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wild_irises asked for "A book that stands out from the crowd of books you have read, whether or not you mentioned in the post for rachelmanija." There is one book I read last year that I never got a chance to talk about that I do want to put in a plug for, namely, Kate Elliott's Cold Steel.
I've raved about the first two volumes in Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy before, and I was highly anticipating the third volume when it came out in June. Suffice it to say, I wasn't disappointed. The relationship between Cat and Bee remained at the heart of the story, and I really liked the way that Elliott used the device of the timeslip between the spirit world and our world to keep the story moving while not unrealistically portraying the development of an actual social revolution spreading across Europa. I also liked the way a lot of the plot developments/character relationships didn't conform to the stereotypical structure of a fantasy trilogy. My sister thought that there was too much description and character detail for her taste, but this is the sort of thing that I eat up with a spoon, and I loved it. I also loved the portrayal of the relationship between Cat and Camjiata (they maybe have my favorite kind of relationship in fiction); Camjiata remains probably my third-favorite character. (Sorry, I'm just not that into Andevai, though I can see why Cat is!) And I really liked the place where Elliott left his story, too. All in all, I thought Cold Steel was a worthy ending to the trilogy, and I also very much enjoyed The Secret Journal of Beatrice Hassi Barahal, as well as Julie Dillon's new art for the trilogy.
Also on the theme of books,
nan asked about my favorite kind of steampunk. I enjoy all steampunk, because I enjoy creatively mucking around with the past and imagining different possible histories, but at the moment I'm eagerly anticipating Ken Liu's forthcoming silkpunk novel The Chrysanthemum and the Dandelion, to say nothing of the other two volumes in the trilogy that he's sold to Simon & Schuster!