John Leckie Puns

Edit: Can't edit the title but it's a top 5 because I couldn't pick....oops

Well, another year, even more books. I feel like this is a common problem, but yet again, I ended up reading a lot less than I planned/hoped. Anyway, here's my list.

The Top 5:

1. Shadow of the Gods - John Gwynne always delivers. I've never read a book of his I didn't enjoy (the only one I didn't love being Malice, and I still liked it), and he upped the bar here. It read so quickly (read it in a day), has memorable characters, a really cool magic system, and Norse fantasy is really fresh and interesting. Also Gwynne's action scenes are crazy good (very few rival him)
2. Reaper - Will Wight gets a lot of love here, and rightfully so. If you're a fan of the wuxia/xianxia type stories, I think you'll feel right at home here. Even if you're not, chances are you'll still love it. They read so quickly (also b/c they are short), but what it lacks in intricate characters, it makes up in worldbuilding, great storytelling, and great action scenes. Highly recommend this series if you need a break from huge stories.
3. Heir of Novron - Sometimes I just want a classic fantasy with a good old fashioned prophecy, wizards, castles, elves, etc. Riyria delivers on all of this, with all the tropes, yet somehow still seems fresh/interesting enough to keep me extremely invested. And the reveals at the end are beautifully laid out, guiding me to the "revelations" (ha) along with the characters.
4. Demon in White - Shoutout to Mike's Book Reviews for being the reason I got into this series, it is really cool. I read this last January so it's already faded from recent memory but the characters were mediocre to me (I don't really care too much for the main character emotionally), but the world, political intrigue, and the action are all crazy good. Really excited for the last two concluding books.
5. Ender's Game - Can't really add much here since I'm quite late to the boat, but I see why it's a classic. I already knew the big twist but still worth a read.

Full List:

1. Stone of Farewell - Tad Williams
2. To Green Angel Tower - Tad Williams
3. Empire of Silence - Christopher Ruocchio
4. Howling Dark - Christopher Ruocchio
5. Demon in White - Christopher Ruocchio
6. Ready Player One - Earnest Cline
7. Storm Front - Jim Butcher
8. Fool Moon - Jim Butcher
9. The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie
10. The Emperor's Blades - Brian Stavely
11. Recursion - Blake Crouch
12. The Shado

While there are several authors that I read every year (eg. Abercrombie, Bujold, GGK, Le Guin) one of my perennial goals is to read works by authors that I haven't read before. Some of these are writers or works that I've had on my radar for a while and others are serendipitous finds. I am a "list" person so I keep a list of New Authors I Want to Read which expands and contracts through the year but generally numbers around 30-50. I'm usually able to read about a dozen authors from this list every year and in 2021 it was 14.

My New Authors in 2021:

• Poul Anderson (The Broken Sword)

• John Bierce (Into the Labyrinth)

• Jorge Luis Borges (Ficciones)

• Nino Cipri (Homesick: Stories)

• Jennifer Estep (Kill the Queen)

• Angélica Gorodischer (Kalpa Imperial)

• Alexis Henderson (The Year of the Witching)

• Claire Legrand (The Empirium trilogy)

• Peter Newman (The Vagrant series)

• Mariam Petrosyan (The Gray House)

• Anthony Ryan (Blood Song)

• Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)

• Martin L. Shoemaker (The Last Dance)

• Dan Simmons (Hyperion)

Edit: add Andy Weir (Project Hail Mary), fabulous story!

I discovered some truly talented authors and enjoyable works on this list. Both Claire Legrand and Peter Newman impressed me with their Empirium and Vagrant series. Mariam Petrosyan's The Gray House was a superb novel and I'm very sorry to learn that she might not publish again. Dan Simmons' Hyperion was probably the best sci-fi novel I read all year and I hope to be able to complete this series in 2022.

Some of the authors I'm looking forward to reading for the first time in 2022 include Arkady Martine, Amal El-Mohtar, Frans Bengtsson, and Ann Leckie. But I hope that there's at least a few more that aren't on my list yet.

Happy New Year in Fantasy Books!

Did you read any new authors in 2021 that you think deserve more recognition?

And which new authors are on your list for 2022?

For any completionists... I'm so sorry this is as long as it is. I should have just read another novel instead of writing this.

In 2021, I read 94 books, including 5 non-fiction, 35 graphic novels, and 54 novels (primarily speculative fiction). With a greater focus this year on reflection, I thought it would be a good use of my holidays to think back on the reading I’ve done, what I’ve particularly enjoyed or not enjoyed, and what I want to do better or differently in 2022. I'm including some non-spec-fic books in here just because I wanted to reflect on that, too, but I acknowledge that's not strictly relevant to this sub - hopefully the main bulk will be enough to let people overlook those lines!

