The books of 2008

1. Seventy-seven Clocks - Christopher Fowler

This book I read beacuse I found it mentioned on Ken Hite's Livejournal and I had read his book Rune before and liked it. It's a mystery, which I don't usually read, and it's very much a book about London. The plotting is very complex and amongst the arcane troubles can be mentioned underground rivers and ancient societies protecting delicate secrets. I really liked this window into the English society, where class is still something very tangible. It also coincided with my trip to Ottawa where I, at the national gallery, stood a long time admiring English landscape painting. Considering the importance of paintings, and hidden messages and symbols therein, it was very fitting. Me like.

2. The Water Room - Christopher Fowler

I really caught the bug, didn't I? More mysteries and even more underground rivers, paintings and the symbolic arcana of London. It never rains, it pours. This time the murder was more convincingly done but it somewhat lacked the intensity of The Seventy-seven Clocks. I still liked it, but for now I'll read something that's not so drenched in rain and the peculiar habits of old English police detectives.

3. The Coming - Joe Haldeman

Haldeman is a good writer, and often writes interesting enough stuff. This time he has written a very intriguing first contact story with many layers and some fairly interesting personalities. In fact, I think this book is so much focused on the different persons, and the fact that each chapter shifts the perspective of the story to their viewpoint, that it almost overshadows the plot. I didn't mind, though, since it was very well done and when the ending came it did leave me with some puzzles left to ponder.

4. Sheepfarmer's Daughter - Elizabeth Moon

I hadn't read any regular fantasy for quite a while, so when a friend offered me to borrow The Deed of Paksenarrion I grabbed the opportunity. This is as close to D&D fiction as can be, without the sloppy writing and the wooden characters that usually stock game tie-in novels. So while this is not really related to roleplaying it made me want to play a roleplaying session! This first book is a bit to much about the everyday training and marching, but it still hinted at something more. The world might be more than marches and fighting. Paks come across as some kind of right-wing militaristic wet dream, who is joyed in battle and serves authority without questioning. I'm not sure why I didn't give up, but somehow I guessed there would be more to her.

5. Divided Allegiance - Elizabeth Moon

So, Paks is more than she looks like. Now she's not only a singularly lucky fighter, she's favoured by the gods! Just when it almost is to much knights is shining chrome armor she looses everything and suddenly the story starts to deconstruct the idea of the perfect fighter. You wouldn't have guessed it from Sheepfarmer's Daughter, but there are quite a few interesting questions asked in this story about morals. Now I was really interested!

6. Oath of Gold - Elizabeth Moon

While there's no surprise there will be a happy ending, Moon manages to say a few things about the true nature of courage and how most people in a pre-industrial society (and probably in our age as well) are not brave paladins in armor. She hits us with some pretty gross stuff and it makes me wonder how people can be attracted to the idea of submission and pain. While I think she could have done more to also deconstruct the idea of the "perfect king", she managed to kill a few darlings of simpler fantasy. I'm suitably impressed and had a good time. This was much better than I had hoped, actually.

7. The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs

I got this book as a christmas present, and I really liked it. Having studied the bible from an academic viewpoint it was very interesting to read about it in this way, very much as a living document that shapes the lives of people. While the intent of the author was to show how ridiculous it is to take the bible literally, he manages to show how much of it still can be used to live a bit more noble and a more fulfilling life. Sometimes the strict codes of behavior can liberate the mind in interesting ways. It was also a very funny book. Jacobs is sometimes so neurotic and fussy about things like his son that you feel like taking hold of him and tell him to "get real", but he is a very entertaining writer. Good fun.

8. Blood Follows - Steven Erikson

This Erikson fellow writes to damn big books! This slim volume gave me an opportunity to try one of his books, and it wasn't too bad. Amazingly enough there is very little images left in my mind of the city he wrote about. Multi volume fantasy epics usually get so big because many pages is spent on describing billowing cloaks, thundering weather and other descriptive language. This short book gave me the impression Erikson writes more plot oriented stories, and I'm not sure I would manage a brick with dense plotting and a myriad of characters. Maybe I got the taster I needed and that was well. Leiber is still the master of city based scoundrels as fantasy heroes.

9. Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey

This is really a traditional western adventure story! Not only that, it's in hardcover! Apparently this is one of the classics. I read it because it was considered good mood fiction for the roleplaying game Dogs in the Vineyard. It does not show mormons in a favorable light. It's a story with many threads, with missing persons, hidden identities and revenge from across the country and the generations. If it wasn't for the melodramatic dialogue and the odd habit Grey has of letting showdowns happen off stage, I would have loved this one. Now, it was ok and I liked it, but later western authors who wrote more lurid stuff can actually be more fun to read than this.

10. Child of the River - Paul J. McAuley [unfinished]

This reads like a low tech history, even though there are hints of much more. Now and then someone even handles a piece of equipment like it's an everyday item, even though it's obviously a high tech item. McAuley is probably gunning for the same type of effect like Wolfe used in his Book of the New Sun but he is not good enough. It's just a very slow and not very interesting book. I decided I wanted something with a bit more gusto.

11. Dreams of Steel - Glen Cook

This is a book with more gusto than Child of the River. It's also a book I've already read, so I rushed through it in order to refresh my memory. Now I finally understood what was happening. Wow, is Lady involving herself with some seriously creepy forces or what? Cook is good at building up steam for the next book, or at least shit to hit the fan

12. Bleak Seasons - Glen Cook

Bleak is just the word for this book. Lady is on the warpath, Croaker is paranoid and grumpy and Murgem is at the pen as standardbearer and annalist. This is the grittiest book I've read about medieval sieges and the total misery that entails. Mogaba really went off the deep end and the misery was tangible in the cramped spaces of Dejagore. Cook also managed to really confuse me with the point of view constantly shifting, when Murgen has his fits and goes off in time and space. Well done but not that easy to grasp all the time. I'm really looking forward to the next books. What is that demented Soulcatcher going to do, really? This is the darkest Company book so far, and it doesn't look like there's any light in the tunnel. At all.

13. She is the Darkness - Glen Cook

Did I just wrote that Bleak Seasons is the darkest so far? Well, it could get worse. The Company is about to go on to Khatovar, and the big hindrance is the Shadowmaster. Howler, Soulcatcher and Longshadow all conspire and the fight is an epic one. Mogaba is now sided with the enemy, and Taglios decides to turn on the Company. Also, there is somehting stirring out on the plain of Glittering Stones, and I'm beginning to suspect it's not just Kina that's out there. I really liked the way Cook used Murgen to tell the story from many different viewpoints, and from different temporal perspectives. So, in the end (grim as it is) we find the Company once again reduced to a shell of its former self. Who will take the lead, and will the ones trapped in the plains of Glittering Stone ever be freed? He managed to keep this series fresh. I'm impressed.

14. Water Sleeps - Glen Cook

Once more we have a new chronicler, Sleepy. She, Sahra, One Eye and Goblin and a bunch of tag-a-long Nueng Bao is all that is left. Tobo, the son of Murgen, is coming of age and this is very much a book where the saga of the Company turns into a family feud. Mogaba and Soulcatcher rule in Taglios and those of the company that's not in captivity under the glittering stone is fighting a guerilla war. This is when the company is loosing its ties to the north and become a talgian, i.e fantasy India, phenomena. It's now very clear that the power on the plain and the shadowgates are part of a plot of their own. Very engaging fight for everyone involved but I'm not very fond of Sleepy. She is rough and her annals are filled with self doubt where Croaker is irony and Lady is arrogance. Still, this is good adventure and the plotting of Khadi is oh so devious. I felt very, very sad when One Eye started to fall apart with decrepitude. Nostalgia for the company and the old timers really got hold of me.

15. Soldiers Live - Glen Cook

So, fittingly Croaker is now back as annalist and the company is soon no longer. Lady and Croaker are old and worried parents to a child they have never seen, and the end of the world or deicide is near. It's a very sad story where a lot of people get killed and Taglios is almost leveled to the ground. Broad vistas open in the plots of the gods, but also the weariness of old age. Cook manages to end the series very fittingly as an old man reflects upon himself, esprit de corps and the life we all live in. The terror of everyday life and how dreams will die. This book is both very bleak, and beautiful. The last words of the book makes for an excellent summary. Soldiers live, and wonder why.

