Larry's choices for the Best of 2006

A few days ago, I posted the "finalists" in a couple of the categories from which I would be choosing my favorites. It literally went up to the last hours of 2006 before I could decide which stories were my #1 favs for the year, especially for the Best Book Released in the US in 2006 category. Many fine books. Anyways, here are my Top 3/5 Choices:

Best Book Released in 2006:

1. Jeff VanderMeer, Shriek: An Afterword - Perhaps this book being the last one I completed in 2006 helped influence the one-man jury here, but what stood out about this novel was how personal it felt. This story about Duncan and Janice Shriek felt so real, which helped make all the other elements about the story feel more vibrant than they otherwise would have been. This was one of those rare examples of fantasy novels that have all the layers of emotional depth that the "mainstream" novels do. I just cannot recall a book released this year in the US that comes close to that.

2. Hal Duncan, Vellum - This was one of the most impressive debut novels that I've ever read in the field. Duncan told a very complex story in a fashion that often felt lyrical, while at the same time making this reader feel like he had some at stake by continuing to read this volume. I am eagerly awaiting the release of Ink in a couple of months, just to see if the promise of Vellum is fulfilled. If it is, then Ink might become the early favorite to snag a Best of 2007 award.

3 (tie) Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tale: In the Night Garden - I will admit to enjoying a well-told fairy tale. I also will admit to loving daringly original takes on traditional Western fairy tale motifs, especially if they are well-written. Add all of these up with a very compelling frame stories and this book served to convince me that I better listen to Jay and a few others on the blogosphere and buy the rest of her work pronto.

3. (tie) Gene Wolfe, Soldier of Sidon - Wolfe is a master of utilizing an unreliable narrator to tell a story that requires a lot of careful attention on the reader's part to catch all the nuances and possibilities that underlie the words that aren't printed. In Soldier of Sidon, the third volume in the Latro/Soldier series, Wolfe has returned to the classical world of the mercenary Latro, who has suffered an injury which causes him to forget the previous day's experiences if he doesn't write them down. In this volume, he matches the work he did with the first two volumes (written in the 1980s), thus earning a tie for the third spot.

Honorable mentions: Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora; Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (English translation); Mark Danielewski, Only Revolutions.

Best Book Read in 2006 (but released in prior year):

For this and the other categories, I'm not going to be elaborating as much, mostly because that would take the rest of the year for me to complete. Suffice to say that these are older books that I enjoyed a lot.

1. Milorad Pavić, Dictionary of the Khazars

2. José Saramago, Las intermitencias de la muerte

3. Ben Okri, The Famished Road

4. Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

5. Ivo Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina

Honorable mentions: Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz; Edward Whittemore, Sinai Tapestry; Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist

Best Short Story Collection Read in 2006:

I read three collections that were so good that I felt like I needed to note each of these here. So here they are, different in some aspects, but very similar in quality and in how individual stories moved me:

1. Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find

2. Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners

3. Zoran Živković, Seven Touches of Music (English translation)


Most Disappointing Book Read in 2006:

I generally am very careful with the books I read, but occasionally there'll be some that just dissatisfy me in some fashion. That is not to say that all of the books that appear below are bad, merely disappointing in respect to expectations.

1. Brandon Sanderson, Elantris

2. Dan Simmons, Olympos

Oddly enough, those are the only two I can think of that fit the criteria for this category.


Best Debut Novel of 2006:

This is for American release or for first time in English translation:

1. Hal Duncan, Vellum

2. Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

3. Tobias Buckell, Crystal Rain


Best Spanish-Language Novel Read in 2006:

This is meant to recognize the books that I read in Spanish this year and since they make up the majority of my 2006 reads (64 out of 117), I thought it would be fitting to list three favorites here:

1. José Saramago, Las intermitencias de la muerte

2. Alberto Fuguet, Cortos

3. Manuel Vincent, Son de Mar


And there are my 2006 "awards." Let the discussion begin, either here or elsewhere, as to how inspired/deranged these picks were!

