Well, then, what were the stories I liked best in 2012? And, I might ask myself at least, do they show signs of what Paul Kincaid has called ‘‘exhaustion’’ in the short SF area? As to the last, I’m not sure. Compared to last year, I liked more SF than fantasy. I continue to see more and more exceptional work from traditions at least somewhat separate from the Anglo-American SF tradition (though writers like Aliette de Bodard and Lavie Tidhar, shining examples of writers working in that vein, are also clearly well read in, and strongly influenced by, traditional SF.)
My favorite novellas were Elizabeth Bear’s ‘‘In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns’’, which combines such SFnal tropes as environmental change, extraterrestrial communication, and genetic engineering with a murder mystery plot, set in India, and avoids anything like kitchen-sinkiness. The other is Jay Lake’s ‘‘The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future’’ (one thing seems clear – novella writers are making their titles match the stories for length!), one of Lake’s ‘‘Mistake’’ series, in which most of starflung humanity was wiped out by a mysterious attack. Here, 1,100 years later, one of the long-lived survivors of the Mistake investigates a strange machine – perhaps an alien weapon? Perhaps a clue to the Mistake? – and ends up in a remote system, unexpectedly in conflict with her ship’s AI. It’s hard for me to evaluate how ‘‘exhausted’’ these stories are – I think they’re brilliant. Do they revisit familiar tropes? Yes, to an extent, but with originality, to my mind. And in the case of the Bear story, at least, she is working over truly contemporary concerns.
In novelettes, I really liked ‘‘Arbeitskraft’’ by Nick Mamatas. This is steampunk, set in the past in an alternate history and featuring real historical characters. In a sense, that argues for a lack of engagement with either present day concerns, or a plausible future, but the story is also fiercely politically engaged, and the ultimate concerns, with power and its effect on people without it, and more SFnally, with AI, seem quite apposite to me. I also liked Meghan McCarron’s ‘‘Swift, Brutal Retaliation’’, a much more personal story, a ghost story concerning two sisters and their dead brother – and a family under terrible stress. Michael Blumlein’s ‘‘Twenty-Two and You’’ is another favorite – this one is almost ‘‘plucked from the headlines’’ (or popup ads!) – about a process for repairing dangerous genetic traits, and about its unexpected side effects. It’s also a very moving human story. ‘‘Nahiku West’’ by Linda Nagata is a crime-in-space story with a darker edge, about a cop (of a sort) forced to police his space station’s strict rules about genetic enhancement. And Gord Sellar’s ‘‘The Bernoulli War’’ is something quite different – a radically post human story, not at all easy to follow, about conflict between different factions of post-singularity posthumanity, if you will. It’s philosophically engaging, if on a character and incident level rather distant – but this is the sort of wild speculation that I hope never disappears from SF. And I should definitely mention an exceptional novelette from the New Yorker’s notorious science fiction issue: Jennifer Egan’s ‘‘Black Box’’, told in a series of ‘‘tweets,’’ is very near future stuff (more thriller than SF perhaps) about a woman recruited by a government spy organization to attempt to get close to a dangerous man to learn his secrets.
One of the best short stories came from Aliette de Bodard – who had an amazing year overall, with several strong stories at varying lengths. ‘‘Scattered Along the River of Heaven’’ is a story about the aftermath of revolution on a space station, and also a story of political promises and betrayal, of different sorts of oppression, of loyalty and family – and it’s a deeply science fictional story as well. I also liked another Blumlein story, ‘‘Bird Walks in New England’’, this one a quiet piece about years in the life of a woman – and the strange bird she encounters. Kate Bachus’s ‘‘Things Greater Than Love’’ is more old-fashioned – a fairly simple adventure story on an alien planet. Nothing strikingly new here, but it packs a fine punch. Linda Nagata had another strong space adventure story in ‘‘Nightside on Callisto’’ – this one again old-fashioned in shape: war and danger on one of Jupiter’s moons, but if old-fashioned (though not entirely!), it’s very nicely done. One of my favorite fantasy stories of the year was ‘‘Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream’’, by Maria Dahvana Headley, a slightly twisted romantic story of love affairs involving wizards and witches. And finally, Lavie Tidhar had a host of outstanding stories (as pretty much every year!), several set in his Central Station future, about a well-colonized Solar System with mysterious AIs and other human changes – I thought the best was ‘‘Under the Eaves’’, which is a nice take on an old theme – love between human and robot.
