Your Best and Worse Reads in 2010

[Winter]

It has been a bad year for me in terms of reading. I couldn't even remember what books I read, had to get the list.

Best: After Dark - Haruki Murakami
Worst (finished): Prince of Mist - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Worst (put down): Slights - Kaaron Warren

SF -

Best: China Mountain Zhang - Maureen McHugh
Worst: N/A - Scalzi's The Android's Dream and Gibson's Neuromancer, with CMZ, account for all of the SF I've read this year and none ventured into the negative.

 

[barfly]

++good:
Retribution Falls and Black Lung Captain, Chris Wooding
Monument, Ian Graham
The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, JRRT
The Etched City, K.J. Bishop

++ungood:
Blood of Elves, Andrzej Sapkowski: crippled by endless exposition and plotless meandering, DNF.

++disappointment:
The Drowning City, Amanda Downum: basically plotless, "wow, that would be cool to have in my book!" stuff.
Nights of Villjamur, Mark Charan Newton: not a novel but a fragment of a larger work, DNF.
The Folding Knife, K.J. Parker: just didn't buy into the basic premise (a problem I have with a lot of KJP's stuff), basically another "bad s**t happening to unlikeable people" thing that does nothing for me.

 

[hawkeyye]

Best:

Way of Kings
Best served cold.

These two were the highlight of my reading year!

Worst:

Shadow's Son
Dawnthief

Couldn't finish either of them and they are very short books...

 

[Westy]

There's been heaps of great novels I've read this year but the picks would be:

Best

Hyperion - Dan Simmons. Probably also an all time favourite.
Finch - Jeff Vandermeer. I loved his writing style in this fantasy/crime noir novel.
The Dark Tower III - Stephen King. Read this in 24 hours and loved it. Dark Tower II also included here.
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson.

Non Sci-fi: Taipan by James Calvell. Brilliant novel set during the founding of Hong Kong by the british.


Worst

Probably Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Cary. The premise sounded promising and it started OK, but I just got bored very quickly.
Also got a bit bored with Week's The Black Prism.

 

[Westy]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the worst book I've read in a while.

I don't need to read that book to agree that it's terrible.

Because of the media. Because how dumb the name is. Because it reminds me of twilight. Also, isn't this about some journalist investigating murders? Not really fantasy...therefore I wouldn't read it. =)

I wonder how many of you would think it's terrible if it wasn't famous and a friend gave it to you and said "read this, it's pretty good" (and you were open minded to read other genres).

I read it when it first came out (translated) and it really is a great book. The author was a very intelligent dude who knew his subject matter very well.

That said, the same reasons Chris777 gave for not reading it (apart from genre) is the same reasons I'd give for not reading Twilight.

 

[Luya Sevrein]

That said, the same reasons chris777 gave for not reading it (apart from genre) is the same reasons I'd give for not reading Twilight.

That reason is never good enough.

If you're simply lazy, can't be bothered, prejudiced or want to jump on the band wagon of hating something the majority likes to seem in some way unique or intellegant than admit it. xD

I read it... and Twilight..
tGwtDT - Boring.
Twilight - ...Reycycled fanfiction, the ruining of Vamparic culture. And people say reycycling is good, peh.

But seriously, READ books to decide, please. D:

 

[Haliax]

That reason is never good enough.

If you're simply lazy, can't be bothered, prejudiced or want to jump on the band wagon of hating something the majority likes to seem in some way unique or intellegant than admit it. xD

I read it... and Twilight..
tGwtDT - Boring.
Twilight - ...Reycycled fanfiction, the ruining of Vamparic culture. And people say reycycling is good, peh.

But seriously, READ books to decide, please. D:

Or maybe we can just read books that appeal to us, and avoid ones that don't. I don't see how that is lazy.

My best read: Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay

Worst: Hmm. Hard to say. I think I had the hardest time finishing Ken Scholes Canticle, but I didn't really dislike it. I can't say I've read any books this year that I didn't enjoy in one way or another. It's been a good year, and largely because of great recommendations from members of this site.

 

[Westy]

Well I did read Meyer's The Host and didn't like it, so that put me off reading any of her others. And I usually don't go for YA. Also I am lazy.

But you are right, the only way to know for sure is to read it.

 

[Luya Sevrein]

Or maybe we can just read books that appeal to us, and avoid ones that don't. I don't see how that is lazy.

It's simple, really. If a book doesn't appeal to you so that's the reason you don't read it, that's fine. Just don't then go on to say 'It's dumb, It's bad, I think it's awful,' etc. How do you know? Just say, 'Don't know, didn't appeal.'

I mean it's just... logic.

 

[Haliax]

It's simple, really. If a book doesn't appeal to you so that's the reason you don't read it, that's fine. Just don't then go on to say 'It's dumb, It's bad, I think it's awful,' etc. How do you know? Just say, 'Don't know, didn't appeal.'

I mean it's just... logic.

Didn't see the original quote. I thought we were just talking about making the decision that we would not enjoy a book (Westsiyeed's quote is about choosing not to read a book, versus Chris labelling it as terrible without reading) which I can do just by the description of the book and its content. I apologize.

