Shadows, Crossing,”Tori Truslow, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• “Burning Girls,” Veronica Schanoes, Tor.com
• “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,” Parts 1 & 2, Sarah Pinsker, Strange Horizons

Short Stories

• “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love,” Rachel Swirsky, Apex
• “A Family for Drakes,” and “A Death for the Ageless,” Margaret Ronald*, Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
• “Soulcatcher,” James Patrick Kelly, Clarkesworld 80
• “The Sounds of Old Earth,” Matthew Kressel, Lightspeed
• “Mono No Aware,” Ken Liu, Lightspeed
• “The Water That Falls on You,” John Chu, Tor.com
• “In the Greenwood,” Mari Ness, Tor.com
• “Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince,” Jake Kerr, Lightspeed.
• “86, 87, 88, 89,”Genevieve Valentine; “The Weight of a Blessing,“  Aliette de Bodard; and The Last Survivor of the Great Sexbot Revolution,” A.C. Wise*, all from Clarkesworld 78.
• “The Clockwork Trollop,” Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald*, Beneath Ceaseless Skies [Content Warning, Adult themes]
• “The Mythology of Salt,” OJ Cade, Strange Horizons

Podcasts – Pretty much anything that Kate Baker reads at Clarkesworld; Welcome to Night Vale

(Notes: *The author is a friend, and/or I have interviewed the author. My publisher is Tor/Macmillan. I have stories coming out in both Asimov’s and Beneath Ceaseless Skies in 2014.)