The books of 2014

1. 100 Bullets (Vol. 2) - Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso

I like this series. While I usually prefer very realistic art, Risso has managed to use his odd angles and somewhat expressionistic style in a way that sold me over. The use of lightning and facial expression is well done, and the pacing and depth of focus in the frames is post Miller at its best. Some of the moral ambiguity have gotten extra depth with the added layers unveiled about what Graves is up to. Now I really have to read the next volume soon.

2. Ash - Mary Gentle

3. The Complete Griselda - Oliver Dickinson

Fun romps through Pavis, and an excellent way to get some kind of grip on the setting of Glorantha, that so ofter just feels weird. But, it is no great literature, and sometimes kind of stilted by the limitations the author put upon himself. Fun, though.

4. The Incrementalists - Steven Brust & Skyler White

Imortals fooling around with humans for their own purposes? Check! Infighting amongst the immortals? Check! Wheels within wheels? Check! It's almost a vampire novel, but not really. Some of the mumbo jumbo just sounds daft, but the plotting is tight and the characters likeable. It reads very much like a Brust novel, and those are never boring.

5. 100 Bullets (Vol. 4) - Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso

6. 100 Bullets (Vol. 5) - Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso

7. 100 Bullets (Vol. 6) - Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso

8. Stochastic Man - Robert Silverberg

Interesting book about determinism, and how to cope with a universe without any order at all, or one with no chance. Silverberg manages to make both understandable, and human. I had never thought of precognition in that light, but it very easy to see how it could implies determinism. I kind of liked how Silverberg took the old time traveller tropes and reused them for paradoxes. Well done, as could be expected.

9. Fatale - Pray for rain - Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips

This series becomes darker and darker. Since it's so very much about the alluring female, I wonder how it works on a woman reader? Maybe this is the perfect match up of the noir and horror? I like it.

10. Samlade Svenska Kulter - Anders Fager

Anders Fager have written some very interesting stories. This is a collection of short stories, self cotained, but they make up a jigsaw puzzle of a very different Sweden. Many have written "mythos" fiction, but this is something else. Lovecraft tried to conjure the feeling of the unreal and unnatural with prose. Fager uses the banal and common to make the unreal become very visceral. Everything feels familiar, but there's a dark twist to it. He actually makes it work, and many of these stories are quite disturbing and creepy. This is how modern "lovecraftian" fiction should look like.

11. Neuromancer - William Gibson

Third re-reading and what most stuck with me were the small subtle off-hand remarks about the future setting. We never get any details about that war or that plague, but it makes the world sound real. I also became very aware of how every character in this novel is an archetype in every cyberpunk roleplaying game. Once again, just like the last time, I was staggering by the implications in the last conversation Case had with the AI after the run. Was it really in conversation with other AIs? With Aliens? Alien AIs? This book is probably better than the followers.

12. Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds

The vast, stark, darkness of space and exotic and weird Ultras that pilot kilometer long Lighthuggers. What's there not to like? I liked the galaxy spanning mystery and threat, and the revelation spaced out as a good space based suspense. This time, re-reading it, I felt the characters were probably supposed to be more weird than I originally thought they were. The trans/post-human world felt real. I liked it alot. It was worth re-reading.

13. Radio Free Albemuth - Philip K. Dick

It's pretty clear this is a late era Dick novel. Not only is is quite focused on the odd revelations Dick had in 1974, but it's also all about 1970 California. I'm pretty sure it would have been better with some editing and a re-write. Nothing much happens, and it's sometimes a bit of a slog to wade through the logical jumps and paranoid delusional monologues. It's missing some of that humour and off twists Dick had in his earlier novels. I like the idea of having two characters being the believing Dick and the other his double. Somehow it felts a bit dated with all the talk of radios, and the obvious Richard Nixon figure. It would tie in a bit to the present day power abusing president, if it weren't for the fact that criticism is soo tightly tied to racism. In this novel it mostly feels quaint.

14. In the Courts of the Crimson Kings - S. M. Stirling

In the second book of the series we get another "planterary romance" style novel, this time on Mars. It is fairly hard sf though, but in a alternative history. I liked the weird biological technology of the Martians, and their odd culture. The ending was cool, and opened up vistas of mega sense of wonder. A portal to a Dyson Sphere, on Earth, and an A.I. millions of years old under Olympus Mons? That is kind of cool.

15. Amatka - Karin Tidbeck

This is a really strange novel. After hearing Ann Vandermeer talk up Karin Tidbeck I realized I had to familiarize myself with her work, and it sure is weird. The dystopian planet depicted feels a lot like North Korea. It's extremely planned, strict and everyone is a cog in the great social machine. Then there are these indications of other people, other narratives of how the world is run. What in the end didn't work for me was how it turns out this is not another group of colonists whose way of life is just not talked about. It turns out this weird oppressive society works like it does because otherwize the world melts! Literally. It was a bit too depressing for me. While there are ideas about language shapes our preception about reality in there, I drowned in the depressing setting and how the weird was just unfathomable.

16. vN - Medeline Ashby

This books has three phases. Amy is a kid, Amy runs awy from people who hunt her, and Amy is tranformed and start up a utopia. The last part feels oddly detached from the rest and we mostly get to see things through the perspective of others, and in the middle part she is mostly trying to understand who she is and what makes her different. This reminded me a bit about those books about vampires, where it's not really about being a vampire, but really about growing up and relationships and so on. What is a human? what are feelings? Is it less morally repenhensive with sexual abuse if the abused is a robot built to like it? I think the ideas are intersting and important to write about, but I think this book failed to really grab hold of those questions by the throat and really run with them. A little too much and little at the same time. Decent but not great.

17. Good News from Outer Space - John Kessel

This was a book I had very peculiar feelings about. On one hand I liked the idea of an alien walking around confronting people about what they really belived in in. On the other hand all the morons and fanatics just made me sigh. It was a very American book. I'm not sure I liked it in the end, but it held some fascination and the science fiction ideas about how to change society was interesting.

18. Ur Varselklotet - Simon Stålenhag

This book was a big dose of 1980-ies nostalgia for me. It was first just some pretty pictures of robots and weird looking buildings in the land of my childhood. Then there was this back story being uncovered, and I odd sense of dislocation. This is somehow my childhood, but at the same time it is not. The aesthetics of abandoned technology and machinery works its charm on me, and the hints of the story is very cool. I will treasure this book. As an artifact, it is gorgeous.

20. Doomstalker - Glen Cook

21. Warlock - Glen Cook

22. Ceremony - Glen Cook

This is a series of three books, but it really feels like one long story, because there are really no gaps between the different parts. I liked the idea of a fantasy setting that expaneded to a sf novel as the protagonist expanded out of the low tech area where she grew up. I also liked the sociology and psychology of intelligent wolves. The idea of a prophecied doom was less convincing, and it often felt just like Marika just marched from victory to victory. Still, it was a good yarn and quite a page turner at times. But, I must say I felt it was a bit too grim. I don't think I ever read a book where the protagonist comitted suicide.

23. Fatale - Curse the Demon - Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips

So the saga ends. It was bigger and weirder than I expected it too be. Considering there has been some fairly strong emotional content in this series of books that might be a bit surprising. I'm not sure I'm much of a fan of the serialized model for my fiction. But, in contrast to some similar stories, I think the end was fitting. There was a good buildup, and the story played out like a tragedy should. Noir and horror is a very good fit. I finally felt sorry for Josephine, because all the lives she had ruined, not in spite of that.