Your 2007 Best Reads in the Genre

Let's say, your top five to ten books for the year. I know it is sometimes difficult to whittle it down to so few books but for the sake of brevity, we ought to make the attempt. I also know that it's difficult weigh some kinds of books against others - anthologies with novels, for example - so feel free to split your lists into short categories. These are guidelines, of course, not rules.

I have read little in the genre this year, as I have been back in school; however, I did read a little and two books which stand out - both YA titles - are:

Siberia by Ann Halam a.k.a. Gwyneth Jones. I was curious about Jones's YA titles as she is, imo, a very literary SF author. This was an entertaining story - a long chase scene with a SF premise, a welcome respite between books on the Aids Epidemic in Africa and Fractals.
Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan (Lanagan writes fabulous short stories that can be fantasy, SF or some weird mix. Recommend readers start with her collection, Black Juice.

Well, not counting those I read as part of my "challenge" of rereading a favourite sf novel each month during 2007, I'd have to pick the following as the best genre novels I read during the year:

Starship Summer, Eric Brown - a cheat as it's a novella. But it pretty much a distillation of all the themes which appear in all his novels and short fiction.

The Prefect, Alastair Reynolds - a welcome return to form after the disappointing Century Rain. Normally, Reynolds' villains are more interesting than his heroes, but in The Prefect, he managed to turn this on its head.

Alanya to Alanya, L Timmel Duchamp - at its start, it feels like it's stretching plausibility just a little too far to make a point about feminism, but you soon realise that it needed to push things that far. I'm looking forward to reading the rest fo this 5-book series.

The New Space Opera, edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan - does exactly what it says on the tin. although one story (the Kage Baker) is not space opera, and features some very unconvincing Brit characters...

Nova Swing, M John Harrison - although, to be fair, I didn't enjoy this as much as Light. But it's still a damn fine novel.

Sea-Kings of Mars, Leigh Brackett - classic stuff: ancient ruins on Mars, jungles on Venus, lost treasures, alien kings... They don't write them like this any more, more's the pity.

The Carpet Makers, Andreas Eschbach - translated from the German. Slightly old-fashioned in places, but always interesting. Some of the story is - bizarrely to a reader of Anglophone sf - left completely unexplained.

Text: Ur, edited by Forrest Aguirre - an anthology of epxerimental fantasy and science fiction. Some succeed, some fail. But the results are mostly interesting nad, in a couple of cases, very good indeed.

Ascent, Jed Mercurio - well, I think it's science fiction. Perfect fodder for your inner space geek.

(Gah. This touchstones thing is useless.)

I don't think the touchstones are working at all today, which is a shame. I will have to look through my list and come back, but first I have to ask--what books did you re-read as your favorites, iansales?

These ones:

Undercover Aliens, A.E. van Vogt (1950)
Dune, Frank Herbert (1965)
Soldier, Ask Not, Gordon R. Dickson (1967)
Dhalgren, Samuel Delany (1975)
The Ophiuchi Hotline, John Varley (1977)
Where Time Winds Blow, Robert Holdstock (1981)
Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (1988)
Metrophage, Richard Kadrey (1988)
Take Back Plenty, Colin Greenland (1990)
Stations of the Tide, Michael Swanwick (1991)
Against A Dark Background, Iain Banks (1993)
Coelestis, Paul Park (1995)

And then I blogged about my experience of rereading them.

What is in the Sea-Kings of Mars book Ian? Sounds interesting.

It's a collection of Leigh Brackett's stories and novellas set on Mars (and on Venus) - ones like 'The Secret of Sinharat' and 'People of the Talisman', as well as the title story. It's part of the Fantasy Masterworks series. Definitely worth getting hold of a copy.

I reread The Ophiuchi Hotline this year as well. Unfortunately I didn't find it quite as good as I had previously. I guess the gadfly nature of it and lack of real meat would prevent it going on my favourites.

I would agree about Coelestis - extremely underrated.

My best of the year (no particular order and some are rereads) -

The Dream Archipelago by Christopher Priest
In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Brasyl by Ian McDonald
Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss
The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter - a YA book which is shorter and pacier than his usual fare.
Halting State by Charlie Stross.
The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford

Sorry about the missing touchstones - a couple of authors gave problems and The H-Bomb Girl has never worked for me.

I still have a soft spot for The Ophiuchi Hotline, although I've always felt the best idea in the book was thrown away in the last couple of pages.

I've not read any Charles Stross yet, but I was given Glasshouse for Christmas...

Thanks Ian, that does sound interesting.

Of books I hadn't read before (as reread a large pile of stuff this year):-

Touchstones mostly working, unless you have a name starting with Co it seems.

Rynemonn : Leopard Dreaming - Terry Dowling
Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction - Damien Broderick and David Hartwell
Year's Best SF 12 - David Hartwell and Kathryn Crarmer
Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2005 - Jonathan Strahan
The New Space Opera - Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan

The Year's Best Science Fiction Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection - Gardner Dozois
Galactic North - Alastair Reynolds
The Best of Cordwainer Smith - Cordwainer Smith
Mammoth Book Of Extreme Science Fiction - Mike Ashley
Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present - Cory Doctorow

Top 5 read this year:

Accelerando - Charles Stross
Thirteen - Richard K. Morgan
Market Forces - Richard K. Morgan
Woken Furies - Richard K. Morgan
River of Gods - Ian McDonald

Really happy to have discovered Morgan, as I'm sure you've guessed :)

For me, the best book of the year was The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin.

