Talent Still Exists: Tomio’s Top 100 of the Last Ten Years (91-100)

I get so sick of people who act like nothing of merit or quality gets written anymore particularly in a field that is so broadly labeled speculative fiction. People who think science fiction is little more than Space Man Spiff (which is hot!) and Fantasy is still all sentimental rubbish they know as children - magical beach reads. These arguments are so 80’s.

As FBS members know I have been pondering a list of my 100 favorite reads since 1996 (yes I know lists have been popping up all over the place, but I assure you my thoughts on waiting to do this were recorded in-forum at FBS well before the VanderMeer sparked listmania ). Why 1996? Well, ten years is a nice round number but beyond that it represents the mind of somebody just free from high school at an age where perhaps nostalgia no longer is a major factor in making sensible choices. These reads do not represent just books that I have read since 1996, but are also reads that were published on that year or since. Now, I am a fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and while I consider myself someone with broad tastes I have an affinity - fuck it a love - for those mediums. This list is not meant to be a proclamation of these books being brilliant, earth shattering and/or groundbreaking pieces of literature that will change the way people will view literature or of respective mediums. These are merely my favorite reads of the last 10 years and were published in that time (which is a disclaimer all list makers use to save us the trouble of answering questions later). These are single books, not series/sequences, however books in sequences can be included. Some books may have been published elsewhere either not translated or by a much smaller press and could find itself included. If you are a comic book hater - go to hell. Don’t pay too much attention to order with the possible exception of my top ten as I loved all these book and they are largely interchangeable. I just grow tired of seeing various discussions about our favorite books having to invoke times before many of us were even drawing breath. I promise you their has been other (and vastly superor) children’s fantasy since C.S. Lewis people.

I will offer 10 every few days (simply because I have worked some time at this, and to get one blog post out of it seems a bit of a waste!)

100.- The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque by Jeffrey Ford (2002)

I view Ford as a writer who has perhaps strung together the most enviable body of work in the last couple of years when regarding both novels and short fiction. This is my favorite of his novels. Fantasy authors (authors in general) have an understandable attraction to artisan characters and Piambo is the most memorable in recent years for me. At the heart of it, it’s really applying fantasy to survey fantasy - and that’s damn cool.

99. - The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000)

A quintessential example of a book that if one completes their reading of it, it’s very difficult not to admire on some level. It’s different, which doesn’t necessitate quality, but for me this is how horror (and that is an extreme over simplification of what this book is) should be. Demanding, not cheap; indeed it feel like an accomplishment after reading it like it did when I finished Eco’s Focault’s Pendulum in high school. It feels oddly like Borges and Joyce at the same time, and that’s a combination that merits a read.

Has become the standard I gauge subsequent horror against.

98. - The Fourth Circle by Zoran Zivkovic

What do you get when you have a book with Sherlock Holmes, Archimedes, Arthur Conan Doyle, Nikola Tesl and Stephen Hawking among others in alternate worlds with Buddhist temples and feminist, self-aware computers?

One of the best SF novels in recent years.

97. - The Complete Short Stories by J.G. Ballard (2001)

This is not a comprehensive collection but it does have 90+ stories by an author who gets slighted (along with Moorcock) by being called among the best SF writers of the all time - they are in fact among the best writers of fiction of the second half of the 20th century.

96. - King of the City by Michael Moorcock (2000)

The loose sequel to one of the best novels I have read (Mother London), it doesn’t reach near the heights of its predecessor. It probably suffers from being episodic, perhaps too real in this regard but this is an idea book Moorcock is known to write every decade or so to show us what will be standard a decade or later by the best young writers.

95. - Meet Me in the Moon Room by Ray Vukcevich (2000)

This is a collection that until recently I was unaware of. Surreal, absurd, and most importantly he knows when a story is done. Vukcevich plays with the entire emotional spectrum with a collection that I wish I had lauded when it came out - as I could probably claim brilliance now.

94. - Move Underground by Nick Mamatas (2004)

On the Road and Lovecraftian Cthullu. No, no, no! This is Kerouac and Lovecraftian Cthullu - a much more admirable accomplishment, and as the Kerouac title suggest these elements are just the means not the goal, something other Cthullu inspired writers should take note of.

93. - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2000)

Anytime a guy (or a girl) writes a book about comic book creators and it wins the Pulitzer we owe it to our ourselves to talk about it as much as possible. So I did. Everybody knows about this book already so next…

92. - The Facts of Life by Graham Joyce (2002)

One can almost pick any Joyce novel written in the allotted time period (and perhaps I did), this one happens to be one of my favorites. Something one would think would be standard in a skill set for a writer is to be able to write characters of both sexes with some degree of diversity and believability. This isn’t the case (particularly in Fantasy), but Joyce is an absolute master at this and shown so in several novels. If you slapped some frames on this bad boy you would have an acute picture of life on the wall.

Joyce never disappoints. When I was in high school we called people like this fiends.

91. - My Life as Emperor by Su Tong (2005)

* Read 81-90 here.
* Read 71-80 here.
* Read 61-70 here.

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