Fiction Fans

2024: Year in Review

• Episode 171

Share episode

Your hosts reflect upon 2024 and their podcasting experience, including some stats about the books they read in the last year. They also award some superlatives, such as "Best Supporting Character," "Best Re-read," and "World Most Likely to Kill Us Instantly."


Find us on Discord / Support us on Patreon

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to A Brand New Year with Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words, too. I'm Lily.

Sara:

And I'm Sarah, and although it is a brand new year, we're actually going to be talking about the old one.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

In part.

Lilly:

It is a new year though.

Sara:

It is a new year.

Lilly:

This was our year in review where we talk about some of our overall statistics and trends from 2024. And then we also give out superlatives for villain or world where we would immediately die. I guess if it's a superlative it has to be world where we are most likely to immediately die. World most likely to immediately kill us. There we go.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Yeah. It's a good concept. We're working out some of the marketing parts.

Sara:

Some of the actual awards themselves don't fit technically into the new year. The linguistic, you know,

Lilly:

Yeah. Format.

Sara:

format, but the concept's there.

Lilly:

All right. Well, other than the Fiction Fans podcast, which you're listening to right now, I think the most exciting thing about 2024, which Oh, we're supposed to start with our intro questions, aren't we? Okay,

Sara:

are supposed to start with the intro questions. This is a different episode, but not that different.

Lilly:

What is something good that happened this year? We launched Solstitia! There we go. That was what I was gonna say, and I've, I've saved it. I've looped back around. We're on track.

Sara:

Are we, are we supposed to talk about podcast related things? In this, in this question. Okay.

Lilly:

But I was excited to talk about Solstitia, so.

Sara:

It is, solstitia is very exciting. But my good thing is going to be going back to Japan after a decade of not being there.

Lilly:

Was it really that long for you? Wow.

Sara:

It was, it was technically like a decade and a little bit. But the last time I was there was in 2014.

Lilly:

Very exciting.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

What are you drinking tonight?

Sara:

I am drinking champagne because I had champagne left over from the holidays, and originally we were going to record this closer to New Year's, so it felt, it felt more appropriate, but I still have the champagne, so I'm drinking it anyway.

Lilly:

There you go. I am drinking mint medley tea because it is cold as fuck and the

Sara:

good reason to be drinking tea.

Lilly:

Yes. And have you read anything good lately?

Sara:

I guess I'm not gonna answer this question with everything that I have read over the course of the year.

Lilly:

No.

Sara:

Although I think that would be valid because we're talking about, you know, the year as a whole. I've gone back to my Tolkien scholarship I don't want to say roots, habits.

Lilly:

Mmhmm.

Sara:

And I read The Great Tales Never End, which is a series of essays collected in honor of Christopher Tolkien. And it was great. I really enjoyed it.

Lilly:

Lovely. I have been reading Baldur's Gate 3 fanfiction.

Sara:

All so great.

Lilly:

quite on the same Genre, category, is what you've been reading. I recently re read a delightful story that is about some of the background characters, the tieflings that you meet in Act 1, and it sort of follows, like, what the heck they were up to while the main characters, the player character, is doing important plot stuff. I actually, I sent you a link to that. Have you had a chance to read it?

Sara:

I was, I was going to ask if that was the one that you sent me. No, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it does sound really good.

Lilly:

It's very sweet.

Sara:

I feel like. Since, since we're saying complimentary things about it, if you have the title and author, we should plug it.

Lilly:

I will bury you in diamonds by Rites of the Rat on AO3.

Sara:

Yeah, I do want to read it because it sounds really good.

Lilly:

That author also has some spectacularly weird porn. The story I'm recommending right now, not porn. But, just full disclosure.

Sara:

They have the range. Now we can talk about

Lilly:

Okay. Now can we talk about Solstitia?

Sara:

solstitia, or more technically, things that happened in 2024, one of which was we put out our first two issues of Solstitia, which was super exciting.

Lilly:

We learned a lot. We are sort of figuring out our system for collecting and evaluating submissions, streamlining the actual magazine construction process.

Sara:

I think also figuring out how much we have the time to actually read for the submissions, like just being more, I think, cognizant of how long it takes and how much actually goes into this.

Lilly:

Mm hmm.

Sara:

Well, when, we put out the first issue, I did not. I did not realize how much effort it was gonna be.

Lilly:

you did not think we were going to get very many submissions.

Sara:

I did not. We got a lot more submissions than I thought we were going to

Lilly:

And you read every word of every submission for the first issue, which is absolutely bonkers.

Sara:

I did, I did not actually read every word. I read a lot of words.

Lilly:

You're allowed to DNF submissions.

Sara:

I, I did start DNFing submissions with the first with the first issue. I

Lilly:

long did it take?

Sara:

it took me longer than it should have., I was much quicker to DNF stuff that was not working for me personally with the So,

Lilly:

My strategy is, before I DNF, do not finish a submission, I would go back and read the final, like, two pages. like, Things can surprise you.

Sara:

that's true.

Lilly:

And then occasionally I would go, Okay, I am actually going to read this whole thing. And none of those actually made it into the zine. But, I did give second and third chances.

Sara:

That's good. I might steal that method for next time.

Lilly:

The first issue was themed Pets in Space. So, quite a bit of science fiction, a lot of cute animals, a lot of sad animals, a lot of scary animals. Fun stuff. Highly recommend, obviously. Issue two was Creepy Crawlies, which was my idea. Sorry, Sarah.

Sara:

No, I thought it was my idea, actually.

Lilly:

Was it?

