Best Books of the Year So Far lists have been popping up all over the Internet from Amazon to Vulture.  If you like romance, thrillers, literary fiction, or fantasy, you can find a list for you.

 

This has been a great year for readers especially for the science fiction and fantasy fans.  With so much postponed from last year, the choices are great.  One book that is topping all the lists is Andy Weir’s latest, “Project Hail Mary” in which the world discovers that a strange change in the temperature of the sun is going to kill off all life on planet earth.  Scientists everywhere rush to find out why and how to stop it.  One of the scientists is Ryland Grace who awakens from a coma on board a spaceship; he can’t remember who he is nor why he is here and with his two fellow astronauts dead, he is left to figure it out for himself how to save Earth.   

 

If you loved “The Martian,” you will delight in this adventure with enough science and twists to satisfy any hard-core science fiction fan. 

Fantasy fans will definitely love “The Shadow of the Gods” by John Gwynne with its Norse influenced world-building; it follows three main characters who end up forced to fight to save their families and lives.  This is book one, and it is packed with “exhilarating fights and gruesome battles.” 

 

For fans of the “Loki” series on Disney plus, “The Witch’s Heart” by Genevieve Gornichee tells the story from the witch Angrboda’s point of view.  Burned at the stake by Odin, she survives by hiding in the woods, but when Loki returns her still beating heart (with typical Loki ulterior motives) the two fall in love and produce three strange children all with a role to play in the prophecies of Ragnarok. 

 

“The Last Watch” by J. S. Dewes stars the crew of the Argus stuck at the end of the universe watching for an alien threat from the Divide.  But when it comes, the commanding officer and crew are not at all prepared to cope with the enemy they face.  This book has been compared to “The Expanse” and described as “nail-biting space epic.”