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10
|
Tom
Sharpe
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Vintage
Stuff
 Coming
in at number ten. Tom Sharpe is one clever and funny writer. He's gifted
in the best sense of the word. If you've not read any of his stuff you
could do worse than this. I've read a number of his books and they're
all pretty bloody funny.
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9
|
Allen
Steele
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Ocean Space
 Allen
Steele is one of my favourite writers. Over the last few years I have
read just about everything he's written and have yet to be disappointed.
OceanSpace isn't his best work, but it's better than a lot of other
stuff I filled my head with this year.
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8
|
Barbara
Hambly
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Dragonstar
 I'll
admit I almost didn't continue with the series after reading Knight
of the Demon Queen. For whatever reason as cool as it was and as clever
the ideas, I wasn't blown away. I'm glad I stuck with it, as after reading
this one, the previous book makes more sense (either that or I was in
a better frame of mind reading this one) and this one clicked along
quite nicely.
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7
|
Frederik
Pohl |
|
The Eschaton
Sequence
 This
one say on my shelves for a number of years before I picked it up. This
was a fun filled alien invasion trilogy. Had some pretty cool things
I'd not read before. Frederik Pohl is one of the old fart of SF, and
it's great to see him still pulling rabbits out of his hat.
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6
|
Stephen
King
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From
A Buick 8
 What
top 10 list would be complete without at least one reference to Mister
King. The guy takes a lot of crap for being a hack writer. I for one
enjoy his stuff, and who ones - one day (after he's dead no doubt) he'll
get some recognition for actually being able to write a decent story.
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5
|
Niel
Hancock
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Dragon
Winter
 Entering
my top five. Niel Hancock is a master storyteller. This is rich stuff,
and if it's not in print it should be. Thankfully there are a lot of
great used bookstores in the world.
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4
|
Stephen
King
|
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Storm of
the Century
 I
a few King books this year, and it was a toss up between this one, and
Four Past Midnight. So I sat down, and thought real hard for about a
minute and decided I'd go in alphabetical order. Of course not being
one to even follow my own rules I went with this one. It was pretty
cool, and it's a teleplay, not a novel, but it only took a few pages
for the story to take over, and my brain (such as it is) to fill in
the narrative blanks. A cool story, and done in typical King fashion.
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3
|
Allen
Steele
|
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A King of
Infinite Space
 I
really liked this one. The ending is terrible, but the whole concept
and the story was wicked, and so the ending was overly trite - it couldn't
kill the overall experience.
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2
|
Guy
Gavriel Kay
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The Sarantine
Mosaic
  Guy
Kay's books are things of wonder. I often save them not for years not
wanting to read them for fear of not having them to read in the future.
Yeah, that's pretty stupid, but at some level it's true. These two books
were great, and would have been my favourites this year if it wasn't
for one little thing ...
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1
|
Guy
Gavriel Kay |
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The Lions
of Al-Rassan
 The
Lions of Al-Rassan. I'd always kind of held the Fionavar Tapestry as
his masterpiece. Well, move over there's a new sherrif in town. I'm
seldom moved as I was by this story. I hate to say something is truly
exceptional, mainly because it seems like I'm so easy to please (there
are two Stephen King books in my top 10 this year after all), but I'll
say it anyway, "This is exceptional!"
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