Although, I'm not sure how The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo can remind anyone of Twilight. The content is different to the extent that it is comparing apples to oranges (to use a tired cliche).

 

[chokipokilo]

Best:
Hobb - Liveship Traders (I read both Fitz trilogies as well and they both rank among my best reads too, but this was my favorite)
Wolfe - Latro in the Mist
Martin - Fevre Dream, Sandkings

Worst:
Fallon - The Lion of Senet (not a terrible story, but the writing was very poor)
King - The Stand (perhaps the most overrated thing I've ever touched, right up there with "Ender's Game").

 

[Raule]

non-genre best in English:
The Notebook/Kristof (#2 2010 read)
The Invisible Bridge/Orringer (#2 2010 novel and #4 read of 2010)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet/Mitchell

I really liked The Invisible Bridge, too -- couldn't put it down, especially that second half. As long as we're mentioning mainstream fiction, I'll add Karl Marlantes' Matterhorn to my best reads of the year. It's probably in my #1 or #2 spot for the year. Very powerful stuff.

 

[MattNY]

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville was probably the best read I had this year.

Before They Are Hanged, A Feast For Crows, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell all came very close to taking that spot.

The worst was much easier for me: The Sad Tales of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington. It just was not one I enjoyed at all.

 

[Luya Sevrein]

Didn't see the original quote. I thought we were just talking about making the decision that we would not enjoy a book (Westsiyeed's quote is about choosing not to read a book, versus Chris labelling it as terrible without reading) which I can do just by the description of the book and its content. I apologize.

Although, I'm not sure how The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo can remind anyone of Twilight. The content is different to the extent that it is comparing apples to oranges (to use a tired cliche).

No need to apologize.

I can't see that either, I can only imagine it was meant in terms of popularity and media backing.

 

[Steven S]

The City and the City by China Mieville was my favourite novel of the year.

 

[BreakLater]

Best Fantasy I Read This Year:

Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. These are great novels. The writing is stellar and the story makes you laugh, cry, but above all it evokes this profound feeling of bittersweet regret in the reader. The only thing I can think of that approaches the same vibe is the Gormenghast books.

Worst Fantasy I Read This Year:

The Magic of Recluce by L.E. Modessit Jr.

I found the world-building and magic to be bland, lacking any sort of complexity. None of the characters were very distinct in my mind. Any descriptions of action were vague and confusing. There were no surprises. These are all bad enough, but add to that the book is mostly about crafting furniture and, well, I'm not going to read any farther in the series.

Funny that these books are both actually SCIENCE fantasy as they take place in psuedo-medieval or magical type worlds but those worlds have a science fiction background.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Worst: (and my current read) Assassins of Gor by John Norman. Never read any of these before - I'm not a great 'fantasy' reader - but this is the most gloriously godawful tosh. And home to one of the most audaciously dreadful changes of POV I have ever read.

The Worst SF book I have read this year is iece of early 1960s British crap called The World in Reverse - Luan Ranzetta.

Digit-618 Ranzetta World in Reverse by the_junk_monkey, on Flickr

Best SF The Centauri Device - M John Harrison and a couple of old favourites, The Star Well - & The Thurb Revolution -Alexei Panshin

Best non-fiction reads have been most of the Projections series about film-making by film-makers. Good stuff.

 

[Loerwyn]

Worst Fantasy I Read This Year:

The Magic of Recluce by L.E. Modessit Jr.

I found the world-building and magic to be bland, lacking any sort of complexity. None of the characters were very distinct in my mind. Any descriptions of action were vague and confusing. There were no surprises. These are all bad enough, but add to that the book is mostly about crafting furniture and, well, I'm not going to read any farther in the series.

Funny that these books are both actually SCIENCE fantasy as they take place in psuedo-medieval or magical type worlds but those worlds have a science fiction background.

I didn't think there was any science fiction background to the Recluce books (Admittedly, I've only read the same one you have). You could argue that it's inspired by Chaos Theory, but it doesn't make it science fiction any more than a magic system based around potions makes a book a recipe book. As for the other books in the series, only one other book uses Lerris as a protagonist (Book... 4 or 5, I think; The Death of Chaos). The others are set in other time periods in the universe.

Will spoiler my comments to be safe:

Spoiler

I'll agree that it was a confusing book that wasn't the best written, but I think I'd enjoyed it by the end. It's not mostly about crafting furniture, though. Yes, Lerris spends a lot of the book doing that, but it's not so much the crafting that's important - it's what he does whilst crafting and what happens because of it. Modesitt used the carpentry to fuel Lerris' development, just like some authors use tragedy to fuel a change.

The biggest problem, for me, was things just happened. Lerris suddenly became able to do X, Y and Z with no real push to do so.

If you didn't like it, though, I'd probably suggest to stay away from Elizabeth Moon's work, too. Her and Modesitt, in my opinion, are on roughly equal footing in terms of writing.

 

[Johnny B]

I didn't think there was any science fiction background to the Recluce books...

I have not read them but was interested enough to peruse plot summaries etc., and it seems that Recluce was populated by humans that arrived in a spacecraft (something like that anyway). I believe there is a book in the series called Fall of Angels that tells this story.

 

[Loerwyn]

... What?

Oh, Modesitt, tell me it isn't true