Final Reading List For 2009

Was a pretty good year for reading with Erikson releasing the stunning Dust Of Dreams and I started the really fun Shadows of the Apt series. Chelsea Cain came close to a major disappointment mainly due to the unthinkably stupid ending to her second Gretchen Lowell novel.

01. Richard Morgan - Black Man (A)
02. Paul Carter - Don't Tell Mum I Work On The Oil Rigs She Thinks I'm A Piano Player In A Whore House (B-)
03. John Lindqvist - Let The Right One In (A+)
04. Michael Capuzzo - Close to Shore (C+)
05. Hugh Cook - The Wizards and the Warriors (Chronicles of an Age of Darkness 1) (B)
06. Hugh Cook - The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (Chronicles of an Age of Darkness 2) (B-)
07. Greg Keyes - The Charnel Prince (Kingdoms of Thorn & Bone 2) (B+)
08. Greg Keyes - The Blood Knight (Kingdoms of Thorn & Bone 3) (B+)
09. Raymond E Feist - Rides A Dread Legion (Demonwar Saga 1) (B)
10. Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination (B)
11. Brent Weeks - The Way of Shadows (Night Angel Trilogy 1) (B+)
12. Greg Keyes - The Born Queen (Kingdoms of Thorn & Bone 4) (B-)
13. David Gunn - Death's Head: Maximum Offence (Sven Tveskoeg 2) (A-)
14. Brian Aldiss - Non-Stop (A-)
15. Joe Abercrombie - Best Served Cold (A+)
16. Brent Weeks - Shadow's Edge (Night Angel Trilogy 2) (A-)
17. Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows (Night Angel Trilogy 3) (B+)
18. Peter Kocan - The Treatment and The Cure (A+)
19. Fritz Leiber - Ill Met In Lankhmar (B+)
20. Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book (A-)
21. Hugh Cook - The Women and the Warlords (Chronicles of an Age of Darkness 3) (B-)
22. Adrian Tchaikovsky - Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt 1) (A-)
23. Adrian Tchaikovsky - Dragonfly Falling (Shadows of the Apt 2) (A-)
24. Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams (Malazan 9) (A+++)
25. Adrian Tchaikovsky - Blood of the Mantis (Shadows of the Apt 3) (A)
26. John Scalzi - Zoe's Tale (A)
27. Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37) (B+)
28. Ken Grimwood - Replay (A)
29. Chelsea Cain - Sweetheart (C+)
30. Peter F Hamilton - A Second Chance At Eden (B+)
31. Ursula K Le Guin - The Dispossessed (A-)

TOLL THE HOUNDS

I was introduced to the Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by my friend Betty at the start of 2007. That year I powered through the first 7 novels almost all in a row and loved every second of it - here was a complex and stunningly realised storyline filled with fascinating characters and situations; Steven Erikson quickly became one of my favourite authors ever.

So I just finished Toll the Hounds, the 8th novel in the 10 book series and it did not fail to deliver one iota. I'm not really a person who likes to "review" moofies or books or anything really - if I like it I'll tell you and then you can make up your own mind. But I just have to say here that this man really knows how to write humour and sadness and wrap it all together in a compelling and beautiful story. I am constantly amazed at the complexity of the plots and the deftness that he switches between story lines within not only a novel but in the series as a whole.

While reading the Malazan novels I am always asking myself if he had actually planned all that I have been reading from the very beginning, maybe not every single detail, but certainly the general gist of each of the major stories and how they interact and intertwine around each other. If you're a fan of Fantasy or Science Fiction then you just have to read this series - although the first novel, Gardens of the Moon, can actually be quite hard to get into as it starts half way through a war and you just have no idea about anything that is going on, but persevere and I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed. Even if you're not a fan of Fantasy as a genre, try and give this series a go.

The other great thing about Erikson is that he has been releasing a book each year, unlike certain other authors, he can stick to his vision and write a fascinating and complex story and keep it all together and still release books on a regular basis. George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is probably on the same complexity scale but bugger me doesn't he take a while to write his books! But I suppose you can't expect all authors to have the same rate of output and I prefer to wait for GRRM so long as he releases quality product.

I loved this book and its stunning conclusion that sets up the grand finale of the final two volumes - bring on Dust of Dreams!