Top Books for 2019

This is my sixth annual roundup of the books I read in a year. Earlier instalments are here: my top 19 books for 2018, my top 17 books for 2017,  my top 16 books for 2016 (actually only 15), my top 15 books for 2015, and my top 14 books for 2014. Note that these are books I read in those years, not books published in those years - though these days I am reading a lot from Netgalley, which are often advance copies of books that haven't yet been published, so a higher proportion of my reading is books published in the year I read them.

Last year, I abandoned the attempt to make the number of top books equal the last two digits of the year, which was an arbitrary limitation, and just put as many books on the list as I thought belonged there. Following the same practice again, there are 20 books on this year's list, which means I have now featured 100 books across the six years I've been doing this. Five-star books automatically go on the Best-Of list, and it also includes a selection of four-star books that I think are worthy of mention.

For the second time, I'm awarding a Most Disappointing Book of the Year anti-prize, for a book by an author who, based on their previous history, should have written a much better book. This anti-award went to Andy Weir's Artemis in 2017, and in 2019 it goes to William Gibson's Agency (links are to my reviews). Apart from the massive plot hole right at the end, Artemis might have been an OK book 30 years earlier, when most male authors had no idea of how to write a female viewpoint character; Agency, though, would be tedious in any decade, chooses the viewpoint characters poorly, and gives them, ironically, no agency.

Overall Statistics

I only read 65 books in total in 2019, which is a big drop from previous years, and I'm not sure why that is. I didn't listen to many audiobooks this year, spending my commuting time listening to podcasts instead, which probably contributed. I also started and abandoned a number of books that aren't reflected in the total, but that's nothing new. Maybe I'm just not reading as long at night.

Here are my figures in a table:

	5 star	4 star	3 star	2 star	Total
2019	11	36	17	1	65
2018	5	72	15	2	94
2017	10	56	19	0	85
2016	11	53	12	1	77
2015	11	68	19	2	101
2014	9	70	23	2	104

Despite the lower overall number, I read as many 5-star books this year as in any of the previous five years. Either I'm becoming more generous (probably true) or I'm getting better at choosing books (also probably true). I only got suckered into one two-star book this year, but there were about the usual number of three-star books, 17 (versus 15 last year). A three-star book, for me, is one that I didn't hate, but it had definite flaws. Essentially, I start out at a nominal four stars, and boost it up one if the book is especially good or drop it down one if there's something that hindered my enjoyment. Two stars indicates that, while not lacking any redeeming qualities at all, for me the book was a failure.

Discovery

Where did I get these books? This year, 34 came from Netgalley: six of the 11 five-star books, 15 of the 36 four-star books (including two that made it to the Best Of), and 13 of the 17 three-star books - so a higher proportion of three-star books than other methods of discovery. Ten came from BookBub: one five-star, five four-star including one Best Of, three three-stars and the sole two-star. Four of the BookBub titles went on my Needs Editing shelf, one on my Seriously Needs Editing shelf, and two on my Well-Edited shelf.

One book (a Best Of) came directly from the author, because I'd reviewed the previous book in the series last year. Three came from the library, and the remainder were either found browsing Amazon, came from Amazon's recommendations, or were continuations of series I'd read previously.

Top-Rated Books

So, here is my list, ranked in ascending order. Your taste may well vary, and on a different day, my rankings might vary too.

Links are, as usual, to my Goodreads reviews.

Before I start the list proper, I will mention one that missed the list, even though all the previous books in the series made it on there. Sands of Memory (Company of Strangers, book 5) by Melissa McShane felt a bit by-the-numbers, though it was still good. Melissa McShane is a fixture on my best-of lists, with one book on the list in each of 2016, 2017 (when she also got an honorable mention), and 2018; this year, she has an impressive five books out of the 20, including three five-star entries.

Here are the books that didn't quite make it to five stars, but were strong four-star books:

20. Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman. I listened to the audiobook while driving, which made it easier to leave it running than stop it; if I'd been reading the text, I might have found the slow pace harder to cope with. Still, some thoughtful moments, and a gradual but powerful build to a revelation that puts the rest of the book into a different perspective.

19. Royal Rescue, A. Alex Logan. Provides insight into the experience of being asexual, with mostly authentic-feeling characters who are determined to do the right thing.

18. The Dragon's Banker, Scott Warren. Pulls off the difficult feat of making merchant banking interesting, and again features a protagonist who wants to do what's right.

17. Company of Strangers, Melissa McShane. The first of an excellent D&D-ish series, not as tense as some of the later ones, but very sound writing. The almost flawless editing definitely helps to boost this author's rankings for me.

16. Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar, Lawrence Watt-Evans. Wizards, a protagonist who wants to do the right thing, mystery, twue wuv - I was always going to like this one.

15. The Masked City, Genevieve Cogman. A strong continuation to the Invisible Library series, with plenty of action and a level-headed, capable protagonist.

14. The Immortal Conquistador, Carrie Vaughn. Another protagonist determined to do the right thing even though, in this case, he's a vampire (turned against his will). Makes me want to return to the main series of which it's a self-contained side story.

13. Sidekicks, Arthur Mayor. Supers done right, with a strong conflict between doing the right thing and doing the sensible thing that looks for a long time like it could go either way.

12. Mortal Rites (Company of Strangers, Book 3), Melissa McShane. The undead done well, a group of protagonists with a strong bond and a good ability to work together, and the usual sound writing.

Now, the five-star books:

11. The Philosopher's War, Tom Miller. Sequel to my #1 book of 2017; its lower ranking mainly reflects my lack of enthusiasm for reading a book set in World War I. Protagonist sacrifices in order to do the right thing.

10. Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey. Urban fantasy noir, richly psychological, and with a compelling mystery; magic school will never be quite the same after this.

9. Chasing Solace, Karl Drinkwater. Sequel to the #16 book on the 2018 list; the trappings of horror, but it still worked for me, a resolute non-horror reader.

8. This is How You Lose the Time War, Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. The characters are not admirable, but their relationship is beautifully and skillfully depicted, with great imagination.

7. The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie. Hamlet, but very much not as we know it, with a twist that seriously messed with my head.

6. The View from Castle Always, Melissa McShane. I love a magical-castle (or magical-house) story, and this is a good one, with a fine romance woven through the mystery.

5. Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik. Determined, capable protagonists set out to bring about good outcomes for everyone in what seems like an impossible situation, and their courage and creativity are up to the challenge.

4. Shifting Loyalties (Company of Strangers, Book 4), Melissa McShane. Raises the tension, piling on complications for the characters, which produces a cracking story.

3. Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This author made #11 in 2017 with The Beautiful Ones, and this book pulls off the same difficult feat of a truly glorious ending.

2. The Smoke-Scented Girl, Melissa McShane. If every romance/adventure was like this, I'd read little else. Wonderful protagonist, excellently characterized.

1. Turning Darkness Into Light, Marie Brennan. A lovely piece of writing, integrating scholarship, political maneuverings, and the best handling I've ever seen of the complicated feelings left over after a failed relationship.

Author Gender Breakdown

I started compiling figures last year for author gender (based on what's stated on their Goodreads profiles) for my top list. Without operating a quota system of any kind, I've tended to find myself reading about 50/50 male and female authors overall, though I think that's slowly changing; by my count, I read 41 female authors across 65 books in 2019 (two of whom had male co-authors). The numbers in my top lists skew female most years, though, including this one.

I believe A. Alex Logan is nonbinary, so I've added a column this year. One book had a male and a female author, so the total is 21 for the 20 books; I've counted Melissa McShane each of the five times that she appears on the list.

	M	F	N	Total
2019	6	14	1	21
2018	7	12		19
2017	8	9		17
2016	6	9		15
2015	10	5		15
2014	4	10		14
Total	42	59	1	102

Protagonist gender is even more skewed towards female, which is a conscious choice (I just find women more interesting protagonists). There are 15 female protagonists (Spinning Silver has three and This is How You Lose the Time War has two), and seven male protagonists; for spoilerific reasons, I'm not counting the (trans male) main character of The Raven Tower as a protagonist, and the viewpoint character in that book is non-gendered. Most of the books with male protagonists also have prominent female characters with arcs and importance to the plot; The Immortal Conquistador is the book of which this is least true, and it's a side-story to a series with a female main character. 

What Makes These Books the Best?

As I read through my list, I was struck by how strongly I'm gravitating at the moment towards admirable protagonists who struggle against the odds to do the right thing for the benefit of others (otherwise known as "noblebright"). At least 16 of the 20 can be described this way. They're not, generally, the blacksmith's apprentice who is secretly the prince, either; most of them are ordinary people (possibly with extraordinary talents) who have to step up to meet a challenge. The most prominent exceptions to this type of admirable protagonist are the pair in This is How You Lose the Time War, which managed to win me over despite, rather than because of, what kind of people they were.

It's been a good year for books, and even though I've read less, I seem to have read just as many really good books (and just as many just-OK books, unfortunately). Join me again next year.

