2014 Reads in Review, Part 1: Book Club Selections

Possibly over-ambitious, but I wanted a record of the SF/F I read this year. A lot of great books I would press on you, and a few I would warn you off!

These are all the Chicagoland book club books I read this year (didn't always make it to the meetings) and some brief thoughts. Some re-reads, some new to me, all fun to discuss. This was my first year in SF/F book clubs (well, not counting a few discussions I organized back in Buffalo), which introduced me to a lot of things I wouldn't otherwise have read. In no particular order!

• “Towing Jehovah” (1994)- James Morrow
  • Such a delight; incredibly weird/fantastic/blasphemous premise that is played out with a lot of satirical and humane panache. God is literally dead, miles long, and floating belly-up in the ocean.
• “The City & The City” (2009)- China Mieville
  • Probably the most accessible Mieville, and really good: a police procedural set in two cities of different nations that have the same geographical location. Brilliantly written, leaves it entirely open whether there's anything supernatural going on or not, poses some strange questions about borders and national character.
• “Oryx & Crake” (2003)- Margaret Atwood
  • I mean, this is good. I have some gripes with it, but it's good. Slightly Vonnegut-like, post-apocalyptic, a lot of satirical criticism of modern culture (particularly the biological and pharmaceutical sciences).
• “The Sparrow” (1996)- Mary Doria Russell
  • Thumbs up. A very classic-feeling SF set-up (first contact that goes wrong), with a lot of theological wrestling. Would have made a good-but-cheesy short story; but instead Russell's absolutely unparalleled character and relationship development elevate it to a wonderfully tragic, thoughtful novel.
• “The Player of Games” (1988)- Iain M. Banks
  • A great introduction to Banks' “Culture” novels. Focused on a culture and a character that are fixated on games, it tosses in generous dollops of gender and class dominance issues.
• “The Dispossessed” (1974)- Ursula Le Guin
  • Love it. One of the most in-depth explorations of an emancipatory, anarchic society, opposed to capitalist hierarchies.
• “Among Others” (2011)- Jo Walton
  • When I first read this, I literally gasped and clutched my heart as soon as I read the epigraph. This is a love letter to science fiction and fantasy novels; if you don't catch the references, it might not work for you. But if it does, golly: this is a fantastic book. It's kind of meta-YA; it's got coming-of-age, it's got a really interesting take on magic, it's got a teenage narrator who is refreshingly smart and realistic (it's not condescending and ageist as so many YA-ish things are), and, let me say it again: this is a love letter to SF/F. For anyone who grew up as a fairly lonely reader, this book cuts to the quick.
• “Lock In” (2014)- John Scalzi
  • Fun, light, popcorny. Police procedural in and about a near-future world where a significant portion of the population can only interact virtually or through robotic proxy bodies.
• “Gun, With Occasional Music” (1994)- Jonathan Lethem
  • Fun, weird. Lethem's first full novel, it's incredibly inventive but perhaps not maturely executed. Noir PI tale in a near-future/alternate history with uplifted animals, custom psychoactive drugs, karma banking system, and some weird babies.
• “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” (2000)- Michael Chabon
  • Absolutely smashing novel about a pair of Jewish cartoonists during the rise of the comic book industry. So well-researched and plausible it's kind of sad to keep realizing it's fictional; tackles tons of issues and contains its own sub-story of “The Escapist”, the superhero they create and flesh out.
• “Rupetta” (2013)- N.A. Sulway
  • An uneven but magical and very enjoyable novel. “Rupetta” is a sort of alternate history/fantasy wherein a mechanical woman changes the course of history. Rich with detailed and vivid characters, alternate technology that's sort of magical/steampunk, interesting relationships, colonialism, historicism & academia, and dogma/heresy. My main takeaway from this is as a meditation on mind/body dualism and its attendant sexism; in many ways I feel “Rupetta” is an answer or challenge to the desire for bodiless, inorganic perfection that's lurking in a lot of cyberpunk, for example. A powerful work—Sulway's writing is occasionally really striking—but one that feels like it wasn't very well edited.
• “Stories of Your Life and Others” (2002)- Ted Chiang
  • Great collection. Chiang is probably the single strongest SF writer at short lengths right now, a format that in many ways is the best way to deliver science fictional ideas. Nothing but winners here, extremely varied in topic and tone, some of them extremely thought-provoking and long-lasting. I find myself reflecting on “Liking What You See” frequently.
