Best Of Lists

Generally speaking I hate this time of year on the Internet–I am so tired of year-end wrapups, best of lists, etc. It’s even worst this year, since it’s also the end of a decade. Enough with the lists.

Having said that, I did see one list that actually got my attention: Paul Witcover‘s list of his ten favourite F/SF novels of the year. (The list should be expanded on in his year-end piece in Locus, also something I exempt from my humbuggery about year-end wrapups–maybe even in that Locus that came in the mail today which I haven’t looked at yet…)

Since I quite like Witcover’s novelsIf you haven’t read these, and don’t believe me that they’re great… well check out what Rick Bowes, himself no slouch in the great writing department, says about Witcover’s second novel. and stories, and I appreciate his critical writing, I was already disposed to be interested. When I looked over the list and found that about half of what he listed were things I’ve read and liked this year… well, let’s just say that I now have a strong motivation to seek out information on the other items.

Here are the items from Witcover’s lists, with some annotations by me:

• The City & The City, China Mieville – bought it, read it, liked it. I’m a pretty big Mieville fan generally, but I liked this more than the preceding two. I got this in the Subterranean edition.
• Finch, Jeff VanderMeer – my favourite VanderMeer so far. I’d say it’s more easily accessible than some of the others, which might mkae it seem “lighter” to some folks, but I like the way Vandermeer fuses genres in this one, and I like the payoffs on narrative lines that have been brewing for several books now. I bought the supa-fancy edition from Underland.
• The Babylonian Trilogy, Seb Doubinsky – This one wasn’t really on my radar: the PS solicitations for it seem to have not drawn my attention, and I don’t think I’ve seen any reviews of it other than Liviu Suciu‘s back in April. Liviu also lists it as a best-of-the-year, I see. Between Witcover’s recommendation and the fact that Moorcock wrote the introduction, I may have to think hard about getting this one.
• Last Days, Brian Evanson – This is another one I bought in the swank edition from Underland, primarily I think based on recommendations made by Jeff Vandermeer. Good stuff.
• Big Machine, Victor LaValle – Completely off my radar until I read it on this list. However, based on its presence here, and the Liz Hand review I just Googled up, I think I shall add this to ye olde wishlist posthaste.
• Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente – I bought this a while back based on some strong recommendations from friends, but I admit it hasn’t made it out of the to-be-read queue yet. Thus, I have no comment.
• Lifelode, Jo Walton – Still haven’t read any Walton, despite thinking I should for some time now, based on her reviews at Tor.com showing us to have very similar tastes (Fred C–you did that, your comments pushing Walton down the stack!), so maybe I’ll pick up this one and use it to get around to doing that.
• Madness of Flowers, Jay Lake – I pre-ordered this long before it came out, on the strength of Trial of Flowers, but again I have to confess that I haven`t actually read it yet. I expect it to be good when I get to it, though.
• The Dark Volume, Gordon Dahlquist – After reading the Subterranean edition of The Glass Books Of The Dream Eaters, I was primed for the sequel, and ordered it from the UK back in May of 2008 because I couldn`t wait for the Subterranean edition (although I did get one of those to match, and expect it to be shipped pretty soon now). ’nuff said.
• The Silver Skull, Mark Chadbourn – I’ve been toying with picking this up for a while, primarily based on some good online reviews, and my growing respect for Pyr’s editorial selections (and selection strategy), and I think this is enough to push it onto the “pick it up next time you’re at the bookstore” list.