The Best & Worse SF You Read in 2006

[Ropie]

The Single Best & Single Worst SF Books You Read in 2006

As it says in the title, just one of each please. Old or new titles.

My worst is fairly easy, though actually a book I had been really looking forward to for some time: Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys turned out to be almost incomprehensibly overwrought, psuedo-psychological nonsense. Very boring too.

The best is a little harder as I read many excellent novels this year and more than a few really excellent ones. The one I think about most often though is Grass by Sheri Tepper. Exciting, well-written, atmospheric, only let down slightly by a poor ending. It'll be the one I'll be reading again soonest.

 

[rloomis]

Best / Worst SF 2006

i have not read as much SF as fantasy ...but here goes...
Best SF Scalzi - OLD MAN"S WAR ( easily the best for me in 06 )
Worst SF Weber - MARCH UPCOUNTRY - just couldn't get thru it..

Scalzi's read was great...wow..what a story...can't wait to read the next two of his...

 

[ArthurFrayn]

The best of the year for me was The Pillars of Eternity by Barrington J Bayley. It joined my top 10 favorites. I think it's his best novel, and the end is a real stunner.
My favorite novel ending this year, aside from Banks' Use of Weapons


The worst is Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. The author is a very intelligent, erudite man, but at least as far as this novel, I
don't think much at all of his fiction, with regard to either it's ethos or it's execution. I've read enough interesting interviews with him, but I don't think I could ever get over the active dislike I cultivated reading this overwrought,overlong, selfindulgent doorstop to ever pick up any of his other novels. Ultimately,life is too
short to be bullsh*tted so mercilessly, and so unrelentingly.

 

[Tony Williams]

Probably the best new SF I read was the final volume of John Meaney's trilogy: Paradox, Context and Resolution. Despite their substantial combined length (usually a turn-off for me) I have awarded them the ultimate accolade of keeping them on my shelves for a re-read sometime.

I don't know about the worst. I haven't read any bad fiction, because these days if a story doesn't grab me after the first few pages, I stop reading. It saves a lot of wasted time...

---------------

 

[bluetyson]

The best :

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

As far as prose goes, the worst was Walter Jonn Williams' Days of Atonement, easily.

 

[Hobbit]

As it says in the title, just one of each please. Old or new titles.

*cough*

Care to change that, BT?

Hobbit

 

[Colonel Worf]

The Best: Starship Troopers by Heinlein

The Worst: Camouflage by Joe Haldeman. It was good for a long time, but then it just fell apart and had one of the worst endings ever. How it won the Nebula is beyond me.

 

[Perry Rhodan]

BEST: Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke. The first hard SF book I actually liked, not too technical, in the info dump sense, but obviously well researched. Great at evoking my sense of wonder.

WORST: Scar, China Mieville. WTF?

 

[bigbry]

Only read a few SciFI this year and all of it good...

The Best: Old Man's War John Scalzi

 

[Ropie]

I don't know about the worst. I haven't read any bad fiction, because these days if a story doesn't grab me after the first few pages, I stop reading. It saves a lot of wasted time...

I know what you mean. If I was to name absolutely my worst SF experience of the year it would have to be Downbelow Station by C J Cherryh but as I couldn't get it into it whatsoever I only managed 50 pages or so before giving up, so couldn't say I actually read it.

I tend only to struggle on with books I am not really enjoying if they are well known as genre classics. Having said that, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress remains just one-quarter read six months on...

 

[ArthurFrayn]

Having said that, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress remains just one-quarter read six months on...

I think you should pack that one in. If you are not digging it by now, you're not going to like anything following.
As the old expression goes "If you haven't laughed now, that's the act, ladies and gentlemen"

 

[ezchaos]

Best: Dune -Finally read the whole thing after a few aborted attempts years ago. Loved it so much I immediately went on to read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

Worst: Accelerando by Charles Stross -This just didn't work for me. It was a mess and gave me headache. However, I read Singularity Sky a while back and enjoyed it.

 

[magicshoemonkey]

Best was probably A Clockwork Orange, which I finally read this year. Excellent book; haven't seen the movie.

Worst: I hate to say it, but Replay by Ken Grimwood. It wasn't bad; the first half was excellent, then the last half seemed to decline into a sappy romance novel, but it picked up at the end. I say it's the worst, but I didn't read much bad science fiction this year, so this is a "worst out of good stuff" designation.

 

[Ropie]

I think you should pack that one in. If you are not digging it by now, you're not going to like anything following.

It feels wrong to leave it unfinished so I will return to it one day, even though it struck me as a very childish book. I think maybe I was in the wrong mood.

Worst: I hate to say it, but Replay by Ken Grimwood

I think this is generally regarded as fantasy rather than SF but I haven't read it and only know it is about 'getting a second chance at life', so I suppose it could almost be as much a SF Masterwork as Silverberg's Book of Skulls is.

 

[Beleg]

Best: The Dispossessed - Ursula Le Guin. I am in love with her writing style.


Worst: Dreaming in Smoke - Tricia Sullivan.

This one won the Arthur C. Clarke award, just how exactly did it manage to pull that off is beyond me.

 

[magicshoemonkey]

I think this is generally regarded as fantasy rather than SF but I haven't read it and only know it is about 'getting a second chance at life', so I suppose it could almost be as much a SF Masterwork as Silverberg's Book of Skulls is.

I really would consider it SF, personally, but it's definately borderline. It's closer to SF than what I was thinking of putting as my "best," before I thought better, Latro in the Mist.

 

[cljohnston108]

Best: Scalzi's Old Man's War

Worst: Stross' Iron Sunrise (Couldn't get past the "Idi Amin Dadaist" part)

 

[Archren]

My favorites are all tinged with fantasy this year, I'm afraid:

Vellum by Hal Duncan
The Atrocity Archives Charles Stross

For pure SF, I think the best was:

Spin Robert Charles Wilson
Omega Jack McDevitt

Worst:

Two self-published novels I was asked to review:

Alien Beach A.R. Yngve
Proteus Rising Peter Dingus

Of normally published things, the worst was:

Only Forward Michael Marshall Smith

 

[intensityxx]

Just curious, Archren... Did you read Omega alone, or had you read the previous books in the series? I sometimes hear about Omega being good, but often the series isn't mentioned, which makes me wonder whether it works as a standalone.

 

[Werthead]

The best spec fic book I read this year was Perdido Street Station by Mieville. Genuinely a startling and innovative book, let down only by its somewhat overtly-orthodox storyline and Mieville's obvious borrowing from Harrison's Viriconium stories. However, Mieville's book is superior to Viriconium IMO. It should be pointed out that this book was very much Fantasy, however, not SF.

The best actual SF book I read this year was Look to Windward, by the always-reliable Iain M. Banks. Simply a great novel and a tremendously worthwhile addition to the Culture universe.

I also read Spin and found it disappointing. It was obviously very heavily influenced by Clarke's Childhood's End and Sagan's Contact (weird stuff happens to Planet Earth, our heroes investigate and end up getting transported across the Galaxy), but not as good as either. Some good ideas and I'll pick up the sequel, Axis (due out in summer 2007), but I was not captivated by it.