Best Reads of 2018!

Top 10 Reads of 2018!

Best short story: Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang

Best Non-fiction read of the year: The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carrol

Best book read for Dickheads: Eye in the Sky.

Biggest Disappointment: The Outsider by Stephen King

These are just of new releases in 2017-18 that I read. I read 100 books this year if you include the graphic novels which I reviewed on goodreads but not the blog. About half of those were new releases.

10. Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough

Cross Her Heart is a masterpiece of parallels and reversals. I should say that this is a twisty turny narrative that is better if you know nothing going in, and that is how I did it. If you like stuff like Girl on the Train and Gone Girl this is in that vein.

9. How to Set Yourself On Fire by Julia Dixon Evans

This novel by San Diego Writer Julia Dixon Evans is an excellent character study tied to together subtle but powerful prose. This is somewhat of a coming of age novel even though the main character is an adult.

8. Dry by Neal Shusterman, and Jarrod Shusterman

Stephen King said he couldn't put it down. Dry is an effective horror novel, YA or not it is an important novel for our time. It deserves to be on the shelf next to eco-horror classics like The Sheep Look Up. I feel it is the orange county cousin to my San Diego based Cli-fi novel Ring of Fire.

7. Blood Standard (Isaiah Coleridge #1) by Laird Barron

This is a masterpiece of tough guy crime, and that has everything to do with an author who clearly is intelligent with the ability to write highly literate prose,a stylist, but also with the experience and bravado to write effective macho-ma-cheese-mo. It is the balance that makes Tarantino great in film and Elmore Leonard great in any format. It is weird at times but there is nothing supernatural. If you didn't think Barron could write a book with a different bag of tricks think again.

6. Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

This book balances lots of things I love in a novel. Miller has lots of plates spinning from world building, well drawn characters and clear but not heavy handed messaging. If you look at the issues he is able to address from the climate horrors,post-scarcity culture, classism, refugees and at the core the many ills of capitalism. It might seem like he was writing a political paper but it is all subtly slipped into the story naturally. You end up with a super smart politically driven neo-noir novel that reminded me of a urban Snowpiercer with plenty of PKD influence for my Dickheads.

5. UBO by Steve Rasnic Tem

Set in a weird as hell surreal prison maybe in space, maybe out of space time? The first half of the book has a mystery as powerful as the setting, and that is saying something. When you mix the "I want to shoot myself" grim tone of Macarthy's The Road, with the political concepts and sheer "what the fuck is real?" of Philip K Dick you earned the word masterpiece.

4. Cabin at The End of The World by Paul Tremblay

Anyone who thinks of this novel as a simple horror are missing the point. This is a multi-layered novel that packs massive amounts of entertainment and meaning into a book that is less than 300 pages. Written just after the election Cabin at the End of the World is horror novel that builds scares in part from that disconnect. Comedy is often built on a foundation of set-up and punch-line. Effective horror novels are built on a foundation of tension, suspense and placing the reader in fear for the characters. The set-up of CATEOW is genius because it not only sets up those elements but explores the themes that plague our nation every time we watch the news.

3. Burning Sky by Weston Ochse

Burning Sky is masterpiece that I am more impressed by the longer I think about it. Burning Sky is very much about PTSD, but Burning Sky takes that theme and goes beyond. This novel is about what drives war. It explores the deep trauma not just of the warriors but society. The book points to key moments covered by the news in the last few conflicts that lead to Trauma that we felt collectively. The theme is expressed so beautifully in some of this novel's most horrific moments.

I interviewed Weston for Dickheads about this book:

2. The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts

The Freeze-Frame Revolution is a mind bending science fiction novel that packs in more ideas and story into it's 192 pages than some novels three times its length. One of the hardest parts of space based hard sci-fi is for the writer to express the scope and size of the universe. When we look into the universe the distance and amount of years are beyond what most stories can contain. We can talk about distances that stretch thousands of light-years and journeys that would last thousands if not millions of years but it is a a different challenge to create a narrative with such scope. That is the cool thing about this novel - it doesn't shy away from this reality.

