My Top Ten BOOKS of 2023

 Starting last year, I started doing top ten lists for various pieces of media that I've consumed throughout the calendar year, and this year shall be no different. As usual, I tend to not consume the latest media as I'm either usually very far behind on a series as I've tended to discover it or fairly recently or just am that slow, so my lists always consist almost entirely of media from years passed; Their only qualification for making such lists like this is that I had read/watched/played them for the first time in the given year.

And so without further ado, here are my top ten books of 2023.

#10: THE RITUAL by Adam Nevill
This was the first of two books that I read this year that had connections to Norse mythology that I was unexpected but pleasantly surprised by. I'm one of those people who had been exposed to Nevill through the film adaptation of said book, and so when it came time to finally read the story that inspired the film I walked away disappointed a bit. There were some tense moments and really spooky scenes throughout, but halfway through the book takes a weird shift and does some things that the movie - thankfully - ignored for the most part.

#9: IT by Stephen King
Reading this had been a long time coming, having had it in my library since the newest film adaption came out(which I gave away to a friend and then bought the ebook version of). I knew it would be a long read, so I saved it specifically for the spookiest month of the year: October! It took me 3/4s of the month to read, but I had a blast. This was the first Stephen King book that I have read in full. A lot of which that was contained within that both adaptions have (largely) ignored was really surprising.

#8: ALIEN: THE COLD FORGE by Alex White
The last of the books I read for spooky season, somehow weasling its way in during the final week and a half of October. I've always been a big fan of the Alien series and wanted to read some literature that dove more into the universe and the Weyland-Utani company, and Cold Forge gave me just that. It wasn't groundbreaking and gave nothing new away regarding the "Xenomorphs", but it was one of the better tales in this series since Alien 3.

#7: THE SIBERIAN INCIDENT by Greig Beck
When it comes to horror, my favorite genre is definitely "parasitic alien comes to earth and causes mayhem", all thanks to John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. So when I stumbled across Beck's 'The Siberian Incident' late last year, I knew I had to read it. And wowee, it didn't disappoint on the alien side of things. I've not seen this sort of alien done in the way they did here. The Russian mafia side plot and weird brother-in-law side plots were a little odd, though.

#6: THE EMBER BLADE by Chris Wooding
I was hesitant about including this on the list at all. I was sold on the book with the promise of magic, a legendary sword, and high adventure, but I got Game of Thrones Lite. I still maintain that A Song of Ice and Fire and its rise to popularity had done serious damage to the fantasy genre that it still has yet to recover from in terms of having actual fantasy elements. But despite my grievances, I still really enjoyed The Ember Blade. Sure it wasn't what other readers had tried to sell it to me as, but what I got was still entertaining and had a cast of characters that I was mildly interested in re-joining enough that I bought Book 2 when it went on sale.

#5: THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green
I picked this up after watching a few minutes of the film adaptation. I like romance in my stories, be it wholesome or tragic. The Fault in Our Stars was both and it left me like a gut punch.

#4: WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks
The movie adaption, this was not. Not even remotely close. The book is a collection of interviews from individuals all over the globe, starting from the very beginning of the outbreak to the "end" when the world began to find itself in the new normal. 

#3: STOLEN TONGUES by Felix Blackwell
Right out of the gate, Stolen Tongues hits the reader with an extremely creepy prologue involving a talking parrot. This opening chapter set the mood and atmosphere for the book that, to the author's talent, it maintained all the way throughout. The couple at the lead of the story were so well written and worked wonderfully with each other. It's always extremely satisfying to see healthy relationships in media.

#2: WATCHERS by Dean Koontz
This book surprised the heck out of me at every turn. I loved the trio at the forefront of the story, one of which was Einstein the Golden Retriever. The early plot of a woman oppressed by her upbringing and slowly finding herself. A supportive male lead that sticks by her and encourages her. And then there was the main antagonist; The Outsider and Einstein's counterpart. Though it only appeared occasionally throughout the book and at the end for the climatic final confrontation, it was written in a way that you HAD to feel sympathy for it.

#1: HIGH MOOR by Graeme Reynolds
Taking the #1 spot for the year is Graeme Reynolds' first book in his High Moor trilogy, titled simply 'High Moor'. A little bit of Stephen King, a little of American Werewolf in London, and a lot more impending apocalypse than I anticipated. High Moor, despite only getting a 4-star rating on my GoodReads, surprised me at every turn. It began simple enough but ended in a place I had not foreseen and with the promise of much, much greater things to come. I plan to begin the next book either on the first full moon of 2024.