That Time of Year

December 31, also known as New Years Eve. This is the time of year when I look back over what I read throughout the year and picky my favourites. For the first time in a few years I reached triple figures. I managed 101 books, which is a pretty fair effort.

Of that 101 I chose 11 favourites. Bear in mind though that I made a very conscious effort to reread this year, so some of those comprise the 101 and it's not really fair to include them in this list. The majority of them are recent releases, although there is one older work amongst them. As always this is in no particular order, I don't rank things like that. They're listed as I read them.

 The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

By the time I found out about this it had already been out for a while and I had trouble finding the trilogy opener down here. It's a hard one to classify. On the face of it, it's science fiction as the Tao of the title is a member of an alien species who have to use a human host when on Earth. There's a historical fiction component as many of Tao's hosts have been figures of historical importance (Genghis Khan and Vercingetorix to name two of them) and he's an awful name dropper. Tao basically turns his host, the hapless Roen from an overweight, ambitionless slob into an ass kicking covert operative in a fight for control of the world's future. It's a wild thrill ride with plenty of humour and thoroughly entertaining. The two sequels: The Deaths of Tao and The Rebirths of Tao continue the fun and the story.

Soda Pop Soldier by Nick Cole

I loved Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, and this is in a similar vein, although it has a harder edge, and while I never really felt that the Wade in Ready Player One was ever in genuine trouble I didn't get that with Soda Pop Soldier. The title refers to what the main character does for a living. He competes in an online war game for money and works for a soft drink company. He finds out that the combat he's engaged in is very real and for a lot more than he ever thought. The action is brilliantly done and the reader feels like they've been thrown right into the thick of it and they're getting into firefights along with the online gamers. Highly recommended, especially if someone liked Ready Player One.

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

This is the oldie. Up until this I had only read the Hugo Award winning Among Others by Jo Walton. Tooth and Claw, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2004, is completely different to that. It is an extraordinary book. After reading this no one can ever look at dragons in fantasy quite the same way again. Jo Walton's dragons love their gold, and they're large scaly beasts who breathe fire and have ferocious tempers, but everything else comes straight from the pages of Jane Austen. If Jane Austen were a dragon then she would have written Tooth and Claw. Other authors I've read have tried to mimic Austen's style and language, but no one has nailed it the way Jo Walton did in Tooth and Claw. Recommended for lovers of dragons, Jane Austen and anyone who appreciates good literature.

Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant

I cheated a bit this year and included a few novellas in my list. Rolling in the Deep is one of them. Mira Grant for anyone who doesn't know, is the pen name of urban fantasy (October Daye, InCryptid) author Seanan McGuire. Whereas Seanan McGuire writes dark but often amusing urban fantasy, Mira Grant has made her name writing zombie fiction (Newsflesh, Parasitology). I really loved Newsflesh, especially the series opener; Feed, but was less taken by Parasitology, in fact I bailed after the second book and didn't bother with the third. After reading Rolling in the Deep, I am convinced that Mira should give up the zombies and branch out into other weirdness. Rolling in the Deep isn't about zombies, it's about mermaids. It's written about a team going in search of mermaids for the purposes of a mockumentary. Bit by bit they discover that mermaids are in fact real and that they should never have gone searching for them. It's done so well that while reading it I was convinced I'd seen it on TV. Someone should really pick this up and make it into a one off TV special. It would hardly require any adapting from how the novella is written.

The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis

Ian Tregillis first came on my radar with the utterly brilliant Milkweed triptych (Gretel *shudder*). I was eager to read The Mechanical, the first of The Alchemy Wars trilogy. He did not disappoint. Ian Tregillis' books tend to defy easy categorisation. Milkweed had elements of science fiction, fantasy and alternate history. The Mechanical has all those and he's thrown steampunk into the mix this time. It's set in an alternate early 20th century where through their ability to control robots, the Dutch have become the world's pre eminent superpower and are engaged in a war on North America with the French, who are attempting to resist them. The story of the book follows Jax, a 'mechanical' who finds out how to resist the geas that compels him to do whatever his masters order him and thus becomes an important pawn desperately wanted by both sides for the potential and the threat that he represents. I've also read the sequel; The Rising, and if the 3rd book delivers then Tregillis has created another classic. Possibly one of the most underrated authors in the genre at present.

