2021 in books

Table of Contents

Preamble

Yes, we are 2026 and this is the 2021 edition of the year in books. Still working on catching up.

2021 was as bad as “promised”, with me off-work for 3 months for depression, and I was in part-time medical leave for the whole year. So not a lot of reading, despite the 43 I read, because I included some comfort re-reads like Yoko Tsuno.

Nevertheless, here it, as usual a mix of fiction and non-fiction, new and old authors and series. Please forgive me if the comments are shorter than usual, these were read like 6 years ago…

Our friends at Goodreads have done some nicely presented stats here and this article will go in more details than just stats :)

To the books!

Author of the Year

Let us say the author of the year is Roger Leloup, author and illustrator of the Yoko Tsuno series. I love his comics, the main characters and the stories. Towards the end of the series, stories become more complicated and split across several volumes with 2 or 3 threads. Outside of 2 main threads (Vinéa and outside) I mean.

Reading Again

  • “The Godwars” trilogy by Angus Wells. It is probably not well-known, not the best ever fantasy trilogy either, but I do enjoy it everytime I read it. Old favourite here.

Old Series (and authors)

There we find series I started before 2021 like The Dresden Files and The Invisible Library.

  • I kept on reading the Death Before Dragons series I started last year. Still alot of funny exchanges between Val and Lord Zav, and more explorations on Val’s past and father. This year’s list includes Storm Forged Secrets of the Sword I
  • I got to read the next installment of the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal, an alternate-history universe set in the 20th century where humanity established colonies on the Moon and Mars earlier than our own universe, due to a gigantic meteor hitting Earth after WWII. There we follow a friend of Elma York on the Moon colony. I thoroughly love the entire series.
  • I also went back to a series I started quite some time ago from Tanya Huff, author of the Vick Nelson series (later adapted as the TV series Blood Ties. She has a very good military sci-fi series, build around the character of Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, and The Heart of Valor is the #3 book in the series, and we see Torin fleeing the bureaucracy to enlist as instructor in a special unit. As usual, things do not go as planned.
  • What’s not to love about magic, a Regency-inspired world and romance? Throw in the subject of women independence during these times, money issues and a difficult choice, and you get a wonderful story. Loved The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk.
  • Part of this year is of course, another book in The Dresden Files called Cold Days. After the very unsettling events in the previous book, Harry finds himself in the (not very envious) position of Winter Knight to Mab. The position does involve the removal of certain individuals, and Harry is not too keen on that so… Trust Harry to have difficult times.

New Series (and authors)

Quite a few new authors in this section with debut works and I always welcome new voices in these genres.

  • First book of the year was a novella volumes by N. K. Jemisin and… I loved it. I tried reading the Broken Earth and while I do know it is highly regarded, I just stopped reading, because I could not find anything to keep me reading, not sure why, but nothing worked. It was nice to like this book a lot.
  • Next was Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard, a very nicely woven tale in a pre-colonial Vietnamese-esque world. I don’t usually read romantic fantasy, she knows how write these, and you learn a lot in the way vietnamese people interact, which is nice.
  • And in a surprising move, Dennis E. Taylor landed us a 4e volume in the Bobiverse series I binge-read in 2018. We get to follow the search for Bender, who left long time ago. Very nice followup.
  • Next was a new voice, someone I saw a lot mentioned on Twitter, so I got the book: The Unbroken by C. L. Clark. Fantastic story about Touraine, taken away when she was young as a solder, sent back to her homeland to defend the Empire, and it didn’t really work out. Meeting Luca, whose uncle is reigning on the country, had some interesting results and side effects :) Wonderful book, looking forward to read the next one.
  • And… we get to the second book in what I will call the “Extreme Geek” side of Michael W. Lucas, better known for his technical books in the computer field and his fantasy books. Back in 2017, he wrote Git Commit Murder a very nice play on attending conferences, contributing to software projects and the like. In Git Sync Murder, our geeky hero is back with some weird adventures :) Even if you don’t know much about the open source community, how it works and whats not, it is very funny.
  • new year also usually leans new series from Lindsay Buroker and of course, she doesn’t disappoint. This time, it is about a woman discovering she is a witch, while having to manage her grandmother’s estate after her death. It is unsettling enough, but she didn’t account for the werewolf her granny was providing shelter to… this is Mind Over Magic.
  • Last but not least, we have The Maleficent Seven by Cameron Johnston. Let’s follow the adventures of a former very bad villain, who fled the field at the eve of conquering the world, who now has to go back and bring her former associates to finish the job… Wonderful book, I need to read the second one now :)

Non Fiction

Apparently, none this year, surprising enough even for me.

Last words

Depression sucks my friends. Stay safe, take care of yourselves.

Series

Authors

The official sites for the authors, GR or WP if no site are available.

Archives