Books of the Year

Ha!

I'm not going to tell you yet. But partly because when I started thinking about them, I realized that several of the books I've most enjoyed aren't officially published until next year. But that must be true for a great many sf readers, who tend to read in advance of official dates: proof copies are hardly difficult to come by, and any devoted, rather than casual, fan has umpteen opportunities to secure a reading edition of a book early.

So: in no order, some of next month's good books that I've read, and lots of you will have too (not reviews, just a list). If not, some are in the shops anyway, defying the official date.

Charlie Stross: Halting State (also the Merchant Princes titles available in America and in UK bookshops, but not yet officially published)
Iain M Banks: Matter (the new Culture novel, enough said. Does that mean it's good? Oh yes, it is)
Neal Asher: Prador Moon (fantastic giant crab-like maniac killing alien nonsense)
Mark Wernham: Martin Martin's on the Other Side (I haven't decided about this; is it good? is it pants? We have time to decide before we write anything, fortunately)
Adam Roberts, Swiftly (very good idea. still reading it)

Iain M Banks

Just back from seeing him being interviewed by Farah Mendlesohn at Imperial, and us all eating curry afterwards. I can't write about Matter yet, though I don't think it's giving too much away to say that I think it's very good. What he certainly is is a star turn as a speaker. I particularly like his frank acknowledgement that a large part of the fun of science fiction rests on no more than naked wish fulfillment. Banks has no time, he claimed, for the Calvinist view that life is there to be endured. As long as your idea of fun isn't shooting up a school, why not have fun and realize your wishes?
That seems reasonable, though not in my view incompatible with a cheery sort of belief (Chesterton rather than John Knox, perhaps). It was nice to see a writer admit to the one thing that really marks the good work in the genre, and which almost everyone else denies hotly. If sf is going to work, you need to feel the writer thinks he's coming up with really cool stuff (even if he disapproves of it).

Hello, Iain M Banks fans!

I'm reading Matter. Ha!