Vicious by V. E. Schwab

An aptly named book. It's a short, nasty little fable. Brutal in both the way it is told and the language it uses. No one gets out of this one unscathed. I was often reminded of Chuck Wendig's Miriam Black books when reading it. The short punchy way Schwab tells her story is reminiscent of Wendig's writing, although she's less visceral. Nothing is wasted, though. It doesn't use many words and the reader doesn't need them. Plenty of others could take note of the bare bones approach and their own bloated tomes may benefit from application of it. The lead characters have powers that they don't want and rather than helping them, they have become a curse that they can't escape. A book that stays with the reader long after they have finished it.

Crooked by Austin Grossman

I really enjoy what Austin Grossman writes (he's the twin brother of Magicians author Lev Grossman). The only thing that his three books so far have in common is that they're all fictional autobiographies. Whereas his first two (Soon I Will Be Invincible and You) were about fictional characters, one set in a world that most definitely wasn't real and one in a world that was, Crooked is about Richard Nixon (yes, that Richard Nixon) and is by the former President of the US himself. It sets out to put the record straight. Nixon was wronged. He spent most of his life fighting to save the world from a dimension of demons that sought to control it. It would explain an awful lot if it was true. It's funny, scary and informative. It probably won't get the recognition it deserves, although io9 did list it as one of their favourites for 2015.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

I don't generally rank one of these books above any of the others, but if pressed I'd have to put Becky Chambers' debut on top. It is an extraordinary book. I don't generally play well with science fiction, but this one held me from go to whoa. I literally couldn't put it down at times. I laughed and I cried. There isn't a lot of story really, but it's just a wonderful tale about the crew of the small craft as they travel through space doing their job and living their lives. It's one of the few science fiction stories I've seen where it has genuinely alien races that seem real. Becky Chambers managed to create a highly believable future. I felt that I could get in a time machine, fast forward a few hundred years and I'd be in her world. Everyone should read this, absolutely everyone!

Speak Easy by Catherynne M. Valente

This is another of the novellas. I adore what Valente does with words. I'm convinced that she met the devil one night at a crossroads, pricked her finger with the point of a fountain pen, then signed a contract with her own blood to make her the best wordsmith in the world. I don't even really know what the story of Speak Easy was (it's apparently a retelling of the story of Twelve Dancing Princesses set in a lushly imagined jazz age), but I was just transported by her incredible descriptions and the concepts that she deals in. When I open up a Valente book I'm taken into a world of words and concepts so real that I can almost touch them, and I'm somewhat disappointed when I close it and know that this only exists in our imaginations.

The Builders by Daniel Polansky

At just over 200 pages The Builders is long for a novella, but that's how it's described. Considering that some pages only contain a paragraph, the page count is cheating a bit. Polansky is considered one of the wave of grim dark authors out there, and The Builders fits that. Imagine if The Wind in the Willows had been discovered and adapted for the screen by Quentin Tarantino and you'll get some idea of what The Builders is. It's a sort of blood soaked Magnificent Seven, only Yul Brunner is a world weary, one eyed rat. I was held entranced by the whole thing, it's one of those ideas that seems so mad it can't possibly work, but it does. I read it over the space of a day. Well worth taking the chance on.

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

This is the book based on the highly successful podcast. I hadn't actually ever listened to the podcast when I picked the book up (I have since and it's a wonderful little piece of insanity). I can't really describe the book. It's largely about two residents of the strange little desert community of Night Vale trying to escape the odd town. A town where librarians are dangerous and where angels all called Erika live with and help out Old Woman Josie. The whole thing made no sense, but at the same time was compelling in that if I thought about it I could see metaphors for everything so it therefore made perfect sense. One of the oddest things I've ever read, but also very satisfying.

That's my 2015 through the pages of a book.

