Top 10 Reads of 2015

Of the 32 books I read this year, here is my Top Ten List.

Note that these are books I READ in 2015, and NOT necessarily books that were published in 2015. (Only one of the titles in my Top 10, “Seveneves”, came out in 2015).

#	cover	title	author	my rating	genre	series info
1		The Lies of Locke Lamora	Scott Lynch		epic fantasy	1st
2		Mistborn: The Final Empire	Brandon Sanderson		epic fantasy	1st
3		Name of the Wind	Patrick Rothfuss		epic fantasy	1st
4		Red Seas Under Red Skies	Scott Lynch		epic fantasy	2nd
5		The Martian	Andy Weir		hard sci-fi	stand-alone
6		Small Gods	Terry Pratchett		humor fantasy	13th (but stand-alone)
7		The Last Colony	John Scalzi		sci-fi	3rd
8		Caliban’s War	James S.A. Corey		space opera sci-fi	2nd
9		The Providence Rider	Robert McCammon		historical thriller	4th
10		Seveneves	Neal Stephenson		hard sci-fi	stand-alone

Honorable Mention: The Churn by James S.A. Corey. As a short novella I thought sticking it in among the full novels wasn’t entirely fair, but by my rating (of 5 stars) I would place it between my #5 & #6 pick above.

Anything I rate as 5 stars (I LOVED it) I consider pretty awesome, but the books in positions 2 to 4 I consider VERY close ties and it was hard to put any one before another. Likewise there were a LOT of 4 star reads (I REALLY liked it) in this years list. Picking the best of those to fill out my top 10 list was tough, so I decided to give a good cross section of authors. There were a couple of 4-star classic sci-fi books and few more James S.A. Corey “The Expanse” books and novellas that were hard not to include.

I included info on genre and series info as I was a little surprised to note that the stuff I really like is usually in a series (guess I can’t get enough of a good thing). And while an avid (or rabid) sci-fi fan, this year a number of excellent fantasy books captured my best reads. Also of note the only author to appear in my Top 10 twice is Scott Lynch. I am so loving his “Gentleman Bastard” series. Right now I have just started the 3rd in the series, The Republic of Thieves, but doubt I will finish it before the end of the year. I also plan on reading more of Patrick Rothfuss‘ “The Kingkiller Chronicle” series as soon as possible.