Sara:

Yeah, I think it was. I think it was. I mean, this is very counter to anything I like to read, so. I should be the one saying sorry Sarah, sorry self but I think that I was the one who first suggested it as the theme.

Lilly:

sure, we can put that on you. has much more of a horror bent to it, as you might imagine. A lot of bugs, although we actually had a good variety for our accepted pieces in the final zine.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

there's still some bugs, but,

Sara:

There was a great variety of the, kind of Creepy Crawly or the definition of Creepy Crawly because we wanted to keep it kind of loose just so that there was that room to play. And authors did play.

Lilly:

absolutely. And we will be going into this in a little bit more detail in a Patreon exclusive episode where we just talk about Solstitia issue 2. That is not this episode. What else happened in 2024?

Sara:

We finished our Discworld reread! I know, it's kind of bittersweet. so much of this podcast has been spent talking about Discworlds. But it's really weird to think that we're done with that. Not necessarily done with Terry Pratchett. He does have stuff that is non Discworlds that I would love to read for the podcast. Apparently I think we are only the seventh, according to Prat Chat, which is a Discworld podcast. We are the seventh podcast to finish covering all of Discworld. So go us.

Lilly:

Considering that we are not a Discworld centered podcast, too.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Well, confession, Sarah and I are both secretly numbers nerds in our other life. And so, what did we decide to do to talk about our podcast? Statistics.

Sara:

It's interesting. I mean, maybe it would be better as a blog post than an episode, but we're covering it in this episode anyway. We had the same number of full episodes this year as we did last year, so 48 episodes. Except that this year we also had two bonus episodes and seven exclusive episodes. The exclusive episodes that you could only listen to on our Patreon. Although I think Lily, you put the first like half hour of them up on our regular feed

Lilly:

Not for all of them. If the exclusive episode was at least I would put the first, like, 20 or so minutes as a teaser in our regular feed. So if you put more than that, it's not really exclusive anymore.

Sara:

True.

Lilly:

But yes, a couple of them had enough content that making a little mini preview episode felt reasonable.

Sara:

We covered 47 books this year versus 45 last year. So one of our episodes this year was not specifically book related. It was about translations. We interviewed translator. And last year, we had a couple of other, like, non book specific episodes. I think we talked about manga, we talked about publishing, we talked about something else that I don't remember.

Lilly:

And we did this year as well, but those were more in the bonus episodes rather than full episodes, I think.

Sara:

Exclusive episodes, you mean?

Lilly:

The TBR con was a bonus, I thought.

Sara:

Oh, the TBR con was a bonus, but our other bonus episode was talking about Adrian's book, Adrian Gibson's book, Mushroom Blues. That

Lilly:

seven exclusive episodes were released on Patreon, where, in this last year, we released 69 posts!

Sara:

is a good number for our Patreon.

Lilly:

I'm very proud of this. Purely unintentional, but I'll take it. 38 of those posts were rounds of Shoot, Screw, or Marry. Where we play the game, Shoot, Screw, or Marry, with characters from the books we have recently discussed for the podcast. My favorite title for episodes because I do terrible puns for all of them, was our most recent, Fourth Wang.

Sara:

It is. That is a good title.

Lilly:

That one's a masterpiece. Some of them, Are a little, like, eh, I don't know,

Sara:

More of a stretch.

Lilly:

well, not a stretch. These dark a bodies, from these dark a bodies instead of from these dark a bodes, that's good, but it's not as delightful.

Sara:

That's trill.

Lilly:

We also had some, just like, off topic conversations we have a couple of Sarah Explains Book Drama to Lily.

Sara:

Oh, I forgot we had done those.

Lilly:

At least one, yeah. Two? A couple. Overall, we published 1, 380 minutes of Patreon exclusive content, which is roughly 23 hours.

Sara:

it's a lot of Patreon inclusive content.

Lilly:

Mm hmm.

Sara:

in terms of genre for what we read we've already talked about the non book specific episodes. We read 23 fantasy books, so that's about 49%, which is less than 2023, where we read about 69%. Now, the astute listener is going to notice that these percentages don't actually add up to 100 because they're rounded and I was not being super strict about things, but, it's, you know, just a rough estimate. We read the same number of sci fi novels. This year as compared to last year, which was six. We read more horror six versus four, and also more other. So that includes every other genre that is not fantasy, sci fi, or horror. I think in this case it's like urban fantasy and cozy crime and we had a nonfiction book.

Lilly:

And Cidal Creek, whatever the heck you do that,

Sara:

Yeah, like literary.

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

just fiction.

Sara:

just fiction.

Lilly:

We burned through Discworld.

Sara:

We did, we read 13 Discworld novels this year versus nine last year, which I think was about what we read in 2022 as well, nine. So we definitely had an increase in Discworld, but that was because I really wanted to end the year on The Shepherd's Crown because it felt like such a good, Like, a final book for the year.

Lilly:

Absolutely, yeah.

Sara:

And in order to do that, we had to read a lot of Discworld.

Lilly:

It was fun, too. I think this was the year where they were the most new to me books because I had not actually read Discworld in its entirety before. So, yeah, all of the Tiffany Aking books we read this year were new to me. It was good.

Sara:

None of them were new to me, but I think they were probably the books that I had re read the least. Because as we do get farther into the series, I have re read them less. Going,

Lilly:

at random, so Going Postal was one that I was most familiar with, which we finally got to.

Sara:

going postal I've read a lot, but originally I was reading them in chronological order.

Lilly:

Now, I'm looking at our next category, which is series versus standalone, and it kind of seems like you did not include Discworld in these numbers.

