I'm wondering, have you read the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson? Not all of it is stellar, but it is one the best fantasy writing I've read. Particularly the incredible world-building I want to note here, since you said you were fond of this aspect in the series you mentioned above.

No. Remember looking into it quite seriously way back, but seemed too dark and with characters that'd be too unlikable, so I eventually discarded it.

Anomaly is a grossly over-sized behemoth of a comic book and I love every square inch of every video game-looking page.

Over the course of 700 years, Earth politics transform into a single corporate hell-scape called the Conglomerate that genocides every sentient alien race expected to not tow the company line; some aliens welcome their new human overlords because previous overlords were even worse. Jon was framed via "glitchy" gun for beginning the most recent extinction event by suddenly murdering a leader of a stubborn race mid-diplomacy. He's given the "opportunity" of redemption by serving as security on a first-contact mission, but derelict satellites drift conspicuously in orbit. The mission was a sham to dispose of unwanted individuals and now they're trapped on Planet Mordor thanks to tech-devouring mold and an evil wizard bent on enslaving everyone.

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS (details link)

Once again I needed to do this, due to the word count limitation of a post.

05 - M.J. ROSE [1] - IN SESSION - PCF - 12-JAN-24 --> 12-JAN-24 (Kobo) Short Stories
.. (1) Extenuating Circumstances (Cotton Malone) - 12-JAN-24 --> 12-JAN-24 (M.J. ROSE & Steve Berry)
.. (2) Decisions, Decisions (John Rain) - 12-JAN-24 --> 12-JAN-24 (M.J. ROSE & Barry Eisler)
.. (3) Knowing You’re Alive (Jack Reacher) - 12-JAN-24 --> 12-JAN-24 (M.J. ROSE & Lee Child)

46 - ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY [16] - SPOILS OF WAR - PCF - 09-SEP-24 --> 15-SEP-24 (Kobo) Short Story Collection
.. (1) To Own The Sky - 09-SEP-24 --> 09-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (2) Ironclads (Re-Read) - 10-SEP-24 --> 10-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (3) Spoils Of War (Re-Read) - 10-SEP-24 --> 10-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (4) Camouflage - 11-SEP-24 --> 11-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (5) The Shadows Of Their Lamps - 11-SEP-24 --> 11-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (6) The Dreams Of Avaris (Re-Read) - 11-SEP-24 --> 11-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (7) The Prince - 12-SEP-24 --> 14-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (8) Shadow Hunters - 14-SEP-24 --> 14-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (9) Sword And Circle - 14-SEP-24 --> 14-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (10) Idle Hands - 14-SEP-24 --> 14-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (11) An Old Man In A Harsh Season - 14-SEP-24 --> 15-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (12) Brass Mantis - 15-SEP-24 --> 15-SEP-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)

50 - CRAIG A. FALCONER [10] - CHASING TOMORROWS (15-Book Sci-Fi Box Set) - PCF - 21-SEP-24 --> reading (Paperwhite) Sci-Fi Sizzlers
.. (1) Wanderlust - 21-SEP-24 --> 21-SEP-24 (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (2) Bound For Glory - 29-SEP-24 --> 03-OCT-24 (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (3) Sunset Stays - 12-OCT-24 --> 12-OCT-24 (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (4) Arise With Us - 26-OCT-24 --> 26-OCT-24 (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (5) Whence They Came - 20-NOV-24 --> 20-NOV-24 (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (6) Replica - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (7) Megaton Murphy - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (8) A Scent Of Man - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (9) Yester Year - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (10) Too Good To Be True - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (11) Happy, Inc. - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (12) Pamela 2.0 - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (13) Funscreen - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (14) Pumpkin Splice - --> (Craig A. Falconer)
.. (15) When Santa Slays - --> (Craig A. Falconer)

53 - ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY [17] - A TIME FOR GRIEF - PCF - 05-OCT-24 --> 09-OCT-24 (Paperwhite) Short Story Collection
.. (1) Loyalties - 05-OCT-24 --> 05-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (2) Bones - 05-OCT-24 --> 05-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (3) Queen Of The Night - 05-OCT-24 --> 05-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (4) Fallen Heroes (Re-Read) - 06-OCT-24 --> 06-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (5) The Price Of Salt - 06-OCT-24 --> 06-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (6) The Naturalist - 07-OCT-24 --> 07-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (7) The Last Ironclad - 07-OCT-24 --> 07-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (8) Alicaea's Children - 08-OCT-24 --> 08-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (9) A Time For Grief - 08-OCT-24 --> 08-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (10) The Peacemongers - 08-OCT-24 --> 09-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)

60 - ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY [18] - FOR LOVE OF DISTANT SHORES - PCF - 29-OCT-24 --> 10-NOV-24 (Paperwhite) Novella Collection
.. (1) Cities Of Silver - 29-OCT-24 --> 29-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (2) Written In Sand - 30-OCT-24 --> 30-OCT-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (3) Masters Of The Spire - 01-NOV-24 --> 07-NOV-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (4) For Love of Distant Shores - 07-NOV-24 --> 10-NOV-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)