Thoughts on some of my favorite reads in 2006

It's around that time of year again, the moment where people on the blogosphere stop and post about some of the books that "connected" with them. Although I'm going to be posting in a ranked format my favorite reads of 2006 on Sunday as part of the Admin Choices for the 2007 OF Awards held at wotmania, I thought I would take the time to post in no particular order the top reads out of books released in 2006, those released in previous years, and those I read in Spanish this year. So without further ado, the "finalists" for My Favorite Reads of 2006:

Best Books Released in 2006:

Here are the books released in the US for the first time in 2006 that I found to be the most enjoyable (as of 12/26):

Hal Duncan, Vellum - This finalist for the 2006 World Fantasy Award was released in the US in April. I am one of those readers who believe that a good, consistent style is an essential element of making a story work and in Vellum, Duncan does a masterful job in using word tone and pitch to craft a story that spans 3D time/space but yet in the end boils down to a very personal struggle of a small group of Unkin who are trying desperately to live their own lives. A very moving work and one of the more challenging ones that I've read in English this year, so no award ballot would be complete to me without mentioning Vellum here.

Gene Wolfe, Soldier of Sidon - Gene Wolfe is one of my favorite authors, not just in the speculative fiction realm, but in all of late 20th/early 21st century literature. His stories have layers upon layers of meaning and possibility to them, but out of all his creations (with the possible exception of Severian from The Book of the New Sun), none are as conflicted and intriguing as that of Latro, the partially amnesiac mercenary who "sees" the gods of the classical world and has been directed to find a certain temple so he can regain his memory. Wolfe utilizes the unreliable narrator trope to full effect here and this book, the third in the Latro series, is just as strong as the first two, despite being written almost twenty years afterwards.

Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden - This was a remarkable undertaking. Now I have yet to read her other works (such an oversight I'll correct soon), but in this book, she takes the traditional fairy tale format and weaves a complex interaction between the stories that not only fascinates the framework story's young boy (in a mode similar to that of The Arabian Nights), but also the reader. As "traditional" as the stories feel (and I found myself drifting back in memory to my first encounters with written versions of fairy tales, 25+ years ago), there are a great many surprises to them, surprises that serve to build interest and anticipation among the reader. Valente did more than just utilize the form of the fairy tale - she recreated the emotion behind those. For that alone, she has earned a spot on this "finalist" list.

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (English Translation) - For many, including myself, one of the hallmarks of a good fantasy is the sense of something other interacting with the familiar. In this excellent translation of the bestselling Russian urban fantasy, Lukyanenko has established a world in which witches, wizards, vampires, werewolves, and shapeshifters move among us, unseen, checked only by a Cold War-like pact between the Light and the Dark, with said pact being managed by the Day and Night Watches. There are three connected stories within this 450 page book and the questions raised by the actions perpetrated by both sides make this book much more than just a simple good/evil morality play. I eagerly await the 2007 translated publications of the sequels Day Watch and Twilight Watch.

Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora - A lot of electronic ink has been used elsewhere to describe the joys that other readers have had in reading this opening volume to The Gentleman Bastards series. Suffice to say, I found this book living up to its hype and being one of the more enjoyable books of the year. Lynch writes very well, the dialogue is crisp and often funny, and the action flows very well from stage to stage, with few transition problems. The second volume, Red Seas under Red Skies, is due out in the Summer of 2007.

Jeff VanderMeer, Shriek: An Afterword - This Ambergris book (VanderMeer's first true novel) might be the most emotional read out of the books I've read this year. VanderMeer uses very evocative images that seem to come straight from his own experiences (whether that's true or not, it certainly feels authentic). If this book isn't up for the major 2007 awards, then I want to know what books out there are better than this.

Mark Danielewski, Only Revolutions - This is not House of Leaves Part II. Thank God for that, as the style and the way the story (stories) are told show that Danielewski is not content to revisit what worked for him in the past. While the story isn't what I'd call "accessible", it certainly is breaking new ground. For that alone, it merits mention here.


