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I know. I can hear everyone around the world screaming in ecstasy as they read this. The third “Best Of” list I’ve done in a row. I hope you’re not getting tired of this. I’m certainly not. I love lists and ranking things. It’s one of my favorite activities. I also love reading. While I’ve cooled off on the number of books I’ve read, I’ve upped the page count on some level. According to my Goodreads end-of-year report, my average book length was 535 pages. Crazy. One of the bad boys on this list is over 1200 pages long. Nice.
A note. This list skews heavily into my favs, namely science-fiction and fantasy. One nonfiction book snuck in there this year, so good for it. I also read a lot of white male authors this year. I also started far more books than I finished this year, which has been a somewhat troubling addition to my reading habits. The list of books that I’ve started but not finished is far less male than this one. In any case, I highly recommend all the books on this list, especially if you’re not a genre-fiction fan. It’s a good list of books to get you started on that path.
10. The Black Company – Glen Cook
Glen Cook is one of those guys who has written a hundred books and influenced a thousand authors but isn’t super well-known outside the fandom. The Black Company is one of his early, and best works. It’s a fantasy novel about a group of occasionally evil mercenaries trying to survive a war over which they have very little control. While Cook’s prose won’t win any awards, his characters are some of the best in the biz. Instead of doing the usual high epic fantasy thing and focusing on the Generals, Kings, Emperors, and the like, Cook shines the spotlight on the regular soldiers in an army, giving this a vibe that you don’t find in a lot of fantasy. This is the first in a series.
9. Perilous Bounty – Tom Philpott
The sole nonfiction entry on this list, Philpott’s book takes a deep dive into vegetable and hog production in the United States. Focusing on farmers in Iowa and California, the US’s two biggest agricultural states, Philpott outlines the damaging practices undertaken by farmers, and the massive environmental problems they wreak. Philpott doesn’t go full downer, offering more than a few examples of people who are already working to develop and spread better farming practices. He also offers some solutions to the oncoming problems of water and crop loss.
8. Texaco – Patrick Chamoiseau
Texaco is a fantastic book about multiple generations of a family living on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Martinique. This book was translated into English from its original French and Creole which leads to the discovery of some great new words. It’s a mix of litfic, magical realism, and urban planning. Its unique sense of place, language, and well-drawn characters bring this work to life. You’re left wondering if any of it actually happened, or if it was all the creation of the narrator from the beginning.
7. Toll the Hounds – Steven Erikson
I read three other Erikson books this year, and would put them all on this list if I wasn’t limiting myself to one per author. As I mentioned on last year’s list, Erikson is the author of a wildly long epic fantasy series that I am still making my way through. Toll The Hounds is one of the best of the series in my opinion. Erikson is one of those authors clearly influenced by Cook, and is great at showing the lives of individual soldiers in fantasy series. Toll the Hounds is at times hilarious, heartbreaking, action-filled, and philosophically nuanced. While you could read it cold, you’d be missing a lot of stuff if you don’t read the previous novels prior to checking this one out. I will for sure write up a thing when I finish the whole series.
6. The Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott Lynch
I read this book because it was suggested to me on Twitter. That place is still good for something, I guess. Current events aside, The Lies of Locke Lamora is about a group of conmen, trying to put one over on a city and its greedy nobles. It’s a funny, thrilling, twisty-turvey adventure. Lynch creates a number of memorable characters, is quick with the clever turns of phrase, and has a knack for the little details that make really good world-building. This is the first in a series, though the other two I’ve read fall off in quality a little. The first is very well done.
5. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielwski
If I had read this book when it first came out it would be my favorite book of all time. In fact, I remember my mom getting it from the library and being interested in it but turned off by the first few pages. I also made the mistake of picking this as my book club book. It’s just a little too long for that. Enough about the outside world though. House of Leaves is a very odd book, full of odd formatting, different fonts to signify different characters, and a dozen other stylistic choices. At its heart, it’s a horror novel about a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It’s also a love story, a critique of academic writing, and an action-adventure novel. It can take a little bit to get into, but it’s well worth the effort.
4. A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter Miller Jr.
A classic’s classic, I’ve written about this before on here. I won’t go too much more into it, but A Canticle for Leibowitz feels pretty familiar right about now. A quick read, this is a classic for a reason. In the best tradition of science fiction, it deals with current-day problems in a future setting. A philosophical treatise wrapped up in a civilizational epic.
3. The Night Manager – John LeCarré
LeCarré is the GOAT. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The Night Manager is one of his best late-era outputs. It focuses on a hotelier trying to infiltrate an international arms dealer’s organization at the behest of British Intelligence. As usual, Le Carré brings an extraordinary sense of interiority to all of his characters, but most of all to the main character Jonathan Pine and his British handler. LeCarré’s characters jump off the page, coming to life in your hands. The plot twists are well-done, and the story moves at a propulsive pace. Check out the TV version too. It’s quite good.
2. Count Zero – William Gibson
Gibson is the king of cyberpunk and receiving some renewed interest after the release of The Peripheral on Amazon, an adaptation of one of his works. Count Zero is the second in his Sprawl trilogy, though it can be read without reading the first, Neuromancer. Count Zero involves a number of interlocking stories, including a woman hired to find a rare piece of art, a kid who thinks he’ll be the next great hacker, and a mercenary in way over his head. There’s also a religion worshipping AI and tactical nukes. Gibson crams a bunch of stuff into this novel, and yet it all makes sense. Very much worth your time.
1. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy
Some people claim that this is the Great American Novel. They’re close to being right. It’s one of the Great American Novels. Blood Meridian is a violent novel, full of awful characters. Awful in very American ways. It takes place in the American Southwest in the 1800s following The Kid and The Judge as they head out on a journey to find and kill Native Americans for their scalps. As I said, it’s intense. McCarthy’s writing is at its best here, popping off incredible sentences one after the other as if it was nothing. It’s a kaleidoscope of a novel, full of unnamed and nameless characters, desert walks, and rapid-fire fights. Worth the time.
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