HOW I READ

Most days, I read at least an hour of fiction before bed, pulling books from a pile on my nightstand (currently holding 20 books). In theory I also read throughout the day, splitting that time between fiction and nonfiction, but - as you can see! - I don’t read as much nonfiction as I’d like to. This is the first thing I’m going to be changing in 2022.

WHAT I READ

Book collection is fairly simple; I follow the Ryan Holiday philosophy of “if I want a book, I buy it.” This can create a significant backlog, but also caters to my desires to both support authors actively and to be able to change my reading list (or “TBR”) fluidly. This won’t be changing in 2022, much to my partner’s mocking chagrin.

That said, after a book is in hand, actual selection can get more complicated. I try not to leave too much time between books in a series (where possible), and I’ve neglected things I want to do (like reading nonfiction) to prioritize random YouTube binging to learn more and more about woodworking that … well, who knows if I’ll ever actually do it. (My current excuse is snow and cold.)

This year, I’m starting a book club amongst the leadership in my department primarily as a tool to motivate myself to read - if I hold myself accountable for that book club, I will set my priorities more strictly to what I want them to be.

I’ve tried to use Reddit’s wonderful r/fantasy bingo for a couple years to help guide my fiction choices, but every time I lose interest in controlling things in that way within a few months. This year, I’ve decided that - as part of this reflection - I would examine my choices and see if there are any holes I can fill in the rem

###Takeaways

2021 was by far the best reading year I've ever had, going from a previous high of 30 books read to 100+ this year. The primary catalyst of this was discovering that it was feasible for me to read most of my SFF books in audiobook form, although the pandemic and life situation definitely played roles. This is my first year doing Bingo. Interestingly, the books I picked up specifically to fill a Bingo square all ended up being 3.5 stars or fewer, while the ones I had already on my TBR ended up being 4+. I'll need to re-examine my selection process a bit for next year's Bingo, as I enjoyed finishing my card far more than actually reading the books I've discovered through it. Accomplishment itself has merit and I have diversified my reading more, but hopefully I can find more books that I really enjoy.

The biggest series discoveries for me from the books below were Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer (I loved books 1-2 but was disappointed by 3-4), The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and The Fire Sacraments by Robert V.S. Redick. I also finally managed to finish Malazan after three years (I disliked Dust of Dreams and loved The Crippled God).

BINGO CARD

###ROW ONE

Five Short Stories - The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (HM) 3★ >This sci-fi collection had a few strong stories, but the rest struggled to stand out. Bradbury’s writing was in a voice distinct to his era, making it feel like Mad Men on Mars. I felt similarly with Asimov’s work, neither of which have quite worked for me.

Set in Asia - The Hand of the Sun King by J.T. Greathouse 4.5★ >A young man gifted with powers from both sides of his heritage attempts to find his own path in a world he doesn’t really understand; one where he may be used by higher powers. Reminded me a bit of Dune in terms of the structure, especially in how victories could be tragedies and vice versa. One of the strongest debuts that I’ve read of late.

A-Z Genre Guide - Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (HM) 4.5★ >Both of Chiang’s short story collections have stuck with me and left me thinking afterwards more than any other SFF literature. They’re all really great stories.

Found Family - [*The House in the Ce

I have seen on many occasions, on this and other boards, people making lists of the best SF titles. They usually tend to be very selective, because of their personal reading habits and types of SF they like. So I decided to make my own list, using as impartial selection methods as I could.

I decided to rely on Goodreads for its huge number of raters. However, you cannot simply look at the average rating, because many authors have grossly high ratings because their fans give all their titles the maximum rating. So you have to be a little more clever to get an accurate rating of a given title.

I looked at the number of times a title has been shelved as science fiction on Goodread, compared to how many ratings it got. People tend not to shelve a title unless they actually think it's good, regardless of what rating they give it. I also included the average rating as part of my formula, because this does still have some value . Because my formula relies on ratios rater than absolute numbers, it works on less well-known titles as well.

I also only included titles that have been shelved as science fiction at least 100 times, otherwise I would be faced with many thousands or tens of thousand of titles, which would be completely unworkable to process by hand.