Best Books Read in 2006 but Released in Previous Years:

I won't elaborate as much here as I did above, but this is an unranked listing of my favorites that I read in English this past year that were released at some prior point:

Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry, The Tale of the Rose

John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find

Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

Ben Okri, The Famished Road

Thomas Wolfe, The Web and the Rock

Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist

Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

Milorad Pavić, Dictionary of the Khazars

Edward Whittemore, Sinai Tapestry

V.S. Naipaul, A Way in the World

Danilo Kiš, A Tomb for Boris Davidovich

Ivo Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina

Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners


Libros en español que leí en 2006:

José Sarmago, Las intermitencias de la muerte; Ensayo sobre la lucídez; Todos los nombres

Gabriel García Márquez, El otoño del Patriarca

Rubén Darío, Azul.../Cantos de la vida y esperanza

Manuel Vincent, Son de mar

Manuel Mujica Lainez, Misteriosa Buenos Aires

Alejo Carpentier, El siglo de las luces

Alberto Fuguet, Cortos

José Eustasio Rivera, La vorágine


Hopefully, some of these books will appeal to readers here. On the 31st, I'll try to sit down and choose which books will be in my Top 3 in each of these categories, as well as listing the remaining books that I have read in 2006. It has been a quiet year for me, but also a year full of quality reads. Thanks again to those whom I've heard about your favs, as sometimes they have influenced me in my purchases. It would be an honor to return the pleasure.

2006 Reads: August-October

Since it's been way too long since I've updated this, there won't be much more than a Recommended/Not Recommended comment for most of these. Sorry about that - I'll try harder in 2007 to have blurbs written for each and every book. But starting with my notes for August, here are the books read since then, in order:

67. José Saramago, Todos los Nombres - It's freakin' Saramago and if you don't my admiration for his stories by now...Most Highly Recommended.

68. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five - Re-read from my grad school days a decade ago. It somehow managed to improve with age. Most Highly Recommended.

69. Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea - As big of a fan of Hemingway's that I am, somehow I managed to avoid reading this until now. My loss then and my gain now. Of course, Most Highly Recommended.

70. Umberto Eco, Il Pendolo di Foucault - As much as I enjoyed reading this in English translation, it was a nice challenge to attempt to read it in Italian (first book read in that language for me). It had a different magic to it and my familiarity with the translation helped me through the rough patches. Most Highly Recommended (in your native language, if you aren't fluent in Italian).

71. Robert Jordan, Crossroads of Twilight - I read this book almost solely to do a MST-3000 treatment to it. If you think I'm going to recommend this book...Not Recommended.

72. Ernesto Sabato, Sobre héroes y tumbas - Re-read from late 2004. Very moving story, one that I enjoyed greatly. Highly Recommended for those who read Spanish (or just search for it in translation, as it has been translated).

73. Subcommandante Marcos, La historia de las colores - Only in Mexico could a guerrilla leader write a children's book based on Chiapas-region mythology and have it be a decent read. Recommended for those who like children's stories. Bilingual edition.

74. John Lukacs, The Hitler of History - As a general rule of thumb, I have avoided reading non-fiction (and especially that of the Hitler era) after my grad school burnout on academic histories almost a decade ago. This is a historiographical look at how Hitler research has evolved over the past 50 years. Lukacs does a fine job here, but this isn't a book for the casual history buff, but instead a nice primer for majors and those beginning an in-depth exploration of the National Socialist era. Recommended for those "experts" and lukewarm rec for the informed history buff.

75. Jorge Volpi, En busca de Klingsor - Re-read from late 2004. Very enjoyable thriller-type novel about the search for this mysterious advisor to Hitler named Klingsor. Has been translated into English and other languages. Highly recommended.

76. Rumi, The Essential Rumi - Nice intro to the works of the medieval Sufi poet, Rumi. The translations are adequate, but I wished for more. Lukewarm rec for those who enjoy mystical poetry, but with the caveat that a more complete edition would be better.

77. Alejandro Dolina, Crónicas del Ángel Gris - Re-read from August 2005. Very enjoyable collection of short stories that make the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina a mysterious and fascinating world. Highly recommended for those fluent in Spanish, but unfortunately there are no known translations into other languages.

78. José Saramago, Ensayo sobre la ceguera - Re-read from 2004. See above comment about Saramago. Most Highly Recommended.

79. Alberto Fuguet, Mala Onda - Re-read from March 2004. While this work (available in English as Bad Vibes) might ultimately fail to match the overall power of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (to which this book has often been compared), it comes mighty damn close, plus it shows disillusioned Chilean life under Pinochet. Highly Recommended.

80. Carlos Ruiz Zafón, La sombra del viento - Re-read from July 2005. A story set in post-WWII Barcelona around a book, a mysterious author, and a lurking figure who seems set to burn all the remaining copies of this obscure novel...while something else is happening beneath the surface. Very well-written story. Most Highly Recommended.