Last year I noted a certain trend toward fantasy in the field, and in the stories I thought best. This year, the reverse is true – I would say only two of the stories I mentioned above are fantasy. I’m not sure what to make of this except to suggest that a one year period probably isn’t enough to fully appreciate true trends, if there are any there to see.
–Rich Horton
BEST OF 2012 AUDIO by Amy Goldschlager
Amy Goldschlager (2012)
I can’t speak to the business side of things, but listeningwise, things are pretty much status quo in the SF/F audiobook world. There are so many great audiobooks out there that I wish there were more hours in the day to listen to them all.
As in 2011, Khristine Hvam remains one of Hachette Audio’s primary female narrators in SF/F, turning in bravura performances as Pressia in Julianna Bagott’s sublimely beautiful and bleak post-apocalyptic Pure and as the entire cast of Laini Taylor’s Days of Blood and Starlight, the second installment of a trilogy about a starcrossed, interspecies love affair that affects two worlds and two lifetimes.
This year, Brilliance Audio’s offerings leaned heavily on MacLeod Andrews, who provided a strong, joyful presence in the (original meaning) urban fantasy anthology Welcome to Bordertown, an acceptable turn as Lazarus Long in Robert Heinlein’s classic Methusaleh’s Children, and an absolutely dead-on, demonically perfect James Stark in Richard Kadrey’s latest brutally enjoyable Sandman Slim novel, Devil Said Bang.
I continue to enjoy Justine Eyre, whom I heard first at Angry Robot/Brilliance but now seems to be taking on more Random House jobs. Her small but significant role in the YA coming-of-age fantasy Seraphina, as Seraphina’s deceased, draconic mother really enriched the production; her ability to evoke a family resemblance between herself and Rachel Hartman, who voiced the first-person protagonist, the half-human/half-dragon Seraphina, was quite impressive.
Wil Wheaton still needs to work on his character voices, but he’s a believable and sympathetic Merlin in new recordings of the second half of Roger Zelazny’s classic 10-book Amber series, and provides metafictional awesomeness as the narrator of John Scalzi’s Star Trek homage/deconstruction Redshirts.
Phil Gigante wins the 2012 Pronunciation Award for his gloriously glottal stop-laden fantasy Arabic employed in Saladin Ahmed’s powerful debut epic, Throne of the Crescent Moon, in which a ragtag band of adventurers pit themselves against an ancient evil that seeks to seize a kingdom. Sarah Zimmerman gets honorable mention for her delivery of the ancient-Egyptian-inspired language in N.K. Jemisin’s exciting and emotionally resonant The Killing Moon, concerning a power-hungry prince who ensnares his priestly half-brother in his intrigues.
I plan to keep an ear out for more from January LaVoy, who supplies vibrant, convincing voices across gender, age, and ethnic lines in Libba Bray’s thrillingly engaging The Diviners, about a ghostly serial killer/cult leader. A mark of the truly exceptional, well-rounded narrator is his or her willingness to sing, not simply to chant through, any musical part of the text. (I cannot stand it when narrators cheat that way; why bother having an audio presentation if the narrator refuses to fully engage?) LaVoy not only sings, she sings beautifully and poignantly during a funeral service scene.
I’m always looking
for audiobooks where the audio goes beyond simply presenting the story well, enhancing the understanding of the text. Alex McKenna’s androgynous performance as the genderless, body-switching A in David Levithan’s Every Day does exactly that.
