 It is now January 2nd 2017 the year 2016 finally ended I Wanted to make sure that it was completely over before I did my December wrap-up and I'm gonna combine it with my favorites of 2016. I did so little book wise in December that I just have a couple of things and then I'll move on to the Recommendations the favorites for 2016. I only bought one book for December This is the tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu my understanding is that this is Considered the world's first novel the very first Lady Murasaki Shikibu born in the year 978 the other purchase I made was Blu-ray of a fantastic planet This is one of the best science fiction films of the 20th century one of the best animated films of the 20th century You don't hear people talking about it it's um It's very strange very disturbing And very good science fiction I've always intended to give this its own review. I may do it At some point this year The only book I've been reading in December was Orbitsville departure by Bob Shaw. This is the sequel to Orbitsville. I started reading it at the beginning of December I'm only about Three-quarters of the way through I didn't even read one complete book in December my fellow youtuber Becky just published her December wrap-up. She read 14 books in December her as far as the statistics for the channel go I am above 620 subscribers here on YouTube So I gained About 20 subscribers in December. That's more than I usually get in a month for the last 30 days and for the last 90 days by far the most popular video on my channel has been the review of Of Was the name that movie at independent science fiction film called coherence. That's it. It's not just The most popular by a little ways. It's destroying all competition. I don't have an explanation for it The the views just keep coming and keep coming No matter how you look at it Whether by numbers of views or by numbers of minutes watched My top 10 videos do not include any book reviews It always includes Two of those board game videos that I did one of them is the That Magnavox Odyssey game I can't remember the name it right now and the other one is the alien board game. I need to do More complete videos of those and I have plans in mind for that and I'll do it someday And I need to do a follow-up to the coherence movie review. Maybe get more views that way all right on to favorites of 2016 now all the recommendations I'm gonna make and I have eight of them I Actually read eight books in 2016 that were good enough for me to recommend without reservation These are not necessarily new books, but they're new to me. I've read them for the first time and Six of them actually are new books that were published either last year or the year before Number one man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick This is unusual for Philip K. Dick or unusual for the books by Dick that I have read It is a more thoughtful work. It is a more carefully constructed work a very well-constructed World very well-constructed characters. Usually his books are very sketchy Often they're even just jokes You might want to go back and look at my review of it. The TV show is Excellent as well. It's very different But it starts with the same premise and takes off from there and it does an excellent job Number two lagoon by Nettie Okara for this one's unusual in that It has a new kind of writing approach and a new kind of perspective that I've never seen before It's good science fiction. It has a non-western Feel and vibe to it number three silver on the road by Laura Ann Gilman. This is a real surprise This is what you would call weird Western entirely new Magical mythology that doesn't seem to be based on anything that I've seen before Excellent stuff. I couldn't put it down number four orbitsville by Bob Shaw Which I referenced just a couple of minutes ago. This is the other book on the list. That's not a new book This was really entertaining very well written it read very smoothly and quickly it involves the discovery of a Dyson sphere, which I'm not gonna bother to explain right now, but the the manner in which the thing is built is a Completely different approach to anything. I've ever read about any Dyson sphere before very refreshing and number See what number am I on here number five the library at Mount char by Scott Hawkins Like I said in my review of it before I cannot describe this book to you. I'm not even gonna try I'm just gonna tell you it's not a perfect book by far. It's not it's not a perfect book But the reason I'm so jazzed about it is because it's so Unique I've never read anything like this before and this is the same thing I'm gonna say about a number of these these new books. It is a completely fresh Idea a completely new World a completely new mythology. It's not based on or spawned from anything that I've ever seen or even heard of before I Can't stress that enough. This is One of the most unique things I've ever seen if certainly the most unique book of this year and I've read a lot of unique books this year all right number Number whatever the next one the road by Cormac McCarthy Very unusually written an unusual approach to writing very short very unpleasant and Probably the most realistic approach to a post-apocalyptic world that I've ever seen I recommend it highly Number seven I guess this would be hex by Thomas Oldie Weveld again completely unique Never seen anything quite like it before a really new and interesting approach to horror a lot of people who review it say that that It keeps them awake at night. They're so horrified. I can see why Go get it. This is another one that I recommend a hundred percent and Finally a girl with all the gifts Another post apocalypse story this time a zombie apocalypse It's unique for a zombie apocalypse story and the uniqueness on the strong writing Carry through all the way to the last page which I see so many authors drop the ball This guy doesn't I have a couple honorable mentions. It's a darkling C Which I reviewed early in the year Just a good Solid science fiction book the first chapter surprised me a lot and that never happened Trigger warning by Neil Gaiman a collection of short stories some really unique stuff in This book some really unique and new worlds that I'm never gonna forget and then Childhoods End by Arthur C. Clark. I thought I had read this many years ago. Turns out I hadn't a truly classic Arthur C. Clark Weird ending much weirder than I expected and weirder than probably you would expect and finally The screw tape letters by CS Lewis. I did a review of the audiobook read by John Cleese And I'll include a link to it here. It's all on YouTube if you've never heard it before You need to listen to it. I I believe that if you start listening to chapter one, you won't be able to stop That's it. I think The bulk of the video work that I've done Starting in September is over on the 53 channel. There'll be a link Right up here above and in the description below and at the end of the video So go to the 50th street channel and please subscribe over there when the 50th street channel gets 100 subscribers I'll be able to create a unique URL For the 50th street channel so it can say youtube.com slash 50th street And as far as this channel 30 second sci-fi As I said in my November reads wrap up video I'm going to scale back the number of reviews that I do per month I'll only be doing two book reviews a month, but I'm going to be doing more of the other stuff like the The unboxings which are popular The odd comics reviews which I need to get back to and I'm going to start a new series About animation So look for that and uh, let's try to have a happy 2017. I don't think we will But let's try okay. See you next time Please remember to press that like button it helps my videos get seen and then subscribe so you can come back next time I do science fiction book tv and movie reviews all the time and please consider becoming a patron There's a link in the description below