81. Edmundo Paz Soldán, Sueños digitales - Interesting story about the manipulation of images to bolster a South American president's status. Recommended for those fluent in Spanish, no known English translation.

82. José Saramago, Ensayo sobre la lucídez - Again, it's Saramago. One of my most favorite reads of 2006, now available in English as Seeing. Most Highly Recommended.

83. Alberto Fuguet, Las películas de mi vida - Interesting concept of telling how one's life developed and spanned over two continents and countries via the connection between contemporary movies and the events in one's life. Available in English as The Movies of my Life. Highly Recommended.

84. Harry Mulisch, The Discovery of Heaven - While it was certainly thought-provoking, ultimately I found it to be too drab and cynical for even my tastes, although I recognize that many others would enjoy it. Lukewarm Recommendation.

85. Alejo Carpentier, El siglo de las luces - Historical novel about a Frenchman, Victor Hugues, in the Caribbean during the 1790s and his role in spreading the ideals of the French Revolution among the ancien regime's strongholds in the Caribbean. Highly Recommended for Spanish readers, as I do not know of any translation, which is a shame.

86. Gabriel García Márquez, Del amor y otros demonios - Re-read from August 2005. While not as well-known as Cien años de soledad or El amor en los tiempos de cólera, this novel about love and cultural differences (and much, much else) set in colonial New Granada (Colombia) is quite powerful in its own right. Highly Recommended, available in English as Of Love and Other Demons.

87. Gabriel García Márquez, Crónica de una muerte anunciada - This account of the "honor killing" of a young man is extremely moving. Highly Recommended, also available in English as Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

88. Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciónes (Spanish) - As I've said with Saramago, I'll say here with Borges. It's Borges, enough said. Most Highly Recommended.

89. Milorad Pavić, Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel - Wow, just wow. The concepts and the execution here were superb. Most Highly Recommended.

90. Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Vista del amanecer en el trópico - A fictionalized "history" of Cuba as told in very short but powerful vignettes. Highly Recommended.

***

In the next week or so, I'll have the November-December entries done, likely around the 31st. Hope some of these books sparks curiosity on your part, as it's usually some form of communication between people that lead to book borrowings/purchases.

Ricardo Pinto Interview

What are you working on at the moment, and how satisfied are you with it?

Currently I am working on the third book of my trilogy The Stone Dance of the Chameleon which has taken me roughly four years so far. Of course I could wish that it was not taking so long, but I am pursuing my vision to its conclusion... and things are going well...

Can you tell us a few words about The Stone Dance of the Chameleon? How would you entice somebody who has never read your work to them?

I would say that, driven by inner forces, I started upon this story, with no notion of where it would take me. In a time where so much is throwaway, or dances to a commercial tune, I have ended up spending the best part of 12 years of my life - so far - giving birth to this monster, crafting it, with no goal other than making it true to itself. The result is a near-mythological evocation of what it takes to turn from a child into an adult; an epic set in a strange, but living world; a love story of suffering and redemption...

How did you come to an idea to write The Stone Dance of the Chameleon? What was your inspiration?

The journey towards the Stone Dance started a long time ago, one summer, when I was still at university, when I typed up an early version of the story. Some of the ideas were there, but really very few and they were very undeveloped. Tolkien's world creation had captivated me and there were other writers who produced rich worlds, Moorcock, Herbert, Le Guin but I wanted more... my own vision...

How come the main character in the Stone Dance is homosexual?

I'm not sure that he is. This category is really a rather recent invention. In the past, Ancient Greece for example, people were defined not by whom they slept with, but what they did with their sexual partners... The world that the Masters inhabit is one in which access to women is narrowly constrained. In such societies it is often the case that males develop love relationships with each other...

Who is your favorite character in Stone Dance? Why?

That's a very difficult question... I love/hate all of them one way or another... but I suppose if I had to go for one it would be Carnelian, because he's the one I'm most in the head of and who, in many ways, is me...

How did the years working on video games help you as an author, if they did?