Sara:

No, I did not include Discworld in these numbers because that would just screw all of our numbers, I think.

Lilly:

We also don't count Terry Pratchett in our author compositions, or at least we haven't in the past. Okay.

Sara:

We, we count him once. We don't count him all thirteen times. But he does get counted once. But yeah. So for series versus standalone this is not something that we tracked last year, but I, given that I want 2025 to be our year of finishing series, I thought it was interesting to think about.

Lilly:

Finishing series? This was not how it was pitched to me.

Sara:

Well, okay. Okay. You're right. It's, it's year of the sequels. Which is not the same thing as finishing series, but I hope that for like some trilogies we can finish them.

Lilly:

Is that how you're sneaking Wheel of Time into here?

Sara:

Wheel

Lilly:

well, Lily, we said we were gonna finish our series this year,

Sara:

we haven't even read the first one!

Lilly:

No, I know. But I've said I'm willing to read the first one.

Sara:

Oh, actually, you know, we should put that on the calendar for March when the new season comes out. things to think about. Yes. But no, I will, I will not make you read 14 Wheel of Time novels, or 15 Wheel of Time novels, however many there are. In this one year. Don't worry, I wouldn't do that to you.

Lilly:

You log on to record the podcast and it's just my cat sitting here meowing into the microphone

Sara:

I

Lilly:

I'm off doing anything else.

Sara:

Sif and Bard would be great co hosts,

Lilly:

That's true.

Sara:

But don't worry, you don't have to assign them to, to host in your stead. Anyway, so in 2024 we read 10 what I'm calling series starters. So these are the book ones in something that has a book. Two, we read four series continuations, 14 standalones, and then five books that are collections.

Lilly:

Is that where you put Clive Barker, Books of Blood, volumes one through three?

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Okay.

Sara:

I did put Clive Barker in the collection.

Lilly:

Technically, it's a starter and a continuation and a collection all at once, but

Sara:

True.

Lilly:

I think spiritually it fits in the collections category.

Sara:

I, I agree because the concept is. Starter and continuation, maybe, but I think the, the meaning is collection. We read five debut novels this year. That is an author's first book versus eight last year.

Lilly:

Now, these numbers confuse me, because as we have previously stated, we read several more Discworld books this year than last year, and yet somehow managed to have more unique authors than we have before.

Sara:

That is because last year we did a lot of repeat authors, within the same year, not, not just Terry Pratchett and we did that less this year, which is why we read 37 unique authors this year versus 34 last year. Of those 37 authors, 51 percent were female, 41 percent male. Were male. We had one non-binary author or a book by one non-binary author. And then 10 of those, or 27% were by non-white authors.

Lilly:

I was looking at these numbers and completely forgot our formatting for this. And I was trying to figure out how we had 51% female authors with 19 authors and 53 percent male authors with 18 authors. And then I realized that that was the previous year and not another option.

Sara:

Yes. So, so last year we read 53% female authors

Lilly:

one fewer author. So I'm gonna say, despite the percentage decreasing, still an overall improvement.

Sara:

I mean, I don't know if I would say improvement, but at least, like, the same. I think, I think we still did good.

Lilly:

I am not going to figure out the math for why more authors is not a decrease. I think we can just accept that that is true.

Sara:

And then in terms of like publisher comp composition. Again, most of the books that we've read this year, as with last year, were published by the big five trad publishing. So that's for this year, it's 57 percent or 27 books. We read 14 books by indie or small press publishers. That's about 30%. And eight books by self pub authors or 17%. So the Indian small press switched. Spots a little bit from last year last year. We read more self pub and less small press And that was the opposite this year.

Lilly:

This. Section does look like it is skewed by Discworld to me.

Sara:

That might be skewed by discworld. Yeah.

Lilly:

Just doing some math.

Sara:

Yeah, I think it is. I I don't think that my publisher data includes

Lilly:

Publisher's gotta be by

Sara:

accounts. Yeah, I don't, I don't think that that accounts for diskworlds. I mean, this is a really informal spreadsheet that I manually keep track of, so.

Lilly:

Yes, yes, but see, while you are a computer person and do real numbers, I am the person who goes, I know I just told you this number, but let me tell you why it means something else.

Sara:

I don't actually do real numbers. My counting all starts with zero.

Lilly:

We had more recent publications this year

Sara:

Yeah. So, I don't keep track of when a book was published necessarily, but I do think it's interesting to look at whether a book was published in the last two years. So this year or for 2024, we read 23 books that had been published within the last two years versus 19 last year.

Lilly:

And we certainly are not going to talk about how Pratchett was the author we read the most of, because we've done that quite a bit already. So, who, who did we pick on? Who were our favorites this year?

Sara:

In terms of full episodes the authors that we read the most, or author that we read the most, was Andrew Cartmell. We had him on for two episodes to talk about two of his books. We read two of Primi Mohamed's books, but they were both for the same episode. And then we read two books by Brian S. Glosemeyer, or one book and one short story, but the short story was an exclusive episode. So not actually like a main podcast feed episode.

Lilly:

And then, in the opposite situation, as Primi Muhammad, we have Adrian and Gibson, for whom we read one book and released two episodes, or one and a half. One of them was a bonus episode.

Sara:

Yes. So, for most guest appearances on the podcast, again, we have Andrew Carmel who came on for his two books. We have Adrian who came on for the full. episode, or the main episode, and then also his bonus episode. And then Connor Kaplan, who was only on for bonus or exclusive episodes.