Review: Agency

Agency by William Gibson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I never thought I would use the phrase "tedious William Gibson novel," but apparently this is the version of the world we now live in.

This tedious William Gibson novel is clearly a William Gibson novel: it has the effortless prose, the vivid (if occasionally inaccurate) imagery, the geek-culture namedrops, the characters who are outsiders to power and the mainstream. What it doesn't have much of is a plot, and what the characters don't have much of, by irony that may or may not be unconscious, is agency. They do almost nothing that has any impact on anything. In fact, they do almost nothing, and it's narrated at great length.

The author establishes a strict alternation between two viewpoint characters: Verity, in a version of 2017 California where the US election of 2016 and the Brexit vote went the other way, and Netherton, in a post-apocalyptic future descended, quite possibly, from our version of the timeline. This strict alternation regardless of what's going on and who has the most at stake at the time, and this choice of viewpoint characters, soon begin to work against the success of the book.

Both viewpoint characters are essentially passive. Verity spends most of the book as a passenger, being moved around to escape from a corrupt corporation who hired her at the start of the novel. It's never really clear to me why anyone involves Netherton in events, rather than just going direct; he's a go-between and a middleman and an observer, and the one effective thing he does (fighting off a random encounter that has no lead-up and no follow-through) is entirely by accident. Many of the chapters, particularly the Netherton ones, consist of someone, usually Netherton, repeating something we have just been shown in the previous chapter to someone else who wasn't observing at the time. (Not very far into the book, the two viewpoints connect, by a technological means of communication that's never explained in any depth, but looks to the users like VR.)

The beginning is promising. Verity is hired by that dodgy corporation because of her reputation as an "app whisperer" to do vague things with a new alpha build, an advanced AI called Eunice. Eunice is templated on a feisty, fiercely intelligent and capable African-American woman, and is by far the most interesting character in the book; after (view spoiler)[she disappears (hide spoiler)] (relatively early on), the novel immediately bogs down in exposition, pipe-laying, long descriptions of logistics (she sat here, she put her bag there, she looked at this), and people explaining things to other people that we've just been shown in the previous chapter. Once (view spoiler)[Eunice unexpectedly returns through no action of the other characters (hide spoiler)], the book wraps up rapidly, but without much involvement of the carefully-gathered group of people who are supposedly the protagonists; they have spend all their time while the world was threatened with nuclear disaster doing mostly mundane or evil-corporation-avoidance-related things, rather than working on anything to do with the threat, and (view spoiler)[the unnamed president, clearly Hillary Clinton, sorts it all out anyway with hardly any help even from Eunice - revealing that the normally pessimistic Gibson has a more optimistic view than I do about at least one thing: HRC's potential to be a great and wonderful president, rather than simply a much more competent and all-around less bad one than Trump (hide spoiler)].

I got the feeling partway through that the excessive number of secondary characters with backstories that didn't seem relevant to the current story were left over from a previous novel, and indeed it seems this is a sequel to The Peripheral. I was surprised to discover, looking at the front of the book where they are listed, that I'd missed three novels by Gibson since the last one I read, so I don't know if the mediocre dullness of this one is a new development or part of a trend. Since I got a pre-release version from Netgalley, I also don't know if the couple of glitches (such as placing jungle-dwelling orangutans on the savanna) will be fixed before publication; they may be. What I don't think can be fixed is the overnarration of mundane logistics that stands where a plot would normally go, or the limp and ineffectual puppets that are the viewpoint characters.

Accordingly, I'm awarding this my non-prize for Most Disappointing Novel Read in 2019.

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Review: Sands of Memory

Sands of Memory by Melissa McShane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While not up to the previous book's level of tension, a decent, enjoyable adventure.

It's replete with Arabian Nights tropes, so not necessarily a super-original setting either.

The team accidentally unleash bad consequences on other people and escape without permanent damage themselves - in fact, in a better state than they start out in. So, also not my favourite from a moral-consequences standpoint.

In fact, it had enough flaws that I'm leaving it off my Best of the Year list, something I seldom do with a Melissa McShane book. That's not to say it was bad, just that I usually like her books a lot more than I liked this particular one. I don't regret buying it, but I hope the next one brings back the full level of tension (despite the team's now awesome power levels).

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Review: The Immortal Conquistador

The Immortal Conquistador by Carrie Vaughn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a long-time fan of the Kitty Norville series, though I have lost touch with it a bit lately, so when this side-story came up on Netgalley I requested the chance to read and review it. Thanks to the publisher for granting the request.