70 - ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY [19] - THE SCENT OF TEARS - PCF - 21-DEC-24 --> 30-DEC-24 (Paperwhite)
.. (1) Old Blood - 21-DEC-24 --> 21-DEC-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
.. (2) The Scent of Tears - 22-DEC-24 --> 24-DEC-24 (Keris McDonald)
.. (3) Wonder - 24-DEC-24 --> 24-DEC-24 (Frances Hardinge)
.. (4) The Promise Of A Threat - 24-DEC-24 --> 24-DEC-24 (David Tallerman)
.. (5) The Unforseen path - 24-DEC-24 --> 26-DEC-24 (Juliet E. McKenna)
.. (6) The Message - 26-DEC-24 --> 26-DEC-24 (John Gwynn)
.. (7) The Mantis Way - 27-DEC-24 --> 27-DEC-24 (Peter Newman)
.. (8) The Poor Little Earwig Girl - 29-DEC-24 --> 29-DEC-24 (Tom Lloyd)
.. (9) Forwards - 30-DEC-24 --> 30-DEC-24 (Joff Leader)
.. (10) Recipes For Good Living - 30-DEC-24 --> 30-DEC-24 (Justina Robson)
.. (11) The God Of Profound Things - 30-DEC-24 --> 30-DEC-24 (Adrian Tchaikovsky)

My Reading List For 2024

Added the final update to my reading list for 2024.

I've just finished the 4th & final short story collection in the Tales Of The Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and just like the previous 3 ebooks, it was excellent. This 4th ebook was a bit different though, as Adrian himself only did the first and last short story within, and the rest were done by other authors. All were good, some even left me wanting more.

That's almost it now for his Apt novels (certainly) and short stories (not quite). The author's old website has some PDF downloads for about 20 Apt short stories, five of which don't appear in those four published short collections. So I will read them soon too.

I've just started my 71st book for the year, a novel by David Baldacci, which I certainly won't finish now until some time early in January.

It's been a good year of reading for me, with lots of really enjoyable books. I've read somewhat less numbers wise, than in the last few years, but I did read many thick novels, so always hard to compare really. I've got a few short story collections unfinished, but that is often the case, where I deliberately spread them out, and then slot one in somewhere as the mood takes me.

Next year should be many of the same authors, but I also intend to read more Fantasy ... so catch up on some of that huge backlog. I've also got a bunch of new authors I want to start reading. Mostly however, it will be books I already own (unread), and most of them will likely be ebooks, again.

The following is a list of intent for next year, but not really in the order I will read them.

Start a Brother Cadfael re-read.
Get back into reading Robin Hobb, Hugh Cook, Michael Moorcock, Rafael Sabatini, etc.
Start reading novels by Brandon Sanderson.
Continue on with thriller writers, such as Robert J. Kennedy, David Baldacci, Lee Child, Kathy Reichs, Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell, Brad Thor, Peter James, James Patterson, etc.
Start reading some of Terry Brooks other series etc ... only read one novel of such so far ... very very many years ago.
Read some new authors (for me), such as Andy Weir and Stieg Larsson etc.
Continue working my way through the Fantasy and Scifi novels and stories by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Continue on with reading Alexander McCall Smith, including starting some of his other series.
Continue on with reading Craig A. Falconer ... complete his short story collection, finish his Not Alone series and start some of his other series.
Probably get around to trying some of the many many free ebooks (new authors) I've collected over the last few years.
Etc etc

As you can see, plenty to go on with. So 2025 should be another excellent reading year.

Time for a summary from my list:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2024/post11

This year's biggest recommendation:
Five Decembers, by James Kestrel.
Really, do read it! If you like history or crime novels or thrillers, you will love this book. If you don't like crime novels yet, you will after you read this book. Yes, it is THAT good!

.
This year's biggest disappointment:
Fall of Giants, by Ken Follet
Not the worst novel I have read this year (that distinction goes to "Der Pilz am Ende der Welt"). But considering the author, it's very disappointing. Definitely the worst novel Ken Follet has ever published and I guess, he didn't write it himself but had two or three mediocre ghost writers.