Lilly:

The years definitely blur together. It's interesting. I can tell you which books I read in winter, but not which winter that was. Similarly, like, we were talking about K. R. R. Lockhaven's series for reasons you'll find out soon. But I was like, no, I know we read that book in May. We did. Not this May.

Sara:

We did read it. It was not this May.

Lilly:

We read a book by him in this May, but not the one I was thinking of.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

But now it's to the best portion of the episode, where we Submit? No. Bestow upon the books we read this year our superlatives. Aboard there is a word for that, isn't there?

Sara:

There is a word for that.

Lilly:

And we must start with Best Trash Villain, although by the criteria of the superlative, there were not a lot of options.

Sara:

I don't actually think that any of the books that we read this year had a trash villain. I mean, at least looking over the titles, I don't remember feeling like, Oh, this. This has a standout trash villain to me. most of our villains were just regular villains.

Lilly:

The love interest in Fourth Wing is Trash Villain Adjacent.

Sara:

He is trash villain adjacent, but

Lilly:

trash villain coded.

Sara:

I, I think he's, he turns out too nice.

Lilly:

No, but he's introduced like he could be a trash villain, and then he turns out to just be a guy. Good guy.

Sara:

Yeah, he's, he's almost a trash villain. If he had stayed an antagonist, he would have been a trash villain, but he turns into a love interest.

Lilly:

Now, Hunter's Gambit by C. L. Pirlo has some very excellent sexy vampire villains. Although I don't think any of them are really are trash villains.

Sara:

are, they are excellent villains, but I, again, I don't think that they were trash villains.

Lilly:

I mean, they're compelling and sexy in that vampire way, but there's not and the romantic interests are complicated. But I think there's enough of a separation between the genuine villain and the various antagonists that I don't think it really quite counts either.

Sara:

Yeah. I, I agree. I agree. So our next award goes to best supporting character.

Lilly:

I've forgotten his name.

Sara:

Gleebic?

Lilly:

Yeah, thank you. The goblin from Orgonomics, of course.

Sara:

Yes. Has, has to

Lilly:

100%. I think, not our first delightful goblin character on the podcast, but I believe that that conversation is where we decided to create a Goblin Era for ourselves.

Sara:

think so. And he is also the reason why I suggested that we read this book, it was a reread for me. I'd read it before. And I was like, Lily, you're going to love this goblin. So we need to read it for the podcast.

Lilly:

And I did.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

And, of course, we have to mention Morgan from Learn to Howl. The cousin!

Sara:

The cousin. Yes. Morgan is awesome. I hope that she does get her own spinoff trilogy as Jen Donahue has teased me with. Morgan's great. I love Morgan.

Lilly:

But then she wouldn't be the supporting character.

Sara:

No, she'd get her own, like, best main character category.

Lilly:

But then she couldn't win this award, so it's a good thing.

Sara:

Well, she could, she just wouldn't win it that year.

Lilly:

okay, sure.

Sara:

Or for that trilogy.

Lilly:

Yeah. But we do have an award for, of course, Best Hero.

Sara:

Yes, which you have put down Tiffany Aking, and I think I agree with that. I really enjoy Tiffany Aking's growth over the series. I think that miniseries of Discworld is just excellent. And Tiffany Aching, despite starting off as like a 10 year old, is not frustrating to read as an adult.

Lilly:

And also, it's not Best Main Character, right? It's Best Hero.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

I think her adventures and struggles feel like a genuine hero.

Sara:

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Our next category is best book by a new to us author. So this is an author that neither of us had previously read.

Lilly:

And we have been waiting 365 days to talk about Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk.

Sara:

Yes, We technically did read this in 2023, but the episode didn't come out until 2024, so we decided when we were doing our last year in review that it didn't qualify for anything, but that means that it qualifies for stuff this year, goddammit. So, absolutely best book by a new to us author, even though I knew the end.

Lilly:

Best book by a not new to us author. I'm going to, I think, bestow upon Bone Roots by Gabriella Houston.

Sara:

I would agree with that. I really enjoyed Bone Rats.

Lilly:

Great vibes, amazing characters, very scary. I tricked you into reading some scary books outside of Spooky Month this year.

Sara:

I don't know if, if it's so much you tricked me as Gabriela asked if we would read it

Lilly:

Yeah,

Sara:

and of course we're gonna read it.

Lilly:

I'm taking credit for that too. I'm taking credit for Solstitia. I'm taking credit for Roots coming out not in Spooky Month.

Sara:

But it, it certainly would have fit in Spooky Month.

Lilly:

And it's not a horror novel. It's just stressful.

Sara:

Oh, it's so stressful. It was, it was so stressful, but also really good and worth the stress.

Lilly:

And we did read, hold on, I know we have this note somewhere.

Sara:

Five debut authors or five, five debut novels.

Lilly:

Where is it?

Sara:

It's, it's up under, above author info and demographics.

Lilly:

It's on this sheet somewhere. I'll find, oh, there it is. There it is. I found it. You already had the answer, but I wanted to find it for my own self.

Sara:

Yes,

Lilly:

And I think my favorite was From These Dark Abodes by Lindsay Manussos.

Sara:

absolutely. I mean, just the, like the lushness of this novella, the longing, This was a book that we read for spooky month. This probably also for me could qualify as do we have this category? I thought we had this category. A book that surprised us the most. Because I was not necessarily expecting to like, love this book as much as I do. But I love this book. It was so good. Like, it, it hit all of my buttons. Quite,

Lilly:

a Uh, we get Sarah to enjoy. scary things. Except you were like it's not scary because it's bones and bones are cute and charming and that was the whole argument. Maybe that should go under our book we argued about the most. It's gonna get a special mention later on.

