2017 Locus Recommended Reading List

Locus Magazine have just released their 2017 recommended reading list, as compiled by Locus editors, contributors, and other SFF professionals. You can find the list here, but I have some thoughts.

Image credit: Locusmag.com

The novel lists (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and First Novel) contain nearly all the 2017 novels I really liked. I was bummed to not see Mur Lafferty's brilliant SIX WAKES, which was one of my favorite books of the year.

Locus' Young Adult lists have often been criticized, but I think this year's list is strong and a good representative of the YA genre in 2017. This makes me happy.

The First Novels list is amazing. Winter Tide, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, The Art of Starving, Autonomous, The Tiger’s Daughter, Lincoln in the Bardo, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Barbary Station, and Amatka would have all probably made their respective genre's lists if they weren't debuts. Winter Tide and An Unkindness of Ghosts, especially, were top 10 sffh 2017 novels in my opinion.

It was an interesting choice to put Cat Valente's "The Refrigerator Monologues" under Collections and not Best Novella, as I think of it was one segmented story rather than a collection. That said, the list of Novellas is already packed. Figuring out a top five out of these is going to be really hard.

I'm still behind on my short fiction reading, but the stuff I've read from the lists is terrific. 2017 was another really great year for sff.