• “Ancillary Justice” (2013)- Ann Leckie
  • Probably the most-discussed book of the last year or two. Space opera, pretty weak on the nuts and bolts, but with some inneresting stuff: ship AIs embodied in hundreds or thousands of “ancillary” bodies, colonialism, and a massive imperial culture starting to go into decline, whose society is (linguistically/conceptually at least) post-gender.
• “2312” (2012)- Kim Stanley Robinson
  • Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Big! Big ideas! Rich and complex! Draws heavily on ecological/astronomical science, paints a vision of climate change and biodisaster that is both devastatingly spot-on and unexpectedly hopeful. Primarily uses an unusual love story to carry us through, between two of my favorite characters in recent SF. Uses some pastiche techniques and humorously-written interludes to convey a ton of information and world-building without clunky exposition.
• “Blindsight” (2006)- Peter Watts
  • If I had to pick one SF novel published this century, “Blindsight” is the one. If you are into philosophy of mind, neuroscience, evolutionary theory, dig realistic space SF, like body-horror and grim humor, Watts wrote this for you. Also we should be friends. Also there are vampires.
• “Amped” (2012)- Daniel H. Wilson
  • Blech. Thumbs down on this deeply dumb, poorly-written book about cybernetic enhancements.
• “Spin State”(2003)- Chris Moriarty
  • Fun. Space opera-ish, feels a little cyberpunky, with a lot of interesting stuff going on. I felt like it could have worked much better at a hundred or two pages less.
• “Lexicon” (2013)- Max Barry
  • Fun. Basically a novel-length exploration of the “neurolinguistic programming” you may remember from Stephenson's “Snow Crash”; Hogwarts for mind-controlling “poets” that devolves into a violent coup. Nothing particularly thought-provoking here, but it's fun, unexpectedly tense. Called to mind a lot of short SF on viral memetics.
• “City of Stairs” (2014)- Robert Jackson Bennett
  • Fresh urban fantasy that was an unexpected delight. Uses different cultural sources than most fantasy, and different power relations, to very good effect—something like the Russian Empire backed up by actual miracle-working gods takes over the world, but then India figures out how to murder the gods and conquer their own oppressors; this is a sort of cold-war-y/bureaucratic/procedural set hundreds of years later. Good characters, lots of action and weirdness, surprisingly rich world and themes.
• “Dragon Keeper” (2009)- Robin Hobb
  • Mm. I hated the writing, rather liked some of the themes. Despite its position as the first of a new series, it's connected to Hobb's previous fantasies and felt pretty thin without having read those. There are indeed dragons if that's your main method of deciding whether to read or not.
• “Embassytown” (2011)- China Mieville
  • Bless you, Mieville. So weird, so fantastic. His most science fictional work, all about Language. Highly recommended.
• “The Night Circus” (2011)- Erin Morgenstern
  • Quirky, odd fantasy novel about a proxy-duel between two magicians that manifests as a enchanted circus set up between their two apprentices. Full of interesting scenes.
• “Good Omens” (1990)- Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
  • Laff-a-minute tale of the apocalypse. You should read this.
• “The Girl With All the Gifts” (2014)- M. R. Carey
  • Surprisingly fresh and enjoyable take on the zombie apocalypse. Uses essentially a coming-of-age story and a better stab at scientific grounding than most to pull it off.
• “The Peripheral” (2014)- William Gibson
  • Gibson's back to clearly-SF science fiction. Set in two different timelines that have started communicating—a very near-future, and a more distant, post-apocalypse one. Gibson made some interesting style choices here (rapid POV shifts, extremely short chapters), and there's lots of weird/inventive tech. More overtly critical of ecological/economic trends than the Bridge or Sprawl novels.
• “Primary Inversion” (1995)- Catherine Asaro
  • Weak. Space opera with an emphasis on opera; pretty unbelievable romance/drama at the heart of it.
• “The Daedalus Incident” (2013)- Michael Martinez
  • Fun, odd. Two different dimensions start interacting—a near-future in “our” timeline, and a sort of steampunky/Edgar Rice Burroughsy one where alchemy, the aether etc. are real sciences and the colonial European powers have spread through the solar system on sailing ships. The “normal” chapters were boring as heck by comparison.