Favourite Fantasy Authors and Books A - Z (A)

I was unable to sleep last night (very hot and sticky down here) and I pulled out an old book I have called 100 Must-Read Fantasy Novels and began to flick through it. I don't know if I could make a list of exactly 100, I'd be sure to go over or under, and I don't like titles like Must-Read or Best Of, they're both quite subjective and always subject to debate and/or argument. I started to think about it, and thought that I could make a list from A - Z (although I may struggle to find authors that have names starting with letters like X or Q, possibly Y and Z as well) of favourite authors and their books that I like most.

Because it's a favourites list that's also quite subjective, but it's only my personal opinion. However because it is as personal as it is that will mean some interesting additions and omissions as well as a few quirks that are probably common only to me and how I view the genre.

Each entry will cover a letter and have the authors whose surnames start with that letter that I have chosen in it. There will be a brief author bio, the book of theirs I've chosen and then a further reading list with selected works by that author and related books by other authors (some of those will more than likely also appear in this list). So lets have at it!

Ben Aaronovitch. Alphabetically Londoner Ben Aaronovitch is first cab off the rank. Aaronovitch first came to the attention of the genre for his work on the evergreen British science fiction show Doctor Who. Prior to publishing his Peter Grant/Folly novels he was best known for Remembrance of the Daleks, a 1998 Doctor Who serial featuring the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and his companion Ace (Sophie Aldred). It's a highly regarded entry in the show by many fans and was ranked as the 10th best in a poll of fans done by the show's official magazine. The Peter Grant or Folly series (the author seems to refer to them as the Folly books and most readers call them the Peter Grant books), started in 2011 and has now produced 5 books, with more planned. Ben keeps a blog at http://temporarilysignificant.blogspot.com and tweets @Ben_Aaronovitch.

There are 5 books in the series so far, but I tend to go for the series opener Rivers of London as my favourite of the 5. At the heart of it they're urban fantasy with a strong police procedural twist, which makes sense as the series' 'hero' Peter Grant is a bi racial London copper. While this one, and the books that follow largely concern themselves with Peter's learning of magic and his attempts to track down various London based (although the most recent book; Foxglove Summer, took him out of his comfort zone and into the English countryside) magical criminals, and most often the dangerous and mysterious Faceless Man, they're really about London and certain aspects of it and how it is an ancient and magical city. The title is so apt for the book, it's all about the city and the various waterways (it isn't just the Thames) that run through it, around it and under it, have been throughout the ages, and still are, the veins through which it's life's blood flows. I tend to rate the opener a little higher because it's the one that so skilfully introduces the concept and the main characters. The somewhat confused Peter, his ill-fated parter Leslie, his old and out of step with the modern world guvnor Nightingale, and their mysterious, largely silent and often highly amusing maid Molly. Although the books are all connected, and the 4th (Broken Homes) ended on a cliff, generally they're fairly episodic and self contained, so can be read singly and still give the reader some sort of a sense of closure.

Further and related reading: Rivers of London (which was for some reason called Midnight Riot in the US) was followed by Moon Over Soho, Whispers Underground, Broken Homes and Foxglove Summer. A 6th book, The Hanging Tree, is due out sometime in 2015. There's also a novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks available, and a few of the New Doctor Who Adventures published by Virgin. For a brief time Ben Aaronovitch had the weird stuff happens in London police procedural playground all to himself, before his fellow Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell produced the Shadow Police series (London Falling, The Severed Streets, with a third book also due sometime in 2015) got into the market. The Shadow Police books are even heavier on the police procedural stuff, lighter on the magic and somewhat darker, veering into horror territory at times, with a harder edge than Aaronovitch's Folly books. There was also a 6 issue comic put out by Marvel's Epic imprint during the 80's called The Bozz Chronicles which dealt with an alien, a former prostitute, a down on his luck American prospector and an aristocratic British detective investigating supernatural and science fictional happenings in and around London in the late 19th century. If you can track them down they're worth a read and highly entertaining, especially the interaction between Bozz and Mandy.

