Best books of 2006 - a personal selection

Filed by: Darren on January 4, 2007 at 15:56
Filed In: Books

Every January, I open a brand new spreadsheet and start making a list - one that I faithfully promise myself I will update both regularly and diligently - of all the books I've read over the course of that year. Every March or so I start forgetting to keep track. And then every December I sit down to have a think about writing some sort of 'review of the year' piece, and end up wishing I'd bloody remembered to keep the damn list up-to-date for a change...

2006 was no exception, but I'm going to gamely have a stab at remembering my personal 'best of' without the benefit of an electronic aide-memoire. I'm working on the theory that if a book made a strong enough impression on me that I still remember it by now, then it must have been a good 'un.

So here, in no particular order, are the seven titles that made the biggest impression on me over the course of '06. Bear in mind, these are books I read in '06, not necessarily books published in '06. And as usual, you can click the cover images to obtain ordering information etc. from Amazon.co.uk, should you feel so inclined.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

I read some damn good fantasy fiction last year - including Brian Ruckley's Winterbirth, K.J. Parker's Devices and Desires, Sarah Ash's Children of the Serpent Gate, Paul Kearney's This Forsaken Earth and Scott Lynch's quite fabulous The Lies of Locke Lamora (see below) - and Joe Abercormbie's The Blade Itself was right up there with the very best of them, definitely.

Abercrombie's plotting is tight and fast-paced, his settings are vivid without being fussy or over-detailed, his characterisation is excellent (Logen Ninefingers and Glokta the Inquisitor, in particular, are both a joy to read) and he really has hit the dialogue-nail right on the head. He's a freelance film editor by trade, so maybe it's the skills he uses on a daily basis that have helped him to craft this good a story; one that reads as well as something that you might reasonably expect an author to take at least four or five outings to achieve. Or maybe he's just a natural-born story-teller. Or maybe he's been to the crossroads at midnight, with a laptop in his hand instead of a six-string...

Whatever the reason, he's bloody good. Give him those four or five book's worth of development, and I reckon he'll be frequently spoken of in the same glowing terms that most folks use when discussing (those perennial personal favourites of mine) George R.R. Martin and Steven Erikson. Seriously, if you're a fan of those two - and / or the likes of Paul Kearney, K.J. Parker, James Barclay, Fritz Leiber, Greg Keyes, Robin Hobb, David Gemmell, and so forth - then you should add this to your 'must read' list. Oh, yes.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Quite, quite wonderful stuff here from debut author Scott Lynch. The Lies of Locke Lamora received huge amounts of attention, both before and after publication. The majority has been in the form of extremely well-earned praise; a few nay-sayers have mistaken the praise of others for the fall-out from publisher-generated hype (believe me, most publishers can only dream of being anywhere near that effective). On balance though, the genuine plaudits have won out, and with good reason: this is a cracking read, and one that I'd take no hesitation in recommending to anyone with more than a modicum of taste for the finer things in fantasy literature.

Quite frankly, what's not to like? The eponymous Locke Lamora is the ringleader of a gang of intelligent, witty, charming and imaginative con-men who dub themselves 'the Gentlemen Bastards'. They dwell in the city of Camorr; a blend of medieval Venice, Leiber's Lankhmar and Miéville's New Crobuzon. Said burg is dominated by the shadowy bulk of Capa Barsavi; an old-school gangster with an iron grip on Camorr's criminal underworld, including that segment occupied by Lamora and the other Bastards. Lamora is intimately acquainted with Barsavi's daughter, or has been in the past, and when a challenger to Barsavi's crown arises, he finds himself caught slap-bang in the middle of the ensuing turf-war.

Action, adventure, betrayal and retribution all run riot throughout this extremely well-written, gleefully unpretentious saga; The Lies of Locke Lamora aspired to be a piece of highly entertaining fiction first and foremost, and in that it succeeds more than admirably. Given such a high standard of debut, I predict this author will be going on to even bigger and better things in volumes to come.