Here we get the full backstory of Rick, the 500-year-old vampire and decent guy who's one of Kitty's allies. Turned against his will by an acquaintance who knew him back when they were both on Coronado's unsuccessful expedition to find the Cities of Gold in Mexico, Rick is determined to be bad at vampiring; he has friends, not victims, and only uses his powers to protect people.

Naturally, this doesn't come easily, but it helps that he spends the first hundred years in complete isolation from other vampires, so nobody tells him how he's supposed to do it. Even in the present day, there's a lot he doesn't know, and he's still determined to be a good man (and a devout Catholic) insofar as that's possible for someone like him.

Carrie Vaughn is an excellent storyteller - her short stories are highly skilled, even though she's probably primarily known as a novelist, and in part this book is what used to be called a "fixup," joining several short stories together into a longer, multi-part narrative. The frame story isn't just a frame, though, but expands into something more.

The very early part, when Rick is turned, is darker and more horrific than I usually prefer, but it sets up a contrast that the author uses well. The essential goodness of a character who fights against the evil imposed on him to remain, in important ways, himself shines through powerfully throughout.

Although I've read a number of the Kitty Norville books, you could read this book without having done so and be fully oriented; the events of those books are only referred to briefly, some of the many adventures that Rick has had over his long life, and Rick himself is at the heart of the story. He's an appealing protagonist, and I enjoyed reading this. Perhaps I'll go back and read some more of the main series.

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Review: Spinning Silver

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Naomi Novik is doing some wonderful stuff lately. I was starting to feel that the flaws in her Temeraire series were outweighing the strengths, and then she started writing standalone fantasy novels like this, and like the excellent Uprooted.

It's a twist on the Rumpelstiltskin story, but it isn't at all closely constrained by its source material. There are at least three protagonists and several more viewpoint characters (one of whom was a bit of a surprise, and a signal, for me, that that particular character might have a shot at redemption, unlikely as that seemed); the main three are all capable young women who are treated, by their culture and by the men who surround them, as far less than they actually are. They decisively prove that underestimation to be wrong.

One is the daughter of a Jewish moneylender, and I'll admit that I set the book aside for a while and read other things because I was worried about which particular other shoes would drop for a Jewish family in an analog of Eastern Europe in what seems like the 18th or 19th century.

(view spoiler)[Happily, there is no pogrom, but there is plenty of tension and risk and high stakes nonetheless.

I wondered if a story like this, that is set up with so much potential for terrible tragedy all the way around, might have what I call the Glorious Ending, where someone makes a decision out of love and self-sacrifice that takes a story that seems destined for inevitable tragedy and turns it into a triumph. When I finished it, I didn't quite feel that it had hit the full Glorious Ending, but on reflection I'm going to grant it. It came so close that I felt the heat of it, at least.

I did wonder what was going to happen with the two unwanted and malevolent husbands. Were they just going to kill each other and leave the women in possession of the field? In the end, it was something more sophisticated than that, though I wasn't fully comfortable with the resolution; it plays a bit too close to the trope of "I believe my abuser can change if I stick with him," and that probably lost the book its potential fifth star. (hide spoiler)]

With those caveats, I found the story engaging, the characters powerful, the sense of tension and the stakes compelling, and the plot well-paced. It's not every author who can pull off a book with this many viewpoints and with three or four major plot threads closely intertwined, but Naomi Novik is definitely one who can.

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Review: The Elementalist: Rise of Hara

The Elementalist: Rise of Hara by T. M. White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

DNF at 42%. Between muddled worldbuilding, an annoying protagonist, and constant promises of action and adventure that still hadn't been fulfilled, this just wasn't for me.

There are three layers to the worldbuildng. Layer one is a fantasy secondary world, complete with continent map. The western not-quite-half of the continent has cultures with analogies to France or possibly Italy, and (judging by the names) to Ireland, but they're called something else. The eastern more-than-half has unaccountably (given its huge coastline) been enforcing a policy of isolation for years, now thawing, and (again, judging by the names) appears to have analogs of China and the Middle East. I'm never a big fan of basing fantasy cultures on real cultures, but I understand why people do it. The geography and history are, of course, not those of our world or anything close to it.

Somehow (again), the western part has had the industrial revolution and is all the way up to dieselpunk. This is where the second layer comes in.

