Top 15 Books for 2009

After celebrating the end of the year, and the whole of of the 2009 releases reviewed at Luke Reviews, it is time to celebrate the best.  After some tough calls while narrowing down the list, Luke Reviews presents "The Luke Reviews Top 15 Books of 2009"!  Listed in alphabetical order of the author's last name, here are the books selected as the creme of the crop from 2009, along with comments from a number of the authors (and editor!) who made the list.  A huge thanks goes out to all of the people who got back to me and said something (particularly those of you who went above and beyond the call of duty; your responses were pure gold to read), and for all of the kind words.

The Chronicles of Malus Darkblade: Volume Two by Dan Abnett & Mike Lee


From Dan Abnett: I'd just like to say that Mike and I are delighted and honoured that the second Darkblade omnibus has made your best of 2009 list.  Thank you for the accolade--Merry Christmas and a very Happy 2010!


Resistance: The Gathering Storm by William C. Dietz


From William C. Dietz: It was a thrill to learn that Luke had chosen Resistance: The Gathering Storm as one of his top fifteen books of the year.  Working with the folks at Insomniac and Sony is a wonderful way to build out a really compelling universe in a way that compliments the games.  I'm writing a second book for them now and enjoying every moment of it.  I write original novels too, like my Legion of the Damned books, but tie-in work provides an opportunity to be part of a team.  And an excuse to play games and call it work!


Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan


(Sadly, Luke Reviews never heard back from Harry Dolan)


The Hidden Man by David Ellis


(Sadly, Luke Reviews never heard back from David Ellis)


Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman


(Neil Gaiman has a rule of thumb that he doesn't answer questions for websites unless you go through his agent, so Luke Reviews didn't contact him)


Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue by Hugh Howey


From Hugh Howey: It's a real honor to make an "best of" list, but this is a special thrill for me (and not because it's my first and only one).  That it comes from a reviewer brave enough to be a critic, someone I trust to point out my work's faults and help me improve as a storyteller, makes inclusion a real treat.


When I wrote the book, I didn't dare dream of it getting picked up by a publisher.  I just wanted to please my wife, the most discerning and ornery reader I know (in a good way).  That it has gone on to win rave reviews, selling far more copies than I have friends and family, was quite unexpected.  That it landed on an end-of-the-year list such as this, I can only say: publish in October, not in January.


Thanks, Luke.  And congratulations to all the other authors.  They are now on my reading list.


The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Volume Twenty edited by Stephen Jones


From Stephen Jones: One of the reasons I put together anthologies is for people like you.  As an editor, I don't expect the reader to like every story in a book--after all, it reflects my taste--but I do hope that most readers enjoy the majority of them.  What I loved about your review of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #20 is that you "got" every single story in the book--you understood exactly why I chose a particular tale, and in an age where most online "reviews" are little more than personal blogs, it is refreshing to find a site that actually still makes an effort to review books intelligently and insightfully.


I am extremely honoured that you have chosen The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #20 as one of your Top 15 Books of the Year--it was an obvious milestone in the series and my career--and I hope that you will continue to spread the word for all genre material in 2010.


My best wishes to you and all your readers for a happy and prosperous New Year!


Storm Approaching by Brian Libby


From Brian Libby: Gold and Glory, the second volume in the Mercenaries series, should be available by early summer.  Check http://www.blibby.com, or write me at brnlbb(at)gmail.com, for more information  on my books.  No glory without honor!


Courage and Honour by Graham McNeill

From Graham McNeill: This was a fun book to write, as it was a chance to get back o basics with the Ultramarines.  I'd taken them off to the Eye of Terror in Dead Sky, Black Sun and left them there for a while, as I went off and did other projects, but they were always itching to get back to Ultramar.  I knew right away that I couldn't just have them turn up at the gates of their Chapter Monastery and say, 'Hi, we're home...' so that entailed The Killing Ground, a novel about the steps on the way home.  Like DS, BS, it was a novel that took the Space Marines out of their comfort zone and had them doing very un-Space Marine-like things, so with Courage and Honour, it was time to rectify that.