Sara:

quite possibly, yes.

Lilly:

Best sequel? I am calling out Ninth Life by Stark Holborn just because I love that series so much.

Sara:

Yes, and I think that Ninth Life was such a good addition to the series. Like, I, I loved gosh, I can't remember the order of the books. Is it Ten Lows the first and Hells Eight the second?

Lilly:

Yes.

Sara:

Yes, so I loved Hell's Eight too but Ninth Life, just something about it, just, it hit every mark.

Lilly:

And I always am so suspicious of series. Because you gotta maintain. And that's hard, right? And this trilogy does. The Factus something? The Factus something? That's the name of the planet most of the stories take place on. Actually, Do we know it's a trilogy?

Sara:

it's the factus sequence

Lilly:

there,

Sara:

we don't know that it's a trilogy.

Lilly:

there could be more. But this is clearly the end of Ten's story.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

it was good.

Sara:

Oh, it was so good. And I just, like, I loved the, way that the novel was set up. Just the way that it played with point of view and narrator. It was just, ah, chef's kiss. So for best reread, uh, no one is going to be surprised by your answer.

Lilly:

Well, I agree with yours as well, but I'm definitely going to say the Clive Barker Books of Blood horror short story collections I really liked. And I felt like our Spooky Month, specifically designed to not give you too hard of a time also, did need some, just like, classic ooey gooey misery in there, so.

Sara:

There, there was some ooey gooey misery there, that's for sure.

Lilly:

misery for you.

Sara:

Misery for me. Clive Barker is not going to be making any of my awards. My I think my best reread is probably gonna go to Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett. It could go to Nightwatch, because we did read Nightwatch this year also, again. And that is the Pratchett novel that I, adore and love the most, probably.

Lilly:

But, I mean, some of that's for meta reasons.

Sara:

of that is for meta reasons but I just, I think Monsters Regiment is just a good book and I really enjoyed rereading it.

Lilly:

It's fantastic. It holds up really well.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Now, which miniseries does it belong to? We can fight about that later.

Sara:

I don't think you and I are fighting about it so much as us versus Wikipedia.

Lilly:

Yeah, that's still a fight.

Sara:

It is. Now this next one, I don't know if you have an answer for it because I You don't tend to do a lot of reading that's not for the podcast.

Lilly:

I don't. I mean, I do, but it's all fanfiction, so.

Sara:

that could still qualify as an answer if you had an answer. But best work we read not for the podcast for me, that is, a tie between Dreadful by Caitlin Rosakis and Long Live Evil by Sarah Reese Brennan, both of which I absolutely adored. They both are kind of humorous, kind of satire. They say a lot, they use the fantasy genre to say a lot about common or modern problems with society in a very thoughtful but funny way. The only thing I'm mad about with Long Live Evil is that I have to wait until September for the sequel.

Lilly:

Mm, yes, because series are the worst.

Sara:

It's only a duology

Lilly:

It's still a series.

Sara:

that is still a series.

Lilly:

if we're gonna say that fanfiction counts, I'm going to say that my favorite was The Mushroom Mine by Chrono Nautical, also on AO3. It's the only place where I read fanfiction. This is a cozy reread for me. I return to it maybe once or twice a year, usually, when I can't sleep, and I'm like, you know what? I'll just be miserable tomorrow. Let's start a 124, 000 word story right now at 2am.

Sara:

Although it's longer than you usually read,

Lilly:

It is, yeah. It's The Hobbit, not exactly a fix it, it's kind of a fix it, but what if everyone lives and also Bilbo stays at Erebor and eventually he and Thorin fall in love? It's pretty straightforward, but the way that it handles Dwarven culture and that, what if scenario, while very self indulgent, feels more thoughtful than some other fanfiction. Now, best book we read for the podcast is a very vague category.

Sara:

It is a vague category and I feel like it could go to a lot of books because we read a lot of really good books. But I think Redemption of Morgan Bright was a standout. Redemption of Morgan Bright by Chris Panettiere, I should say was a standout and definitely one of the best books we read for the podcast. though it is a horror novel that you did, well, you didn't make me read this outside of Spooky Month but we did read it outside of Spooky Month. That's all on Chris.

Lilly:

I think I deserve all of the credit every time you have to read a scary book, even if it was entirely someone else's doing.

Sara:

Yeah, I'm fine with that. I'm okay with that.

Lilly:

Oh, this book was so good! It is indulgent in a way, That I really love in my horror, it's just like, let's, get in there. Let's feel these feelings, while still being extremely thoughtful. And one of those books that really lingers with you after you finish reading it

Sara:

Yeah, it's a book that you Keep thinking about, for sure.

Lilly:

constantly. Still. It's been almost a year.

Sara:

And like, my god, Chris has the range because he's done horror, he's done hard sci fi, he's done kind of, I don't know what you would call the phlebotomist fantasy, fantasy dystopian sci fi.

Lilly:

I think it's pretty solidly dystopian.

Sara:

Yeah he's done a lot of genres and all of his books have been excellent, so.

Lilly:

This next one's kind of a, a sweep. Because I think The Azure Archipelago by K. R. R. Lockhaven has won it. Every year since we've created the category. But the setting we would most like to live in.

Sara:

Yes definitely the Azura Archipelago. I don't know who's gonna win it next year because As far as I'm aware, he's not having more books come out in that setting. So he's not going to be able to win it, but.