If we put aside the characters that populate my books, much of the rest of the writing process is, for me, hardly distinguishable from creating a computer game. As I built my computer games from the ground up to achieve fully realized 3D environments, so I did the same with the world in which my story is set. Perhaps, at first, too obsessively so... the rigour essential for computer games is almost certainly overkill in books... primarily because in a book the reader 'timeline' is determined by the author, whereas in a computer game it is generally determined by the player. Of course, what computer games lack and what I discovered increasingly is the very centre of a book - are the characters. When it came to them, my computer experiences were of no help at all...

Are you still working on computer games?

No, I've been doing nothing but writing for quite some time... though a few years back I created a sci-fi world for a friend of mine who is developing it into a wargaming business and which might, one day, find its way into a computer game...

What is the weirdest experience you ever had with a fan?

There was one who offered to send me computer pictures of buildings which he made himself... For no reason I could fathom...

If you were to own several monkeys and/or midgets, how many would you own, and what would you name them?

Hmmm... Three - Prime, Artaxerxes and Blue...

Interview with Tobias S. Buckell

Did you always want to be a writer, or did you experiment with other jobs?

I've always wanted to be a writer, but it's not automatic that you can make a living doing something like that. Until recently I did tech support to pay the bills. Now I'm a freelance writer and blogger as well as author.

Aside from writing, what occupies your time?

As I mentioned above, I've gotten into blogging and freelancing. Writing about random interesting subjects is a lot of fun. I still read a great deal, and with the recent purchase of an Xbox 360, I've been spending some time playing video games if I can find the spare time. I really enjoy the Call of Duty series.

Why should we read fiction? Why is literature important?

Fiction does a lot of things. I really enjoy fiction, particularly genre fiction, because I find fiction to be somewhat subversive if done right. In the guise of 'just telling a tale' writers are given a longer lead to explore humanity before people's preconceptions and existing psychological baggage halts the process. Fiction allows us to live another persons life. Walking in someone else's shoes is the best way to learn about the world, grow our empathy, and become better people.

That said, I don't we SHOULD read fiction as a forceful declarative statement. I don't like the hint of 'good for you' type insistence when some people say things like that. You SHOULD take cod liver oil as well, but that doesn't mean its fun. A lot of literature can be fun, and forgetting that might happen if people think we should be reading fiction for x and y reason. I fundamentally think reading literature is fun, and that's why people might opt to do it. Education, empathy, insight, personal growth, all those are just bonuses!

Do you know what you are going to write ahead of time?

I usually plan ahead, enough so that I don't hit any roadblocks and have some outline set up for myself to follow. But I also leave myself enough room in the outline to play around as I see fit, and I also give myself permission to change big enough elements if a cool enough idea comes along.

How do you get your ideas?

Research. It sounds so dull, but it's not research like high school or college where you sit and read boring texts. Research is flipping through books about stuff you're psyched about, then finding something further you need information about, and then getting so obsessed about finding that little fact, you happily flip through the dry and dusty texts to snag that info, and feel completely fired up when you get that fact. Once I get enough cool ideas and things I feel I can't not use, I begin assembling them and wondering if they might all fit together.

Which of your characters is the most like you and why?

Now there's an interesting question I don't think I've been asked. My characters have adventures the likes of which I don't think I've ever really seen. I think Jerome, though, the young kid in Crystal Rain who's life gets swept away by the invasion that comes through his town is the closest. He isn't a great hero, or adventurer, just someone whose life is getting turned upside down by external events and trying to keep his head down.

Which is the most different and why?

I think Pepper is the most different character. He's a bit of a psychopath in the name of what he thinks is good. That's what makes him my favorite to write and play around with.

Have you had any significant disappointments?

My writing career so far has just been a journey of awesome things, and everything keeps happening faster than I expected. I sold my first short story to an SF magazine when I was 19, and I won a quarter of the Writers of the Future contest, which I'd wanted to do since I was 15. I keep expecting something horrible to happen any second.

Would you ever consider getting involved in the movie business?

If LA came knocking I wouldn't turn anything down!

What advice do you have for other writers?

The biggest part of the word writer is the word write. Writers must write and write often. Like a musician practicing scales, or a painter learning how to mix colors, we have to practice our craft over and over again.

And the last question in this interview is the traditional question of the OF:
If you were to own several monkeys and/or midgets, how many would you own, and what would you name them?

Well, if I could have an infinite number of monkeys working on typewriters in my basement, theoretically as well as producing Shakespeare, they'd also write my next novel for me, and I could beat my deadline and turn the next novel in early.

