Top Ten Books of 2007
Not many lists left to go! 2007 was a very good year for me reading wise - I absorbed heaps of books, more than my usual effort. It was an excellent year for Sci-Fi and fantasy - made easier by my discovery of certain books years after they'd been written...

10. High Rise - J.G. Ballard

Ballard is an intense writer, one that believes in the primality of humanity - that it would take very little to make us let go of civilisation and return to crude ways of life, sexuality and conflict. High Rise is about a brand new tenement building in London that is really a self-contained community - it has it's own mall halfway up the building, has 3000 inhabitants and the only way a person even needs to make contact with the outside world is if they work. Slowly, the universe of the building pervades everything - the status conflicts between higher and lower floors - the affairs - the maintenance issues... people don't even notice life outside any more as their faculty to reason and see a bigger picture degenerates. As services like plumbing, water, food, and garbage disposal break down people begin to degenerate faster and faster as garbage and human waste litters the halls and parties erupt with increasing virulence and intensity. Elevators are fought over and society changes to adapt to this strange self-contained world... There's a lot to say about the basic impulses of a human in this book, and though it is told from a very male point of view it is still completely compelling. A believable microcosm of society sliding backwards.

9. 1984 - George Orwell

Here's one most of you will have read already - another classic I've only picked up late in life. Orwell paints his dystopian future with enough detail to make it both a piece of science fiction and a compelling commentary on the world today. His showcase of 'Newspeak' is brilliant - as someone who has been neck deep in corporate culture for the last three years, I can appreciate the brilliant black humour. It's difficult to describe just how clever 1984 is in identifying elements of media and politics that are quite possibly eternal, then taking them and exaggerating them to the greatest effect. 1984 is a wonderful, amazing book of depth, horror and humour.

8. The Last Days: The Apocryphon of Joe Panther - Andrew Masterson

See my original review. This is an interestingly cinematic book - after seeing a few interesting films this year I think it could be converted quite interestingly to the screen. Worth a look, albeit a little vulgar and disturbing at times (but then, I guess the best books often are!!!).

7. I am Legend - Richard Matheson

This is a book of nihilism, of a man continuing to live in a world that has beaten him again and again - yet somehow not broken him. Not quite. Not yet. It is fascinating as a character portrait - the last man on earth, struggling to defeat a plague of creatures that he can never completely defeat, but he can fight to his last breath. This book has an ending that throws everything you think you know on its head. The movie successfully ditched that ending in favour of one of the worst cinematic conclusions in recent history (seriously, even if I didn't know how the book ended I would have thought it was crap!). Forget the film and read the book. It is darker, more challenging - but far more rewarding.

6. American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is my favourite writer at the moment. American Gods was an amazing accomplishment, a sumptuous feast of words and characters. Gaiman has a wry, storyteller voice in his words - the simplest of sentences can seem like an aside, a personal comment. None of his books feel like filler. The very concept of this book is brilliant - America is a land of immigrants, of a thousand different old cultures who bring with them their own superstitions and beliefs - and Gods. As time goes by, hundreds if not thousands of old Gods are left wandering America - with the threat of new Gods arising... the book is epic, yet intimate, and a wonderful yarn. It is a rare book that is somehow contemporary yet timeless.

5. Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold

Within twelve months I encountered three fantastic tales of Magicians in the Victorian era. The Prestige, the Illusionist, and this book. Of the three, Carter was the warmest and most downright likeable character. The book is the story of Carter and his life - along with a Presidential conspiracy and some real magic on the way. It was a pleasant, elegant novel that wrapped me up and entertained me the entire way.

4. Lolita - Vladimir Nobokov

I can't think of much more to say than what I already said in my original review.

3. The Locus Awards: 30 Years Of The Best Fantasy & Science Fiction - edited by by C N Brown and J Strahan

This book of short stories contained some absolutely amazing works of short fiction. This is the kind of book that sits on your shelf to be read and reread over and over again. An amazing accomplishment, one that couldn't be reviewed in the short paragraphs I limit myself to here. Put simply though - if you have even a passing occasional interest in sci-fi or fantasy, get this book. Some of these stories are life-changing.

2. Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

This book is remarkably well-written - Susanna Clarke's love of language is obvious as she makes fantastically eloquent, engaging and elegant prose. The story is top-notch - the rivalry and desperate comeradery of the titular characters driving the action forward. This is somewhere between Neil Gaiman, Tolkien and Jane Austen with a twist of Oscar Wilde. It is incredibly witty, magical, and literary. In fact, this book is a masterclass on how to write intelligently yet entertainingly. It is a painstakingly detailed book as well, exhibited in the way it bulges over with footnotes and ideas aside from just the main story. Indeed, some of the footnotes function as beautiful vignettes and short stories unto themselves. This was a shoo-in for book of the year for quite a while until...

1. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman

I've already established my fondness for Gaiman. Yet he excelled beyond belief in this book. Anansi Boys utilises the same concept as American Gods - but turns away from the grand canvas of that story, and focusses on a family unit. It also turns up the wit to 11, making this easily one of the most funny books I've read in ages. Where I find it excels over things like Terry Pratchett's humourism is that it has a palpable sense of danger - there's a dark side to the novel and its presence really shows in comparison to other humourist writing where the threat level never feels real. Anansi Boys is a story about storytelling, about finding your place in the world... hell, it's about a lot of things, and all of them worth reading about. Go get it.

Honourables:

The Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks

More for novelty than anything - it's not exactly an entertaining book in that it doesn't tell much of a story. It's deadly serious in its approach which is kind of distracting. This is a manual on how to survive a zombie attack. Nothing is tongue in cheek. And while it is well thought out (and I have to be honest, the issue of "how would I survive a zombie apocalypse" is something I've dedicated a lot of my own thought to) it really suffers from its straight faced encyclopaedic approach.

The Barbie Murders - John Varley

A book of short stories from a well-regarded sci-fi author. The Barbie Murders is an interesting story, but the one I liked best was Bagatelle. This was a book full of excellent stories and characters.

Ringworld - Larry Niven

Excellent premise, annoying characters - yet that is my biggest complaint about most written sci-fi. Niven's universe is fascinating and compelling, and his ideas are great.

Blockbuster: or, How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer - Tom Shone

A book of anecdotes, not even resembling a real history - but they're good anecdotes, and make for excellent reading.

Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

It's beautifully written, and a compelling character portrait - it captures perfectly that sense of abandonment, loneliness and disenfranchisement that we all feel at some point in our life. I think I would have appreciated it more if I'd found it ten years ago though. It is still a brilliant book though, and well worth your time.

Temeraire - Naomi Novik

Dragons, ships, and wot-ho proper British Navy in an alternate version of the Napoleanic wars. Temeraire is wildly entertaining and incredibly cinematic. I can see why Peter Jackson snapped up the film options for these books. Novik is a great new talent.

Enders Game - Orson Scott Card

This was an amazing story with very real children. It created a dynamic amongst the characters you could believe in with scenes of incredible tenseness - and let's face it, it was a sci-fi version of a boy's adventures at school! There are very complex themes at work here, particularly with the ending - though I was quite happy to ignore them after the power of everything that came before. Christ, imagine if Harry Potter had made a special school for gifted students as interesting as Enders Game has!!!

The Dunwich Horror - H.P Lovecraft

A rich, dark story that shows just what horror should and can be. Incredibly literary while still being pulpy enough to enjoy, Lovecraft builds the dread for the horrors out of time by using disgust and terror at the things humans will do to each other. The creatures he summons are never as frightening as the people that summon them.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling

This was a satisfying conclusion to the series - heavily flawed, though it did do great service to the long time readers. It had some of the most incredible set pieces of the series (hell, the action scenes seemed to have been written with the film in mind!) but also some of the most unforgivable filler of the whole series (just how long do you guys want to sit on your arse in the woods baby-fighting each other?). The Deathly Hallows were an interesting, albeit unforeshadowed device that would have worked better if they'd been a part of the series from the beginning (like the VERY beginning, Book One). Altogether though, Rowling accomplished an incredible task - she managed to wrap up threads and story arcs on pretty much everything. Fanboys and girls have never had so much to talk about (and so much speculation quashed - sorry Harry/Hermione shippers!). I am in the group of people who thought the epilogue was shit by the way - it didn't even fit with the rest of the book it was so out of place. But apparently it was the first thing she wrote of the whole series, and she wanted it included. Bah - self-indulgence and sentimentality. Always do what's best for the story, not's best for your sooky sense of nostalgia. Dammit.