Top 10 2018 Reads

You guys know how this works:

Honourable mentions:

Choosing 9 and 10 were really difficult, so pretty much any of the honourable mentions could have gone there. Gregory Frost’s Shadowbridge is a good example – epic fantasy set in a very unique location, and beautifully written. The central device of the story is storytelling itself, and it is full of imagination. The setting is similarly important Ana Kavan’s Ice, which is the story of a man chasing a woman as the world is encased in Ice. It struck me as having echoes of Ballard’s The Crystal World (or most likely vice versa) and there’s an unrelenting cruelty to the story that makes the world more than just a blunt metaphor for heroine addiction (which very much influenced Kavan’s writing). The release of the adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House compelled me to finally pick up my copy of it, and what a strange trip that was. It managed to confound expectations I didn’t have, and despite hoards critics proclaiming of “the cliches weren’t cliches when she wrote them!” I found the book very much subverts said cliches rather than indulges in them. Finally, Rocanon’s World by Ursula Le Guin, was also a surprise, in that it was essentially a might whitey story – yet written by one of the best and most thoughtful writers of her time on race and gender. Nonetheless, the mix of fantasy and sci-fi was unique and intoxicating, and something that she’d later go on to perfect.

10  The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Vladimir Voinovich

Voinovich’s comic romp is one hell of a lot of fun: telling the tale of Private Chonkin, who is so useless that the russian army sends him on a mission to a small village in the middle of nowhere to guard a plane just to get rid of him. The humour of this farce has translated very well – in many ways, it has British sensibilities (think 70s-80s humour). At one point Stalin descends from the sky wearing a dress.

9  The Shadow Years by Jefferey Ford

The Shadow Years is a very odd beast – Ford has literally written a fictionalised account of a year in his late childhood. There’s obvious parallels with It (bildungsroman set in rural america, where something hidden and dark is lurking amongst the community), but there’s not a good way to really describe this book. You could talk about the “prowler” that is hunting people in the town; the old man stalking the main character that appears to be satan himself; the fact that the protagonist’s younger sister seems to be able to control the town’s people; the broken family unit with a constantly absent father and drunkard mother. None of these things really do the book justice. If the book is about anything, it’s about the relationship the protagonist has with his older brother as his older brother becomes a teenager and begins to leave his younger brother behind. A confounding book that stays with me still.

8 City of Exile by Ursula Le Guin

Le Guin’s second Hainish novella is, at its core, a really, really well told fantasy story within a sci-fi setting. It is well written, has great characters and a plot that is structured excellently. The trappings of its unique setting really put it a level beyond, but even without that it’s just a damn good story.

7 Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin

Little Omon wants to be a space man – and he’s going to become one, but his journey there will be a strange, at times brutal and always silly one. Pelevin’s debut novel (more novella, really) is sharp and dark and builds to a tremendous conclusion. Pelevin’s at his baldest here with his satire of russian and soviet society, and the effect is searing.

6 The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan

When a writer moves to a rural house to seek seclusion after the suicide of her recent long-term, you’ve got a set-up that just screams “horror story”. This is very far from your standard horror, however, although it is legitimately pretty frightening at times. No ghosts or monsters here however: the story revolves around a tree in the grounds of the house, and the long and storied history it carries with it. And, it is no happy one either...

5  Pavane by Keith Roberts

Pavane is a very dry book that goes on and on about details that are often only tentatively relevant to the plot.

And yet, when the characters and stories get going, they’re damn good ones. What’s more, Roberts’ fastidious world building allows extra texture for those stories and characters. The world itself becomes a character, in the way that many stories strive for, but few can make work. Not to mention the way fantastical elements are tiptoed around; there’s always a sense that there is more going on just behind the curtains of reality. The coda, too, is little short of brilliant.

4 The Rift by Nina Allen

Nina Allen’s first novel was third on my list last year, I believe, so she’s making this something of a regular occurrence. The Rift is less Priest-y, but no less good (even better, maybe). Steeped in disquiet, The Rift is a story that’s not exactly willing to give easy answers or straightforward conclusions. What it is, is excellently written and very affecting. The depiction of the relationship between the two sisters is full of ambiguous tension, as is the relationship between the real world and that of Tristane. As depictions of alienation go, I’ve read few better.

3  Deathless by Cathrynne M. Valente

Set in St Petersburgh (then Leningrad, then Stalingrad), Deathless is a retelling of the story of The Death of Kuschei the Deathless, with more than a few tweaks. Valente’s brilliant prose evokes an amazing world, and filled with playful imaginings and an undercurrent of biting satire. It’s the characters that steal the show, however, and Valente’s depiction of the relationship between Maria Morevna and Kuschei the Tsar of Death is complexing and involving. Also, her take on Baba Yaga is one of my favourites pretty much ever.

2  Radiance by Cathrynne M. Valente

Radiance, my second Valente book, was a tough one to start with. It’s a cross between golden age hollywood and golden age sci-fi, the story of directory maker (and daughter of the most famous filmmaker of their age) who goes missing under strange circumstances. The story is told through film clips, conversation transcriptions, journal entries, newspaper articles and more. The lack of straightforward narrative makes the story a difficult one to sink into at first, but when you get into the groove, an incredible portrait of a character emerges, spiced with brilliant writing, heavy with imagination and brimming with ambiguity.

(I think I rather like Valente).

1.   The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan

If you’ve talked to me this year, you’ve heard me talk about this book. Unsettling, compelling and intense; Kiernan’s most widely acclaimed book is difficult to put into a single genre, and entirely involving. When I stopped reading The Drowning Girl, it refused to leave my head. Even at work I could feel cold presence of Eva Canning lurking nearby…

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?