Another Englishman. Joe Abercrombie. Formerly a freelance film editor (he may actually still keep his hand in, but I think he's a full time author these days) Abercrombie first entered the world of fantasy in 2006 with the publication of The Blade Itself, the first volume of The First Law trilogy. By 2008 he had completed that trilogy and followed it up with 3 related standalone novels (Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country), they were all set in the same world as The First Law and featured characters from that trilogy coming in and out of the stories. Having conquered the world of adult epic fantasy with those 6 books, in 2014 he set his sights on the field of YA fantasy with the publication of Half a King, the first book in a trilogy. The second volume; Half the World, has just come out and the final book; Half a War (see the theme in the titles) is due out later in 2015. All of the published books have gone on to sell well and been received positively by both fans and critics. He cultivates a rather sarcastic, narcissistic public persona, keeps a blog at http://joeabercrombie.com and tweets as @LordGrimdark, which in typical Joe Abercrombie fashion is a reference to his perceived status as one of the leading voices of the subgenre known as 'grimdark'.

There's plenty of debate amongst fans as to which of Joe's 'Circleworld' novels is the best, and now with the publication of the 'Half' trilogy, people are rating those among his best as well, but my personal favourite is The Heroes. While there are some characters from the original trilogy and the previous standalone (Best Served Cold) and some slight spoilers for those, The Heroes can be quite comfortably read and enjoyed without knowing anything about them or having read them. The storyline for The Heroes is quite simple, it's basically coverage of a battle for territory, and it centres around a circle of standing stones which give the book its name, they are 'the heroes' of the title. The multiple third person PoV technique focusses on various participants in the battle and the eventual conclusion is that 'war is hell'. The book used a tagline: 'Three Men. One Battle. No Heroes' which summed it up perfectly. It contains plenty of examples of the dark humour that characterises Abercrombie's Circleworld books, as well as the overwhelming bleakness that in life no one really wins. Like most of his work it is very low magic and if it weren't on a secondary world about a battle that never happened, it could almost qualify as historical fiction. It's the characters and their stories that make it work, and it's the most satisfying of Joe's novels for me because of it's tight focus and short space of time. While it's full of the morally ambiguous anti heroes that are so beloved of the grimdark subgenre I felt I had a few people I didn't feel dirty about supporting as is so often the case with that particular subset of 'heroes'. It also contains some wonderfully written battle and action scenes, which are another hallmark of Abercrombie's work.

Further and related reading: there are the other Circleworld books by Joe and his two YA entries (which while they purport to be something new and different are really very similar to the Circleworld books but with less sex, violence and language. The setting is really the Northland in the Circleworld, and I can make direct analogues between some of the characters in those and his other books, it's just the names that have changed) to go on with. He draws inspiration from a number of sources. The Heroes in particular put me in mind of David Gemmell's Legend. There are also the other names in the grimdark field: Glen Cook and his Black Company books, Steven Erikson and Cameron Esslemont's epic Malazan series (both Black Company and Malazan contain considerably more magic than anything Abercrombie has yet written), there's also Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire trilogy, with it's young morally bankrupt protagonist Jorg Ancrath and it's bleak dystopian setting. At the time when The Blade Itself made it's appearance, I feel that Abercrombie must have drawn some inspiration from George R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is what people think kick started the whole interest in the grimdark subgenre, although he was far from the first person to write it or even coin the term, which originally began as a tagline for the Warhammer 40,000 A.D concept. With his Northland and his 'Vikings' there's people like Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliffe as well as the TV show Vikings.

I did kind of debate with myself about whether to include Richard Adams in this list (he does appear in the 100 Must-Read Fantasy Novels list), but when you think about it he wrote books about animals that think like people, and one of them has visions of the future and it doesn't come a lot more fantastical than that. Richard Adams spent most of his working life as a civil servant before allowing his daughters to pressure him into putting the stories that he told them about wildlife to keep them amused on long car trips down into the form of a novel. That novel was Watership Down, and it was hugely successful, it enabled Adams to leave the civil service and devote his time to writing. It also spawned a successful animated feature film (although it's probably better remembered for the saccharine sweet Art Garfunkel chart topping theme song) and a television series. While Adams is best known for Watership Down, it wasn't his only novel and he had success with others: Shardik (a grizzly bear) and The Plague Dogs (escaped dogs used for scientific research) as well as a number of non fiction books, The Girl in a Swing (a suspense novel) and also a collection of shorts that revisited the site of his greatest triumph of Watership Down. Although in his 90's, Adams is only semi retired and still writes, although he hasn't published anything since a story in 2010's Gentle Footprints which was to raise funds for the Born Free foundation.