I adore full-cast audio, and in 2012, Ellen Kushner’s The Privilege of the Sword really stood out; in addition to Kushner’s smilingly ironic narration, the production offered standout performances from Barbara Rosenblatt as a secondary narrator and Joe Hurley as everyone’s favorite decadent, scheming nobleman, Alec. The final Riverside book, The Fall of the Kings, is being produced right now, and I can’t wait.
Many audiobooks offer an introduction personally voiced by the author, or conclude with an interview. I very much endorse this kind of thing – again, audiobooks should not simply be a way to drive (or in my case, walk or take public transportation) and take in a book at the same time. Audio should offer something more or different from the text. The two ‘‘punk pop’’ songs performed at the end of Lydia Netzer’s Shine Shine Shine (after an intriguing behind-the-scenes interview with the author’s friend, narrator Joshilyn Jackson) grab the 2012 prize in the Fun Audio Extras Division.
And finally, the two most personally disruptive audiobooks I listened to in 2012: Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue, the story of an entire country with PTSD, read so elegantly and affectingly by Xanthe Elbrick that I almost sobbed in the subway, and G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen, with a sprightly narration from Sanjiv Jhaveri, which dragged me so thoroughly into the magic and viscerally real politics of an unnamed Middle Eastern nation that I had difficulty pressing the stop button on my iPod and getting on with the rest of my life.
–Amy Goldschlager
Return to In This Issue listing.
2012 RECOMMENDED READING LIST
NOVELS – SCIENCE FICTION
The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Bowl of Heaven, Gregory Benford & Larry Niven (Tor)
Any Day Now, Terry Bisson (Overlook; Duckworth ’13)
Blueprints of the Afterlife, Ryan Boudinot (Black Cat)
Arctic Rising, Tobias S. Buckell (Tor)
Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Intruder, C.J. Cherryh (DAW)
Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Rapture of the Nerds, Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross (Tor)
The Eternal Flame, Greg Egan (Night Shade; Gollancz)
Angelmaker, Nick Harkaway (Heinemann; Knopf)
Empty Space, M. John Harrison (Gollancz; Night Shade ’13)
Rapture, Kameron Hurley (Night Shade)
Intrusion, Ken MacLeod (Orbit UK)
In the Mouth of the Whale, Paul McAuley (Gollancz)
Fate of Worlds, Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner (Tor)
The Fractal Prince, Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz; Tor)
Blue Remembered Earth, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz; Ace)
Jack Glass, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Turing & Burroughs, Rudy Rucker (Transreal)
Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)
Ashes of Candesce, Karl Schroeder (Tor)
Lost Everything, Brian Francis Slattery (Tor)
Slow Apocalypse, John Varley (Ace)
The Fourth Wall, Walter Jon Williams (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Last Policeman, Ben Winters (Quirk)
NOVELS – FANTASY
Whispers Under Ground, Ben Aaronovitch (Del Rey; Gollancz)
Red Country, Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz; Orbit US)
The King’s Blood, Daniel Abraham (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Troupe, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Queen’s Hunt, Beth Bernobich (Tor)
The Ruined City, Paula Brandon (Spectra)
The Steel Seraglio, Mike Carey, Linda Carey, & Louise Carey (ChiZine; Gollancz ’13 as The City of Silk and Steel)
Boneland, Alan Garner (Fourth Estate)
The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Graham Joyce (Gollancz; Doubleday)
The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
And Blue Skies from Pain, Stina Leicht (Night Shade)
Bullettime, Nick Mamatas (ChiZine)
Sharps, K.J. Parker (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Hide Me Among the Graves, Tim Powers (Morrow; Corvus)
The Mirage, Matt Ruff (HarperCollins)
The Apocalypse Codex, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
Crandolin, Anna Tambour (Chomu)
Worldsoul, Liz Williams (Prime)
YOUNG ADULT BOOKS
The Drowned Cities, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown; Atom)
