Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion. Excellent fantasy epic, with great worldbuilding and very human characters. Also, it takes a nuanced look at good vs evil, which was a pleasant surprise from a fantasy novel. :)

It was originally 3 books, but getting the combined version from Baen was a cheaper - only $9 for everything. And Baen ebooks are DRM-free. :D

The follow-up series Paladin's Legacy is broader, more of an action-adventure series, but also focuses a lot more on Moon's unique take on fantasy races like elves, gnomes (her gnomes are awesome), etc.

#9 Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski

#7 Italo Calvino - If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

I need to read more post-modernist non-Usian stuff. Anyone got brain chips for French? I doubt Queneau comes across as well in translation. Calvino does, though. Or so I imagine. It has a bit of a slow start, and is deceptive in more ways than one, not to mention somewhat difficult of a read, but worth it once you get into it.

#8 Thomas de Quincey - Confessions of an English Opium Eater

Eh, as much as I love de Quincey and his writing style, Confessions just isn't very interesting. It's basically: I had a problem, then I replaced with with a bigger one, now I'm back to the original problem. The introductory part was fine, but from there it veers off into a sort of an unfocused and uninteresting, half-hearted mode that just sort of peters out into one big fictional apology for not being interesting or finished. On the positive side, so many new words that I'll soon forget.

Been enjoying the first couple books in the Discworld series;
The Colour of Magic
Mort
The Light Fantastic
Reaper Man
All by Terry Pratchet
Great British humour.

#09 Blish - They Shall Have Stars (Cities in Flight, #1)
#10 Vonnegut - Jailbird
#11 Pohl & Kornbluth - The Space Merchants (The Space Merchants #1)
#12 Disch - The Genocides

Blish was OK, satirizing the Cold War and the Usian paranoia, while simultaneously being way too optimistic about humanity having said stars. Something reportedly rarely encountered in contemporary SF.

Vonnegut's Jailbird is the weakest or second weakest Vonnegut I've read to date. It does pick up a little in the second half, so I think I prefer it to Breakfast of Champions. Amusingly, it also deals somewhat with Usian paranoia, though grounded in reality, which makes it all the more unpleasant.

Pohl & Kornbluth surprised me. I expected mercantile intrigue in space. I imagined something like Dune's guilds, back room intrigues and subtle maneuvering. Instead I got a satire of marketing and consumerism that shifts into a classic betrayal & revenge story, and quite competently so. If it does have a fault, it's the psychology of the main character, which is wholly unconvincing by the end.

Disch. As unpleasant as might be expected from a post-apocalyptic novel for adults, it features likely my favorite premise for such a scenario yet: giant plants. I'd recommend it, though it also suffers from poor psychology at times. However, unlike in The Space Merchants, the ending here is not diminished by it. It's sort of blackly humorous near the end. A very tasty dish.

It was an interesting gimmick but ultimately I disagree with the "worth it" sentiment. Every new chapter reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz5_WHi8lBI

These two books are just the introduction to the madness that is Miles Vorkosigan. Get ready for a hell of a ride ;)

I read a lot, but here's some from this year that have really stood out to me.

Feed by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) completely unique zombie story, I enjoyed it far more than I thought I was going to, wish I hadn't put off reading it for so long. Have the next two waiting to be read when I have a chunk of time to read them back-to-back

Read the first four books of The Expanse by James SA Corey; anxiously awaiting the last book coming out this summer.

Whispers Underground (Peter Grant #3) by Ben Aaronovitch. Good urban fantasy set in London

Strange Country by Deborah Coates. Contemporary fantasy, third book in a series. It's a unique setting

Well, I thought the "main" story chapters really got better and better. I was trying to explain to someone the second person, reader-as-character-told-by-auhtor-referring-to-reader-as-reader thing just before I got into the part where Calvino goes into it himself, and from there it never stopped being surprising. And the pastiches also got better as it went on, though I think it possible I'm just not well-versed enough to have recognized (and therefore, appreciated fully) what the earlier ones were aiming at. The "just the beginning" approach worked for me (or should I say, worked as intended?), and the pun ending put a huge grin on my face.

#10 American Sniper by Chris Kyle with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice

The Autobiography of the most lethal sniper in U.S. military history.

Couple more to add to the list:

The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss. Just as good as the first book, IMO, and I'm eagerly anticipating the next.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things - Patrick Rothfuss. A novella that follows a peripheral character, Auri, from his other books. I have to admit it's an odd book (he even describes as such), but I ended up really loving Auri's character.I liked her well enough from the other books, but this really made me love her. Great read. Very different.

Full List

Bully!: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt: Illustrated with More Than 250 Vintage Political Cartoons / by Rick Marschall
An entertaining read, though with regard to the author's bias, he tips his a hand a couple of times.

The Spectre, Volume 2: Wrath of God / written by John Ostrander ; art by Tom Mandrake
Collects The Spectre #13-22 from the early to mid-1990s. This and the first collection are some of the best writing in comics illustrated by dynamic artwork. Highly recommended.

Full list here.

I'm reading some Salvatore myself right now. The Cleric Quintet. I'm on book 4 right now -- and I think I'm getting towards the middle-ish end. Then just one left to go.

Book 1 was refreshing. No save the world. Just save a monastery from a necromancer. I can't remember book 2 off the top of my head, but I remember there were lots of elves doing something. But book 3. My goodness. It was the coolest. It's all about an assassin who, once he kills someone, can switch bodies with them. So you never know who the assassin might be. It was really neat.

Book 4 hasn't been as good, but it's been good.

Stephen Baxter: Time's Tapestry tetralogy. (begun last year and finished this year) - great books
Terry Goodkind: Severed Souls - if you liked the Sword of Truth series, it's a good read. Compared to Steven Erikson and Stephen Baxter which I read a bit earlier so they were fresh, the writing is more raw and naive. Still not a bad story overall.
Now I had a bit of pause from reading because of my game. But right now I'm taking a pause there so maybe I should pick up something...