What do these seemingly disparate lists have in common?

Late December has seen the usual proliferation of lists.  Best of 2012.  Best of "centuries."  Best of the rest.  Best upcoming books.  Maybe even a best of the rest of the best of the rest of that list of best something-or-other.  I have read several, both those linked to on Twitter and those I see when I visit certain sites.  But there's a growing set of commonalities with many of them.  Let's see if you can detect a few of the commonalities without me stating it directly.  Oh, and there are some striking differences as well, which make the sets of commonalities even more fascinating to consider.

Locus "Best of Centuries" Fantasy/SF

Top 10 Anticipated Fantasy Books for 2013 - Part One:  Readers' Choice

Best Fantasy Books of 2012

"The Hotties"

Top of the Scots:  Five Favourites

The Readers Episode 56 (list, podcast)

What We Enjoyed in 2012 & The Future

SFF World Reviewers' Top SF, Fantasy & Horror 2012

The Top 5 Books of 2012 in a Few Categories

Favorite Books of 2012

Only the Best (of the Year) - Top 10 New Releases of 2012

Top 10 Books of 2012

Publishers Weekly's SF/F Best 2012

Books I Loved in 2012

11 Favorite Small Press Reads of 2012

2012:  A Year in Reviews

TQC Favorites of 2012

2013 Resolutions (contains a list of 22 favorites from 2012)

This year, next year

Looking Forward to 2013

End of the Year Booklist:  What Are Your Favorites?

2012 in Review:  Reviewed by Our Reviewers

Fifty Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels to Look Forward to in 2013

15 Great Science Fiction/Fantasy Books to Read in 2013

Books of the Year

Looking forward, looking back

The Best Fantasy Releases of 2012

The Wertzone Awards 2012

Top 10 (11?) "Indie" Books of 2012

The patterns I noticed were interesting, but there are some gaps in the lists, not to mention who is devising the lists.  I wonder what would be the favorites of those "voiceless?"

Best of 2012: 25 Notable 2012 Releases (and 10 Honorable Mentions)

I ended up reading 501 books in 2012.  Several dozen, almost 100, were released in some sort or fashion in 2012.  Some were mediocre, a few were bad.  But roughly half were enjoyable.  Out of that number I wrote down 34 titles, 25 out which I'll list in descending fashion, followed by the other 10 in unranked order.  A variety of genres and styles of writing are represented here.  Hopefully, some, if not all of these, will be of interest to you.  Due to time constraints, no links/commentaries:

25.  Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

24.  Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis

23.  Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down

22.  Nick Tosches, Me and the Devil

21.  Zadie Smith, NW

20.  Mark Helprin, In Sunlight and in Shadow

19.  K.J. Bishop, That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote

18.  Samuel Delany, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

17.  L. Annette Binder, Rise

16.  Padgett Powell, You & Me

15.  Nick Mamatas, Bullettime

14.  Brian Evenson, Windeye

13.  Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson:  The Passage of Power

12.  Goran Petrović, An Atlas Described by the Sky

11.  Gonçalo M. Tavares, Joseph Walser's Machine

10.  Louise Erdrich, The Round House

9.  Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

8.  Dung Kai-cheung, Atlas:  The Archaeology of an Imaginary City

7.  Michael Cisco, Celebrant

6.  Karin Tidbeck, Jagannath:  Stories

5.  Will Self, Umbrella

4.  Sherman Alexie, Blasphemy

3.  László Krasznahorkai, Satantango

2.  Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

1.  Junot Díaz, This is How You Lose Her



Honorable Mentions:

Matt Bell, Cataclysm Baby

Jesse Bullington, The Folly of the World

Steve Erickson, These Dreams of You

Steven Erikson, Forge of Darkness

Brian Evenson, Immobility

Jeffrey Ford, Crackpot Palace

Felix Gilman, The Rise of Ransom City

Ben Marcus, The Flame Alphabet

Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds

Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn

Best of 2012: Collections and Anthologies

2012 has seen the release of several excellent collections and anthologies from across the globe.  As I think I noted back in 2011 soon after the UK release, one work that easily would have been at or near the top of a list of collections and anthologies would have been The Weird, a reprint anthology of weird fiction from several traditions that cover most of the 20th and first decade of the 21st centuries, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.  Due to my involvement with the anthology (my translation of Augusto Monterroso's "Mister Taylor" appears within), I have chosen instead to mention it here rather than including it in the list proper.  The US edition came out this year (February e-book; May hardcover and tradeback) and if you haven't yet purchased it, consider this an exhortation for you to do so.