16. Starborne - Robert Silverberg

This is very much an "inner space" book. Aniara combined with Childhoods End. The starship travels to the stars in order to colonize a new earth, and thus ignite the passion of a tired society back on earth. In the end they join in the communion of thousand entities of psionic minds in the hearts of all the suns. It's very polished and the way everyone plays go all the time feels a lot like a symbolic map of the minds of the crew. If there's any direct lack in this book then it's passion. Maybe they are supposed to be a bit jaded, but it also makes the protagonists a bit distant. I'm not sure I will remember this one.

17. Shadows 3 - Charles L. Grant ed.

A strange and curious mix. Most of the stories where not all that great, but it was a formative anthology series during the seventies, I've been told. Some were pretty cool, but none were really memorable. Notable ones which was a bit disturbing was the ones by Steve Rasnic Tem, R.Chetwynd-Hayes. Peter D. Pautz story was more surreal than anything else. Sometimes horror are more about being a bit disturbing and jiggle the idea of what's normal, and as such this book was ok. Borderlands is still the straight up most memorable horror anthology, though.

18. Writers of the Future XXI - Algis Budrys

I got this book for free since I was at the time the only audience for a panel at a science fiction convention. Some stories were really good, and it was nice to read stories by writers who are just starting their craft and to study how they do it.

19. Those Who Watch - Robert Silverberg

Very Silverberg and kind of interesting. But, for being written in the period when he turned out his most interesting work it was kind of lame. Myriad of civilisations keep a watch on us and some confusion reigns for a short time when a ship of observers crash and make contact. Nice but not memorable.

20. Shadows over Baker Street - Michael Reaves & John Pelan ed.

Lovecraftian horrors in pastiches of Sherlock Holmes stories. Some good, some bad and most of them show how boring and formulaic the form can be. Some, though, I really liked. I got kind of interested in Victorian Britain again.

21. Sherlock Holmes - The man and his world - H.R.F. Keating

I just passed this book on a table outside Indigo, and for $5 I just had to read it. Nothing great, but a charming introduction to the time and era with the stories of Holmes as signposts in the chronology.

22. The Darkness That Comes Before - R. Scott Bakker

Out of a discussion about non-medieval fantasy came the impetus to borrow and read this new fantasy series. While I liked the setting, and the new way if drew inspiration from other cultures than the European, it had some failings. The plot was a little bit slow, since it cut back and forth between many different viewpoints. Also, one of the protagonists was a inhuman, savage and misogynistic bastard. I have this small problem of not being able to feel much for that kind of person than anger and disgust. Still I would like to know how the crusade goes on. We'll see if I can be bothered to try to endure more of that bugger just to see how it goes.

23. Naomi - Douglas Clegg

Clegg have apparently been awarded fine prizes. I can see why when reading this book, since it is well written and the prose is beautiful. But, sometimes it is to much well written prose and too little tight moody plotting. I never felt that much atmosphere in this book that weren't at once ruined by more scenes of feel good life. Way to happy for a horror novel. Too good a book to be good horror?

24. The Cometeers - Jack Williamson

Silly space opera from ages gone by. Reading this I wonder how anyone could endure this kind of bizarre deus ex machina and illogical plotting for the genre to survive! It is fun in a kind of detached way, but the super weapon in the first book in the series really forced Williamson to bend over backwards to make a new threat. He didn't succeed that well. Very clearly a book from the thirties, with supermen all over the place.

25. Död mans guld [orig: Beyond the Wild Missouri] - Walt Coburn

Not a good book by any stretch, but entertaining and the plot twists felt interesting enough. It could have used a set of more interesting bad guys though. They felt a bit cartoonish at times.

26. Long Lost - Ramsey Campbell

I think I kind of liked this book, but it had an odd structure. The protagonists found a woman early in the story, and when things start to go wrong it's clear to the reader that she is responsible. Now the book goes on and on until the last chapter with more and more anxiety until the next to last chapter. Then it just ends, and through a weird experience the main character of the book takes the "monster's" place. What happened in the end? Who was she? How did she cause the odd things that happened? Who knows. I think I would have preferred a more traditional structure with a confrontation and a resolution. But, the atmosphere was tight and well done. Campbell can invoke feelings of anxiety, wrongness and suspense very well.