When you say Adams' name to most people they immediately think of Watership Down. I don't. I think my first exposure to him was through The Plague Dogs, it was a book my mother had heard about, and she borrowed it from the library to see what the fuss was about. I read it after her. It's not what anyone could call an enjoyable read. The subject matter makes it an uncomfortable thing to read, especially if you are, like me, a dog lover. The two heroes: Rowf and Snitter escape from a research facility where they have both been horribly mistreated (Rowf, being a big strong dog, was regularly 'drowned' to test his lung capacity, and poor little Snitter had part of his brain removed and is largely insane because of it). Because of where they escaped from they're pursued by all and sundry, partially due to the fact that they escaped, also because they kill sheep to survive and then a rumour starts that they're plague carriers. Despite being put through absolute hell, the book does have a happy ending, with Snitter being reunited with his long lost master, who he actually believed dead, and he also takes in Rowf. Adams' original ending was far more ambiguous, and that was used for an animated feature film adaptation in 1982. It has flaws. Adams liked using accents for his characters, he does it in Watership Down and again here with the character of the Tod (a fox), whose thick Geordie accent renders him almost unintelligible to people not familiar with the accent. It barely qualifies as fantasy although Snitter's 'visions' could be compared to those of Fiver in Watership Down, although they're probably driven by the experiments performed on the poor little terrier's brain. While the subject matter is important and real, it can be hard for people to read, and it doesn't have the cross generational appeal that Watership Down did, plus big mongrels and mad terriers aren't as cuddly as bunnies looking for a new place to live.

Further and related reading: now this one is a big field. Adams was different from many others who wrote 'animal novels' before him and after actually. Richard Adams' animals lived like they do in the wild, they weren't anthropomorphised, they didn't wear clothes, live in houses or drive cars, nor did they observe human customs, like invite each other around for tea. They did however think and interact like people on many other levels, the accents are an example of that. There were plenty before and since. A.R Lloyd's Kine is a wonderful book about a weasel and the summer that he and his friends took on and defeated the escaped minks that tried to take over their hard won territory. It's hard to mention animal books without recommending Kenneth Grahame's marvelous The Wind in the Willows (which will more than likely reappear in the G's), and I think Beatrix Potter's tales for children also qualify, as while her animals are more like people than Adams' were, she was a keen naturalist, and studied her subjects extensively both alive and dead to make sure she got her drawings and descriptions of behaviour correct. Brian Jacques Redwall series about a group of medieval adventuring anthropomorphic animals are a heap of fun. There's also Garry Kilworth's The House of Tribes, which is almost a Watership Down featuring groups of house dwelling mice in place of the rabbits. Kilworth wrote a number of animal novels featuring foxes, owls, hares and had a successful YA series called The Welkin Weasels. William Horwood's Duncton Chronicles is largely Watership Down with moles, he also covered wolves with The Wolves of Time and it's sequel Seekers at the Wulfrock as well as writing four sequels to The Wind in The Willows.  More recently Laline Paull has entered this subgenre with The Bees, covering the goings on in a dying hive through the eyes of one of the worker bees.

Not many people who read fantasy seem to have heard of Alan Aldridge. That's not really surprising as he is better known as an illustrator and graphic designer. His colourful, cartoony, psychelic pictures have graced many album covers, and he is remembered for his picture book The Butterfly Ball and Grasshopper Feast. I can remember the animated short from the mid '70's.  He also did a number of book covers. In 1991, in collaboration with Steve Boyett and Maxine Miller, he released a gem of a book called The Gnole, and that's what I know him for, although I had seen his work on album covers (he did the artwork for Elton John's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy) and as mentioned Butterfly Ball.

