Why yes, it is totally acceptable to release you 'best of' lists for last year in February. My excuse this year is I am very influenced by Angry Metal Guy and they're always fashionably late. Anyway, time to take it from the top:
1) Age of Assassins by RJ Barker - *This* is what I want modern trad fantasy to be. I've already reviewed it once here but I'll happily chat about it again. It is by turns tense, heartbreaking, heartwarming, amusing, compelling, and just generally incredible fun. It is perhaps a bit too much on the generic side but it has enough quirks to establish itself as premise of its own; the author's voice is wonderful; the big resolution set pieces are awesome.
A word of love too for the characters. They are portrayed with clarity, nuance and joy. Clarity because the essence of what each character is about comes through very quickly. Nuance because they all possess multiple dimensions of personality and morality. And joy because they're all big fun characters. I keep using that word with Age of Assassins. Fun.
I increasingly find myself rating books by how much bits stick in my mind months later. The big profound books stick easily. The super fun books have to work harder. Age of Assassins definitely lies more with the latter but still sticks. That's some achievement. That's why its top.
2) Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone - And this is how the reinvention of fantasy should be. It is built from the same mix of myth and history and is still recognizably of the genre but it has been mutated into something weird and wonderful. Worlds that reflect our own, places where information does more damage than the sword. And incredibly readable. Gladstone has a fantastic taut style, interesting characters and wonderful mysteries. I say so many good things about him I don't know what else to say.
3) The Empyreus Proof by Bryan Wigmore - The last sentence applies here above applies here too; indeed, my list last year had Gladstone and Wigmore in very similar positions. It kind of sits in the middle between trad and reinvention. It's a strange mix of baroque and street, of primitive shamanism and the gleaming edifices of the Edwardian era, of intellectual mystery and adolescent passion - but oh how it works.
4) The Poppy War by RF Kuang - This is the book that taught me that I increasingly value books by what sticks with me rather than the reading itself. And I'm *still* processing how I feel about this book and its ever shifting tone. Parts of it felt formulaic and lacking in point. They have faded in the memory though. The shamanic initiations and journeying, and the dawning sense of horror at fighting a truly inhumane foe, stick, and those parts were as good as anything I've read.
5) Man O'War by Dan Jones - The most frequent comparison I've reached for with this book is Le Carre and that's not one I make lightly. Its not quite true either. Yes, it stretches tension a long way, and it features a technocrat's eye, but it lacks Le Carre's intellectual savagery. There's no sense of the polemic here, or of the edge that one would expect from a book that's quite cyberpunk. It arguably makes it an easier read but maybe results in a book that loses a dimension. Nevertheless, an intelligent thriller; it would make a good Michael Mann movie.
6) The Last Light of the Sun by GG Kay - One is at something of a loss as to what new there is to say about Kay. This bears all the hallmarks of his work; melodramatic, poetic, epic and with a certain magnificent wild harshness. Its not one of his more compelling books - its no Tigana or Lions of Al-Rassan - which I think comes from characters who lacked the same gravitas. But it scratched an itch very nicely.
7) The Traitor God by Cam Johnston - I keep forgetting I read this until something reminds me and then I'm all "Oh yeah! That did some really cool stuff." The cool stuff is a high magic noir world with a big dirty mystery running through it. Its got a bit of that edge I was referring to earlier (if I wanted to be nasty to Cam, I'd call this Magepunk). But ultimately I found the pacing a bit jump-start for my liking.
8) The Eagle's Flight by DE Olesen - There is nothing jump-start about the pacing here. This book moves at a very stately pace indeed to begin with. It also has a certain dry quality thanks to its assiduous historical research and slightly archaic tone. But somehow it sucked me in anyway - possibly out of astonishment that someone was going so much again against market trends - and discovered a juggernaut of a Katherine Kurtz-esque story once it got moving.
9) Snakewood by Adrian Selby - Another case of daunting ambition. Multiple PoVs, multiple writing styles, and a revenge story covering I honestly don't know how many years. Brick of a book too. Its certainly made the "stuck in the mind" category. Reading it at times was a little unrewarding, partially because I wanted more worldbuilding depth and partially because of all of the above, but there were several incredibly enjoyable resolutions and a lot of really cool ideas.
10) Supremacy's Shadow by TE Bakutis - Finally, a fun romp. The author describes it as Deadpool meets Han Solo and that's pretty much most of what you need to know. Why isn't it higher? Ultimately, it lacked either the depth, or the crackle and pop, of the above books. But it fulfills the pitch more than well enough to make the list.
HM: The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard - I have this glitch in my head where novellas aren't real books. This means I forgot about this until putting the finishing touches on the list and remembered this little gem. De Bodard is the closest thing I've seen to GGK in this current generation of authors, both in style and talent, and this re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes in a Chinese inspired Sci-Fi setting is borderline mesmeric. I don't know which book I'd take out to fit it in so it remains an HM, but it deserves so much love.
No comments:
Post a Comment