27. Keeping it Real - Justina Robson

Fun! Weird quantum bomb unleash the way to the faerie, demon and elven realms. Now they can be seen walking the streets of men and one elf is making headway as a rockstar. Fairly cool. The cyborg girl who get to be his bodyguard is also kind of cool. Apart from the bit when they travel in Alfheim, when the pace slows down a bit, it was entertaining. I will probably read the next book as well just because the idea of cyborgs, magic and elves in one setting is so gonzo fun.

28. Darkness Wakes - Tim Waggoner

Easy reading about a modern cult of hedonists who sacrifice humans to a shadow creature and in return get to feel the most intense pleasure imaginable. Then one guy gets recruited and realizes that they are all insane. It was quite a few yucky bits in there and quite a lot of oddball sex scenes. Definitely a page turner, but not exactly a good book.

29. The Man of Gold - M.A.R. Barker

How can a book based upon RPG campaigns be good? Frankly, they are usually crap. Barker is not to shabby as an author, though. He manage to pull it off, even if there are some parts where the pace is off and where exposition takes over. It was a fascinating glimpse into the classic and very diffrent fantasy world, though. It had a strong meso-american feel. I liked it. The sense of millenia old technology and weird rituals and magic was cool. I think I'll try to read of of prof. Barkers novels.

30. Galactic North - Alastair Reynolds

Eight more shorter works in the universe of Revelation Space, what more can you ask for? Some of them weren't that interesting, but since they pictured the setting in different times of its evolution I guess it's unaviodable. A few was really good. "Weather", about a lonely conjoiner girl and the mysteries of the conjoiner drives was very good, for example. This is also one of the few times I've read a story set 38000 years into the future. Al is still very much a noir mood writer. The dealings are shady, the setting grim and if it's not raining, it's the cold stark blackness of space and the smallness humanity that establishes atmosphere. Sometimes, there's even redemption. He even names a starcraft Hope. Me like.

31. The Prefect - Alastair Reynolds

Gosh wow, oboy! A cop, a couple of murderous AI and a full blown space battle with a bunch of lighthuggers! This is Space Opera the way it should be. Way cool! Also, a very neat a tight plot with many twists and turns. There's so much going on that our God Cop uncovers. I liked the idea of placing it in the Glitter Band before the plague, and forshadowing that catastrophy with another major threat. I haven't read anything in a long time which made me so vary of machines. Rip roaring fun.

32. Merchanter's Luck - C.J. Cherryh

I've realized that Cherryh have a very detatched style. She tells you what the characters feel, but you don't really feel them beneath the skin. Also, I think people are very high strung. In this book the main protagonist is a psychologically character, and everyone just pushes him around. Basically nobody in the whole universe seemes to have an ounce of empathy. Apart from that, which gave the book a cold feel, it's decent enough. Really, it's just a setup and one intermezzo between the big players in this fictional universe. Not bad, but it was very little payoff for the reading effort. I think the author is more interested in the far future politics and history than the humans who inhibit this universe. It could have been far more interesting.

33. The Sword of Bheleu - Lawrence Watt-Evans

So, this looked like a stand alone book but turned out to be the third in a series. Not what I wanted. Well, at least I have gotten a taster of the author's style. It was ok, but not all that engaging. It felt a lot like game fiction, to be frank. Much time spent in bars, and running back and forth on quests and errands. It was kind of funny sometimes, so it wasn't a bad read. I had hoped for more, though.

34. I döda språks sällskap [In company of dead languages, my transl.] - Ola Wikander

This was a very charming book about old languages, their history and some facts about their former native speakers. Isn't wonderful when you think about how a language opens up a window into the minds of people. Imagine how a new world open up for you as you suddenly can decipher a text in sumerian, ancient persian or latin! The way those people of old structured their thoughts speaks so loud about who they were. I wish I had the talent, time and energy to learn all those wonderful things.