What can I say? Heed the praise. Or, if you prefer, believe the hype...

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan

My first exposure to Margo Lanagan's fiction came in the form of a publisher's promotional blad containing the story 'Singing My Sister Down'. I thought I'd give it a go - why not? - and I'm very glad I did, because it turned out to be one of the most memorable pieces of short fiction I've ever read. I'll say no more here. Just pick up a copy of Black Juice in your local bookstore and give this one story a go while you wander around and pretend to browse. You'll see what I mean.

The other highlights, for me, of a very strong collection overall were 'My Lord's Man' (which I think might just be is a prose version of the Irish ballad 'The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy') and 'Red Nose Day', (guaranteed catharsis for anyone who ever suffered a modicum of Coulrophobia; maybe after reading Stephen King's It?) The rest of the collection is highly readable, intelligent and thought-provoking as well, but these two were my particular stand-out picks.

Lanagan's subject matter covers a wide range of themes and tropes and she is not only a superb story-teller but also an incredibly skillful prose crafter. She has a wonderfully economical way with words - hardly a syllable is wasted - and seems to have pretty much perfected the principle of 'show, don't tell'. If you watch carefully, you'll barely detect more than a hint of narrator-delivered exposition; her characters reveal their back-story through dialogue and interaction; there's a bare minimum of unnecessary background detail to get in the way of the focus of the tale. It's perhaps not a technique that will appeal to every reader, but it is one that I particularly like.

In any case, if there are any would-be short fiction writers out there, my advice to you would be: read Black Juice, and learn.

Use Once, Then Destroy by Conrad Williams

Another very strong collection indeed, from one of my favourite British short fiction writers. Conrad Williams might not be quite as big a name as some of his contemporaries, but that's nothing short of a grave injustice if you ask me. I think Williams' prose is just as lyrical, just as compact and spare and emotive as work by the likes of Michael Marshall Smith, Graham Joyce, Nicholas Royle or Geoff Ryman, and it's well worth sampling.

Only, don't do it if you're feeling particularly miserable, because Williams really doesn't do cheerful all that often. In fact, 'bleak' would be a good way of describing the atmosphere that suffuses the majority of his work - dark, disturbed psychology and broken relationships of all sorts seem to be pretty much par for the course.

My favourites (if that isn't too jolly a sentiment in this case) from Use Once, Then Destroy are the sort-of Lovecraftian tale 'The Windmill', along with 'Nest of Salt', which echoes London Revenant; Williams' eerie novel of the lost and dispossessed. This volume also contains his PS Publishing novella, Nearly People, another one well worth taking the time to track down, and is only £12.43 on Amazon at the moment for the Night Shade Books trade hardcover edition: bargain!

Three Days to Never by Tim Powers

A new Tim Powers novel is always a treat to look forward to. The thing is, you never know quite what you're going to get when you dive between the covers; it could be anything from baroque time travel fantasies to voudoun pirate magic, secret agents and desert-dwelling djinn, to far-flung dystopian futures. In this case it's a tale of father and daughter Frank and Daphne Marrity, and the bizarre treasure that his mother - her grandmother - has kept in her garden shed for the past forty years or so.

Of course, very little that you find in a Tim Powers novel is ever as simple or as straightforward as it first seems and Three Days to Never is no exception. Before too many chapters have elapsed, Frank and Daphne find themselves being visited by long-lost relatives, pursued by Israeli secret agents and haunted by spectral creatures and occultists bent on extracting - or retrieving - secret knowledge from them... at all costs.

But as you do rather expect from Powers, it's superbly written throughout and in places is frankly quite astonishing. Never one for playing a straight trope, Powers seems to delight in subverting the reader's expectations and opening up strange new avenues of idea and concept. Add this one to your list as well, and then if you haven't already read them, go buy copies of On Stranger Tides, Dinner at Deviants Palace, The Anubis Gates and Declare as well. Seriously, you've got some catching up to do...