With that out of the way, I read 14 anthologies/collections that were released in 2012.  With two exceptions, I would recommend these to others.  Some I have reviewed, others I will be reviewing in January.  So here's the list with links or little to no commentary.

12.  Nir Yaniv, The Love Machine & Other Contraptions (brief discussion here)

11.  Dean Francis Alfar, How to Traverse Terra Incognita (very solid collection from a notable Filipino writer of SF...and works that aren't as easily classified)

10.  Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (very good collection of stories that revolve around contemporary American Jewish life)

9.  Jeffrey Ford, Crackpot Palace (brief discussion here)

8.  Amos Tutuola, Don't Pay Bad for Bad (review forthcoming in January, but an excellent stories of Yoruba folklore-influenced stories)

7.  Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn (review here)

6.  K.J. Bishop, That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote (review forthcoming in January, but most of these stories were very, very good to outstanding)

5.  L. Annette Binder, Rise (review here)

4.  Brian Evenson, Windeye (brief discussion here)

3.  Karin Tidbeck, Jagannath:  Stories (review here)

2.  Sherman Alexie, Blasphemies (review forthcoming in January, but damn if he didn't pull no punches with these often raw, gripping tales, most set on the reservations)

1.  Junot Díaz, This is How You Lose Her (review here)

Best of 2012: Translated and non-Anglophone Fictions

I have read a lot of works in languages other than English (primarily Romance languages), with a little over a quarter of 2012 reads being in foreign languages (at current count, 125, with at least one more to be finished by tomorrow night).  A few dozen others out of the nearly 500 books read this year are translations into English.  Yet for the most part, those are pre-2012 releases.  There were only 5 books released in 2012 that I read in a language other than English (3 Brazilian Portuguese, 1 Argentine Spanish, 1 book translated into Spanish from Polish), with another 7 translated into English.  Yet these twelve works were pretty good, with little separating most of these works from one another.  Some of these will appear in my overall summary of most notable 2012 releases. 

Most of these I have yet to review.  Some are due to the length of time it takes me to do a couple of translation drafts of representative passages to include in a review, others because I read them recently and haven't had much time lately due to my chronic battle with acute bronchitis.  So I will be a bit briefer than in previous Best of 2012 entries in part because I do hope to review a few of these in depth in January:

12  Nir Yaniv, The Love Machine & Other Contraptions (collection; translated from Hebrew).  This was a good collection, although some stories were much stronger than others.  On the whole, however, I enjoyed it.  Plan to say more on it in the near future.

11  Petê Rissatti, Réquiem:  sonhos proibidos (Brazilian Portuguese).  This was a dystopia involving a totalitarian state attempting to control dreams.  Interest was kept throughout its 205 pages, as it did not feel bloated or too derivative (although there were nods to other writers).  Well-written.

10  Leopoldo Brizuela, Una misma noche (Argentina; winner of the 2012 Premio Alfaguara).  This was a novel told in flashback, ranging from the 1970s to 2010, of the "Dirty War" and the terror of the "desaparecidos" during this time.  Excellent tension and very good writing.

9  Danilo Kiš, Psalm 44 (translated from Serbian).  See my earlier review.

8  Luiz Bras, Sozinho no deserto extremo (Brazilian Portuguese).  Just finished reading this work of a man who wakes up to find himself truly alone in the immense "desert" of a metropolis.  I want to re-read it before evaluating it further, but here is a fitting tentative place for a work whose prose was challenging (in the right ways) for this non-native reader.

7  Andrzej Sapkowski, Los guerreros de Dios (translated into Spanish from Polish).  See my earlier review.

6  Dung Kai-cheung, Atlas:  The Archaeology of an Imaginary City (translated from Cantonese).  This "mapping" of an imaginary city, similar in many aspects to the actual Hong Kong, will remind readers favorably of Calvino and Borges, among others.  Meant to review this in full this summer; perhaps I'll do so in 2013.

5  Brontops Baruq, O grito do sol sobre a cabeça (collection; Brazilian Portuguese).  This was an outstanding collection when I read it two months ago, combining elements of SF and weird fiction to create something memorable.  Considering writing a fuller, formal review in the next few weeks.

4  Goran Petrović, An Atlas Described by the Sky (translated from Serbian; previously read in Spanish).  This is Petrović's debut work, finally appearing in English translation (should note that this edition is from a Serbian publisher that translates several works into English for sale from Serbia).  It is a brilliant work, one that I will hopefully review at length in the near future.

3  Gonçalo M. Tavares, Joseph Walser's Machine (translated from Portuguese).  This is part of his loose Kingdom "trilogy" and it might be the best of the three.  Considering I hold the other two in high esteem, this is very high praise.

2  Karin Tidbeck, Jagannath:  Stories (collection; translated from Swedish).  See my earlier review.

1  László Krasznahorkai, Satantango (translated from Hungarian).  This was one of the more disturbing and best-written novels that I read this year.  The translation of Krasznahorkai's 1985 debut is very good and readers of his subsequent novels can see traces of those later novels' themes here.  Outstanding work.

Best of 2012: Squirrel Commercials

The past two years have seen a resurgence in squirrel-related commercials, as advertisers have realized the potent marketing potential of our sovereign rodents.  Below is the retroactive Best of 2011 squirrel commercial and the one that perhaps might be 2012's best.  Enjoy!

2011's best squirrel-related commercial:





And now the Best of 2012 in Squirrel commercials:

Feel free to submit your own 2012-released squirrel-related commercials as alternates.

Best of 2012: YA/Children's Literature

2012 was an interesting year for me when it came to reading Young Adult/Juvenile/Children's Lit.  Due to a conversation I had this summer with Dunja, I re-read several childhood favorites (and reviewed some of them here) and read several that were favorites of her when she was growing up.  Most of those I enjoyed quite a bit.  Yet when it comes to 2012 releases, I only read 9 works that could readily be accepted as either children's lit or YA (I almost added Samuel Delany's Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, as the two main protagonists were teens when the story began, then I thought better of it, as there would be some irate readers ready to smack me for that ;)).  Yet I enjoyed 8 out of the 9 to some degree or another, so I thought perhaps this might make for a good list for those such as myself who would like to read something new in the field that isn't the X volume in series Y (only one is a continuation of a prior story).  So here's what I read, the five National Book Award finalists for Young People's Literature (one of which is a fantasy) and four others that would likely be classified by some as YA SF/F.


9.  Leah Bobet, Above.  Despite liking her short fiction enough to list her story "Six" for consideration for BAF 4, her debut novel, Above, was an underwhelming YA urban fantasy about a humanity divided into groups based on whether or not they lived above or below the surface.  Although there were some promising moments, the dialogue felt stilted and the story lacked the necessary cohesion to achieve its ambitious goals.

8.  William Alexander, Goblin Secrets.  See my earlier review.

7.  Steve Sheinkin, Bomb:  The Race to Build – and Steal – the World's Most Dangerous Weapon.  See my earlier review.

6.  Eliot Schrefer, Endangered.  See my earlier review.

5.  Nalo Hopkinson, The Chaos.  This is a story about self-identity and ethnicity, as the mysterious black spot that appears on the protagonist's arm can be viewed as a concrete metaphor for her troubles trying to sort out her multiracial heritage.  Well-written, with a very believable character whose conflicts will resonate with many of multiracial/ethnic heritages. 

4.  Carrie Arcos, Out of Reach.  See my earlier review.

3.  Kelly Barnhill, Iron Hearted Violet.  This second novel by Barnhill that I've read this year (The Mostly True Story of Jack being her debut novel) was a delight to read.  When my niece Adyson turns that "magical" age, say around 8 or 9, I think I'd like to lend my copy to her.  Yes, I'm going to that sort of uncle, it seems (I gave her a 50th anniversary edition of Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth for her first Christmas this week).  It is a story of a brave young princess in a world where an unspoken ancient evil is threatening to re-enslave the world and her fight to prevent that.  Traditional tropes, perhaps, but Barnhill writes very well and I think it's good to see girls/women being more than plucky sidekicks or damsels in distress.

2.  Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There.  Speaking of books for my niece, this second volume in her Fairyland series might be a good one to read aloud to her when she's in elementary school.  Valente is a very talented writer and her story, which I would judge to be good for the 9-12 year-old set and older, takes the portal fantasy and twists the "rules" a bit.  Well-done.