Hardly anyone now has even heard of The Gnole. You get a 'Huh? What's that?' when you mention it. It's one of my favourites of all time. It created a brand new creature: a gnole is kind of like a cross between a gnome and a mole, they live away from society by choice and have been around since the destruction of Atlantis, although it's quite possible that Fungle (the titular character) and his friend Neema may be the last ones left. He leaves his home in the Smoky Mountains to stop a demon from getting hold of a doomsday device. The world is a dangerous and strange place for a backwoods gnole on his own, but Fungle is equal to the task, and although he's captured for experimentation, the gnole captures the minds and hearts of the media, before escaping back to his home in the Smoky's. I should stress that this is about the lavishly illustrated trade paperback edition. Aldridge's illustrations grace it throughout and add to the story, which I suspect was mostly Boyett's work. That particular version of the book isn't all that easy to find now, but it's worth searching for. It's a modern day fairytale, and Fungle really deserves to be up there with Bilbo Baggins, but the book is for some reason often overlooked.

Further and related reading: Alan Aldridge really only wrote this as a full length novel, but if you can find The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast that's worth doing as it's a visual feast. Steve Boyett also wrote Ariel and it's sequel Elegy Beach, both are rather dystopian novels about what could happen to the world if technology was suddenly turned off and replaced by magic. It's hard to say what is like The Gnole as there isn't a whole lot to compare it to. As I said it's a modern day fairytale and two books that I can think of that do fit that bill, which will also appear in later posts, are Frank L. Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien.

Poul Anderson (November 25, 1926 - July 31, 2001) was one of the most highly decorated and respected writers of speculative fiction that has worked in the field. His first stories appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in the late 1940's, and he continued to produce work that ranged across the entire spectrum of the field. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism in 1966, and the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America led by Lin Carter, with an exclusive membership of 8. He was also the 6th President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Over his career he was awarded the Gandalf Grandmaster of Fantasy (1978), 7 Hugos, a John W. Campbell, a Locus, a Mythopoeic, 3 Nebulas, 4 Prometheus, made an SFWA Grandmaster (1997) and inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2000. If it was genre, you name it, Anderson wrote it.

I haven't read a lot of Poul Anderson (hangs head in shame), but that 100 Must-Read Fantasy Novels book did prompt me to give The Broken Sword a try. It's rather hard to know exactly how to categorise it. On the one hand it's sword and sorcery, but on the other it's an epic fairytale retelling in grand Tolkienesque style, and because Anderson's background was from Northern Europe (his parents were Scandinavian and following his father's death he spent time living in Denmark, before moving back to the United States after the outbreak of WW II), he covers some of the same ground as Tolkien did in The Lord of the Rings. I say it's epic, but it's all of 274 pages, which would barely scratch the surface of one of today's doorstoppers. Despite the seeming brevity, Anderson packs a hell of a story into it. We've got changelings, fights between human tribes and those in the shadowy lands of faerie, there's incest and love, blood and violence, and some fantastic battles and fight scenes. This is grimdark before they'd hung a name on it. It won't take you long to read, but it will stay with you forever after once you have.

Further and related reading: I'd be here all day if I even attempted to list Poul Anderson's bibliography, which spanned more than 50 years and over 20 full length novels, as well as countless short stories. His work, especially The Broken Sword, which despite the Norse influences, is largely Sword and Sorcery, so was therefore influenced by the father of that subgenre Robert E. Howard, in fact Anderson actually wrote a Conan novel. His contemporaries were the likes of Lin Carter, L. Sprague De Camp, Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance among others (all of those were also members of the Swordsmen and Sorcerer's Guild of America), he's one of the few who can say he wasn't directly influenced by Tolkien despite having some common ground, because they were writing at the same time. Michael Moorcock has cited Poul Anderson as an influence, specifically mentioning The Broken Sword. He's never openly said it, but George R.R Martin had to have Poul Anderson as one of his influences and I can't see how Joe Abercrombie could deny it.

That's the A's. Join me next week for the B's.

2013: A Reader's View

I do this every year. Readers like to talk about what they read and I'm no exception. I ran a review blog for a few years, but wound it up earlier this year to do this instead and I also found I was starting to enjoy reading less when I had to think about what I was going to say in a review.

