Speculative Fiction Junkie

I can't believe another year has already passed. This year, like last year, was full of wonderful books. Here, in order, are my top 5 reads of 2009.

#1 - Cold to the Touch (review here)
Simon Strantzas

Cold to the Touch is the best book I read this year. The weird short stories that make up this collection are varied in setting and content but share the ability to invoke in the reader the sense of unease that is the hallmark of this sort of fiction. Reading the work of Mr. Strantzas is mind altering and affects parts of the brain that most other writers don't even know exist.

Mr. Strantzas is a major new talent in the field and it's unfortunate that his first collection is not widely available as a result of its publisher, Humdrumming Press, going out of business.


#2 - Lamplighter (review here)
D.M. Cornish

Lamplighter, the second book in a trilogy that was literally ten years in the making, is #2 on my list and was very close to being #1. D.M. Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo series is destined to be a classic and it's rather disgraceful that it hasn't been the subject of more buzz here in the States.

The world Mr. Cornish has created is one of the most thought out and interesting places I've ever encountered and the characters are some of the most well developed in all of fiction. This series is magical in the way that the best are.



#3 - Bloody Baudelaire (review here)
R.B. Russell


After being unable to locate a copy of R.B. Russell's debut collection for the longest time, I at least managed to snag a copy of his novella Bloody Baudelaire. This story is an awesomely subtle weird tale that is also distinguishable because of the multi-layered strands of tension that are manifest throughout its pages.

My only complaint about Mr. Russell is that he doesn't write fast enough.




#4 - The Kill Crew (review here)
Joseph D'Lacey


#4 on the list is The Kill Crew by Joseph D'Lacey. This short novella combines an innovative treatment of the post-apocalyptic zombie tale with Mr. D'Lacey's one of a kind power to impart a sense of horror by going straight to the reader's soul and skillfully manipulating and tinkering with what he finds there.

While perhaps not as popular as well known as his novel Meat, I think The Kill Crew is easily the superior work.



#5 - The Scar (no review)
China Miéville



The big China Miéville story this year might have been the release of his new novel, The City and the City, but the real story for me was how good his earlier Bas Lag novel, The Scar, is. This book is staggering in scope and quality I can't think of how he will ever be able to top it. This kind of caught me off guard because I didn't think too much of Perdido Street Station.




Close Contenders: The Absence (review here), The Crown Conspiracy (review here), The Dreaming Void (review here), Finch (review here), Foundling (review here), Mistborn (review here).

Greatest Discoveries of 2009

My favorite discoveries of 2009 are closely related. The first is the incredibly rich world of strange fiction and the second is the wonderful work of the many small presses operating today.

I've always enjoyed fiction on the weird end of the spectrum, but it wasn't until this year that I really began to tap into the vast, centuries spanning, body of work that comprises the best that this most rewarding of subgenres has to offer. 2010 promises to be full of strange fiction here at Speculative Fiction Junkie.

Closely tied to this discovery is an equally welcome one: the quality and variety of the work of the many small presses operating today. While this impression is primarily based on my encounters with the output of Tartarus Press, Ex Occidente Press, and Subterranean Press, there are dozens if not hundreds of other small presses toiling away at the same sacred mission that I can't wait to familiarize myself with in 2010 and the years to come.

Biggest Disappointments of 2009

The most disappointing book of 2009 for me was Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl (review here). His collection of short stories, Pump Six and Other Stories (review here), is one of my favorites and made it onto my Top 5 Reads of 2008 list, but The Windup Girl didn't come close to matching the quality of that collection. The wide praise it has received has, I still suspect, been largely made by people who have not read his short story collection.

Another disappointment of 2009 was the seeming inability of the people who run some of the small presses whose work I've come to love to accomplish basic tasks like delivering books and answering emails. Ex Occidente press is producing some of the most amazing books being published today but I will never buy anything from them again after a prolonged encounter with them earlier this year. Similarly, three weeks after ordering a limited edition book from another small press it has yet to arrive and the publisher hasn't answered a single one of my email inquiries. Other small presses like Subterranean and Tartarus, to name a few, don't suffer from these problems but enough small presses do to make me feel like ordering from a new small press is often a crapshoot.

Happy Holidays!

So, that's it. Another year complete. I hope everyone has a good holiday!