I wanted this to be the book that reminds the reader why Space Marines are the premier fighting force in the galaxy.  The Imperial Guard may number in the millions, but it's the Space Marines that do the really hard work, the missions that absolutely cannot be allowed to fail.  This was going to be a war novel, a book that had the Space Marines doing what they did best, killing their foes with complete and utter dedication and professionalism.  I wanted Courage and Honour to be a simple story, and when I say that I don't mean without complexity, I mean that is showed the Ultramarines--and Uriel--in the most classic Space Marine light possible.


These weren't Space Marines operating outside the Codex Astartes, these were warriors who fought with their Primarch's holy tome as their guide, and were winning with it at their side.  Of course, I wanted elements that weren't exactly codex, which is what led to Learchus going behind enemy lines and learning what had driven Uriel to make the choices he made.  It's a book with plenty of action, from all levels of the conflict, and I hope shows the brutality of warfare in the 40K universe, while also highlighting the heroism and horror that can come out of such desperate conflicts.


It's an honour to write about such an illustrious Chapter, and to have Courage and Honour chosen as one of the fifteen top books of 2009 by Luke gives me the pleasant thought that I did something right.  Let's just hope that the follow up book, The Chapter's Due is similarly well received.


The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa


(With the language barrier--Luke doesn't speak Japanese and Issui Ogawa's entire site was in said language--Luke Reviews was unable to contact Issui Ogawa for comment)


Hunt at the Well of Eternity by James Reasoner


From James Reasoner: Thank you so much for including Hunt at the Well of Eternity on your list.  I had a great time writing the book, and the fact that so many people have enjoyed reading it is very gratifying.


Kell's Legend by Andy Remic


(Andy Remic was kind enough to explain his very busy situation right now, and our schedules just wouldn't line up, so Luke Reviews couldn't get a comment from him)


Harbinger by Jack Skillingstead

From Jack Skillingstead: Harbinger is based on a loosely connected series of stories I published in Asimov's.  In fact, the connection is so loose, I doubt most readers even noticed it--and it may be the connection exists mostly in my own head.  The idea of so-called consciousness evolution was the starting point, a sort of organic singularity.  But in writing the novel I became fascinated by how individuals interpret experience/phenomenon through their own filters, and that took the narrative in different directions.  I'm gratified the book has been so well received, generally, and am especially happy to see it make Luke's Top Fifteen.


Slights by Kaaron Warren


From Kaaron Warren: Writing Slights was difficult.  It took a lot out of me emotionally, because I devoted myself to understanding the character Stevie, who is harsh, murderous, funny, and at times repugnant.  It was worth the pain if she works on the page.


Emperor's Mercy by Henry Zou


(Luke couldn't find any way to contact Henry Zou and let him know of his selection, so no comment was collected)

Slights by Kaaron Warren

Horror takes many forms. Sometimes it is big and foreboding and gruesome. Other times, it is small and quiet and all the more deeply disturbing because of it. In Kaaron Warren's novel Slights, we are presented with one of these quiet, terrible horrors. This book is certainly not for those easily put off, as its dark attitude pervades the entirety of this gripping work.

Steve is a girl who lives through a dark life. The novel starts out with her wrecking her car, resulting in the death of her mother, and her father is already dead, shot while in the line of duty as a police officer. Steve's life focuses on death, an odd juxtaposition indeed. She follows death, and it seems to follow her. As the years progress, Steve learns more and more about the dark room she enters every time she nears death, but each time she manages to come back to life before leaving it for good. She digs in her backyard, finding trinkets, and she deals with her family and her sister-in-law's family, neither of which seems to take a great interest in her, with few exceptions.

The crux of the book is the room Steve enters when she dies, but that isn't the horrific part. Steve is the part that grips you, and she is the part that scares you, as you can't look away while her life seems to spiral out of her control to a point where she can't get it back. With each new year, Steve finds a new pain to experience, and her magnetism towards these events is far too painful to bear, yet bear it you do with the hopes that she will somehow correct her life, get it back on track, and find something to live for instead of living to die.

Warren creates a vivid, realistic character, one with a sad life that is falling apart more each day. The character grasps onto you, and doesn't let you go. For each pain she goes through (and there are many), you go through them with her, wanting things to end up okay, for Steve to have a happily ever after, even if you have the haunting feeling that you just don't think Steve can ever get there. The novel, far from being about the horrible life after that Steve experiences, is about Steve herself, and there are few character novels that do it better. This novel can be painful to read, but only because of how much you come to care and hope for the main character.