Henry Halifax and the Tutori's Cloak

I seem to have picked this up for free at some point, and the fact that it aims to push an ideology on a younger audience makes it the sort of book that probably needs to be free. So, while, unlike what I assume to be the tremendous majority of people, I consider the message as a positive and support it for the most part, even including the depicted methods, my age puts me well outside of that target audience… Not that the, if I may use the term, quite mature level of brutality from the first chapter doesn’t make me have some doubts about that, as do a handful of more complicated words used later, but when the rest of the book features what I’d tend to call cartoon violence, along with something of a fairy tale setting on that extraordinarily advanced ship that otherwise seems like a Green dream, I’ll assume that those are slips.
Then again, some things may make sense at the end, and I must say that I didn’t see that coming, but rather than feeling that things are falling into place, that plot twist made the whole thing feel pointless instead… And it also makes it hard to comment without risking to spoil anything, so I’ll move on to other matters and say that I didn’t like that everything was presented by an apparently omniscient narrator who seemed to even keep spelling out what each character was thinking, even though everything except that first chapter is from Henry’s point of view. But worse is the conflict between the seriousness of the matter and the immaturity of the presentation and of the characters, that target audience only going so far as an excuse. And Barnaby was way too infuriating for any excuse, as was the hazing. And, as a small matter, I wondered what was with those specified and emphasized weights. Not that a few other numbers weren’t also overly specific and emphasized, but those seemed to stick out the most.

Rating: 2/5

My list in the order of reading which as a coincidence starts with the worst book read and finishes with the best one:
Boulley, Angeline - Firekeeper's Daughter
Foer, Jonathan Safran - Eating Animals
Bloch-Dano, Évelyne - La favolosa storia delle verdure
Schmitt, Éric-Emmanuel - La traversée des temps - Tome 2: La porte du ciel
Băjenaru, Grigore - Cişmigiu & Comp.
Sue, Eugène - The Mysteries of Paris
Ellison, Harlan - Deathbird Stories
François, Bill - The Eloquence of the Sardine
Huber, Christian - Man vergisst nicht, wie man schwimmt
Bressanini, Dario - La Scienza delle Pulizie
Macknik, Stephen L. & Martinez-Conde, Susana - Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions
Sharma, Nik - The Flavor Equation
Tolstoi, Lev - War & Peace
Kang, Han - Human Acts
Hammer, Béatrice - Green.com
Albala, Ken - Beans
Wood, Wendy - Good Habits, Bad Habits
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Baumeister, Roy F. - Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength
Cecini, Giovanni - L'incredibile storia della seconda guerra mondiale
Englund, Peter - November 1942: An Intimate History of the Turning Point of World War II
Cioroianu, Adrian - Cea mai frumoasă poveste. Câteva adevăruri simple despre istoria românilor
Graves, Robert - I, Claudius
Brenner, Michael & Sörensen, Pia & Weitz, David - Science and Cooking: Physics Meets Food, from Homemade to Haute Cuisine
Perrin, Valérie - Trois
Patterson, Daniel & Aftel, Mandy - The Art of Flavor: Practices and Principles for Creating Delicious Food
Freedman, Paul - Food: The History of Taste

This has been a year of reading more books again and reconnecting with a feeling of enjoyment in that regard I knew as a kid. Thank you Cavalary for hosting and all who posted in here, the thread was a welcome companion and support in keeping at it. I hope there will be a new edition for 2025.

Some books I enjoyed this year:

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
The Invincible by Stanisław Lem
Sid Meier's Memoir! A Life in Computer Games by Sid Meier
The Way Back by Erich Maria Remarque
Hong Kong Architecture: The Aesthetics of Density by Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani

My complete reading list is here.

You're welcome. And here you go :)
Since you didn't put a "include me", can I assume you don't want the post linked to in the list from the OP?

As for me, just managed to hit the goal of 12 books this year too, as embarrassingly low as it is, but it's what I've been going for for quite a number of years now, and this year it looked bad, with only five read by mid-October and only eight by December, and an order of books that was supposed to come by Dec 13 that's yet to arrive even now, but this ebook I found I had picked up two years ago that I could go through quickly for #12 now. It also gets the "award" for worst book I read this year, but still do favor the idea it's trying to push and the reason for dislike may be said to largely stem from the fact that it's likely aimed at young teens or even older children, bar a few parts. And, to make the contrast complete, the best would be the one read just before it, Sanderson's The Lost Metal. But there wasn't that much competition among the others read this year, not for something of Sanderson's level... And that's even though I also read The Bands of Mourning this year, but that may be the poorest Mistborn book... And yet may still be the year's second best, even if I rated The Emerald Gate higher, ratings also taking expectations and comparisons to the rest of the series into account. But hard to go wrong with Sanderson after all, at least for fantasy, didn't try his sci-fi and don't plan to... Problem being that as he's bringing the Cosmere together, the two mix.

You can include me. I made a mistake when I edited the post (I changed the title of the books to English because I thought it was stupid to alternate between the various languages, and I made it half in kwrite and half in browser).

My LT profile, but is not complete because I usually forget to add the books there. My complete list is kept in Calibre.

https://www.librarything.com/profile/ImpOLIgE

That's beautiful, thanks a bunch. See you over there :)

Thanks ... added it to my wishlist to keep an eye on the price.

Though I tend to avoid WWII stories these days, at the right price I will grab it and read it, as it gets a good wrap by many, and seems to offer enough for me to enjoy.

I am trying to avoid getting hooked on new authors though ... too many of those in my backlog already.