• “Tigerman” (2014)- Nick Harkaway
  • This is a great novel! Probably in the top five new-to-me books I read this year. It's not actually very SF/F (the Chicago Speculative Fiction Community picked it sorta-by-accident), but I'm really glad events conspired to have me read it. Echoes of Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle) & DeLillo (White Noise), lots of engagement with superhero comics, pop/nerd culture, and powered by some great characters.
• “The Martian” (2014)- Andy Weir
  • Dumb, dumb, a thousand times dumb. Amateurish writing, badly researched, unbelievable and offensive in so many ways. For example, I can't believe that this won the Goodreads reader's choice award for Best SF, or that Ridley Scott's making this into a film (as though we were lacking in really awful red planet movies).
• “Something More Than Night” (2013)- Ian Tregillis
  • While the idea sounds interesting—classic noir murder mystery set in Heaven, the execution was annoying at best. Tregillis tried to do some interesting things with unreliable narrator, so points there; but the Hammett/Chandler/Caine hardboiled language wears thin about two pages in, and he doesn't actually do anything interesting with his supernatural/spiritual setting & characters.
• “What I Didn't See: Stories” (2010)- Karen Joy Fowler
  • Well-written stories, kind of a mixed bag. Some SF-ish, but the more effective stories for me fell more on the magical realism spectrum.
• “The Killing Moon” (2012)- N. K. Jemisin
  • My first introduction to Jemisin, and a good one. Sort of high fantasy mode, non-European inspirations—Egyptian/Nubian. Interesting magic scheme somewhat based on the four humors; some interesting themes on mental health, addiction, sexuality.
• “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms” (2010)- N.K. Jemisin
  • Read this right after “The Killing Moon”. Another high fantasy, again with some non-standard roots and mechanics. This one revolves around a society that controls “a hundred thousand kingdoms” through the use of enslaved gods. A pretty fun read, though very weak in the setting. Put me in mind a bit of some aspects of Moorcock's Elric books.
• “The Shambling Guide to New York City” (2013)- Mur Lafferty
  • Meh. Modern urban fantasy, reads a bit like a fanfic mashup. Not terribly impressed.
• “Redshirts” (2012)- John Scalzi
  • Another of those books that everyone has been reading/discussing; the core idea here is inherently but laudably silly—our characters figure out that they're basically extras in a cheap science fiction television series, and set out to save themselves before bad writing kills them all off. It's fun, short, smarmy. If you want meta-Trek commentary, definitely check this out. And if you haven't seen Galaxy Quest, get to it.
• “The Magicians” (2009) - Lev Grossman
  • Dun dun dun! THE WORST NOVEL I READ THIS YEAR. Or last year. Or, just possibly: ever. This is offensively, aggressively bad writing, packaged and hyped to rake in cash. There is no level where “the Magicians” isn't in-your-face atrocious. Derivative is one thing; this is lazy, criminal, sneering larceny of YA fantasy best-sellers, unimaginatively made “adult” by sprinkling some sex, drugs, & cusswords on top. It's almost breathtaking in its paucity of plot, creativity, setting, character, theme, and proofreading. Do not believe the hype. Steer clear.
• “Annihilation” (2014)- Jeff VanderMeer
  • The best new SF I read this year, hands down. VanderMeer has crafted something truly outstanding here. The conceit is very simple: something, possibly an alien incursion of some kind, is transforming a small area—Area X—and a government agency is sending in investigators. The execution is where this shines; VanderMeer's prose is amazingly restrained, stripped-down, evocative. It refuses to resolve into science fiction or fantasy, horror or mystery or nature writing. The book reverberates with the kind of nebulous significance one finds in dreams, and occasionally the creepiness of real nightmares. There are very few characters, none of whom have names; the narrator is one of my favorite characters I've encountered in the genre. Landscape infuses this novel, until it becomes a character unto itself—one that's possibly a mask over something more sinister, or at least disturbingly alien. Trying to explain this novel, I've brought up Lem's “Solaris”, the Strugatskys' “Roadside Picnic”, Leopold's “Sand County Almanac”, Danielewski's “House of Leaves”, and Sartre's “Nausea”. A must-read. The rest of the “Southern Reach” trilogy is also quite good, but feel free to read this standalone, it works.