The second layer of worldbuilding, at odds with the first, is set dressing that comes straight out of the 1920s or 1930s US, complete with fedoras, trench coats, and jazz. Early on, I noted a car stopped at a red light as challenging my suspension of disbelief (since that's a very arbitrary signal); I didn't know the half of it yet. This secondary world with a completely different history is fully furnished in a job lot of scenery and props straight out of the Jazz Age. It's like you were filming a fantasy epic and just decided to use the sound stage left over from The Great Gatsby.

On top of that is the third layer, which is the speech and attitudes of the characters. These are from contemporary USA, with no visible attempt to go for the 1920s or 30s as anything more than furniture. A nurse is more like a modern nurse practitioner, the status of women seems approximately as it is today, there are college protests against hate crimes and racism towards immigrants, and numerous small attitudes and turns of speech put us firmly in the early 21st century.

I was going to ding the book half a star for muddled worldbuilding, but it wasn't chock full of the usual sloppy mechanical errors, and there kept being promises (in the situation, and in what the protagonist was being trained for) that it would be a thrilling adventure later on, so I kept reading.

Ah, the protagonist. My personal favourite kind of protagonist is one who is strongly motivated by a personal commitment to do the right thing, and will persevere through any challenge, displaying competence and sound judgement and winning allies to her cause (because I do prefer female protagonists). Preferably, she's someone who isn't the most talented or the most gifted (and definitely not fated or prophesied as the Chosen One); she's an underdog, making up with strength of character for being ill-equipped to meet the scale of challenge she's presented with.

Voi, the protagonist of this book, is pretty much the exact opposite of all of this, except that she is a young woman. She constantly huffs, pouts, broods and sulks; she resists her training; she resists being recruited to the cause (probably quite rightly, but it makes her an unpromising protagonist); she has no self-discipline to go with her awesome powers of awesomeness that are better than anyone else in the history of talent. When she does make a decision, it's almost always an ill-judged one. I disliked her as a person and found her constantly annoying as a protagonist. Finally, when she had dangerous sex with a complete stranger because her powers were (for some reason) making her horny, I was done. Even though the many promises of action and adventure were finally (nearly halfway into the book) looking like they might start to pay off, that was just one too many negatives for me.

This book is very likely to the taste of quite a number of people, but I am not a part of that number, I'm afraid.

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Review: Floodtide

Floodtide by Heather Rose Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A very strong beginning and quite a strong ending were let down, for me, by a weak middle, and a viewpoint character who was neither the most interesting person nor the person with the most at stake. These craft missteps brought a well-edited and generally appealing book down to three stars.

I always say that if you give me a motivated character in a dynamic situation, you'll have my attention for as long as you want it. At the beginning of the book, it looked like that was what I was going to get. Roz is dismissed, without references, pay, or anything more than the clothes she's wearing at the time, for "lewd conduct" with another female servant. Desperate, she wanders the streets, homeless, penniless, and hopeless.

However, she quickly falls on her feet and gets not one, but two good opportunities. The biggest point of tension for her is that she'll eventually have to decide between them, but that decision isn't imminent or urgent. There are some half-formed romantic longings, but they never become plot drivers either, and the middle devolves into a long series of mostly inconsequential events. Roz is not striving for anything specifically, or trying to resolve any story question in particular, so there's really no plot to speak of, and she isn't a true protagonist, just a main character.

Interesting things are happening just offstage and to people who aren't Roz, but she (and, therefore, the audience through her first-person viewpoint) gets to hear about them only indirectly and not in any depth. I got the impression that this is a side story to a series that may tell some of those stories; I very much wished that I was reading the books that told those stories, and not this one, at times. Roz's is an engaging viewpoint, despite or, at times, because of its naivite, and she's one of those characters I sometimes wish we saw more of: the reliable, hard-working person of low status who isn't a noble in disguise or a fated Chosen One. The Samwise Gamgee, if you like. But in the whole of the book, she only does one thing that affects events to any degree worth speaking of, apart from perhaps bringing together characters who do more - and then holding things for them and handing them things while they do the interesting stuff.

Because there is interesting stuff on stage again, there at the end, and the characters collectively save the day. I'm all for ensemble casts, and I have no issue with that whatsoever; I'm even quite happy that, at the end, Roz makes something of a sacrifice (that still leaves her in a good position) to enable someone else to fulfil their potential. Unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the aimless middle.

What kept me reading through the aimless middle was the promise offered by the beginning; Roz's voice; and the fact that, even in an ARC from Netgalley, the copy editing was to a high standard (only five minor errors, two vocabulary and three apostrophe-related). The world-building was also interesting, with ubiquitous magic enmeshed with both folk tradition and Catholicism. But that middle part did drag the book down to three stars for me.

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