I ended up creating two lists, one for titles with publication dates up to 2010, and the other for publication dates after 2010. The post-2010 titles had ratings that were all inflated about two points, no doubt due to recency bias. My theory is that the majority of ratings in more recent titles were given by people who were not familiar with the older SF, and hence had no external standard of reference to grade the titles. So they end up giving the title a higher rating that it deserves, compared to older but equal-quality titles. And since the number of their ratings make up the majority of the totals for recent titles, the average ratings are inflated.

I also made a general rule of only one title per series, with a very small number of exceptions, otherwise this list would be much longer. That single title is usually the first book in the series, unless a later title is both greatly superior, and does not need the first book to be read first for understanding. If you like a given book, you are of course welcome to read more titles in that series.

A combined list of 200 "must-read" titles (basically, the top 200 titles according to the formula, that are eligible under the above rule)

Hello everyone! You posted your list of top 10 favorite books or series and we have (finally) completed the list. This list includes all entries with 5 or more votes.

• Voting thread.
• Full list can be found here along with the cleaned up data set if anyone is ambitious.
• 2019 poll results

This year had nearly 941 individual votes with nearly 9000 total votes. That's about twice as many votes as we had in 2019! There are about 1100 series on the full list.

Special thanks to the other mods for helping out, especially u/Dianthaa, u/cubansombrero, and u/Cassandra_Sanguine as I could not have finished this without them.

Hello there!

This year, I'm doing a themed bingo square with trans or nonbinary characters in every book. As such, I've spent a lot of time (too much time) compiling books that fit for each square. I had originally intended to post this list after finishing my board with a write-up, but seeing as we are past halfway through the bingo year and I'm on track to finish pretty late, I’ve decided to put this up early so it can hopefully actually be helpful for people still looking to fill their boards.

Books are listed under each category they fit, but I didn’t always check for some of the harder ones (eg. first person, forest setting) if they fit something obvious (eg. published in 2021, cat squasher). Books are sourced from the recommendations thread, the focus thread, the queersff database, readsrainbow, various Goodreads lists, and various threads in other subreddits. Also, disclaimer, I haven't read all these, so categorizations may be inaccurate. Please let me know if you notice that this is the case, or if there are any books I should add or remove!

Without further ado, here's my list of 250+ books that qualify for the trans/NB character square plus at least one other square:

Five Short Stories

Behind the Sun, Above the Moon edited by Brooklyn Ray

Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories by Sandra McDonald

Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K Jarboe

Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn’t Die edited by Dave Ring

Homesick: Stories by Nino Cipri

Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead

Love: Beyond Body, Space, and Time edited by Hope Nicholson

Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes edited by Gwen Benaway

Meanwhile, Elsewhere edited by Cat Fitzpatrick and Casey Plett

No Man of Woman Born by Ana Mardoll

Portland Diary: Short Stories 2016/2017 by Jamie Berrout

The Other Side: An Anthology of Queer Paranormal Romance edited by Melanie Gillman and Kori Michele Handwerker

Trans-Galactic Bike Ride: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories of Transgender and Nonbinary Adventurers ed. by Ly

The EP shows the band trying everything from britpop to sonic youth-esque sounds. I just picture them in the studio with john leckie trying out every sort of sound possible before it finally clicked with "the bends" sound.

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

I've been doing the r/Fantasy Bingo for the past couple years and this year I'm on pace to complete 6 cards. I have 4 completed so I figured I would share. I broke them into a Favourite Card (priority), Hard Mode Card, and then everything else

Top Row

Short Stories

1. Arcanum Unbound (Brandon Sanderson)

2. HM - Press Start To Play (Daniel H. Wilson)

3. Evil Is a Matter of Perspective (Adrian Collins)

4. Dracula's Guests and Other Weird Stories (Bram Stoker)

Asia

1. The Bone Shard Emperor (Andrea Stewart)

2. HM - The Bone Shard Daughter (Andrea Stewart)

3. Chaos Core (Gage Lee)

4. Relentless Souls (Ryan Kirk)

A-Z Genre Guide

1. The Steel Remains (Richard K. Morgan)

2. HM - The Poppy War (R.F. Kuang)

3. Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo)

