Our borg Best of 2024 year-end round-up continues today with the Best Books of 2024.  If you missed them, check out our 10th annual selections for the Kick-Ass Heroines of 2024 here, the Best in TV 2024 here, and the Best Movies of 2024 here.  We wrap up our annual awards with our additions to the borg Hall of Fame later this month.  We reviewed more books we recommended to our readers this year (and started or previewed even more), and some even made it onto our favorites shelf.  We don’t publish reviews of books that we read and don’t recommend, so this shortlist reflects only this year’s cream of the crop.  So let’s get going! 

Best Book, Best Horror Book – A Christmas Ghost Story by Kim Newman (Titan Books).  A brilliant genre mash-up and worthy successor to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Historical references, fantasy choices, horror notes, meta vibes, and a holiday classic layered in nostalgia.  Original, modern, and rich–a treasure of holiday goodness. 

Best Sci-Fi Novel, Best Tie-in Novel, Best Space Western Novel, Best Humor Novel – Borderlands: Debt or Alive by Anthony Burch (Titan Books).  The coolest sci-fi novel we read this year, a space Western in the realm of Cowboy Bebop, with dialogue so snappy and current you’d think writer Anthony Burch inherited the reins from Joss Whedon writing his first seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Rob Thomas scripting Veronica Mars. 

Best Fantasy Read – RuneScape: The Gift of Guthix by Erin M. Evans (Titan Books). Full of betrayal, power politics, and magic and sorcery that mixes the best of medieval and Renaissance-inspired warring factions and tropes, it is the perfect follow-up for fans of R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt novels and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Best Sci-Fi Tie-In (Nonfiction) – Star Trek: Open a Channel–A Woman’s Trek by Nana Visitor (Insight Editions).  If Star Trek stood for anything since its inception, it was about imagining a future of equality for all people.  So this subject couldn’t be more pertinent to any discussion of what makes the franchise tick and keep ticking and why people are drawn to it.  A great book on American culture for anyone interested in the history of film and TV production.

Best Non-Fiction Read, Best Science Read – The Hidden Life of Trees, A Graphic Adaptation (of the Peter Wohlleben Book) by Fred Bernard and Banjamin Flao (Greystone Books).  The year’s best book for anyone looking to increase their knowledge of the natural world.  What may surprise readers is how much information can be contained in the graphic novel format–every panel on every page will surprise and inform readers of any age about the world around them and all they know so little about.

Best Science Reference Book – The Backyard Stargazer’s Bible (Abrams Books).  A full study of space with introductions to astrophotography, technology, and even space artwork, filled with star charts, sure to spark the imagination and passion of any person young or old interested in knowing more about the universe above and a must for every library.

Best Book on the History of Film/TV Industry – The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen by Jeff Bond (Titan Books).  This book has it all–delivering an understanding of a legend as well as a history of the TV and film industry, digging into TV series and movies via storyboards, movie and TV props, schematics, and more. 

Best Sci-Fi Retro Read – The Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K. Dick (Various).  A prescient masterwork of political and philosophical ideologies, and a look at the future that may have already arrived.

Best Previously Published Book (Nonfiction), Best Art Book – The Art of the Wind Rises (VIZ Media).  Told using director Hayao Miyazaki’s words, notations, and concept art, and the production leadership who implemented Miyazaki’s ideas, this book is one of the best training grounds you’ll find for what “world-building” means and how it’s done by the greatest living filmmaker.

Best Previously Published Book (Fiction) – Conan and the Emerald Lotus in Conan: City of the Dead by John C. Hocking (Titan Books).  This is classic fantasy and Conan in particular at its best.  It may be the best Conan novel of them all, one you can imagine creator Robert E. Howard wishing he’d written himself.

Best Fandom Book – The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons–1970-1977  (Wizards of the Coast).  A treasure chest of content, uncovering material never released to the public, including a reprint of creator Gary Gygax’s first draft of the original D&D game from the 1970s, plus many more rare documents, with commentary.