1.  Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down.  See my earlier review.


Feel free to suggest other worthy 2012 releases in YA/Children's Lit that I've overlooked, as I certainly will give them consideration for the future, even if it'd be too late for me to post them in this article.  After all, since my brother and his wife aren't as avid of readers as I am, I'd like to screen new books for my niece to read in the future.  It's the least I could do as being the "creepy" uncle of the family ;)

Best of 2012: Romance and Paranormal Romance

Well, I did read some fiction that might fall into those two categories:

Victoria Foyt, Save the Pearls

Dahlia Lu, The Dark God's Bride


Errr....


On second thought, perhaps this should be filed under "Worst of 2012"?

Best of 2012: Debut Novels and Collections

2012 has seen several interesting debut releases.  Some authors had their first published works of fiction made after making a name for themselves writing non-fiction, while others had their first novels published after a successful short story collection or two.  A couple had their US debuts this year after success in the UK a year or two prior.  However one chooses to define "debut," there certainly are some very strong and/or promising voices that I read this year that will not make the final list of 11 (I like prime numbers).  Below is a loose ranking of these "top" 11 out of 26 debut works read, followed by a listing of nine others that, in most cases, just barely failed to crack the final list.


11.  Adam McOmber, The White Forest (novel).  I had McOmber singled out for future reading after one of his stories made the longlist I developed for the aborted Best American Fantasy 4 and although he has a collection already out (which I will read in 2013), his debut novel, The White Forest, is a work that straddles an increasingly blurred line between realist and supernatural-tinged fiction.

10.  Jac Jemc, My Only Wife (short novel).  There is a subtlety to Jemc's use of repetition of words, theme, and tone to outline a grief-stricken husband's inability to get over his wife's sudden (and possibly violent) disappearance.  The prose is impeccable, with a narrative power that threatens to overwhelm the reader with a deluge of associations and emotions, without ever becoming maudlin. 

9.  Peter Heller, The Dog Stars (novel).  This is Heller's first novel after several non-fiction works and he eloquently captures the dual senses of freedom and loss in this near-future post-apocalyptic novel.  Although some plot elements share much in common with other works of a similar nature, Heller's narrative is taut, easily shifting from the literary present to the past without ever feeling forced or disruptive.  The prose is deceptively poignant, creating a work that feels "alive" without pretensions to be artificially profound.

8.  G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen (novel).  See my earlier review.

7.  Jennifer duBois, A Partial History of Lost Causes (novel).  See my earlier review.

6.  Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds (novel).  See my earlier review.

5.  Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (novel).  See my earlier review.

4.  Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (novel).  2012 winner of the Orange Prize.  Miller's retelling of Achilles' life, including his love for Patroclus, could have been hackneyed.  But her gift for narrative and character voices imbues this novel with a power that most veteran novelists will never accomplish.

3.  Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (novel).  See my earlier review.

2.  Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn (collection).  See my earlier review.

1.  L. Annette Binder, Rise (collection).  See my earlier review.


Honorable Mentions:

Tupelo Hassman, Girlchild
Katie Ward, Girl Reading
Adam Wilson, Flatscreen
Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles
Domingo Martinez, The Boy Kings of Texas
Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine
Christian Kiefer, The Infinite Tides
Karolina Waclawiak, How to Get Into the Twin Palms
Kevin Barry, City of Bohane

Best of 2012: Pre-2012 releases (re)read this year

Although it will be several days before I start writing the year-end posts on 2012 releases, I thought now would be a good time to mention older books that I read (or in a few cases, re-read) this year that are worthy of recognition.  There is little commonality to these books other than them being enjoyable works that many of you may want to visit (or revisit) in the years to come.  There is no "ranking" to these, as this is more of a gathering of favorites rather than a determination of "the" favorite for the year.  So in roughly chronological order of what I've read this year, here goes:

January

1.  Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

2.  Sohrab Sepehri, Water's Footfall

3.  Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet books (Justine; Balthazar; Mountolive; Clea)

