Editors' Choice - The Official SF Site Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2007

SFSite has released their Editors' Choice - The Official SF Site Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2007, and Ian McDonald's Brasyltops the list at number one. They say, "Wrap your head around this book if you want to see what truly ingenious science fiction can look like."

Meanwhile, Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Skymade their "The Near Misses and Honourable Mentions."

3 Pyr Books on the Best of the Best

Visions of Paradise aggregated the "Best of the Year" mentions from some twenty sources, including SF Site, Fantasy Magazine, Bookgasm, SFF World, Fantasy Book Critic, Strange Horizons, Locus Online, Locus Magazine, as well as award nominations for the BSFA, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards. They then listed the books which received the most mentions, to produce a "best of the best" list. The result - Ian McDonald's Brasylis the clear leader with 16 out of 20 mentions! Here is the full list, which also includes Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself with seven mentions and Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Skywith five.

Richard Morgan -- Best Literature Picks of 2007

Over on Green Man Review, Richard Morgan posts his Best Literature Picks of 2007, where he asks, "What was 2007 good for, literarily speaking?" and looks at literature, poems, graphic novels, even one videogame, that make an "elevated grade." Of Ian McDonald's Brasyl,he says, "lush, sweeping in scope, studded with technological gems and as brightly sparkling as the cityscapes two thirds of the book take place in, this is a worthy follow up to Macdonald’s award winning River of Gods;...Brasyl comes on at you with the rapid percussive beat of carnaval, and like the itch of samba in your hips, will not be denied."

SFFWorld's Favorite Books of 2007

SFFWorld’s readers have voted for their favorite books of 2007, and we're thrilled that Before They Are Hangedtops the list (this refers to the UK edition, as the US edition was just released). What's more, Joe Abercrombie appears twice, with The Blade Itselftying with the wonderful Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora at # 5. Here's the full list:

1. Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie (105 points)
2. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (96 points)
3. Reaper’s Gale by Steven Erikson (63 points)
4. Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb (54 points)
5. The Lies of Locke Lamora* by S. Lynch & The Blade Itself* by J. Abercrombie (41 points)
6. The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien (32 points)
7. Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch (31 points)
8. The Thousandfold Thought* by R. Scott Bakker (28 points)
9. The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente

Also delighted to see that The Devil's Right Hand author Lilith Saintcrow praises The Blade Itself on her blog, Writer on the Dark Side: "This is fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, but without the complete lack of verite most fantasy is infected with... There’s wizards, mythology, kings, princes, a self-absorbed nobleman, ancient legends, fencing–all written so well I was grinding my teeth with envy whenever I HAD to put the book down. This is a fantastic start to a trilogy, and I can’t wait to get the next two books so I can see what happens next. There are some tropes, true, but they’re handled so deftly and characterised so beautifully they take on the status of old friends instead of worn-out archetypes. In short, I can’t say enough good things about this book, and I highly recommend it."

Thank you, Lilith. Wait till you get to book two!

Can You Handle Another Best of the Year List?

SFSite has posted their "Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2007: Readers' Choice" and I'm delighted to see Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hangedat number five (here for the UK edition, as our edition was just released this month and hasn't found its way into all venues yet), as well as, not surprisingly, Ian McDonald's Brasylat number three.

Of the latter, they say, "McDonald masterfully explores some key sfnal concepts and pivotal alternative science. Wrap your head around this book if you want to see what truly ingenious science fiction can look like."

Locus Online: 2007 SF/F/H Books on Year's Best Lists

Locus Online has tabulated the science fiction, fantasy and horror books that have appeared on various year's best lists, inluding Amazon.com, Publishers Weekly, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Library Journal, Salon.com, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times, as well as genre publications SF Site, Bookgasm, Fantasy Magazine, and Strange Horizons. Also tabulated are Jeff VanderMeer and Claude Lalumière's essays for Locus Online. The present the 12 most cited works, and I'm very proud to see both Ian McDonald's Brasyl(appearing on five lists) and Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky(3 lists). Of course, if they'd included the recent American Library Association’s Reading List Awards, then those numbers would have been 6 and 4!

Calico Reaction's Favorite Reads 2007

Street Teamer Calico Reaction has posted a list of her Favorite Reads: 2007. Delighted to see Justina Robson's Keeping It Realon the list. Also, Calico is holding a contest to give one lucky winner the book of their choice from her list.

ALA's Reading List Awards

Via SFSignal: The American Library Association's first Reading List Awards for genre fiction has been announced. The list, chosen by a council of "ten librarians who are experts in readers' advisory and collection development" includes two Pyr titles: Ian McDonald's Brasyland Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky.

Woo-hoo!

Metatemporal Detective: Best of 2007

Claude Lalumière has posted his SF, Fantasy, and Horror in 2007: Recommended Reading list for LocusOnline.

