Smorgasbord Fantasia

It's that time of the year again, gentle friends. When we look back, at perhaps one of the longest year we've had in all our lives combined. [ Thank you for that Theory of Relativity, Mr. Einstein] For all that time spent at home, pretending to work and also working my ass off on 14-hour workdays where the lines blur, I managed to smash my reading goals for the year. Already at 58 books and looking good to hit a couple more. And amidst this 58, found a few gems - Some series endings, a series starter, a couple of mid-series bridges that I thought definitely are amongst my top books I read this year [ published this year in 2020 ]  A few call-outs, before I get onto my top 5.  1. Was the year I discovered Martha Wells and that endearing fellow called MurderBot in the first four novellas, starting with All Systems Red. while the novel-length story of the MurderBot series came out this year ( Network Effect ) I unfortunately, didn't get around to reading it this year.  2. De

 This week we are featuring the upcoming new epic fantasy series opener from Stephen Deas , The Moonsteel Crown - from Angry Robot books. For now, while the description seems a bit sparse I will trust that Stephen Deas is a prolific writer and definitely one of the masters of the genre (Memory of Flames series) - and quite blindly take the plunge into this exciting new world he is building out.  The Emperor of Aria is dead, and three junior members of a street gang are unwittingly caught up in the ensuing struggle for the throne, in the first epic adventure in a new fantasy world from a master of the genre. The Emperor of Aria has been murdered, the Empire is in crisis, and Dead Men walk the streets... But Myla, Fings, and Seth couldn't care less. They're too busy just trying to survive in the Sulk-struck city of Varr, committing petty violence and pettier crimes to earn their keep in the Unrulys, a motley gang led by Blackhand.  When the Unrulys are commissioned to steal a m