4. Nice Dragons Finish Last (Rachel Aaron)

Found Family

1. The Siege of Skyhold (John Bierce)

2. HM - Oathbringer (Brandon Sanderson)

3. Rhythm of War (Brandon Sanderson)

4. Crooked Kingdom (Leigh Bardugo)

First Person

1. Crowfall (Ed McDonald)

2. HM - We Ride the Storm (Devin Madson)

3. Ravencry (Ed McDonald)

4. Journeymage (Terry Mancour)

2nd Row

Book Club

1. Combat Codes (Alexander Darwin)

2. HM - Stormblood (Jeremy Szal)

3. Chasing Graves (Ben Galley)

4. Gardens of the Moon (Steven Erikson)

New to You

1. The Helm of Midnight (Marina Lostetter)

2. HM - Fimbulwinter (E. William Brown)

3. Forge of Destiny (Yrsillar)

4. Early Years (TurtleMe)

Gothic

1. Empire of the Vampire (Jay Kristoff)

2. HM - Sandman Vol 1: Preludes & Nocturnes (Nail Gaiman)

3. Drachenfels (Kim Newman)

4. Nagash the Undying King (Joshua Reynolds)

Backlist

1. The Black Company (Glen Cook)

2. HM - The Gunslinger (Stephen King)

3. The Iron Circlet (Phil Tucker)

4. The White Song (Phil Tucker)

Revenge

1. Spirit of Vengeance (Rob J. Hayes)

2. HM - The Bonehunters (Steven Erikson)

3. Godsgrave (Jay Kristoff)

4. Darkdawn (Jay Kristoff)

3rd Row

Mystery

1. King of Assassins (R.J. Barker)

2. HM - Age of Assassins (R.J. Barker)

3. Blood of Assassins (R.J. Barker)

4. Johannes Cabal the Detective (Jonathon L. Howard)

Comfort

1. Reaper (Will Wight)

2. HM - A Traitor in Skyhold (John Bierce)

3. High Mage (Terry Mancour)

4. Jewel of the Endless Erg (John Bierce)

Published in 2021

1. The Last Graduate (Naomi Novik)

2. HM - Breach of Peace (Daniel Greene)

3. Bloodline (Will Wigh

In my opinion its will been 2-1 and Jamie Maclaren & Matty Leckie with score for Melbourne and John O'Shea will score from a set piece for Brisbane Roar

-- It's all there in the title, really. I'm looking for good books about the politics of large, imperial states. Which does not necessarily mean stories with lots of action scenes or battles. I'm more concerned with the personal and political drama that arises from the governance of these large states (or organizations--they don't have to literally be empires).

Some examples of books that more or less fit into this category that I've enjoyed previously, to give you an idea of what I mean:

• Anatolia Story series, by Chie Shinohara.
• Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie.
• The Collapsing Empire series, by John Scalzi.
• The Dandelion Dynasty series, by Ken Liu.
• Dune series, by Frank Herbert (the first four books, at least).
• The Empire series, by Raymond E. Feist.
• The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison.
• The Green Bone Saga series, by Fonda Lee.
• The Queen's Flower (Joou no Hana) series, by Izumi Kaneyoshi.
• The Legend of Galactic Heroes series, by Yoshiki Tanaka.
• A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine.
• The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, by Luo Guanzhong.
• Shogun, by James Cleveland.
• A Song of Ice and Fire series, by George R.R. Martin.
• The Stormlight Archives, by Brandon Sanderson.
• Taiko, by Eiji Yoshikawa.
• Tales of the Otori, by Lian Hearn.
• The Twelve Kingdoms series, by Fubuki Ono.

So... what else should I add to my reading list?

Alot of great jokes get posted here! However just because you have a joke, doesn't mean it's a dad joke.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT NSFW, THIS IS ABOUT LONG JOKES, BLONDE JOKES, SEXUAL JOKES, KNOCK KNOCK JOKES, POLITICAL JOKES, ETC BEING POSTED IN A DAD JOKE SUB

Try telling these sexual jokes that get posted here, to your kid and see how your spouse likes it.. if that goes well, Try telling one of your friends kid about your sex life being like Coca cola, first it was normal, than light and now zero , and see if the parents are OK with you telling their kid the "dad joke"

I'm not even referencing the NSFW, I'm saying Dad jokes are corny, and sometimes painful, not sexual

So check out r/jokes for all types of jokes

r/unclejokes for dirty jokes

r/3amjokes for real weird and alot of OC

r/cleandadjokes If your really sick of seeing not dad jokes in r/dadjokes

Punchline !

Edit: this is not a post about NSFW , This is about jokes, knock knock jokes, blonde jokes, political jokes etc being posted in a dad joke sub

Edit 2: don't touch the thermostat

Do your worst!

They were cooked in Greece.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

It's been used by Asimov in the Foundation series; by multiple other SF authors, including Ann Leckie and John Scalzi; in several Star Trek episodes.

It's a trope that named a TOS episode, even: "The Enemy Within."

