the year in books [XXI]

Early this year I decided to try out a few fantasy novels in the hope of finding an author or two I really like. I hadn't read much fantasy (Tolkien aside), so I didn't know what to expect. In 2020's travels through the fantasy genre, I've found that this kind of writing draws me in. It surprised me a little, to be honest, for I've generally eschewed fantasy. Wizards and sorcerers and high magic have never really been my thing, but I didn't know that there are different types of fantasy. I tended to lump all fantasy into the 'High Fantasy' category with little knowledge of anything else. As it turns out, there's also what's called 'Low Fantasy,' or fantasy absent much magic. It's much grittier and down-to-earth, and this sub-genre has become my jam. My 2021 Reading Queue is mostly fantasy, and I'm not mad about that at all. I've already found some good authors I intend to follow, and hopefully next year I can add some more to the mix.

This six-book gauntlet included two books of Joe Abercrombie: Half the World (which is actually the second book in a trilogy; I didn't do my research and was halfway through it before I realized it) and The Heroes. I wasn't too impressed with Abercrombie's first book, The Blade Itself, but these two books have convinced me to give him another try. He's definitely got a few books in my 2021 Reading Queue. Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, despite its high marks on Amazon and Goodreads (not to mention its prominent placement in 'Best Fantasy' categories online), didn't live up to the hype: it read like a walk-through of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, except Tolkien did it much better. Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher: The Last Wish is the first in the 'Witcher' Series, which I stumbled across on Netflix of all places. Of course the book was much better than anything Netflix could pull off, so I stopped watching the show and plan to plow through the eight-book series next year. Sean Russell's The One Kingdom wasn't as good as I'd hoped (though it had high points, it was mostly a drag and, like The Wheel of Time, seemed overly influenced by Tolkien). Mark Lawrence's Emperor of Thorns was the last in his Broken Crown Trilogy, and I couldn't put it down. I've added another of his trilogies to next year's queue.