The Crippled God by Steven Erikson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen (Book 10 of 10)
Genre: Epic fantasy, grimdark fantasy, fantasy
First published: March 2011 by Bantam (UK) and Tor (US)
The Crippled God is a breathtaking conclusion to an outstanding series; Malazan Book of the Fallen is a masterpiece of its genre and has affirmed its place as my favourite epic grimdark fantasy series. …
I received an ARC of The Trouble with Peace (Gollancz) in exchange for an honest review.
Cover illustration by: Tomás Almeida
The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Age of Madness (Book #2 of 3), First Law World (Book, #9 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Published: 15th September 2020 by Gollancz (UK) & 15th September 2020 by Orbit (US)
A savagely stunning sequel.
The Trouble With Peace takes place shortly after the events of A Little Hatred and its ominous conclusion. Whilst peace has been hard-won, it is a peace built on shaky foundations and the title for this second book in The Age of Madness trilogy is not coy about the direction of this story.
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A Little Hatred
Cover illustration by: Tomás Almeida
A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Age of Madness (Book #1 of 3), First Law World (Book, #8 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Published: 17th September 2019 by Gollancz (UK) & 17th September 2019 by Orbit (US)
As ferocious and fun as ever.
It’s been a while since I read a Joe Abercrombie novel, and the truth is that it has been too long. This dawned on me when I recently read one of his short stories in an anthology and was instantly reminded that he is one of the greatest fantasy writers of our era, with a writing style and tone of his own, and a gift for bringing words, thoughts and emotions to life like no other. A Little Hatred moved up on my TBR and when I saw that his latest book, The Trouble with Peace, was releasing soon I decided that there was no time like the present for catching up.
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ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
Cover illustration by: Derek Murphy
Kings of Heaven by Richard Nell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: Ash and Sand (Book #3 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Grimdark Fantasy
Pages: 411 pages
Published: 1st September 2020 by Richard Nell (Self-published)
Kings of Heaven has carved Ash and Sand as one of the best fantasy trilogies I’ve ever read.
“A man fails in only two ways, my son. He quits, or he dies.”
ARC provided by the publisher—Gollancz—in exchange for an honest review.
Cover illustration by: Tomas Almeida
The Trouble with Peace by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Age of Madness (Book #2 of 3), First Law World (Book, #9 of 10)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Grimdark fantasy
Pages: 512 pages (UK Hardback)
Published: 15th September 2020 by Gollancz (UK) & 15th September 2020 by Orbit (US)
Incredibly mesmeric and brilliant. The trouble with reading Abercrombie’s newest book is that there’s no more new Abercrombie book to read. …
ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
Cover illustration by: Felix Ortiz
Ash and Bones by Michael R. Fletcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Series: City of Sacrifice (Book #2 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, Grimdark Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy
Pages: 661 pages
Published: 1st August 2020 Michael R. Fletcher
Ash and Bones is a sequel filled with battles, narcotics, magic stones—especially obsidian—and moral dilemmas.
“There are two means of convincing a population to police itself: Religion, and Economy. Faith and greed.”
2020 has so far been a truly strange, stressful and complicated year, but reading wise it has been pretty incredible for me. I’ve read/listen to 73 books during this first six months of the year and quite a sizeable chunk of these garnered 4-stars and above. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I’ve added so many books onto my favourites shelf in the same period of time. If you’re interested, you can see my year in books for 2020 right here.
Similar to my previous list, I do not limit this to only books released this year. There are simply too many great books that have been published prior and that I’ve yet to read, so there will always be older books included. Below are the parameters that I’ve set for the list.
None of these are ranked except for the top three, of which two are tied for first place. The rest, I’ve listed them in the chronological order of when I’ve read them this year. All of these have been reviewed by me on Novel Notions and Goodreads.
Click here if you want to see the list of all the books I’ve read so far this year: Petrik’s Year in Books (2020)
Between 1st January 2020 until 30th June 2020, I’ve read and reviewed 71 books (35.7k pages).
Please read this first. There will be three rules I set in this list in order for me to give appreciation to more authors rather than having only a few authors hoarding this list. These rules allow me to highlight more authors, and at the same time, I’ll also be able to include both new and older books (many of them still need attention) that I read within this year.
Do note that although there’s a rank to this list, I HIGHLY recommend every book/series listed below because I loved all of them immensely, and they received a rating of 4.5 or 5 out of 5 stars from me. Without further ado, here are the top 15 books I’ve read this year so far! (All full reviews of the books listed can be found on Novel Notions and my Goodreads page.) …
ARC provided by the publisher—Harper Voyager—in exchange for an honest review.
Cover Illustration by: JungShan
The Burning God by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Series: The Poppy War Trilogy (Book #3 of 3)
Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Grimdark Fantasy, Military Fantasy
Pages: 640 pages
Published: 26th November 2020 by Harper Voyager (UK) and 17th November 2020 by Harper Voyager (US)
Bursting with violence, devastation, death, and profound emotions. The Burning God is by far the best book R.F. Kuang has written in her career so far. …
Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen (Book 9 of 10)
Genre: Epic fantasy, grimdark fantasy, fantasy
First published: 2009 by Bantam (UK) and 2010 by Tor (US)
The denouement of the Malazan Book of the Fallen is so long that it had to be written over two enormous books. Dust of Dreams is the first act of this grand finale and it was glorious!
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