That would be nice, but I don't think I'd be able to name them all. I'd have to call them Monkey #1, #2, #3 and so on...

Thank you for your time and patience, Mr. Buckell. We wish you the best of luck with your work.

Interview with Herbie Brennan

You are working with books for a long time, and surely had bad times. What gives you energy and will to continue after failures?

I don't really write in the hope of large sales or critical acclaim (although both are very nice when they happen.) I write because I love writing. The down side of this is that I get nervous and irritated when I find for any reason that I can't write at least a little every day. But the upside is that I don't get terribly upset if a book is panned by the critics or sells only a few copies then dies. I just forget it and go on to something else.

Why fantasy books?

Good question. The funny thing is I've never been much of a fantasy reader -- I could never get into Lord of the Rings, for example -- and spent much of my younger days reading science fiction. I know books like Faerie Wars and The Purple Emperor are sold as fantasy, but I'm not sure they shouldn't be classified as science fiction themselves. I think there is a massive amount of scientific and anecdotal evidence for parallel realities and the fact that they can (sometimes) be visited by ordinary people. I've even gone into the evidence in a non-fiction book called Parallel Worlds, which is part of my Forbidden Truths series in the U.K. Once you accept the idea of different realities, then books like Faerie Wars, while certainly fiction, are no longer fantasy.

How did you begin writing?

I desperately wanted to be a writer since I was a very young child. I dreamed of getting up in the morning, going into my study and writing books. By the time I left school, I thought the way to get started as an author was to become a journalist, which I did. I had the fancy that I could be a reporter by day and write my great novel by night. But that never worked out. By night I was too tired (and sometimes too drunk) to write anything and while journalism itself was fun, it wasn't the sort of writing I really wanted to do. It took me quite a while to figure out what I was doing wrong. I moved from reporting to feature writing, then to magazine journalism, then to writing advertising copy before I realized around the age of thirty that I'd never actually done what I set out to do. So I packed in my job and decided to find out if I could survive by getting up in the morning, going into my study and writing books. Fortunately it turned out that I could.

Were you into books as a child? What were your favorites?

I was a huge reader as a child. So much so that adults were quite worried about me and I needed spectacles by the age of 12. I read just about anything I could get my hands on. As a very young boy my great favorites were books on hypnosis and yoga (which seems weird to me now.) A little later I discovered science fiction via H. G. Wells and went on to devour writers like Asimov, Poul and Kornbluth, Blish and so on. I've expanded my range a bit now, but I still love good science fiction when I can find it. Ideas excite me.

How do you approach writing for a younger audience as opposed to an adult audience?

I can't see any difference at all in the way I write for children and for adults. I have a bee in my bonnet about clarity in writing and work really hard to make sure the reader understands what I'm trying to say: but that goes for adults, teenagers and young children equally. Very often I publish a book that's meant for kids (sometimes even young kids) and find I'm getting emails about it from adults. With a few of my younger books, especially those for teenagers, I actually get more emails from adults.

Who are your influences and why?

If you decide to produce fiction, there are two aspects to the work -- the writing and the story. Surprisingly often you'll find that popular books aren't well written, but tell a great story. Even more often you'll find there are books that are wonderfully well written, but sell very few copies because they don't tell an good story. I've become increasingly interested in trying to combine good writing with good story telling and the one author who does this extraordinarily well (most of the time) is the horror writer Stephen King. I've enjoyed almost every book he's written and poured over most of them trying to figure out how he does it. More recently I've discovered a less well known writer who has the same talent. His name is Michel Faber. Critics think of him as a more serious writer than King and while his books sell well, they aren't the multi-million blockbusters that King routinely produces. He's younger than King (and a lot younger than me) but he writes like a dream, creates memorable characters and draws you into his stories with extraordinary skill.

What do you think your largest professional success is?

As a single title, Faerie Wars has been my greatest success to date, both critically and in terms of sales. But my GrailQuest game-book series, which was first published in the 1980s was, and still is, by far my biggest international seller. More than twenty years later it's still going strong in France, it's been republished in Japan and it's now being published for the first time throughout Eastern Europe. If Faerie Wars does anything like as well, I will be a very happy man.

What do you think the key of your success is?