Although this isn't a review blog I do still read and I sometimes want to share my thoughts with others. In honour of that penchant I thought I'd write about the things I most enjoyed reading in 2013.

People may notice that these books weren't all released this year. This is a list of the things I most enjoyed reading and it's not meant to be representative of the genre, just my own personal taste, so it's not a best of either. I don't do it in any order as such. There are 5 entries this year.

Without further ado, here we go:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

This extraordinary novel first came out in 2011 and it was on everyone's lips at the time. It took me a while to delve deep enough into the TBR pile to actually read it. Once I did I wished I'd done it sooner. I believe it started life as a Nanowrimo project, although the published work was considerably revised from the original concept.

The Night Circus is written wholly in present tense, despite the fact that its narrative moves back and forth over a number of years. It's lyrical and enchanting. The descriptions of the food and acts and seasons are so atmospheric that you can smell and feel them around you as you read. Its not a book one reads, it is a book one experiences.

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two by Catherynne M. Valente.

Cat Valente's Fairyland books started as a fictional concept she mentioned in her novel Palimpsest and became a web publication then were published more widely.

They've introduced an entirely new audience to Cat's books and her marvelous writing. Cat performs magic with words and the adventures of young September in Fairyland far away from her dreary home in post WW II Nebraska are enchanting as she meets up with her old friends like the marid Saturday and the much loved Wyverary (a cross between a wyvern and a library) A through L (better known as Elle).

A word of warning about this the 3rd instalment in the series, it ends on a cliff. However Cat's always been good about getting new ones out and they seem to come along on an annual basis. They're a yearly event I always look forward to.

Poison, Charm & Beauty by Sarah Pinborough.

I know that technically this is three books, not one, but they're all quite short and they really do go together as one book broken into three parts.

What Sarah Pinborough did here was take the stories of Snow White (Poison), Cinderella (Charm) and Sleeping Beauty (Beauty) subvert them wickedly and put them out as this delightfully sexy, funny and dark fairytale. She also managed to get a few other fairytales in there along the way, there are appearances by Aladdin, Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast to name a few.

There are far worse ways to while away a few hours immersed in this delightful story. The best retellings I've read since Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber.

The Milkweed Triptych by Ian Tregillis.

Okay, I'm probably cheating again by naming all three books under the one heading, but I can't help it. To me these aren't separate books. They're one broken into three parts for the convenience of marketing. It's also fairly important in this case to note that it's a triptych and not a trilogy. A triptych is usually a work of art that is separated into three panels that when unfolded form one story and that's the case with Milkweed.

The three books are in order: Bitter Seeds, The Coldest War and Necessary Evil. They all take place in an alternate WW II and Cold War setting and move back and forth through time. There are elements of fantasy and science fiction in them and while it sounds quite bizarre it all comes together seamlessly at the end.

It contains one of the most amazing and complex villains/heroes I can ever remember encountering and Gretel will stay with you long after you've closed Necessary Evil.

How this was plotted I will never know, but it was a brilliant achievement from beginning to end. If I could nominate it every year from now until a number of years into the future I would. It's that good.

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch.

Oh come on! Everyone knew this was going to make the list. How could it not? Was it worth the wait? Some think not and while it has it's flaws they are few and far between, and I thought it was something that I didn't mind waiting for. The rereads of the earlier books in the series only improved them for me.

I did a proper review here.

Hopefully is enough of us vote for this we can get Scott a Hugo and although there has been talk that we will see the 4th book in the series (The Thorn of Emberlain) in 2014 I can remember hearing similar things about The Republic of Thieves, so I'm not holding my breath there.

This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong.

The final book on the list is one of the first I read for the year. In 2012 I encountered a bizarre book called John Dies at the End. This Book is Full of Spiders is the sequel.

While it's a sequel, it contains the same characters and shares a setting with the original, both books are self contained.

Like its predecessor it is a huge amount of fun and while narrated by David and having plenty of John in it this is Amy's book and I love it for that. It's also misnamed. There are indeed space spiders from another dimension in it, but at the heart of it This Book is Full of Spiders is actually full of zombies and it's a zombie novel. If you don't believe me read it and you'll have more fun with zombies than you ever believed possible.