Best Fantasy of 2011!

[Stephan]

Christmas has come and gone. Wow... Our year is almost over! It's almost 2012, guys! But seriously, what a great year 2011 has been. So many amazing books this year. Books we've all been waiting for, like A Dance With Dragons, The Wise Man's Fear, or Inheritance. Books we could easily do without, like The Omen Machine. And amazing surprises like Prince of Thorns or God's War.

Well, the end of the year means it's time to look back! Here at The Ranting Dragon, we'll be doing so by making lists. Tomorrow, on December 29, we will post our top 10 favorite debuts of the year. A day later, on December 30, a list of 20 favorite fantasy books will follow suit.

I'll definitely be posting about those lists in this thread, but while waiting for that, let's talk about your year of fantasy! What books have you read this year? What was your favorite book? Did any book absolutely blow you away? Any great surprises? I mean... What were the best books of 2011 according to you

[pooks]

Best fantasy books I read this year--not necessarily books that came out this year:

BEHEMOTH, GOLIATH, Scott Westerfeld

COLD FIRE, Kate Elliott

HEARTLESS, Gail Carriger

THE WISE MAN'S FEAR, Patrick Rothfuss

SECRET HISTORIES SERIES, Simon R Green

[eruditeogre]

I'll throw out a few titles:

Among Others, by Jo Walton

Never Knew Another and When We Were Executioners, by J. M. McDermott

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, ed. by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

Two Worlds and In-Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan, by (shock!) Caitlin R. Kiernan

Cheers,

John

[tsarnu]

My faves that I read this year (not necessarily released this year) ...

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

The Order of the Scales by Stephen Deas

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (oldie but a goodie!)

The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

And predictably The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

[MsFehrwight]

ASOIAF by GRRM - all books except for GoT (which I read 2010)

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence - such a positive surprise!

The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss - liked this one better than tNotW

Mistborn 1: the Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson - my favourite of the trilogy

City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer is still on my mind, so I conclude that in a couple more months it has gone through and I will buy a copy of my own. So it was great, even though I didn't initially realise it.

[Stephan]

@eruditeogre: When We Were Executioners isn't out yet, is it?

With the exception of ASoIaF, I totally agree with your list, MsFehrwight! Though I wouldn't say that I liked Wise Man's Fear better than The Name of the Wind.

However, I think tsarnu and I have the most matching taste in books. Elantris, Name of the Wind, Wise Man's Fear, Order of the Scales all awesome books. And Kingdom of Gods is pretty much my favorite book of the year! This makes me want to give Jean M. Auel a try.

[Stephan]

Here are our top ten debuts. For more information, take a look at the complete article, or click on a cover to go to the book's Goodreads page.





What did you think of the list? Agreed with our choices? Read any great debuts you would put on the list? Let's talk fantasy debuts!

[MsFehrwight]

With the exception of ASoIaF, I totally agree with your list, MsFehrwight! Though I wouldn't say that I liked Wise Man's Fear better than The Name of the Wind.

I think I liked tWMF better because it was easy to slip back into a familiar world, as opposed to learning about a new one. (And I'm not very partial on character childhood stuff.)
And maybe because tWMF had the Ademic culture, which I find extremely fascinating.
And Elodin.

[RedEyedGhost]

Other than one glaring omission the debut list is pretty solid. M.J. Locke's Up Against It really needs to be on the list.

[Stephan]

I am ashamed to admit I have never heard of that one. But I shall see if I can do something about that!

[tsarnu]

I didn't read any of those books this year, but I am definitely looking into Prince of Thorns after all the hype, and also potentially Queen of Kings, The Emperor's Knife and The Winds of Khalakovo. Might be a bit hard with my current to read list ... plus I am attempting to start GoT and Malazan some time ...

@Stephen ... you should really give Auel's Earth's Children saga a go. Clan of the Cave Bear is really amazing and so well researched. The following books are also still great, but not as good as the first and do tend to slow down a bit and become a little repetitive. Check out the other books in my blog - link below.

[Stephan]

Here are our top ten fantasy books of 2011. For more information, take a look at the complete article, or click on a cover to go to the book's Goodreads page.

PS. This list does not contain debuts. For those, take a look at the list of best debuts above.







What did you think of the list? Agreed with our choices? Read any great books you would put on the list? Let's talk fantasy!

[pooks]

I just added about 1/3 of them to my to-read list on goodreads.

[Stephan]

Which ones?

[RedEyedGhost]

I am ashamed to admit I have never heard of that one. But I shall see if I can do something about that!

I just finished it yesterday, so I'm pimping it constantly. It was fantastic and was criminally under-promoted. There were several blogs in my RSS reader that gave it great reviews early in the year, but it dropped off the map relatively quickly.

It's quite similar to James S.A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes, and as big of a Daniel Abraham fan as I am (he's my #1 author) I think Up Against It was even better.

[pooks]

Which ones?

Let's see if I can remember... and if some of these were in a series, I'd be starting with the first, of course.

Sentinel Mage
Among Others
Akata Witch
Wolfsangel
Midnight Riot (which is the one I want to read first)

That's 1/4 of them. And I haven't sorted through the debuts yet!

[Michelle]

I have so many of these waiting to be read!

As for my personal favorites, I'm making them into posts on my blog.

My top 5 debuts: http://www.vilutheril.com/?p=927

[Michelle]

And Top 5 non-debuts: http://www.vilutheril.com/?p=971