4.  Eric Basso, The Smoking Mirror

5.  Mercé Rodoreda, Death in Spring


February

6.  Jean Ray, Malpertuis

7.  Teju Cole, Open City

8.  Jenny Boully, not merely because the unknown that was stalking toward them

9.  David Bellos, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?:  Translation and the Meaning of Everything

10. Zoran Živković, The Five Wonders of the Danube


March

11.  Dana Spiotta, Stone Arabia

12.  Yan Lianke, Dream of Ding Village

13.  Gonçalo M. Tavares, Jerusalem

14.  Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist

15.  Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake


April

16.  Mercé Rodoreda, Aloma

17.  Jan Morris, Hav

18.  Judith Hermann, Alice

19.  Diego Marani, New Finnish Grammar

20.  Giannina Braschi, Yo-Yo Bang!


May 

21.  Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

22.  Imre Kertész, Fatelessness

23.  Erri de Luca, God's Mountain

24.  David Soares, Batalha

25.  Helen Oyeyemi, The Icarus Girl


June

26.  Carlos Fuentes, La gran novela latinoamerica

27.  Yoko Ogawa, The Housekeeper and the Professor

28.  Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses; The Crossing; Cities of the Plain)

29.  László Krasznahorkai and Max Neumann, Animalinside

30.  Modris Eksteins, Walking Since Daybreak


July

31.  Goran Petrović, Le Siége de L'église Saint-Sauveur

32.  Ernesto Cardenal, Poesía Completa:  Tomo I

33.  Branko Miljković, Fire and Nothing

34.  Joseph Brodsky, Watermark

35.  Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams


August

36.  Leonardo Sciascia, The Wine-Dark Sea

37.  Emilio Salgari, The Black Corsair

38.  Danilo Kiš, Early Sorrows

39.  Fainna Solasko, Kutkha the Raven

40.  Thomas Wolfe, The Web and the Rock


September

41.  Luigi Pirandello, Racconti fantastici

42.  Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

43.  Umberto Eco, Mouse or Rat?:  Translation as Negotiation

44.  Ivo Andrić, The Damned Yard and Other Stories

45.  Alina Diaconú, ¿Qué nos pasa, Nicolás?


October

46.  Ian McEwan, Atonement

47.  Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

48.  David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

49.  Thomas Wolfe, The Hills Beyond

50.  C. Alberto Bessa, Poética efêmera:  Poemas Reunidos


November

51.  Alberto Moravia, Boredom

52.  Milorad Pavić, For Ever and a Day

53.  Haley Tanner, Vaclav & Lena

54.  Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial

55.  Salvatore Quasimodo, The Selected Writings of Salvatore Quasimodo


December

56.  Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories

57.  Luigi Pulci, Morgante

58.  Matteo Maria Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato

59.  Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso

60.  Mark Jarman, Bone Fires


Hopefully, there'll be something of interest for you, or perhaps you'll recollect an old favorite.  I limited myself to 5 pre-2012 releases a month, in order to make sure I didn't list 100+ books.  The ones listed I think will (or have) stand the test of time, or at least long enough to remember them fondly in 2013 and perhaps beyond.

2012 releases that will receive some consideration for year-end Best of 2012

With just over two months to go in the year, I guess I might as well list the 2012 releases that I've read to date, those that I currently own but haven't yet read, and perhaps a few I hope to have in my possession before Christmas (which is when I cut off reading for Best of 2012 consideration).  There will be a mixture of various literary genres here; my reading tastes are a bit catholic in comparison to many other "best of year" awards I've encountered over the years.  Many of the titles I'll list below will not make a final list; this is only a list of those I deem eligible for consideration (either 2012 US release or I bought an edition originally released elsewhere in 2012).

Already Read (In reading chronological order)

Ben Marcus, The Flame Alphabet

Saladin Ahmed, The Throne of the Crescent Moon  

Ian Cameron Esslemont, Orb Sceptre Throne

Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris N. Brown (eds.), Three Marriages and a Warning:  Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic

Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child

Lászlo Krasznahorkai, Satantango

Gonçalo M. Tavares, Joseph Walser's Machine

Jordi Soler, El Estrangulador

Steve Erickson, These Dreams of You

Matt Bell, Cataclysm Baby

Leah Bobet, Above

Matthew Stover, Caine's Law

Brian Evenson, Immobility  

Elizabeth Hand, Available Dark

Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz

Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

Jac Jemc, My Lovely Wife

Brian Evenson, Windeye

Mario Vargas Llosa, La civilización del espectáculo

Nalo Hopkinson, Chaos

Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jesse Lamb

Tupelo Hassman, Girlchild

Joyce Carol Oates, Mudwoman

N.K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon 

Toni Morrison, Home

Hari Kunzru, Gods Without Men

[Author X, Obliterated Manuscript]