While not for the faint of heart by any means, and certainly not something your emotions could survive through is you read it back to back, over and over, after finishing this book (and feeling drained in that "it hurt so good" way) I can't not be reminded of it frequently. This book has a power to it, one that is not to be missed.

10/10

Interview with Kaaron Warren

I recently read the preview of Kaaron Warren's new novel, Slights, and loved it (my "review" of it can be found here).  With the release of her new novel flying towards us, I wanted to ask Kaaron a few questions, and she was more than gracious in answering.

Kaaron, thank you for the interview!  

No worries! Thanks for asking me. 

You have a new novel, Slights, coming out from Angry Robot Books!  Congratulations!  Can you tell us a little bit about the book? 

Slights is about a woman who, at 18, accidentally kills her mother in a car accident. Stephanie (Steve) experiences near death as a result of her injuries, but she sees no shining light, hears no loving voices. Instead, she finds herself in a cold dark room, surrounded by people she barely knows. The only thing she recognises in them is anger; she sees that they are anxious for her to die so they can devour her. She visits this room a number of times throughout the novel as she attempts suicide periodically. She is unpopular, disliked, unable to fit in to society. She gradually recognises the people in the room; each and every one is a person she slighted in some way. Steve becomes obsessed with death. Her brother, a successful politician, has no time for her, and her police officer father died years earlier, a hero. She is obsessed with her own death because in the afterlife, at least, she is the centre of attention. And she becomes obsessed with the deaths of others. She digs up her backyard with the intention of planting night-blooming jasmine, a comfort flower. Instead, she finds odd things; a cracked glass cufflink, an old belt, a dented lunchbox, a shoe heel, many more odd, small items. These lead her to understand more about her past, and about why she is driven to do the things she does. 

I read the short preview of your new novel and found it already, in the first ten pages, carrying a sense of mysterious dread, in part built up by what I called your "minimalistic" style.  Do you agree with that explanation of your style?  What do you feel influenced your writing in general, and specifically this new novel, in regards to both style and substance? 

I do tend to use less descriptive words rather than more. This is partly inspired by my level of boredom. If I’m bored writing it, I figure the reader will be doubly bored reading it, so I go in a different direction. I try to find words which set the scene without spending too much time.

I also like the challenge of creating a mood with minimal words. I was obsessed with writing micro shorts for a while. Fitting a story into 50 words. I love playing with a sentence and saying it as succinctly as possible. This is one which won a competition a few years ago:

The night before my twenty-first birthday 

At five, I mastered the language of the Heavens.

At fourteen, I was taken as a barren bride; only the chosen have children.

My husband had blood of ice.

Today I learnt that all lives must end at twenty-one.

Hold me my young lover.

I hear alien soldiers at the door. 

# 

I remember in Year 5 or so, learning that you could use “Suddenly” instead of “All of a sudden.” Seriously, it was a revelation to me. Maybe that’s the kind of writing I do. The ‘suddenly’ school of writing! 

There are many influences on the way I write.

Daphne du Maurier, Kurt Vonnegut, Raymond Carver, Martin Amis, William Vollman, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King. All for different reasons of style and substance and because they have their own way of telling a story.  

I also use badly written stuff as inspiration. I notice words misused, or long dull descriptive paragraphs and I think, “Avoid that.” 

With Slights, both the style and substance were influenced mostly by the main character, Steve. The way I wanted tell her story, in a simple, conversational way, meant there wasn’t much room for extra words. I think a lot about how people’s lives are ordinary to them as they are living them, no matter how extraordinary they appear from the outside. I wanted to capture the sense that Steve feels her life is not all that unusual. That everyone lives the way she lives.  
 

On your blog, you just recently gave a recipe for cheese biscuits (I can't wait to try some!), and I must say, that just doesn't seem like the teller of horrific tales I had envisioned.  So, which are you more: (to use your phrases) the "kindly domestic person" or "the nasty horror writer"?  How do you balance the two?  

I have a theory that horror writers, butchers and plumbers are always nice people. They work with dead bodies, filth and waste and yet they are always kindly!  

