Purview of read 2008 year-end lists, Part I

So the 2008 in Review articles are now complete. Covered almost 20% of my reading for the year. Some on my lists might have made others curious, while others might have desired more coverage for their particular favorite subgenres (epic fantasy in particular, I would imagine). But I wasn't the only one who wrote out a list, checked it twice, and so forth. Below are links and short commentary about some of the year-end lists that I saw, mostly from a few bloggers on my blogroll, but also others elsewhere. This is part one of either two or three installments (depending on my energy/time for the day), so hopefully there's something to discover and to enjoy within each of the ones provided below in Alphabetical Order.

A Dribble of Ink - Novels of the Year (2008) - Aidan Moher's blog is relatively new, a little over a year and a half, I think, so I can't recall if this is the first or second time he's posted a year-end best of/favorite list. Like many others to follow, he doesn't exclude based on year. He has only four books on the list (with two being 2008 releases) with separate categories for Best Overall and Best Released in 2008. His #1 choice, Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Shadow of the Wind, apparently became the favorite of a few SF/F bloggers this year (I believe at least three - Aidan, Mihai, and Pat - read Zafón for the first time this year), so he does have some good taste in books ;)

Adventures in Reading - Nine Best Reads of 2008, Top Nine Author Discoveries of 2008, Top Nine Books Published in 2008 - Joe Sherry has three different lists, with quite a bit of variety on there. What I noticed about Joe's list that I didn't see on most other lists was his love for short fiction, particularly anthologies. The three 2008 anthologies that he listed are all outstanding (I haven't yet read the Lucius Shepard one, but what little I've read of his published fiction convinced me that I would enjoy that collection of his writings immensely). I've read 6 out of the 9 2008 releases he mentioned and thought those were good one, plus Stover's book also appeared on my own 20 Favorite Fictions for 2008 list. Joe also covers more literary ground than many other SF/F bloggers I read, so there have been times that I've been tempted to buy a book because he mentioned it favorably.

Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews - Top 10 of my favorite 2008 reads - Mihai is a Romanian blogger who started this blog in early 2008, so this is the first year-end reflection post for him. His list is weighted more towards pre-2008 releases than 2008 ones (I believe only two novels were released for the first time anywhere in 2008), but I have read 7 of the 10 books and have review copies for 2 others. He too loved Zafón's book and many of the others on that list I enjoyed. Eight out of the 10 listed are multi-volume works.

Eve's Alexandria - An-End-of-the-Year Review, 2008 - Eve's Alexandria is a group blog done by four close friends and one of them, Victoria, blogged about her reading. It is always refreshing to read their opinions on books, in part because genre fiction only makes up a part of a very nice range of literary styles, times, and locales. Victoria's list is dominated this year by Victorian novels (I'm sure I could make a bad pun there, but I'll resist...barely) and to my pleasant surprise, I had only read 4 out of the 10 listed there. However, each of those four (the first Lessing, Homer, Gaskell, Collins) I enjoyed reading quite a bit, although in most cases it has been 10 years or more since I last read them (the Collins in part is almost screaming for a re-read, and mystery fans who haven't read this novel really ought to do so ASAP). Might get more reading suggestions from this list than from most others.

Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog - My Quick and Dirty 2008 List - Like many others, SQT focuses more on pre-2008 releases than others. However, she also covers movies in at least as much detail (perhaps more) than she does books here. Read only two books on her list, the Lynch and Abercrombie, and while most were solid efforts, neither one has ever exactly wowed me with their prose (Joe might with his wit, but that's more of an outside-the-book matter with me ;)).

Pat's Fantasy Hotlist - The Hotties - I believe this is the third (fourth?) edition of Pat's year-end awards and he is one of the few who did just 2008 releases. He provides not only a Top 10 and a Second 10, but also his commentaries on which publishers, authors, and forums merit greater attention. I have read 9 out of the 21 books on his list (for some reason, he excluded Scott Bakker's Neuropath from being counted as a spec fic work) and for the most part, I enjoyed those books. Some I wouldn't have ranked as high as he did (oddly, none of his Top 20 made my Top 20, although some were close). Seems that he has a preference for multi-volume works, as at least 12 of those books are either parts of a series or set in the same literary universe.