Josip Novakovich, Shopping for a Better Country

Michael Cisco, Celebrant

Steven Erikson, The Devil Delivered and Other Tales

Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles

Leopoldo Brizuela, Una misma noche

Victoria Foyt, Save the Pearls:  Revealing Eden

Danilo Kiš, Psalm 44

Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies

Lavie Tidhar (ed.), The Apex Book of World SF 2

Dean Francis Alfar, How to Traverse Terra Incognita

Junot Díaz, This is How You Lose Her

Steven Erikson, The Forge of Darkness

Molly Crabapple, The Art of Molly Crabapple Volume I:  Week in Hell

Deborah Levy, Swimming Home

Christian Kiefer, The Infinite Tides

Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis

Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists

Alison Moore, The Lighthouse

Will Self, Umbrella

Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk   

Padgett Powell, You & Me  

Alan Shapiro, Night of the Republic  

Andrzej Sapkowski, Los guerreros de Dios

Steven Erikson, The Wurms of Blearmouth

Karin Tidbeck, Jagannath:  Stories

Cynthia Huntington, Heavenly Bodies

David Ferry, Bewilderment:  New Poems and Translations

Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down

Carrie Arcos, Out of Reach

Susan Wheeler, Meme

Eliot Schrefer, Endangered

Brontops Baruq, O grito do sol sobre a cabeça

Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds

William Alexander, Goblin Secrets

Dave Eggers, A Hologram for the King

Brandon Sanderson, The Emperor's Soul



In-Progress or Owned but Yet to be Read in Full

Mark Helprin, In Sunlight and in Shadow

Peter Heller, The Dog Stars

Jennifer duBois, A Partial History of Lost Causes

Louise Erdrich, The Round House

Adam Wilson, Flatscreen

Adam McOmber, The White Forest

Nick Mamatas, Bullettime

Samuel Delany, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

G. Willow Wilson, Alif the Unseen

Graham Joyce,  Some Kind of Fairy Tale



To Be Bought/Ordered

Tim Seibles, Fast Animal

Ian Cameron Esslemont, Blood and Bone

Steve Sheinkin, Bomb:  The Race to Build – and Steal – The World's Most Dangerous Weapon


76 volumes, 63 of which have already been read, with 13 more to be finished soon (or whenever the orders arrive).  Perhaps I'll be able to discover more and get it near to a good 100 or so, which would make selecting a representative "Best of 2012" a bit easier for me, or so I would like to delude myself.

Because all of the (not-so) cool kids are doing it, a mid-year list of superlative 2012 releases

This list is the result of some snarky remarks I made on Twitter today after seeing that people are already trying to list their top 5, 6, 10, 13, etc. 2012 releases (mostly limited to certain subgenres of SF/F/H).  At first, I thought I hadn't even read 10 2012 releases (whenever I get around to typing my reads for May and June of this year, it'll be obvious that I haven't been reading as much as I usually do), but after I examined my written 2012 reading log, I saw that I actually had read almost 20.  So in a non-ranked, alphabetized fashion, here are the top 9 out of those, followed by the others:

Matt Bell, Cataclysm Baby.  I meant to review this short novel months ago, when Matt's publisher offered me an e-book review copy (I have enjoyed almost all of his short fiction), but time constraints would pop up.  So here is a little passage that I bookmarked at the time that might give some sense of why it appealed so much to me:

Our only answers are the church's silent histories, those sequenced promises written in terrible stone, decorating each circling step from the vestibule to the altar, from the sacristy to the last unburned pews.  Each station a horrid hope too unbearable to believe, this world made only the end of mystery, only the opposite of miracles.

Inside my wife, perhaps there is only the same, only these doubling doubts, these many questions that fill my own still-beating heart:  Oh lord, for who else might be promised the inheritance of the earth?  For who else is meant the receiving of the kingdom?  If not our impossible, short-lived children, then what new race still to come, undreamt in our present darkness?  Who are these next babes, about to be poured down upon the earth, come at last to wash us from off its tear-soaked face?

