As usual I read a lot of books last year. Some really good, some bad, and some mediocre. I read a handful of books out of the furry fandom, but the pickings were mighty slim if you weren't looking for pornography or LGTBQA-oriented material.

***Full Circlet (Serpentia #3) by Frances Pauli (furry/talking animals) Societal change in a civilization of intelligent, telekinetic snakes. I thought the first two books were stronger, but this one wraps up the series nicely.

*Gory by Mason Gallaway (Killer animal thriller) Killer elephant on the rampage.

***Onyx Storm (The Empyrean #3) by Rebecca Yarros (Fantasy) I got roped into reading this series by reviews that made the first book seem like the Second Coming. Instead it turned out to be a mashup of Harry Potter, Dragonriders of Pern and Hunger Games, with lots of explicit sex.

****The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden (Thriller) This author writes contemporary suburban thrillers with weird twist endings. They’re kind of dumb, but definitely page-turners.
***The Tenant by Freida McFadden (Thriller) Ditto.

***Kingdoms of Light by Alan Dean Foster (Fantasy) Not his most greatest work, but what makes it of interest to furry fans is the main characters are a wizard’s animal familiars, who get turned into humans to carry out his last instructions.

****Sun Runner: An Imbrium Novella by Frances Pauli (Talking animals) Talking horses and a grueling race to see who will be leader.

****Animal Future by Robert & Darrin McGraw (SF with some furry characters) Near-future thriller featuring uplifted animals living alongside humans.

*****Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Dystopia) A stand-alone prequel to The Hunger Games. Very grimdark, but actually pretty damn good.

***** Dungeon Crawler Carl #1 by Matt Dinniman (LitRPG) Ex-Marine Carl and his girlfriend’s prize show cat (Princess Donut Queen Anne’s Chonk) end up in a massive, multi-layered dungeon where him and other ‘crawlers’ have to battle to stay alive and advance. There’s plenty of humor to counter the battles and occasional grimness. A very entertaining series.
****Carl's Doomsday Scenario: Dungeon Crawler Carl #2 by Matt Dinniman (LitRPG)
****The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook: Dungeon Crawler Carl #3 by Matt Dinniman (LitRPG)
****The Gate of the Feral Gods: Dungeon Crawler Carl #4 by Matt Dinniman (LitRPG)


****Bridgers #1-#6 by Stan C. Smith (SF) A series of short novels where humanity gets an alien message instruction them to build a device that can transport people to different timelines on earth. But it comes with an unimaginable price.

*****The Book of Dust: The Rose Field (Book of Dust #3) by Phillip Pullman (Fantasy). The second Dark Materials trilogy is now complete with this. The plot is too complicated to summarize, but it involves an adult Lyra trying to navigate societal and religious upheaval while looking for her lost daemon Pan.

****The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6) by Dan Brown (Thriller) Once again Robert Langdon is chased all over a picturesque European city trying to solve clues and avert disaster. It’s all kind of silly, especially the surprise twist ending, but it is definitely a page-turner.

**The Panda's Dream (Tales of Barsk) by Lawrence M. Schoen (Furry SF) A side story to his earlier Barsk novels, about a space-faring civilization of anthropomorphic Earth animals. This is what Fred Patten liked to refer to as ‘window dressing,’ where there’s no real reason for the characters to be furry.

***The King's Bow (The Great Lighthouse #1) by Jamie Roe (Furry Fantasy) Redwall-esque medieval fantasy with anthro animals.

****Chrysalis 7: Fated Antagonist by RinoZ (LitRPG) Anthony the human reborn as a giant dungeon ant continues his quest to make his colony a power to be reckoned with. This time he’s facing giant termites.

***Glory Season by David Brin (SF) A female-ruled planetary colony gets contacted by the rest of human space. I really wish he’d write more Uplift books…

****Bee Speaker (Dogs of War #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky (SF with some furry characters) The long-separated Mars colony tries to re-contact Earth, looking for the hive-mind Bees. Characters also include uplifted dogs and augmented humans.

****Never Flinch by Stephen King (Thriller) Holly is back, this time working as a bodyguard for a controversial feminist speaker. Not only does she have to deal with repeated attempts on her charge’s life by a religious fanatic, there’s another killer out there nobody suspects until it’s too late.

*****Augmented (Hybrid Nation #3) by Frances Pauli (SF Furry) An excellent end to an excellent series. Definitely not ‘window dressing,’ the character’s animal origin is an integral part of the story. I really wish there were more furry books like this.

****The Gryphon Generation #5: The Chimera Affliction by Alexander Bizzell (Furry) Taking place 4 years after the events of the previous book, the fledgling (pun intended) gryphon nation seems to be working just fine. But old antagonists resurface to threaten the peace again.