Lilly:

I will say the competition was much thinner this year than it has been in the past. It was like, hmm, delightful island, tropical setting with capybaras that wear fancy clothes. Or a hellscape where all the mushrooms will kill you. And then also you know, post apocalyptic Southern California where there's no water left, or I don't know, Boston?

Sara:

Yeah, I agree that he he had less competition this year, but.

Lilly:

But he still bought it fair and square.

Sara:

He did still win at fair and square. We didn't read a lot of cozy novel. I mean, not that I would call his trilogy cozy, but we didn't read a lot of books that have cozy settings this year, did we?

Lilly:

We could go live in the Alaskan Yukon gold rush. and be prostitutes in Alaska and die of venereal disease.

Sara:

Also not what I would consider cozy. So, book setting we think we'd die immediately in.

Lilly:

I kind of just named one of them, which was Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. The mental image of the main character and her eventual ragtag group, but just so many people walking up the five freeway to try to get to Washington where there's still rain. And just all of the gun violence and, like, you know, murdering and pinch cannibalism. I don't think I'd do very well.

Sara:

No, probably not. I mean, the sad thing about that is how close it feels to modern day. Not necessarily with the murdering and the cannibalism, but The lack of rain and all of that.

Lilly:

Also, I'm already in Seattle, so I don't have to.

Sara:

So you're not going to be the one who dies, I'm going to be. Okay, I see how it is.

Lilly:

No, see, that's the thing, though. Even if I did have the resources in that world, I would just be immediately murdered for them.

Sara:

Yeah, I think my answer for this is The Siege of Burning Grass by Primooh Mohamed.

Lilly:

Mm, mm hmm.

Sara:

Because those two countries are at war. It's a bad war. And things don't really get better for a long time. I don't think that I would do very well in there.

Lilly:

Yeah, I mean, any of the war torn settings, I think we would crumble immediately.

Sara:

Probably.

Lilly:

Now. I have insisted in the past that Book That Surprised Us the Most is a positive category, but I am assigning it negatively this time. Because I was tricked into thinking that H. P. Lovecraft had value.

Sara:

I mean, I knew that he was racist going into it. But wow, is he racist?

Lilly:

to be a reason that people are still reading him, right? Womp womp.

Sara:

Womp womp. Yeah. I would probably agree with you. I also mentioned again, from These Dark Abodes by Lindsay Manussos just because. I was surprised at how much I liked it, given that it is horror and I really enjoyed it. But yeah, Cthulhu, at least the one Cthulhu story we read did not work for me.

Lilly:

I think, from these dark abodes, fits the intention of the award better.

Sara:

Yes, From These Dark Abodes is a positive surprise.

Lilly:

is what it was meant to be, yeah. I will say also, to a much lesser extent, but Where is the name of this book? City of Spores

Sara:

oh, Austin Shirey. It is Austin Shirey. But yeah, I, I also, I think was very positively surprised by that novella.

Lilly:

Yeah, when there's a book that I know, Only the paragraph of description about, it can go so many different ways, you know?

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Now, which book or series would we most like to be seen, no, would we most like to see be turned into a TV show or movie? Did I get there in the end? I think I did.

Sara:

You got there in the end. So I'm pretty sure that last year my answer was also a Jennifer Donahue series. This year I would like to see Learn to Howl as a movie trilogy specifically. I think last year my answer was probably Run with the Hunted, which I think would be great as a TV show. But Learn to Howl I want as a movie series.

Lilly:

I

Sara:

be excellent.

Lilly:

It would,

Sara:

Well, I'm not sure. Learn to Howl and the two sequels.

Lilly:

Is Learn to Howl not also the name of the series?

Sara:

It might actually also be the name of the series. But I just wanted to confirm that I'm talking not just about the first book, but about the trilogy as a whole.

Lilly:

And then they inexplicably split the last book into two movies for some reason, so you get four movies out of it. I

Sara:

movies for three books. But I want them to be, like, properly, lengthed, like the appropriate length for the action.

Lilly:

need 13 Ways to Kill Lulabel Rock by Mod Wolf.

Sara:

That would also be an excellent tv show.

Lilly:

It would be so good. I mean, it's a 13 episode miniseries, obviously!

Sara:

Yeah, obviously.

Lilly:

So good! Ah! And such a visually striking but still high concept story. I think that would just be

Sara:

Yeah, yeah, I think that would be excellent as like this really big budget one season show. And because it's a complete one season, like, no one feels bad when it doesn't get renewed for a second season.

Lilly:

Right, that's just, it's a complete story. It ends. Instead of getting dragged out ad nauseum.

Sara:

yeah, yeah, no, I would love that too. Coolest sci fi tech.

Lilly:

Gotta be Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov.

Sara:

Absolutely. The tech in that is really nifty. I kind of want to argue that it's not entirely a sci fi novel, but I think you're right that it's the coolest sci fi tech, so I'm not going to argue.

Lilly:

Yeah, that, that superlative does not have a genre attached to it.

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

sci fi tech, not tech in a sci fi novel.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

I think that Barsukov could also have an honorable mention for coolest magic system

Sara:

Yeah, actually. I think he could win both of those awards.

Lilly:

for the same. Well, the magic system, I think, also encompasses the crazy reality stuff happening.

Sara:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Lilly:

the tech, the Drakiri, I believe, technology, definitely qualifies for both of those.

Sara:

And I think the only reason why I didn't. mention him or this book for best reread is because Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory is really an expansion of his original novella. So there was so much new content that it didn't just feel like a reread.