Nathan Englander, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.  Although some might scoff at seeing what to them is yet another short story collection dealing with Judaism (among other topics), those thinking such might have their opinions disabused after reading the eight stories found within.  Englander's talent for developing characters subtly and for creating situations which entice readers to read "just one more story before bedtime" makes this collection a very strong one that may be a contender for major literary prizes later this year and next.

Steve Erickson, These Dreams of You.  Erickson (not to be confused with the Canadian SF/F writer Steven Erikson) is a master at taking those breaking moments in our lives, those times where it seems that time has slipped and something odd has leaked through, and spinning absorbing tales about individuals searching for identity (in this particular case, an adopted child's) while the world around them threatens to implode.

Brian Evenson, Immobility; Windeye.  Evenson has released two outstanding books this year.  The novel Immobility I want to revisit before writing about it at length, but its conceit of an entrapped man at the heart of a deeper mystery works extremely well.  The collection Windeye is perhaps an even stronger corpus of short fiction than his critically-acclaimed prior collections such as Altmann's Tongue or The Wavering Knife.  These stories unsettled me when I read them back in April and I have no doubt they will continue to do so for years to come.

Tupelo Hassman, Girlchild.  Some writers are fortunate to have their debut novels possess a strong, assured voice.  The protagonist, young Rory Hendrix, makes Hassman's novel memorable because her voice feels so "real," so "true" to the experiences of those who have grown up in less-than-ideal conditions, that her struggles to make her own path, while dealing with those men who hover like vultures around her mother, it all just leads to moments where the heart aches and then rejoices.  It is one of the better debuts I've read in recent years.

Jac Jemc, My Only Wife.  When I was sent a PDF file of this for consideration by Matt Bell several months ago, I wasn't for sure when I would get around to reading it.  After I browsed through the first couple of pages, I found myself reading more and more about this obsessed husband's memoir of his life.  The narrative is deceptively simple, as he relates those moments he remembers about her before her disappearance:

My wife would come home and recite the story of this girl into a tape recorder.

My wife created narratives to connect the facts.

My wife fell a lot.  Even when she was climbing through her days, she was falling a bit along the way.  At night there didn't appear to be far to drop.  She was careful in the dark.  She took fewer risks and recuperated for the day.  "The night," she used to say," should be for rest and repair."

In the evening, my wife nursed her scraped palms, a chronic injury from stopping her tumbles with her hands.

In the morning, she was ready to work again.  I never knew her when she wasn't toiling away at something.

Within these snippets, several of which purposely lack transitions, a larger picture of this wife and the husband-narrator emerges.  It is an engrossing read, perhaps because of what isn't being said as much as all of the seemingly-extraneous detail that is being provided.

Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles.  This novel, which won the 2012 Orange Prize, is a retelling of story of Achilles through the eyes of Patroclus, his companion and later lover.  It is too easy to make this tale into something much less than the Homerian original, so it is a testament to Miller's abilities as a writer to take the almost-clichéd sexual tension between the two and weave something different and more encompassing than the bonds between two human beings.  Her Achilles and Patroclus behave in a complex yet realistic manner to the prophecies dealing with Achilles' life and death.  It is her treatment of that issue which deepens and strengthens this novel and makes it worthy of being read and re-read.

Matthew Stover, Caine's Law.  I have been a fan of Stover's Caine novels for a decade now.  Despite generally despising action-filled, violent novels, I found there to be a certain sensibility within his fiction that showed not only the consequences of acts of violence, but the transformations that can occur when strong emotional bonds are altered.  In his fourth Caine novel, Stover becomes almost lyrical in his exploration of cause-effect and of our desires to change and rewrite the world around us.  Caine's Law is the most complex of the four novels in the series to date and at times the transitions between past and present, between grief and hope, and between remorse and determination not to fail again can be dizzying.  But somehow, Stover manages to bring this all together into a conclusion that is one of the best I've read for any SF/F work.


Other 2012 Releases Read: 

Saladin Ahmed, Throne of the Crescent Moon

Leah Bobet, Above

Anne Enright, The Forgotten Waltz

Elizabeth Hand, Available Dark

Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child

N.K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon

Mario Vargas Llosa, La civilización del espectáculo

Ben Marcus, The Flame Alphabet

Toni Morrison, Home

Joyce Carol Oates, Mudwoman