1. Bannerless/ The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn

Winner of the 2017 Philip K. Dick Award and the sequel make my list at number one! While very worthy of the Philip K Dick award the author's work that Bannerless reminds me more of in tone and subject matter is Ursula Leguin. While Vaughn has her own voice I mean this with the upmost respect. The coast road is a future post end of the world novel and there is a fine tradition of novels like this set in California from Leguin's Always Coming Home, Gene O'Neil's Cal Wild books and Kim Stanley Robinson's Three California trilogy. Bannerless is a strong entry in this sub-genre.

This post Climate Change apoclayse novel is a murder mystery that deals with issues related to reproductive rights, ecological and social justice issues. But hey check out my interview with the reigning PKD award winning author herself - the first Dickheads interview.

Books read in 2018:

* New Releases (2017 & 2018)

Defy the Stars (Constellation #1) by Claudia Gray*

Perchance to Dream by Charles Beaumont

Artemis by Andy Weir*

Usurper of the Sun by Housuke Nojiri

Infernal Parade by Clive Barker

Escape From Baghdad by Saad Z. Hossain

The God Gene by F.Paul Wilson*

Origins of Creativity by Edward O. Wilson

Aftermath by Levar Burton

Mean Business on North Ganson Street by S. Craig Zahler

Another Way to Fall by Brian Evenson and Paul Tremblay*

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Radio Free Vermont by Bill McKibben*

Shaker by Scott Frank

The Wave by Walter Mosley

Star Wars: Lost Stars by Claudia Gray

The God Problem by Howard Bloom

Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick

Cobalt Squadron (Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi)by Elizabeth Wein

UBO by Steve Rasnic Tem*

The Dispossessed by Ursla K. Leguin

The Unnoticeables by Robert Brockway

The Listener by Robert R. McCammon*

The Night Masquerade (Binti #3) by Nnedi Okorafor*

Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man's Voice from the Silence of Autism by Naoki Higashida*

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn*

The Coldest City by Antony Johnston (Goodreads Author), Sam Hart (Illustrator)

Where the Dead Sit Talking by Brandon Hobson*

Austral by Paul McAuley*

Star Wars The Last Jedi by Jason Fry*

Corpse Paint by David Peak* After the Flare (Nigerians in Space #2) by Deji Bryce Olukotun*

The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick

Han Solo at Star's End by Brian Daley

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi*

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes*

The Outsider by Stephen King*

Chasing New Horizons by Alan Stern & David Grinspoon*

The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett

The Wild Dead (The Coast Road #2) by Carrie Vaughn*

The Man Who Japed by Philip K. Dick

The Hematophages by Stephen Kozeniewski*

Star Wars: Last Shot: (A Han and Lando Novel) by Daniel José Older *

Blood Standard (Isaiah Coleridge #1) by Laird Barron*

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich*

The Soldier by Neal Asher*

The Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu (Editor, Translator)

Burning Sky by Weston Ochse*

Now That You're Here by Amy K. Nichols

How to Set Yourself On Fire by Julia Dixon Evans*

Eye in the Sky by PKD

Cabin at The End of The World by Paul Tremblay*

The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts*

All Hail the House Gods by Andrew James Stone*

Exploring Dark Short Fiction #2: A Primer to Kaaron Warren*

Ball Lightning by Liu Cixin*

Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough*

Nightflyers by George RR Martin

That Which Grows Wild by Eric J. Guignard*

Halcyon by Rio Youers*

A World Of Horror edited by Eric J Guignard*

The People’s Republic of Everything by Nick Mamatas

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller*

Dr. Futurity by Philip K. Dick

An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim*

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carrol

Vulcan's Hammer by Philip K Dick

The Overstory by Richard Powers*

Dry by Neal Shusterman, and Jarrod Shusterman*

Elevation by Stephen King*

Florida by Lauren Groff*

The Man In the High Castle by Philip K Dick

Hoosier Hysteria: A Fateful Year in the Crosshairs of Race in America by Meri Henriques Vahl

Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey

Stand on Zanibar by John Brunner

Memory of water by Emmi Itäranta