Best Foreign Work in New English Translation – The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (Random House/G.P. Putnam’s Sons).  A quaint, short, palm-sized story of two people using their skills to help strangers connect with themselves, the dramatic elements and imagery with the food author Kashiwai evokes are lovely. 

Best Borg Comic, Best Borg Story – Android Blues by Steven Stahlberg.  Blade Runner meets Westworld, Humans, Weird Science, Morgan, and Ghost in the Shell–a major work of science fiction storytelling that added a new heroine to the genre.  

Best Graphic Novel (fiction) – Alandal (2024 English translation) by Jay Ignacio and Alex Niño.  Pirates, a strong female heroine, historical action.  It’s a triumph for both writer and artist.  Infusing the martial arts into an adventurous origin fantasy resulted in a resounding success.

Best Sci-Fi Comic Book Series, Best New Comic Series – Space Ghost (Dynamite Comics).  All passion, power, and grit–the kind of energy that comic book fans woke up to in decades past with Bill Sienkiewicz, Michael Turner, Mauro Cascioli, and Frank Miller’s different takes on Batman.  A perfect re-imagining, making a space fantasy comic book superhero for the 21st century.

Best Fantasy Comic Book Series, Best Adventure Comic Series – ThunderCats and ThunderCats: Cheetara (Dynamite).   It’s a colorful series full of action, a worthy expansion and update to the animated series that built a legion of fans.

Best Humor Comic – A Call to Cthulhu by Norm Konyu (Titan Nova). This Seussian play on H.P. Lovecraft questions the creator while sharing a fun introduction to his monster and fantasy world of ideas.

Best Comic Collected Edition – Nothing Special Volume 1: Through the Elder Woods, by Katie Cook (Ten Speed Graphic).  A sweet story with callbacks to fantasy stories of the past.  A good storybook for middle grade readers on up.

Best Manga Book – The Great Yokai War: Guardians (Titan Manga). The manga would make excellent source material for a card game, and Suzuki’s demon/ghosts will have young readers returning to the corners of each page to identify and locate all the beasties he has included. 

Best Contemporary Crime Novel – Quarry’s Return by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime).  A great return of a popular character in Old Man mode, peppered with Collins’ extensive, lifelong knowledge of a part of America that never seems to make it into novels.

Best New Pulp Crime Novel – Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak (Hard Case Crime).  A fun and nostalgic spin on action crime tropes of the 1970s.  You can almost see the flickering, scratched film quality on the screen itself, as cousins Chuck and Dean take readers on a time travel trip through the back of the back woods of 1970s pop culture. 

Best Retro Read (Classic) – Into the Night by Cornell Woolrich (Hard Case Crime).  A literary masterpiece, the kind of suspense story that leans into the tools that wouldn’t work in the hands of a weaker writer.  A gritty, surprising, shocking crime story on par with Sunset Boulevard, Chinatown, and the works of Donald E. Westlake and Erle Stanley Gardner that audiences in the 1940s never would have been able to stop talking about.  Close Runner-Up: Lemons Never Lie by Donald E. Westlake.

Best Retro Read (Modern) – Nobody’s Angel, by Jack Clark (Hard Case Crime).  A dark and grimy picture of Chicago.  A book that will stick with you.  A voice with a rare authenticity in modern crime novels.

Best Cookbook – Godzilla: The Official Cookbook by Kayce Baker (Titan Books). Inspired by the Toho Godzilla movies and creatures, it features kaiju-themed recipes, incorporating detailed elements from 70 years of monster movies. 

Best Roleplaying Game – Quests from the Infinite Starircase (Wizards of the Coast).  A great new RPG source for players wanting to revisit 1980s D&D unable to track down the originals, and fun for players looking for a mix of game settings.

Best Board Game – Botany (Dux Somnium). The most attractively designed tabletop game you’ve ever played.  It educates and it’s fun–history and science and adventure–and easy to learn.  In less than an hour you’ll have all the rules and nuances of strategy figured out, and in a couple hours one to five players will be looking forward to their next game session.  

Thanks for reading our reviews in 2024!

Come back later this month as we add new members to the borg Hall of Fame.

C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg