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Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Year in Reading: Fantasy
Oddly, I read no “plain” fantasy published in 2011. I read several books that came out in paperback in 2011, but had initially been published in hardback in 2010. (I find hardback books uncomfortable to read, so with the Kindle will probably buy few–if any–hardback books again.)
Fantasy, however, is the category that has the “re-reads”, my comfort books.
RE-READS:
Swordspoint (1987) Review
The falling snow made it hard for him to see. The fight hadn’t winded him, but he was hot and sweaty, and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He ignored it, making for Riverside, where no one was likely to follow him.
He could have stayed, if he’d wanted to. The swordfight had been very impressive, and the party guests and its outcome would be talked about for weeks. But if he stayed, the swordsman knew that he would be offered wine, and rich pastry, and asked boring questions about his technique, and difficult questions about who had arranged the fight. He ran on.
Under his cloak, his shirt was spattered with blood, and the Watch would want to know what he was doing up on the Hill at this hour. It was their right to know; but his profession forbade him to answer, so he dodged around corners and caught his breath in doorways until he’d left the splendors of the Hill behind, working his way down through the city.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agness Nutter, Witch (1990) Review
(24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life…
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.
27 And the Lord did not ask him again.
Men at Arms (1993) (Discworld) Review
…(W)hen you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, ‘Oh, random-fluccuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!’ or ‘Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!’
Sergei Lukyanenko, translated by Andrew Bromfield
Night Watch (2006) Review; Day Watch (2006) Review; Twilight Watch (2007) Review; Last Watch (2009) Review
Anton Gorodetsky is an low-level Other: a human with the ability to slip into different levels of reality and perform feats of magic. Anton is also a member of the Night Watch: a group of Light Magicians who keep an eye on the Dark others, to make sure they follow the Treaty and do not take advantage. Before he became an other he was a computer programmer, so as an other, he has done similar work, only now Gesar (his boss) has decided Anton needs to do field work, and so has sent him out to keep an eye on the Dark Others.
Each book contains three self-contained stories, all building upon what has happened previously, but complete in and of themselves.
New Reads
Muse and Reverie (2009) Review
Charles de Lint is an author I can rely on to write books that I love from page one, and his short story collections set in Newford are always my favorite reads. Although urban fantasy, his works rely upon the creatures of folklore–Coyote, Crow Girls, the narrow places that allow you to move between the worlds. He writes elegant stories of redemption and love that remind me that the fantastic may be possible and that the world of dreams is sometimes real.
The Iron Khan 2010 (Detective Inspector Chen) Review
Detective Inspector Chen is a Snake Agent. A policeman in Singapore who deals with supernatural crimes. Zhu Irzh is a demon from Hell who is sent to Singapore Three to work with Chen. These book often focus on Heaven and Hell and the relationship between the two, but this is not a Western afterlife but a thoroughly Chinese one, with bureaucracy and even communication with the dead.
Once a week he took the tram out to Bharulay to see his elderly father , and they went for long, silent walks along the canal. His mother, the shrill quarrelsome Mrs Roche, had long since passed into one of the more pleasant neighborhoods of Hell, if that wasn’t a contradiction in terms. She sometimes telephoned, a tinny distant voice in her son’s ear, demanding to know why he was still unwed.
Alternate History:
Under Heaven 2010 Review
Guy Gavriel Kay spends years researching the past to help him create the worlds in which he sets his books, and is able to create marvelous and magical cities and people that never existed, yet are amazingly alive and real. I have yet to read a Guy Gavriel Kay book I didn’t love, yet Under Heaven may somehow have managed to become my favorite.
Bridge of Birds 1984 Review; The Story of the Stone 1988 Review ; Eight Skilled Gentlemen 1991 Review
- (Master Li and Number Ten Ox)
Old P’i-pao-ku, “Leatherbag Bone,” was Mrs. Wu’s grandmother, and she was waiting at the confectioner’s to get hard sugar decorations of the five poisonous insects (centipede, scorpion, lizard, toad, snake) to spread over top of her wu tu po po cake, which she would purposely make as inedible as possible without being actually deadly. Every family member eats a slice on the fifth day of the fifth moon, and sickness demons stare at people capable of eating stuff like that and go elsewhere.
The White City 2010 (Abby Irene) Review
Vampires. North America still colonized by Britain and France and Spain in 1899. Middle aged female magicians who are also Detective Crown Inspectors. It’s steampunk and alternate history and magic all piled into a single book.
Anthologies:
Masked 2010 edited by Lou Anders Review
- Superhero stories with the focus less on the daring do and more on the lives in between the heroics–or even long after the heroics have ended.
The Secret History of Fantasy 2010 edited by Peter S. Beagle Review
- Maureen F. McHugh. Gregory Maguire. Patricia A. McKillip. T.C. Boyle. Steve Millhauser. Steven King. Francesca Lia Block. Jeffery Ford. Susanna Clarke. Robert Holdstock. Kij Johnson. Every story in here is good, even the ones that I didn’t like.
Young Adult:
I noticed in recent years that some of the best fantasy out there is sitting in the young adult section of the book store.
Hunger Games 2008 (Hunger Games) Review
I’ll be surprised if anyone the slightest bit conversant with fantasy books has not already heard of and/or read this. I actually have not read the following two, simply because they are very dark and I can only take darkness (no matter the quality) in small doses.
A Matter of Magic (2010) Review
Patricia C. Wrede is another young adult author who should really be read by anyone who loves a good fantasy story. Although A Matter of Magic starts with the trope of a young girl passing as a boy, it soon discards that to move onto the real story–instead of being the focus of the tale, it is simply an explanation of how a girl could survive on the streets as a thief and not be forced into a house of ill repute.
The Thief 1996; The Queen of Attolia 2000; The King of Attolia 2006 (The Queen’s Thief) Review
Instead of Three Wishes (2006) Review
This year I discovered that Megan Whalen Turner–hiding in that young adult section–is writing some of the best fantasy around, regardless of the age for which it was written. And unlike much of the current fantasy, her books stand alone on their own merit. No cliffhangers. No plot points dragging on unresolved for years. Just good solid writing the kind of which you wish there was more of.
The Year in Reading: Fantasy
The Year in Reading: Supernatural Fantasy
The Year in Reading: Comics, Mystery, and History
The Year in Reading: Books Published in 2011