Black Heart, Holly Black (McElderry; Gollancz)
Zeuglodon, James P. Blaylock (Subterranean)
The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
The Crown of Embers, Rae Carson (Greenwillow; Gollancz)
Bitterblue, Kristin Cashore (Dial; Gollancz)
Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen)
Radiant Days, Elizabeth Hand (Viking)
A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan)
The Chaos, Nalo Hopkinson (McElderry)
Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Fickling UK; Knopf as The Brides of Rollrock Island)
Team Human, Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan (HarperTeen; Allen & Unwin)
Every Day, David Levithan (Knopf)
Son, Lois Lowry (Houghton Mifflin)
Be My Enemy, Ian McDonald (Pyr; Jo Fletcher ’13)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
The Broken Lands, Kate Milford (Clarion)
Dodger, Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
Apollo’s Outcasts, Allen Steele (Pyr)
The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press; Scholastic UK)
Days of Blood and Starlight, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown; Hodder & Stoughton)
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends; Much-in-Little ’13)
FIRST NOVELS
Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
Goblin Secrets, William Alexander (McElderry)
vN, Madeline Ashby (Angry Robot US; Angry Robot UK)
The Gathering Dark, Leigh Bardugo (Indigo; Holt as Shadow and Bone)
Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling, Michael Boccacino (Morrow; Titan)
Blackwood, Gwenda Bond (Strange Chemistry US; Strange Chemistry UK)
Wide Open, Deborah Coates (Tor)
Sanctum, Sarah Fine (Amazon Children’s Publishing)
Bad Glass, Richard E. Gropp (Del Rey)
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey (Reagan Arthur; Headline Review)
Rituals, Roz Kaveney (Plus One)
The Games, Ted Kosmatka (Del Rey; Titan)
The Man From Primrose Lane, James Renner (Crichton; Corsair ’13)
Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson (Grove; Corvus)
COLLECTIONS
The Best of Kage Baker, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
Other Seasons: The Best of Neal Barrett Jr., Neal Barrett Jr. (Subterranean)
Last and First Contacts, Stephen Baxter (NewCon)
Birds and Birthdays, Christopher Barzak (Aqueduct)
Shoggoths in Bloom, Elizabeth Bear (Prime)
The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy, Michael Bishop (Subterranean)
The Woman Who Married a Cloud, Jonathan Carroll (Subterranean)
Earth and Air: Tales of Elemental Creatures, Peter Dickinson (Big Mouth House)
The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories, Andy Duncan (PS)
Windeye, Brian Evenson (Coffee House)
Crackpot Palace, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)
Angels and You Dogs, Kathleen Ann Goonan (PS)
Midnight and Moonshine, Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter (Ticonderoga)
The Janus Tree and Other Stories, Glen Hirshberg (Subterranean)
Permeable Borders, Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Fairwood)
Wool Omnibus, Hugh Howey (self published)
At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson (Small Beer)
Confessions of Five-Chambered Heart, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
Fountain of Age, Nancy Kress (Small Beer)
Cracklescape, Margo Lanagan (Twelfth Planet)
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories Volume One: Where on Earth and Volume Two: Outer
Space, Inner Lands, Ursula K. Le Guin (Small Beer)
Wonders of the Invisible World, Patricia A. McKillip (Tachyon)
At the Edge of Waking, Holly Phillips (Prime)
Ancient, Ancient, Kiini Ibura Salaam (Aqueduct)
Remember Why You Fear Me, Robert Shearman (ChiZine)
Store of the Worlds, Robert Sheckley (New York Review Books)
The Dragon Griaule, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean)
The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume 7: We Are for the Dark, Robert Silverberg (Subterranean)
Jagannath, Karin Tidbeck (Cheeky Frawg)
Eater-of-Bone, Robert Reed (PS)
Moscow But Dreaming, Ekaterina Sedia (Prime)
Dream Castles: The Early Jack Vance, Volume Two, Jack Vance (Subterranean)
Flying in the Heart of the Lafayette Escadrille, James Van Pelt (Fairwood)
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