I think GrailQuest was successful because people liked my silly sense of humour. I think Faerie Wars and Purple Emperor are successful because people like the characters.

What is your advice for young and ambitious writers?

Stop talking about writing and worrying about writing and planning what you're going to write tomorrow. Sit down and start.

If you were to own several monkeys and/or midgets, how many would you own, and what would you name them?

I'm not sure you're allowed to own midgets in these politically correct days, but I'd certainly prefer midgets to monkeys around the house. I'd have ten and would name them after my cats: Wug-wug, Shortass, Mouse, Diddler, Brocolli Midget One, Wobbler, Cutemidget Rex, Vampire Banana, Fluzball and Brenda.

2006 Readings, Mid-May Through July

It's been a few months since I've last listed the reads/re-reads I've done in 2006, so here's just the listings, with very little to no commentary on the books:

51. Julio Cortázar, La autopista del sur y otros cuentos - Re-read from 2005, this is a collection of his short stories taken from many of the original edition collections. Good, strong collection from the author of Rayuela.

52. Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist. - 1926 novel that stands the test of time well. Neil Gaiman mentioned this book by name when he praised Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and it was indeed a delightful read.

53. Carlos Fuentes, Inquieta compañía - Re-read from the beginning of 2005, this was an enjoyable set of stories dealing with the supernatural from one of the finest authors of the Boom Generation.

54. Oliverio Girondo, Scarecrow and Other Anomalies (bilingual edition) - Very avant-garde, this collection of works from the Argentine writer/poet. Almost too weird/surreal for me, but yet his originality in prosery (in Spanish - the translation couldn't hold up well) ultimately made this an enjoyable re-read from 2003.

55. Gabriel García Márquez, Memoria de mis putas tristes - Re-read from October 2004. This was Gabo's first short novel in 10 years and it was a good read on the reflections of a life lived and wishes unfulfilled, among a great many other things.

56. Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz - Reviewed at wotmania. Enjoyed this book a lot, thought it held up well, almost 50 years after publication.

57. R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior-Prophet - Re-read from June 2004. Enjoyed it a lot, thought it was one of the more intelligently crafted and written epic fantasies available in English.

58. R. Scott Bakker, The Thousandfold Thought - Re-read from October 2005 (ARC). On the second read, I enjoyed this one even more than the other two books in the volume, so it improved on a re-read. Highly recommend this series to readers.

59. Xavier Velasco, El materialsimo hísterico - This young Mexican author has a lot of talent and this re-read from Summer 2005 reminded me of this. This is a collection of fables set in a true material girl world. Well worth the read for those who can read Spanish (hopefully, this will be translated into English in the near future).

60. Mario Vargas Llosa, La fiesta del Chivo - Re-read from June 2004. This historical novel about the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic is a fascinating account, one that was told well by a master storyteller. I enjoyed re-reading this and shall soon re-read La guerra del fin del mundo.

61. Torquato Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered - Re-read from 2003. This is an excellent poetic translation of Tasso's epic poem on the First Crusade and the siege of Jerusalem. I cannot recommend this work enough to those that enjoy heroic poetry in the epic style.

62. José Herández, Martín Fierro - This Argentine gaucho epic revolves around the exploits of Martín Fierro, as he exists between the white and native societies on the pampas in the 19th century. Although I had some difficulties with the localisms employed, I did enjoy this story quite a bit in original Spanish.

63. Manuel Mujica Lainez, La misteriosa Buenos Aires - This is a collection of story, perhaps based on actual people/events, perhaps figments of the author's imagination, that stretch from the city's first founding in the early 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century. A story collection that I shall read and re-read many times in the future, I do believe, as it just seemed to be full of that je ne sais quoi that made the characters/scenes seem so real.

64. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird - I've re-read this story multiple times since my high school days back in the early 90s and each time, the story impacts me more and more, being a native Southerner who still has had to ask the basic questions that little Scout Lynch asks throughout this moving story.

65. Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys - Reviewed at wotmania. It ended up being a decent Gaiman story, but I'm still convinced that he's a better short fiction author than he is a novelist.

66. Hal Duncan, Vellum - Reviewed at wotmania. Title of the review there should tell you how much I enjoyed it when I read it for the first time this past July.

I'll make another post about my reads from August-early October later this week.