Favorite Books of 2018

It's that time of year again when I look back at what I read in the past year and decide what was memorable or not. This year, I've only managed 11 books missing my goal of 12. I am 50% through my 12th one, though, so I might be able to finish it before the end of the year. According to Goodreads, these 11 books amounted to only 3735 pages making it one of the years I read the least. Mainly this was due to other things occupying my time. I also didn't write a review for everything I read. While I generally enjoy doing that, sometimes I find the process draining and can lead me to artificially slowing down the book while I come up with what to write.

Nevertheless, here are some of my favorite books this year. As always, remember that these are books *I* read in 2018, not necessarily those that were published in 2018.

The Mortal Tally by Sam Sykes

Sykes is an absolute character on twitter and it motivated me to try out his books, starting with The City Stained Red. The Mortal Tally is the second book in the series (I'm currently reading the third and final one) and it was a blast. Great humor and action scenes mixed in with a humanity and desperation. The second book ended in a very epic way so I look forward to seeing how the third one wraps it all up.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti is a series of short novellas and I read all 3 this year. It came as the top recommendation of Afrofuturism literature after the success of the Black Panther film. I didn't review the second or third parts, but they are all quite good. Binti is an incredible character stuck between two worlds and we get to see so much cool world building that I'm now curious to see if Okorafor has written more in this universe.

Skyward by Brandon Sanderson

I honestly thought this was a one-off novella, instead it's a full fledged book and the start of a new science fiction series by one of my favorite authors. I had forgotten how fun Sanderson's "short" books can be. This was a wild ride with a pilot school, a hilarious talking ship, and some very intense fight scenes as the characters struggle to survive. The ending scenes open up a whole universe of potential ideas on what could happen next.