It's been a bit of a disappointing year for me scifi wise... My five favorites for the year:

Far Rainbow by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Seeker by Jack McDevitt
The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum
The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
A Saucer of Loneliness by Theodore Sturgeon

Got it down to 8:

Dinosaur Beach -Keith Laumer
The Best of Stanley G Weinbaum
The Year of the Quiet Sun -Wilson Tucker
The Nitrogen Fix -Hal Clement
The Cycle of Fire -Hal Clement
The Best of James Blish -James Blish
Camp Concentration -Thomas Disch
Firebird -Charles L. Harness
To Marry Medusa-Theodore Sturgeon

>13 clong:
I didn't see your post on the SFForum in Jan about Stanley Weinbaum until searching the archive months later, but I agree with your assessments. I bought the whole collected stories that recently came out as a result of reading this anthology.I look forward to them! :)

In approximate order of my enthusiasm:

1. Blindsight, Peter Watts
2. In War Times, Kathleen Ann Goonan
3. Halting State, Charles Stross; his best since Accelerando.
4. Brasyl, Iain MacDonald
5. Dark Universe, Daniel F. Galouye; from 1961. Terrific for its day, but limited by that day's conventions.

Blindsight by Peter Watts.
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn.
Thirteen by Richard Morgan.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.

And one to argue over whether or not it's SF.
The Quiet Girl by Peter Hoeg. I say it's near future.

I didn't read much sf this year. By far the best of what I did read was a rereading of Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.
The best of what was new to me was:
Not this August by C. M. Kornbluth
The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I read very little in the sf/speculative fiction genre during 2007, but I was lucky that everything I did read was very, very good:

Passing for human by Jody Scott
I, vampire by Jody Scott
Love's body, dancing in time by L. Timmel Duchamp
Report to the men's club by Carol Emshwiller

Rereads:
Nova by Samuel Delany (a sentimental favorite for me, as it was the first novel by Delany that I ever read)
Extra(ordinary) People by Joanna Russ

The first five will be on my Hugo ballot for Best Novel (and I hope In War Times wins).

In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan

A Betrayal in Winter (The Long Price Quartet) by Daniel Abraham

The Prefect (Gollancz) by Alastair Reynolds

Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan

The Sons of Heaven (The Company) by Kage Baker

The rest were very, very enjoyable, but I liked the first five better.

Rude Mechanicals by Kage Baker -- OK, just a Novella, but fun.

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

The Terror: A Novel by Dan Simmons

The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton

The New Space Opera by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan

The Dark River (Fourth Realm Trilogy, Book 2) by John Twelve Hawks

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) by Patrick Rothfuss

>#18 Love Nova
>#16 Will have to read The Quiet Girl. I loved Smilla's Sense of Snow and would call that at least fantasy if not SF.
>#4 Love Metrophage and Stations of the Tide. Swanwick is a genius.

Cyteen absolutely beyond question, the best book I read this year of whatever genre.

Other top picks - more of Cherryh's work and also Forty signs of rain though the sequels weren't as good, Galactic north (grr still waiting for a paperback Prefect).

I did a fair amount of re-reading favorites last year, too.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper

Of the new reads for this year, these are the ones in running to become one of the favorites:

The Baby Merchant by Kit Reed
The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony by John Scalzi

I read Old Man's War, too, but I didn't like it as much as the others.

Honorable mentions:

Schrodinger's Ball by Adam Febler, just because it was bizarre and kind of fun
The Maquisarde by Louise Marley, because it made me want to read more Marley, even if it didn't rise to the level of a favorite book

Interestingly enough, all of my re-reads for last year were SF books. I didn't do a lot of re-reading, only 7 books, but it looks like the SF books were the only ones that I wanted to go back to again.

Spent alot of time looking for older books that I missed in the past. Found a few surprises;

Mr. adam and Forebidden area byPat Frank
The Rakehells of Heaven and The Last Starship From Earth by John Boyd
Martians, Go Home by Fredric Brown
A Planet Called Treason by Orson Scott Card
The Long Walk and The Running Man by Stephen King

On the the newer side, I just finished the first two books in the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell "Dauntless" and "Fearless" and bought the third one "Courageous". They are no brainers just enjoyable reads to keep on the night stand.
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn a twist on the alein spaceship crashed on Earth.

And there are always the rereads;
Cities in Flight and Greybeard by Brian Aldiss and Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank and Glory Road and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

A tough call:

1. Storm Front (I only just discovered Butcher).

2. Jennifer Morgue (A total hoot).

3. Blindsight (As disquieting a book as I've read in some time).

4. The Wizard Hunters (A great start to a great trilogy).

5. Orphans of Chaos (ditto).

Honorable mentions to Empire of Ivory and The Ghost Brigades.

My top 5 were:
Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson
Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson
Black Man (AKA Thirteen) By Richard K Morgan
Cyteen by CJ Cherryh (reread)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

However, I would mention that two books cited are among my all-time favorites. These include John Boyd's The Last Starship From Earth, which has been on my favorites list for over thirty years, and River of Gods by Ian McDonald, which I found to be a towering achievement.

This seems to put me in close agreement with usnmm2 and bibliophool. Generally, I see strong support for Thirteen by Richard K Morgan.