This week’s prompt from Top Ten Tuesday is about books that live in your head rent-free, and I think there aren’t going to be many surprises here from me — many of my favourites are well-known! Let’s see.

1. The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison.
   I’ve reread this book several times and will no doubt reread it many times more: I love it a lot, and there’s so much around the edges of it that the story doesn’t cover. Some of that is covered in the Thara Celehar books, but even then, there’s so much more. I adore the characters, too.
2. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.
   The same is true of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System and Heaven Official’s Blessing, to be fair — all of MXTX’s characters have really stuck with me, despite and sometimes because of the stories’ flaws. In the case of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, you’ve got Wei Wuxian and his manifest fuck-ups, but also characters like Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling, Wen Ning and Lan Sizhui, who have a ways to go to find happy endings out of their pasts, even as the story ends.
3. Feed, by Mira Grant.
   I wasn’t even into horror when I read this, but it stuck with me, and especially so after I studied infectious diseases for my MSc and after the whole world went through a global pandemic (which was comparatively mild compared to what it could have been). Reading it in the wake of that is… yeah. And I’ve no doubt I’ll read the series again in future. It’s also a book that I didn’t like that much when I first read it, but which I came back to again and again.
4. A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan.
   This another of those books that I didn’t love the first time, but I found myself drawn back — and then I loved it the second time. I’m a huge champion for this series and the way it explored a woman being a scholar in a patriarchal society, how she was still an instrument of imperialism at times when she didn’t mean to be, and how it never loses sight at the same time of the wonder of the idea of dragons being real. Also, the way the whole series slowly adds information for us until that final book…!
5. Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie.
   This one always makes me think of a particular friend. I didn’t warmly love the book the first time I read it (more admired it), but over time, I’ve got such fond feelings for all the characters. Someone even did a recording of a potential tune for one of Breq’s songs, and every so often that gets stuck in my head.
6. Chalice, by Robin McKinley.
   Another one I didn’t absolutely love at first read! Those often seem to be the ones I really end up adoring, if there’s enough to them to draw me back in to try again — I can think of a couple of other examples, even. The magic in Chalice is weird and difficult to understand at times, because the protagonist doesn’t understand it: she has to struggle to figure things out for herself, and I loved her journey (and the slow building of trust between her and the Master).
7. The Winter King, by Bernard Cornwell.
   I think of everything on this list, this is the one I read longest ago. It was definitely a part of shaping my interest in Arthuriana, and it’s amazing how often I think about it, even if I haven’t read it in a long time. It’s a good crack at a historical, human, unmagical Arthur, and at his companions. It gave me a serious distaste for Lancelot which other books have never really shaken, even despite my studies!
8. Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee.
   I can’t believe it’s this book’s 10th anniversary this year. What?! And I still haven’t got round to rereading it. I went into it concerned that I wouldn’t understand, but the math is basically just magic, and you can just accept that and let the weirdness sweep you along. When I couldn’t think of a name for my chocobo in FFXIV, I actually named it Jedao, which might be one of the weirdest “I named my pet after your character” situations I’ve heard of.
9. Lifelode, by Jo Walton.
   I could’ve picked Farthing or Among Others as well, or even My Real Children… but Among Others was very much a book that spoke to me a lot in my late teens/early twenties, while Lifelode is something I think about more now. I wish more people had read it, so that I could say “my lifelode is learning”, and have people understand what that means. It’s an excellent fantasy, if not a very traditional one.
10. The Hands of the Emperor, by Victoria Goddard.
    There are ways in which this is very like The Goblin Emperor, which is part of what originally drew me to this book. It’s a very different world with a very different inspiration, though, and the main protagonist is a common man (albeit one who has been elevated very high). I really want to get round to rereading it, and reading the sequel, which I was desperate for after I finished it! It’s just been too long now for me to go into it cold.

So… there we go, my fairly predictable list, ahaha.