2008 in review: books
The complete list of books I read it 2008 is in poll form here.
Top books of the year:
Elizabeth Bear: Various (Promethean Age, New Amsterdam): These are interesting for me, as a lot of the things I like are often squicks or irritants for me. I mean, New Amsterdam is my favorite of them, and it’s about an ancient angsty vampire clinging to humans. Bear takes tropes and turns them on their heads, sometimes subtly, sometimes by hitting them with a sledgehammer. The result is complex, often character driven stories that make the well trod paths new and interesting.
Rhys Bowen-Molly Murphy series: Absolutely delightful mystery series featuring an Irish immigrant trying to make her way as a private investigator in turn of the century New York. Bowen is clearly having the time of her life with the setting, and Molly and her Greenwich Village friends are extremely endearing. The lighter aspects, though, are balanced by Bowen exploring the darker sides of the setting, such as sweatshops and the Irish gangs and corrupt police.
Marie Brennan: Midnight Never Come: Despite what I thought was a slow beginning bogged down by too many politics and not enough story to go with them, this was a very engaging take on the Fae court, having it mirror the Elizabethan court of the day, with the spies and swashbuckling that go with the period. I believe Brennan said she intends to have subsequent books revisit the world at 100 year intervals, and I look forward to them.
Barbara Hambly: Windrose Chronicles A series about a computer programmer who gets kidnapped to a fantasy world and falls for an insane wizard. This is, I suspect, a “love it or hate it” series, though I obviously fall into the former category. The first two books are essentially one larger story, with a few twists along the way. The third book revisits the characters, with most of the story told from the perspective of Antryg, the mad wizard. Antryg is more interesting from the perspective of others than his own perspective, but the book is remains a good companion to the first two. The fourth book is set in the same world, but about a different character. It starts out seeming to be a fluffy caper, but visits some pretty dark territory before it’s over.
Diana Wynne Jones: Howl’s Moving Castle, Dark Lord of Derkholm, Year of the Griffin: I read a lot of DWJ this year, but these were my favorites. I’m a bit confused by how most of her books seem to have a “visitor from our world in fantasyland” theme, but I’m getting used to it. It’s a little hard for me to pin down just why I love Howl’s Moving Castle so much, aside from the fact that I really do love Sophie beyond words, and I love how Howl can be so cowardly yet still be so appealing. Dark Lord of Derkholm and The Year of the Griffin are about an unconventional yet wonderful family headed by a wizard who creates fantasy beasts to be his children, in a world where the wizards just can’t get their acts together. I get a smile on my face just thinking about them.
Patricia McKillip: various, but esp. Ombria in Shadow, Od Magic, In the Forests of Serre, and the Riddle-Master trilogy: I liked all the McKillips I read this year, I just listed off my favorites. McKillip is best known for her prose, and rightly so, but she also creates fantasy worlds and stories and characters that follow many of the normal rules, while still seeming fresh and original. She also makes small, personal stories feel epic, and has quests that don’t fall into tired patterns. Looking at the ones I listed as my favorites, I notice that most feature a heroine in a role that would usually result in her sitting around, waiting for the hero to finish his quest and then get handed off as a prize, but who instead say “stuff it” and go get things done, but without being Special or having a Destiny.
Garth Nix: Old Kingdom Trilogy: I love how this world blends an early-20th Century England type of world with high fantasy, but has completely reworked the various kinds of magic in fantasy, including having the central magic being a new form of necromancy. Or would that be anti-necromancy? It has some great multi-worldbuilding (Can I make that a word?) good characterization, some of the best talking animals I’ve come across, and the most amazing fictional library I’ve ever seen. And it mostly caters to my more recently developed “no more farmboys and princes, lets have girls on quests” bias.
Meredith Ann Pierce: The Dark Angel, A Gathering of Gargoyles: Sensual prose and beautiful storytelling in a dark fantasy set on a terraformed moon. In these two books, the imagery and characterization are wonderful, and these books rekindled my interest in fantasy quests. There’s a third book. It isn’t nearly as good, but if you’re like me, you’ll read it for the sake of completeness even though everyone tells you not to. If you do, you’ll reach a point about 2/3 through it where you’ll think that it should be about over, and wonder why there’s so much book left. Pretend that’s the end and stop.
Dorothy L. Sayers: Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries: I don’t always do well with classics, but these are definitely an exception. The mysteries themselves are good, but also fairly normal for the genre. Some books aren’t as good as the others, but the strength of the books is in characterization-especially Peter’s post-war trauma, and his conflicted relationship with Harriet-Sayers’s wit, and her tackling of various social issues of the time. I still have the collection of short stories to go, and have another book that is apparently from a partial manuscript and completed by Jill Patton Walsh, but I’m saving those for 2009.
Sherwood Smith: Crown Duel: When I posted requesting recs for fantasy novels a while back, I had a long list of various things I liked or looked for. (I believe a decent number of books I read this year originated with that post.) Obviously, I didn’t expect every book recommended to fill all or even most of the list, just to provide a general idea. In the comments, I was told that I had essentially outlined this book. And I had. An intelligent, capable heroine who isn’t Special and would really rather be left alone, and a narrative that isn’t easy on her. The romance is interesting and well developed, but background to Mel’s growth and journey. The world is, admittedly, your standard medieval-lite, but not annoyingly so, and is interesting on its own merit.
Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede: Sorcery and Cecelia: I read two historical fantasies by each author and two that they wrote together, and while all were good, this was the best. Written as a letter game between the two authors and in epistolary format, the book is a wonderful, witty bit of alternate Regency fluff and love. I really don’t have anything intelligent to say about it, but I grin just thinking about it. There are a few problems-you can sometimes tell that one author isn’t sure where the other is going, and there were some name uses that made me cringe-but the overall strength of the book overcomes them.
Catherynne M. Valente: Orphan’s Tales 2: The hopelessly complex and incredibly meta story about storytelling that I was foolish enough to try to map in my head while I was reading it. If you’ve read the duology this is a part of, then you know how foolish that is. Subversively feminist, dozens of stories from all sorts of traditions and mythologies blended until you can’t see the original anymore in most cases combined to form one huge, startlingly vivid tapestry.
Martha Wells: Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy: On the one hand, I think the plot of this trilogy got overly complicated in the end, especially with the alternate worlds. On the other hand, I find Wells to be very easy to read, and I really like her setting, which seems to be an alternate early 20th Century Paris. What puts it on the list however, is the heroine, Tremaine. Kicking off the first book carefully considering how she can commit suicide in a way that would cause others the least amount of trouble, Tremaine is the perfect antidote if you run across too many “Look! I’m badass!” heroines or superbookworms or politicians or sorceresses. She fits into no categories-something that apparently caused some placement problems-and is simply a person who gets things done and expects others to keep up with her.
Michelle West: Sun Sword: I’ve only read the first 3 books of this series and the two books that are prequels to them, and if you spoil me, I will hurt you. There are a number of settings for this series, but the main ones so far are a largely European-based country where a street thief named Jewel has risen through her country’s social class due to her skill and powers as a seer, and a middle-eastern based society focused on Diora, a young woman forced to be strong in an oppressive society, but who twists the rules of that society to protect herself against it. Both Jewel and Diora are strong and dominant without having to pick up a sword (though there are other women in the books who do just that). The prose can be a bit much at times, but the plot, characterization and worldbuilding are all great.