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

I've already given this one a mention in my first potted bookshelf entry, but I'll just reiterate a bit here: great storytelling, lively characters, setting, well worth a read whatever your age or literary inclination. A young orphan girl escapes from her dull, boring village after (accidentally!) burning down her uncle and aunt's mill. Armed with nothing but a homicidal goose and a rare ability to read, she is swept up in a bewildering whirlwind of intrigue, revolution, murder and espionage.

Yes, it's a 'young adult' book, but one with plenty of sly word-play nudges in directions that adult readers will appreciate. Yes, it's a fantasy, but it's far from your average, mundane, kiddie-quest, dragon-taming, coming-of-age shtick. It's interesting, it's entertaining, it's well written. It's the best young adult book I read last year (no, I didn't read all that many, but that's beside the point...) and I'll be keeping an eye out for the sequel, definitely.

Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

I'm including this one on the grounds that, yes it might be an oldie-but-goodie, but it's always great to discover a new author, particularly one with a decent amount of back-list to work through.

Connolly's fiction blends elements of crime with slivers of the supernatural; in this, his debut novel, ex-cop turned p.i. and gun-for-hire Charlie Parker re-lives the brutal slaying of his wife and child when similar atrocities raise the spectre of a serial killer on the loose. Parker becomes drawn into a web of sinister mind-games as he desperately tries to bring the loose strands together and somehow double-guess the intentions of a sick and twisted killer. It's a dark and gritty narrative; emotionally brutal in places, somewhat gory but not unnecessarily gratuitous. Just my sort of crime / horror cross-over tale.

And stylistically, Connolly's first novel has a very similar feel to Michael Marshall (Smith)'s Straw Men series, which is no bad thing at all in my book. It's dynamically written, with great pace, action sequences that will have you on the edge of your seat, and a cast of colourful characters that wouldn't be out of place in a well-filmed Hollywood blockbuster. Great stuff, and I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the series.

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So, there you go. My personal picks for '06, and I've already got a fave for '07 lined up in the shape of Joe Abercrombie's follow-up, Before They Are Hanged.

Now, where did I save that spreadsheet..?

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5 Responses to 'Best books of 2006 - a personal selection'

Ed on January 6th, 2007 1:43 pm

Neal Asher used to post his reading list. Seemed to get through a book every other day. When did he find the time to write?
Ariel on January 7th, 2007 1:14 pm

Ah, but when you're a full-time writer you probably only have to do a few hours a day, eh? ;)

Got the rest of that time free for reading everyone else's stuff...
Joe on January 11th, 2007 12:33 pm

Lies of Locke Lamora was utterly brilliant, like the Stainless Steel Rat in Renaissance Venice. In fact I almost didn't start it, thinking, great another massive brick of a fantasy, but I heard good things about it from certain other reviewers beginning with the letter 'A' (no names, now) and I thought, okay.. So glad I did, looking forward to the sequel this summer.

Black Juice was one of those books that set off my bookseller seneses before I knew anything about it. Don't know why, but after seeing it in the Gollancz catalogue I just knew there was something special about it and I wasn't wrong. I think my copy has been passed through several of the folks at the Edinburgh SF Book Group for a read now. Was a good year for books all round I thought. And then we had a new Jim Butcher Dresden Files book and TWO from Mike Carey... Sooo many books....
Ariel on January 11th, 2007 12:42 pm

Aye, the Mike Carey offerings were on my mental 'best-of' long-list and are definitely highly recommended, but I wanted to keep the final selection to six or seven at the most, and I just couldn't quite bring myself to bump one of the others...

I'm sure his third will make an equally good impression on me sometime during the year :)
Susan Hated Literature » Blog Archive » Black Juice on May 13th, 2007 10:48 pm

[...] Author: Margo Lanagan ISBN: 0575077816 DDC: 823.914 A Once Upon A Time reading challenge read. See also: Margo Lanagan's blog ; LibraryThing ; Scooter Chronicles ; The Merchant Princes ; The Genre Files ; Emerald City ; Infinity Plus ; We all went down to the tar-pit, with mats to spread our weight. [...]