Books play a major role in how I spend my down time. I love to learn new things and I love to read both to educate myself and for entertainment.

While the training emphasis of The Credible Hulk revolves around strongman, the overall mission is to provide you with quality information in order to better yourself in all aspects of your life. Strength is just one component of that.

This week I have compiled a list of the best Fiction books or series that I read in 2016. If you check any of them out then I hope you enjoy.

The Dark Tower - Stephen King

I've never read Stephen King before and I never thought I would. The Dark Tower series is his take on an epic fantasy story and I had heard that it was something worth checking out. The Gunslinger is really short and I wasn't sure if I was going to continue with reading The Dark Tower series after it. Then things got worse in The Drawing of the Three. It was incredibly offensive to me at first and I didn't know what to think, but I was sort of intrigued, and then all of a sudden I was hooked. By the end of the Drawing of the Three I thought "wow." Then the momentum continued to build. The Dark Tower is seriously weird and I think that's part of what kept me reading through it. I finished reading The Dark Tower early this year and it messed me up real good. I have this rule in my own book review criteria that any book that makes me cry gets 5 stars. (I haven't read something blatantly heartbreaking like Marley and Me before, but if it's just sad and depressing it might not get the auto-5-star rating).
I sobbed uncontrollably not once, but 3 times, in different parts of The Dark Tower and was cursing Stephen King's name by the end of it, but that's part of what made it worthy of a 5-star review. No book or series has elicited such mixed emotions from me before. It's a roller coaster ride that's definitely worth checking out and sticking through to the end, especially with movies about the series currently in production. You’ll want to get ahead of the curve before it becomes a big deal.

The Saxon Stories - Bernard Cornwell

Also known as The Last Kingdom Series. Avoid watching the Netflix series first. The show was very well done, so I found the first two books to play out scene to scene just like it was realized in the show and made it a little harder to get excited over the first two books, which were still really good.
I just finished book 9 and started book 10 to catch up to the newly released book, and haven't been disappointed yet. All the books are seriously great. If you like historical fiction, or stories about Vikings then you’ll love these books. The books are set in England before it became a unified country during the times when Christians and Pagans battled for control.

Hero - R.A. Salvatore

Hero is the 30th Legend of Drizzt book in the Forgotten Realms world. Judging by the discussions on the book and the way it concluded, it might also be the last book written about the dark elf hero. If you don't know what this means I suggest you start at the beginning with The Dark Elf Trilogy. While The Dark Elf Trilogy is the second trilogy written by Salvatore, it is the origin story of Drizzt and therefore is the best place to start from. The Dark Elf Trilogy is also still my favourite of all the books written on Drizzt. The books are great, light-hearted reads if you like lots of magic and detailed battle scenes.

The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch

Book 1 in the Gentlemen Bastards Sequence, The Lies of Lock Lamora is a really fun to read fantasy novel. It’s described as Robin Hood meets Ocean's 11, but I don’t really agree with or like that description. It’s not completely unfounded though, because these books are about big heists in a fantasy world setting. The world is not completely fantastical though, so it would be most appropriate of all the series I’ve listed for someone just looking for a great book to read.

As of publishing this, the Kindle version of The Lies of Locke Lamora is on sale for $0.99!

Now that you’ve got some book recommendations to check out, I’ll let you get to it and see you all in 2017.

Fortissimus

Good Reads 2016 - Fiction