2021 Pleasures
by Cat Rambo
I go through a lot of reading each year, and I’ve listed highlights that I would recommend, sorted somewhat by category. Reading tends to be my primary mode of consumption of entertainment, but I’ll include non-reading suggestions towards the end.
I love me some good fantasy & science fiction, and it makes up the bulk of my reading. Here’s some highlights.
Piranesi by Susannah Clarke was slow and mysterious and satisfying, full of gorgeous moments.
Seth Dickinson’s the Traitor Baru Cormorant trilogy is economic fantasy at its best. Loved this.
Nicky Drayden’s Temper showcased Drayden’s skill with combining engaging action and rich worldbuilding.
Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife was tense and thrilling, as was Little Eyes (Samanta Schweblin, The Keep (Jennifer Egan), Machinehood (S.B. Divya), and Composite Creatures (Caroline Hardaker).
N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy was awesome, and I can’t believe I hadn’t read it before.
A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel combined SF with thriller action and just a soupcon of Katherine Neville’s The Eight in a very satisfying way.
Naomi Novik’s The Scholomance and The Last Graduate are fabulous! I cannot wait for the next book.
Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Firebreak was solid anti-corporate game-based world SF that I liked a lot more than a book it keeps getting compared to, ReadyPlayer One.
Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow is another take on mechas, and a highly enjoyable one.
Tools of a Thief by D. Hale Rambo is fun hgh fantasy, and I’m about to pick up the second book.
Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights is a terrifically fun retelling of Romeo and Juliet, set in 1920s Shanghai. I’m looking forward to reading the sequel.
The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction, edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, is just outstanding, in my opinion, and a landmark book.
Another outstanding anthology was Dispatches from Annares: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin, edited by Susan DeFreitas, which showcased some wonderful stories honoring one of our best writers.
Series that I enjoyed included Neal Asher’s Spatterjay books and Jacey Bedford’s Psi-tech
novels. I had the leisure of interviewing Bedford this year and will be looking for more from her!
I binged several F&SF authors this year, working my way through just about everything by K.J. Parker, along with all of the Penric & Desdemona novelas by Lois McMaster Bujold
Thrillers that I enjoyed included Double Bind (Chris Bohjalian), Grandfather Anonymous (Anthony Eichenlaub); and Dark Places (Gillian Flynn). I also adore a good LGBT historical romance. The Will Darling novels by K.J. Charles, starting with Subtle Blood, were a favorite.
Literary fiction favorites included The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barberry); Leading Men (Christopher Castellani), The Saturday Night Ghost Club (Craig Davidson); Mysterious Skin (Scott Heim), and The Good Lord Bird (James McBride)
I did a class on horror subgenres and in the process acquired an enormous reading list that should keep me occupied the next few years. Books that came me to that way, which I particularly enjoyed, were: Hex (Thomas Olde Heuvelt); Battle Royale (Koushon Takami); The Ancestor (Danielle Trussoni); Gone to See the River Man (Kristopher Triana); In My Dreams I Hold a Knife (Ashley Winstead) and We Cast a Shadow (Maurice Carlos Ruffin).
Graphic novels that I loved enough to stick on the keeper shelf over the course of this year included: Fun Home (Alison Bechdel); Black Hole (Charles Burns); My Favorite Thing is Monsters (Emil Ferris); The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (Erica Henderson); Far Sector (NK Jemisin); Gideon Falls: Volume 1 The Black Barn (Jeff Lemira); The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2 (Ryan North); Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles (Mark Russell); I Am Not Starfire (Mariko Tamaki); Saga volume 1 & 2 (Brian K. Vaughn)
Games that I particularly enjoyed this year included:
Deranged, a “gothic semi-cooperative adventure survival game” from UltraPro Entertainment was a lot of fun, and I do love games that require a little teamwork.
Isle of Cats, a cute board game that requires spatial thinking as well as strategy.
Wingspan, a lovely bird-focused board game that is also available online.
We need to finish up the current jigsaw puzzle to clear up table space, but then we’ll try out Lizard Wizard, a Kickstarter that I supported and which has some really lovely production values plus looks cute as heck.
I continue to play in a long-time campaign of Esper Genesis, (think D&D5E in space!) and actually will be doing some writing for them in 2022.
I just picked up Monsterhearts in order to run a session of it for some friends and am looking forward to creating a one-off session in that system, which is based on Powered By the Apocalypse.
And finally, I bought a Concept 2 rowing machine, which came with more recommendations than the much more spendy Hydrow and have been super happy with it. It does take up a good chunk of space, but it’s durable and I suspect I’ll get years out of it. Highly recommended!
Cat
Rambo lives, writes, and teaches somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Their 250+ fiction publications include stories in Asimov’s,
Clarkesworld Magazine, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
In 2020 they won the Nebula Award for fantasy novelette Carpe Glitter.
They are a former two-term President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America (SFWA). Their most recent works are space opera You Sexy Thing (Tor Macmillan, November, 2021), as well as an anthology, The Reinvented Heart (Arc Manor, February, 2022), co-edited with Jennifer Brozek. For more about Cat, as well as links to fiction and popular online school, The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, see their website.
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