Who are the people of Raxxla, the most bloodthirsty, powerful aliens, who hold amazing technological secrets? They're humans. They're us. We are the greatest danger to ourselves and each other.

The huge secret of the most dangerous place in the universe is that it's Earth.

(I assume I'm not the first or thousandth to have had this thought, but still thought it was interesting.)

Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"

Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

And now I’m cannelloni

Because she wanted to see the task manager.

And boy are my arms legs.

But that’s comparing apples to oranges

Heard they've been doing some shady business.

but then I remembered it was ground this morning.

Edit: Thank you guys for the awards, they're much nicer than the cardboard sleeve I've been using and reassures me that my jokes aren't stale

Edit 2: I have already been made aware that Men In Black 3 has told a version of this joke before. If the joke is not new to you, please enjoy any of the single origin puns in the comments

I previously identified two distinct clusters of voters in the 2021 Top Novels poll.

I selected 234 people who voted for at least two of the books in Cluster 2 (shown below) and tallied their votes separately to arrive at this list. If your tastes didn't quite match the official poll, this list might be more helpful for picking reads.

The Cluster 2 books (italicised) are (slightly) artificially inflated because I selected people who voted for them. But there are 20 books on the list and people only needed to vote for 2 to be included, so it didn't seem fair to exclude them either.

BamBOO!

They’re on standbi

A play on words.

Ants don’t even have the concept fathers, let alone a good dad joke. Keep r/ants out of my r/dadjokes.

But no, seriously. I understand rule 7 is great to have intelligent discussion, but sometimes it feels like 1 in 10 posts here is someone getting upset about the jokes on this sub. Let the mods deal with it, they regulate the sub.

My daughter, Chewbecca, not so much.

Pilot on me!!

Christopher Walken

Nothing, he was gladiator.

I read the most books I've ever read in 2021 - 88 books to be precise!

I thought I'd share with you all my absolute favourites of the year (it was hard to narrow down) - I would recommend all the books on this list. I've tried to include as many bingo tags as I can remember. I haven't included the subjective bingo tags (e.g. New to You).

I also created a spreadsheet of my reading and did an analysis of my reading habits, which you can view here: https://imgur.com/a/SHUB4Bs

The Memory Police - Yoko Ogawa - stand-alone novel - set in an island police state where the state can take away people's memories of objects, but there are a few people who remember. Melancholic, thoughtful and sinister. Bingo: none that I can see

Silver in the Wood - Emily Tesh - The first of a duology of novellas - a wild man of the woods meets the new owner of the estate that joins onto the woods. Romantic, dreamy and like a fairytale. Bingo: Forest setting, book club

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke - stand alone novel - this was my fantasy book of the year. This book is like a puzzle that slowly unlocks for you. Piranesi lives in The House, an infinite series of halls lined with statues, but all is not as it seems. Charming, mysterious and unique. Bingo: mystery plot (HM, I think?), first person POV

The Broken Earth Trilogy - N K Jemisin - Every single book in this trilogy was fantastic - this was hands-down my series of the year and I've read a lot of series I loved this year. Set just after an apocalyptic volcanic event, we follow Essun whose husband has murdered her son and run away with her daughter. Gripping, incredible worldbuilding and an incredible story. Bingo: trans or NB character, Chapter titles (HM), backlist, found family (for the last book in the trilogy) (HM), A-Z Genre Guide (HM)

Guards! Guards - Terry Pratchett - part of the Discworld - just a great fun read, and one of my favourite Discworld novels. I know the others in the City Watch series are excellent too, but this one is just wonderful. Funny, charming and creative. Bingo: found family, mystery plot (HM), comfort read (for me at least), A-Z genre guide

A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine - Second book in a duology - this was even better than the first book in this duology, fantastic worldbuilding and characters. I won't spoil it! Captivating, fun and intense. Bingo: first contact (HM), published in 2021

**The Long way to A Small Angry Pl

I am running out of books to read in series I have been following for a long time and would like recommendations for more stuff. Some things I have read are:

• Polity Series by Neal Asher
• Merchant Princes and Laundry Files by Charles Stross
• Murderbot by MarthA Wells
• Imperial Radche by Anne Leckie
• Interdependency and Old Man's War by John Sclazi
• Commonwealth and Confederation by Peter F Hamilton
• Bobiverse by Dennis E Taylor
• Saga of the Seven Suns By Kevin J Anderson
• The Expanse by James SA Correy
• Zones of Thought by Vernor Vinge
• Uplift by David Brin