Lilly:

Oh yeah,

Sara:

But I, I thought about it.

Lilly:

No, if you didn't read the ending, it doesn't count.

Sara:

Yeah, I just read the first half.

Lilly:

For best relationship, I'm going to say the main character and her partner in Countess by Susan Palumbo.

Sara:

I would like to specify that that's her second partner

Lilly:

Okay.

Sara:

because when I first saw you put this down I thought her first partner and that is not what I would consider a great relationship at all.

Lilly:

No. And there are, well, we could quibble on the definition of best relationship, probably, but,

Sara:

Yeah. Okay. We could.

Lilly:

I think.

Sara:

But assuming that we mean it to be, like, best favorable relationship, best, like, good for each other relationship I agree. It's her,

Lilly:

not the lived happily ever after superlative. I'll just leave it at that.

Sara:

yep. Susan likes ripping my heart out.

Lilly:

Book that we argued over the most. We had an honorable mention earlier, which I've already forgotten. Minutes ago.

Sara:

we, we had, and I, it was From These Dark Abodes by Lindsay Manussos.

Lilly:

Ah, yes. Because you were saying that because it doesn't scare you, therefore it's not scary. And I was like, no, no, you just like bones.

Sara:

Yeah, we, we did have some arguments over that.

Lilly:

Also a genre argument was Coup de Grace, the Firefly novel tie in by Una McCormick, not novelization, which is what I say and then am wrong.

Sara:

yes. That is a novel tie in or a tie in novel. It is not a novelization of an episode that was shown on TV.

Lilly:

And the argument there was, What the fuck is up with tie in novels?

Sara:

You had a lot of difficulty with that concept.

Lilly:

just, I don't, I think I don't get it, still. Or, like, I could describe it, but I don't think I'd be happy about it.

Sara:

Yeah. So we, we did do some arguing over. Just the concept of tie in novels, but we didn't, I think, crucially, I want to distinguish for, for this award that we did not argue over the book itself.

Lilly:

No, no, the book was good. I just I

Sara:

we were just,

Lilly:

fundamental issues with the concept.

Sara:

we just argued a lot in the episode, but none of it was about the book itself.

Lilly:

And we're kind of ending this on a bummer. We should actually order these, maybe.

Sara:

We should.

Lilly:

This is the randomest order, but our final award is Worst Mother of the Year, and that is going to The Esher Man by T. R. Knapper.

Sara:

No question. She just drags, I mean, I guess she's trying to take her children out of an unsafe situation, but.

Lilly:

Not really.

Sara:

not really, she's, she feels more focused on her husband or partner than she does on her children, and it leads to some bad situations. Nothing happens to the kids, but I still think that she could have been a better mom. You

Lilly:

In a, on a basic, like, survival level. that was 2024. Good year. Very fine vintage. Excellent episodes. If you missed any of them, I highly recommend you give them a shot.

Sara:

can find them wherever your podcasts live.

Lilly:

That's true. But, it is in fact the beginning of 2025. What do we have to look forward to? What is coming up?

Sara:

So for things that we have to look forward to, it's our year of sequels, kind of, where hopefully we read lots of sequels to some of the series that we've started in previous years. I'm particularly wanting to continue both the Orcanomics series by J. Zachary Pike that we've talked about a little bit, but also Ithaca by Claire North. I would really love to read book two, which I think is House of Odysseus and maybe even book three.

Lilly:

Ooh, getting wild.

Sara:

Yeah! I'm also looking forward to this being our goblin era year so hopefully we have lots of goblin episodes. Cause I like goblins.

Lilly:

Yes. We're a pro goblin podcast.

Sara:

This is a pro goblin podcast.

Lilly:

On the subject of sequels, I would love to hear from our listeners what kind of conversation they'd be interested in. I feel like sequels are hard to cover because you're filtering out almost anyone who who is not familiar with the first book, right? So having our spoiler free conversation, we've talked a little bit about maybe creating a second layer. Like, start with a truly no spoiler conversation, that'll probably be pretty short, and then going into our Gonna spoil the first book, but not spoiling the book we're talking about here, and then the fully spoiler conversation at the end. But I do think when you're talking about a follow up work, it does change the sort of angle that you approach it from.

Sara:

Yeah, I I think it's a hard line to, like, walk. And I think that's probably why we haven't done a lot of sequels to date. I mean, we've done some. There's also just the fact that you're not a huge fan of, series in general, and that, that has an effect too, but I think we haven't really figured out how best to cover sequels in a way that is interesting for us as we're discussing, but also like inviting to listeners who haven't read books one or, you know, however many in the series that we're covering.

Lilly:

Yeah. It's gonna be a challenge. I'm up for it. I'm excited. I'm also excited to read some of these. I know I am hard on sequels, but I think justifiably so. Because if you're asking me to invest that much of my life into a story, you gotta make it worth it.

Sara:

I think you're a little harder than is really justifiable, but it's probably somewhere in between my opinion on sequels and your opinion on sequels or series.

Lilly:

That's probably true for everything we disagree on.

Sara:

Probably.

Lilly:

Now, what are our goals for our episodes coming up?

Sara:

Goals. So, I would really like to read more books by non white authors. We can do better than 25%. Granted, we did better than 2023 where 18 percent of the authors that we read were not white. So, like, we are improving. But that's still something that I would like to see us get better at and I know that's on me because I am the one who puts out the calendar, like, who puts together the calendar, but

Lilly:

It's gonna be easier now that we have a hell of a lot of Discworld spots

Sara:

yeah, we have,

Lilly:

not Terry

Sara:

have 13 books that are no longer being taken up, or 13 spots that are no longer taken, by Pratchett. So yeah, we do have more spots. I would also like to see us read more sci fi because you like, to read sci fi and have expressed an interest in reading more sci fi. We were doing well at increasing the amount of sci fi, and then we kind of, like, backslid last year. So,

Lilly:

I actually disagree with that one. I feel like this year we hit, what was it?