One of ours pops up under Collections:

"Michael Moorcock's The Metatemporal Detective(Pyr) is good pulp-fuelled fun, filled with stories that deftly pastiche many modes of popular fiction, though these tales might be somewhat arcane for readers not overly familiar with Moorcock's multiverse and his recurring cast of dimension-hopping characters and doppelgangers."

Locus Online: Best of 2007

Jeff Vandermeer has posted his 2007: The Best of the Year list over on LocusOnline. I'm thrilled to see a few Pyr mentions.

From the Best Novels list:

"On the science fiction side, Ian McDonald reaffirmed his excellence with Brasyl,which contains three separate narrative strands describing the Brazil of past, present, and future. The novel is a tour de force of storytelling momentum, with a level of invention that represents a master at the top of his form. McDonald is an amazing stylist, yes, but here it’s all about motion. He does a wonderful job of including his trademark detailed and inventive description while making sure nothing in this complex, often beautiful novel is static."

and

"Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky,after a slow first seventy pages, knocked my socks off with its brilliant evocation of a quest through a parallel universe that has a strange river running through it. Unique in conception, like Larry Niven's Ringworld, this is the beginning to what should be an amazing SF-Fantasy series."

From the Best Anthologies list:

" Another first volume of a new original series, the Lou Anders-edited Fast Forward 1 featured thought-provoking speculative takes on making sense of our (post)modern world by, among others, Ken MacLeod, Gene Wolfe, and Nancy Kress. Consistently interesting, this SF anthology fills a gap, as most of the current spate of anthologies seems skewed toward the fantasy side of things."

And from Notable Reprints:

"...The Blade Itselfby Joe Abercrombie, a rough-and-tumble, bold new voice in the heroic fantasy ranks."

All good to read!

SciFiNow: Best of 2007

Just got the news that SciFiNow magazine, one of Britain's premiere sf media mags, has released their Best Books of 2007. And among the list, Ian McDonald's Brasyl,and Michael Moorcock's The Metatemporal Detective.

Here's the full list:

1) Halting State (Stross) - ORBIT
2) Stealing Light (Gibson) – TOR UK
3) Brasyl (McDonald) – PYR/GOLLANCZ
4) The Metatemporal Detective (Moorcock) - PYR
5) Helix (Brown) - SOLARIS

Congratulations to Ian and Mike! We're very proud.

Year's Best SF & Fast Forward 1

Rich Horton has announced the contents of his upcoming Science Fiction: The Best of the Year: 2008, and I'm happy to report that two stories from my anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge,have made the list.

The stories, Paul Di Filippo's "Wikiworld," and Ken MacLeod's "Jesus Christ, Reanimator." Congratulations, guys!

SFSite's Best of 2007

Greg L. Johnson of SFSite has posted his Best of 2007 list, a list of "the ten science fiction and fantasy books that I liked the most in 2007." And wouldn't you know it, Pyr takes the # 2 and # 1 spot.

Greg's #2 choice for 2007 is Ian McDonald's Brasyl,of which he says, "With wit and stunning imagery, Ian McDonald takes us to a near-future, and a distant past, that is as strange as any alien world. ...a story that masterfully blends history, character, Portuguese street slang and cosmological speculation, meeting both the requirements of hard SF and literary style along the way."

And coming in at #1, Kay Kenyon's Bright of the Sky,which "lies somewhere between Gene Wolfe's The Book of the Sun and Karl Schroeder's Ventus, and was, for me, the one book of the year that, once I started reading, was impossible to put down."

Congratulations to both Ian and Kay!

In with the New Year, Out with the Old

A few more end of the year round ups showing up.

John of SFSignal posts his 2007: A Year in Review - John's Take. He lists his personal favorite reads from the year - not necessarily all books published in 2007, but all books he read, liked, and rated a 4.5/5 or higher. Two Pyr books make the list: Martin Sketchley's The Liberty Gunand Mike Resnick's Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future.

Meanwhile, over at Futurismic, Tomas Martin takes A New Year's Look at 2007's Science Fiction. Listing his Top Five Books of 2007, we're pleased to see Joel Shepherd tying with himself in fifth place for Breakawayand Killswitch, Ian McDonald coming in at number three for Brasyl,and (thank you) a "special mention" for my own Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge.

Meanwhile, the interestingly titled The Breathing Corpse blog lists The Years Best Reads - Science Fiction. Mike Resnick's Starship: Pirateand New Dreams for Oldboth make the list with the comments that, "I read a bunch of Mike Resnick this year but these are the best. Starship: Mercenaryis out now and I'll be reading it soon. Resnick is now one of my favorite writers." Meanwhile, their 2008's Books I Can't Wait to Read includes several Resnick titles as well, including the forthcoming Stalking the Vampire: A Fable of Tonight.