I am a sum of the two things. I always say that writing horror releases my dark side. I believe everybody has a dark side; I can utilize it in my fiction, meaning I can maintain a positive outlook in my real life. Balancing the two isn’t really difficult, because the lines are clear. It’s not that they are completely cut off from one another; often I’ll be scribbling ideas for the next story while stirring the bolognaise sauce. Or ideas for stories will come to me while I’m reading a kids book to the children. I thought of my story “The Smell of Mice” while reading a version of Snow White to the kids. In it, the smoke from the witches’ fire rises purple. The image gave me a chill, and I built “The Smell of Mice” around that image and that feeling. 
 

I read somewhere in another interview that you are squeamish.  At first, that seems odd, but when we look at other big name horror writers, they seem to be squeamish as well, and/or hold a large number of fears (Look at Stephen King, that man seems to be afraid of everything!).  Do you think that this is in some way critical to writing great horror fiction?  

It certainly is important for me. I need to be moved by something , have feelings for it. I often write stories inspired by the things I’ve seen and heard which offend me or upset me. In “Ghost Jail”, one of my Fiji-inspired stories, I write about the beggars here who walk around with laminated letters proving they have lost their house or their parents. Proving they need money. It upsets me at two levels; the poverty of the beggar, and also the manipulative nature of the begging. I think you need to have passion in your writing or you’re just going through the motions. As I said above, if I’m bored, then the reader will be. I need to be feeling the story as I’m writing it.   

A lot of people think that, as a horror writer, I should be tough. And I admit; not a lot scares me when it comes to fiction or to movies. The Ring did it for me, as did The Shining. The computer game Shrelock Holmes, the Awakened, totally freaked me out! I had to stop playing it with my kids and it was really scary. I loved it.

I’m no fan of slash horror and don’t even like medical drama. 
 

How do you feel about the horror genre in general?  Are you a fan of horror fiction, or more so of non-horror fiction?  What do you think the strengths of the genre are today?  

I read very broadly. I like stories which surprise and take chances, which is why I like the authors I’ve listed

I’ve just finished reading “Walk to the End of the World” and “Motherlines” by Suzy McKee Charnas. Now I have to wait for the next two in the series to be delivered. The books are entrancing, involving, disturbing and thought-provoking. She writes so much from within the world we see it as insiders, rather than as observers.  
 

There is a lot of good stuff about horror fiction. Readers are more critical, more discerning, and they want more from their horror fiction. Horror is so honest in what it says and does. It doesn’t spare the feelings of the reader and I think that’s a good thing.  

And finally, what can we expect in the future from Kaaron Warren? 

There are my next two novels from Angry Robot. “Mistification” is the story of a man who learns all he knows from the stories he hears, and he hears some pretty nasty stories. “Walking the Tree” is about a large island almost filled by an ancient tree. About the communities around and inside the tree, and the teachers who seek lovers as they walk the Tree. 

I have a story upcoming in Datlow and Mamatas’ “Haunted Legends” anthology. This story is another Fiji-inspired story. I’ve got another called “The Edge of a Thing”, about ghostly chiefs, in a British Fantasy Society anthology. 

There’s also my Ishtar story, which will be published with stories by Cat Sparks and Deborah Biancotti. We’re loving this project. I’m writing Ishtar in the past, Deborah is writing her in the present, and Cat is writing her in the future. Gilgamesh Press is publishing this one.  

Thanks again, Kaaron.  I look forward to more of your work in the future! 

Thanks, Luke! I hope you like the rest of “Slights” as much as you did the sample.  

Slights Free Sample by Kaaron Warren

Up on Angry Robot Books' website they now have a free sample of Kaaron Warren's new novel, Slights. If you would like the .pdf file, as well as ePub or MobiPocket formats, follow the link.

The excerpt, short of a better word: brilliant. I know that writing a review on a ten page excerpt isn't the norm, but based on that short amount, I must buy this book. The writing is very well crafted, and the story is intriguing. The creepy factor is there, but much more strongly are a cast of characters that make you curious to know more about them, and a plot that begins on such a down note that you wonder just where this story will take you. The dialogue is sharp, and the writing is minimalistic in just the right way. Do yourself a favor and check out the excerpt. It is more than worth it.