Sara:

I mean, we read the same number of books that were sci fi, This year versus last year, but in, in 2022, I think we read eight sci fi novels or something.

Lilly:

I, so, here's the thing. I think 50 percent fantasy is the right amount of fantasy.

Sara:

Hmm,

Lilly:

Because we do both love fantasy.

Sara:

we do.

Lilly:

And I do enjoy sci fi, but there are other genres out there. Now, you could argue that horror also fits under either of those categories, but that's a whole conversation.

Sara:

I guess, I guess really what I mean is I want us to see, I want to see us reading more books that, you were excited about too, not just that you were going along with me putting on the calendar.

Lilly:

I'm excited about books.

Sara:

I, I know, but, but you do, you do just allow me to put stuff on the calendar a lot of the times, which I appreciate.

Lilly:

our taste is generally fairly similar, until it's not in very dramatic ways.

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

But yeah, I think 50 percent fantasy feels right, honestly and then how the other 50 percent breaks out, some years it's gonna be more sci fi, some years it's not, and I think that's just gonna be fluctuating, and that's okay.

Sara:

Hmm.

Lilly:

But like, I wouldn't want us to go less fantasy, and I don't want to get rid of all of our horror. So I think sci fi is just kind of stuck where it's at.

Sara:

Okay. Fair enough. Fair

Lilly:

But I appreciate the consideration.

Sara:

It's the thought that counts.

Lilly:

We have had some requests for more interviews with non authors, people in the publishing industry. I think a specific one was an editor, which we are sort of in conversations around trying to figure that out. But I think that would be very interesting and a super cool conversation to have. So fingers crossed we get that

Sara:

Yeah. I would love, to talk. To more people who are involved in the publishing industry, not as authors. I think those would be really interesting conversations to have. And we did have a conversation about translation in 2024, which was fascinating. And I'd like to see more of that. I agree.

Lilly:

And more Patreon exclusive episodes. We didn't quite hit one a month.

Sara:

Yes, our goal is one a month. I think that's what we say in our, in our, like, Patreon. So I would like to see us hit that.

Lilly:

It was more than every other month. And also, I don't think we started in January last year.

Sara:

I mean,

Lilly:

in, like, April.

Sara:

we, we did good. We certainly did better last year than we have done in any years that we've had the Patreon, which is actually not that long,

Lilly:

Last year was the launch of our true Patreon and not just testing it out to see how the hell this thing works.

Sara:

Yeah, but I still would like to see us have an episode a month. I think that would be better value for our patrons. So,

Lilly:

not arguing with that.

Sara:

yeah. So that, that remains the goal.

Lilly:

I think that's, that's a wrap. 2024 has been concluded. 2025 is about to begin. We have both already finished the book. That will be our first book to discuss in the year, and I have had to not talk about it for the last hour, which is hard.

Sara:

that's starting off on a very strong foot, because usually we are reading these books right up until our recording time.

Lilly:

So many frantic Discord messages of, Can we push back 20 minutes? I'm so close.

Sara:

Yeah, so, it's a great start, and we have some excellent books on our calendar already that I'm looking forward to reading. We do still have some empty spaces because I'm really restraining myself. So it's not completely filled up yet, but we've got a lot of excellent books to look forward to. And I think 2025 is going to be a great year.

Lilly:

Are we posting that list on our blog by any chance?

Sara:

We are it's not entirely up to date yet, but we do have a blog post that will contain our 2025 reading list which will be updated every as our calendar gets updated. So if you want to read along with us if you want to know in advance what we're reading, you can check that out. It doesn't give dates, but I mean, you can assume that if we read a book, week. then you can assume that the first book that we have not talked about is going to be the book for that week.

Lilly:

They don't have dates, but they are in order.

Sara:

They don't have dates but they are in order, yes.

Lilly:

move the order around for some frantic last minute reason,

Sara:

Yes, but then I move the order around on the blog posts too.

Lilly:

Incredible.

Sara:

Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily move it around. in time, but I do move it around eventually.

Lilly:

And if you want some input over which books we read, we do have several slots held for patron choice, which is decided by a poll. And our very first patron choice book of this year has just been decided, actually. The poll just ended.

Sara:

What will we be reading for our patron's choice?

Lilly:

For the category, Living Our Best Goblin Life. The winner is No, don't edit the post, show me the results. I'm very good at Patreon. The problem is we've posted so much, I had to scroll so far back. The winner is The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.

Sara:

Which I'm excited to read, but I am also sad that none of the other options won because I was excited to read those two.

Lilly:

I know, we might have to sneak some of these in.

Sara:

Oh, we're definitely going to have to sneak some of them in. Like Dreadful by Caitlin Rosakis was on there. Echoes of the Imperium by Nicholas Atwater and Olivia Atwater was on there. I really want to read that. Yeah. there might be a second Goblin Era Patreon poll.

Lilly:

Well, we haven't left the era yet, so.

Sara:

We have not left the era.

Lilly:

With that, thank you so much for listening to this episode and this year of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

Come disagree with us! We're on BlueSky and Instagram and TikTok, at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.

Lilly:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, leave a comment on YouTube, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!