I’ve always shied away from compiling a ‘best of’ selection at the end of the year, partly because choosing an arbitrary number (top 5? top 10?) just seems daft, partly because it assumes that I didn’t like the ones that didn’t make the list which is just not true, whittling down a long list to a short list can leave you wringing your hands with despair and wracked with guilt and indecision, not least because ‘best’ is such a subjective description – how do you compare space opera sci-fi with high fantasy – but mainly because I tend not to read stuff I’m not going to like. Now this may seem an obvious thing to a lot of you, but I’m lucky enough to be sent a fair number of books during the course of a year, fiction and non-fiction, and while I read a lot I’m never going to be able to read them all so I tend to cherry pick the ones that I’m liable to enjoy which makes choosing the ‘best’ almost impossible.
And what influences that choice?
Well if it’s a volume in a continuing story, and I’ve read and enjoyed the others, I obviously want to see where things go. Other times it’s good word-of-mouth or comparisons to other stuff I’ve liked so it makes sense to try it. Once in a blue moon it’ll be that the back cover blurb sounds interesting but often, it’s as simple as a good cover or an intriguing title.
And so it is that I’ve compiled my first end of year list. There are 10 books, but these are not the ‘best’ books of the year, rather they are my favourites of the books I read.
Enjoy!
10. Johannes Cabal The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
The bottom line:
“This is good fantasy, witty, smart and slightly satirical but at it’s heart a story about one man, in a very sticky situation, and his attempts to get himself out of it. A thoroughly entertaining and hugely fun book populated by great characters that is intelligently written and very funny.”
9. The Stranger by Max Frei
The bottom line:
“If there is a fault it’s that they tend to take a tad too long to set up and then wrap up a tad too quickly but all of that is forgiven for the shear depth and breadth of imagination in the writing. The city and it’s inhabitants are wrought with such fine detail and I cannot remember the last time I derived so much pleasure from simply reading the words on the page.”
The bottom line:
“Heroes Of The valley is a terrific read, engaging, well-paced, with memorable characters and a twist in the tale, and while the ending is open enough for further adventures, it is also that rarest of things, a standalone fantasy novel. Once again Jonathan Stroud has proved he can craft a novel that will appeal across the board.”
7. Graceling by Kristin Cashore
The bottom line:
“As you might guess, I get to read a lot of fantasy novels. Most of them okay, and some of them actually pretty good, but every now and again something new and quite extraordinary comes along reaffirming my belief in the power of a good story, well told. Graceling is such a book.”
6. Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton
The bottom line:
“Nights of Villjamur is a terrific debut, it starts with a bang and keeps on going, building action upon action with terrific pace and plenty surprises before relenting and letting you catch your breath until it starts up again.”
5. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
The bottom line:
“The story starts fast, wastes no time getting going and is truly exciting, with gripping action sequences and real edge-of-your-seat thrills. The prose is easy and fluid and so descriptive that it puts you right in the scene and Westerfeld doesn’t flinch from talking about the political machinations that surround the story.”
4. Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The bottom line:
“With all the groundwork laid so well in book one, book two leaps straight into the action and rarely lets-up for the entire of it’s almost 700 page length, and while the scale of book one was big, the story has now become nothing less than epic.”
3. Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
The bottom line:
“Retribution Falls is a rollicking good action-adventure yarn that absolutely doesn’t take itself too seriously. From the first page to the last this is a book chock-full of dockside gunfights, aerial chases, dogfights and fist-fights and the pace is pretty relentless, slowing just enough to let you catch your breath between the action and that’s why I loved it – it’s FUN!“
2. Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
The bottom line:
“This is deep, dark stuff but it’s a mark of that nice Mr. Abercrombie’s talent that he can wrap such complex themes in the kind of rip-roaring adventure that is so utterly compelling that, from the first page, it is impossible to put down.”
1. The Sad Tale Of The Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington
The bottom line:
“There’s no ‘save the cat’ moment for these two, no efforts to make them likeable, rather the text rejoices in the Brothers foul-mouthed, black-hearted ways and dubious yet unshakeable beliefs so that you will gladly follow them through this adventure – a psychopathic Bob ‘n’ Bing on the ‘Road To Hell’ directed by the bastard child of Scorsese and Tarantino – to see just how badly how it turns out, for them and for everyone around them.”
So there you have it, my personal favourites of 2009, based on the 50-odd fiction books I read and not including the 20-odd non-fiction books, the graphic novels, how-to’s, audio books, podcasts, re-reads, magazines, short stories or web-tales.
For what it’s worth I’ve figured out a couple of things during this process, the first is that I need to read a bit less fantasy and a bit more sci-fi in the coming year to even things up a touch and the second is that I’m going to aim for personally posting 50 fiction reviews in 2010 so I need to increase my reading speed somehow – or spend less time watching TV!
Thanks to everyone who read, commented, blogged, tweeted, facebooked, emailed or phoned over the previous year and here’s to connecting with even more of you in 2010. Happy New Year and see you at next years festival!