So I think I have a love/hate relationship with Gaiman books.  Everything about them says I should love them, but 50% of the time I...well I don't hate them, but I also don't love them.  This was another that I didn't love.  It's fantasy, adventure, intrigue, and good narration (I listened and read along with my nook because I won't take my paper books on the bus.)

It follows Richard, a Londoner who lives a fairly normal boring life with a very unlikeable girlfriend who seems to only want to control his every move.  He gets mixed up with Door, who is from the London Under, which is the world beneath the regular world, the place where the people who fall through the cracks end up.  After his first encounter with Door, rescuing her and helping her to get back to her world, Richard inadvertently becomes part of London Under.  It's as if he doesn't exist in his world.  So Richard adventures to London Under hoping to find Door and her guide the Marquis De Carabas.  They are on a mission to learn who killed Door's family and trying to kill Door. Richard is hopeful that once their mission is complete there will be a way for him to fully return to his world.

The story just didn't hold my attention.  I couldn't get into it and was easily distracted from the story.  The best and most interesting part was the short story of the Marquis and his quest to find his missing coat.  It was just meh for me.  Maybe a re-read at a later date will be in order

by Neil Gaiman

I've got the definitive authors preferred edition of this and the advantage of not having seen much of the television series, so I'm experiencing this Fantasy world as Neil Gaiman intended it should be.

It starts out introducing two main characters; Richard from London above, who seems like a very ordinary person and Door from London below, who has the ability to open doors, including doors that weren't already there. Pretty nifty trick! Naturally their paths cross and nothing will be ordinary again.

Door is from an alternative world where the laws of Physics are altered and magic is a part of their reality. Richard wants his life back in London above, but he will have to go through some adventures in London below to attain that. There are cut throats, supernatural creatures, intelligent rats who run much of the underground sewers and a floating market that might show up anywhere and frequently does.

This was an amazing and original Fantasy world, even for Gaiman who has built some fantastic worlds before. Thugs with changing loyalties, political intrigue and unexpected abilities keep the suspense high and the plot moving at a fast pace. An interesting spectrum of characters with a heavy dose of whimsy populate London below and are surprisingly likable.

I wasn't quite satisfied near the ending with some things that were just a little too convenient without explanation, but the ending itself was what it needed to be, although it could have been made just a little harder for a last emotional pull. Overall though it is certainly one of Gaiman's best.

Uff da, that was one of the best debuts I've read in a while. It all feels very familiar in the beginning: The nightjars (a kind of bird more commonly known as nighthawks in the US) act as soul-bodies; this feels like Phillip Pullman's daemons (or Lauren Beukes' familiars, but I don't think as many people have read Zoo City.) Much of the action takes place in an alternate London known as the Rookery; there are so many alternate Londons that this listicle of ten has a half dozen comments pointing out several not on the list. The overt plot opens much like Neverwhere, with an office drone getting sucked out of her routine and submerged into a magic world (though The Nightjar's protagonist doesn't suck like Richard Meyhew.) I totally thought I knew where this all was going, but whoo baby does Hewitt deliver a series of brutal shocks in the end. 

This is the interesting part: sometimes when writers deliver a twist, it's unearned in the narrative. Either they've been withholding information, or they're just being perverse, or they weren't good enough setting it up. (See, for example: Dany's burning of King's Landing, which was at least the latter two, if not all three.) Not so, Hewitt. She gives you all the information, but in such a way that the reader jumps to several erroneous conclusions. So when she puts you right in the end, it's no one's fault but your own for making an ass out of u and me. It's very, very well done. 

Tasks for Pancha Ganapati: Post about your 5 favourite books this year and why you appreciated them so much. 

–OR–

Take a shelfie / stack picture of the above-mentioned 5 favorite books.  (Feel free to combine these tasks into 1!

I'm afraid I can't really do the second part because most of my chosen books are ebooks. 

It was also pretty tough to figure out what should make the cut. I stuck mostly with my higher-rated books and ones that have stuck with me or led me to try out more of the author's work.

1. The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

This one was a no-brainer. I keep telling everyone I know to read it because it was awesome. It's basically pure escapist fun and it was like a breath of fresh air after Frederik Pohl's Gateway which I was reading at the same time. It was also the first novel that I read by Kameron Hurley and I've been slowly working through her back catalogue. It's basically a story about a bunch of people who live in dying worldships trying to find a way to gather enough resources to keep going. It's a fun adventure romp, basically. And the best part is that there are no whiny males who beat up women in front of little kids and justify it to themselves with a bunch of pathetic psychobabble (see Gateway). Don't get me wrong; these aren't all nice, peaceful people. But it was a nice break from the patriarchal norm.

My review of The Stars are Legion.

2. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

This was a reread but I liked it so much I went out a bought my own copy of the author's preferred text. Neil Gaiman doesn't always work for me in the sense that although I usually like his books, I frequently don't love them. This one works for me though. I like the creepiness and the Marquis de Carabas.

My review of Neverwhere.

3. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

This first book in Dunnett's Lymond series was well-constructed and riveting. Not an easy read, but still pretty awesome. I'm including this because I'm slowly working my way through the series and so far the first has been the best (ok, so I've only read 2 of the 6 books so far). Lymond is a great example of a protagonist who's almost too awful to like but does actually have redeeming depths. I need to get back to this series, actually.

My review of The Game of Kings.

4. On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard

This novella was my introduction to Aliette de Bodard's writing and a great atmospheric read. It was a kind of family drama, really, which isn't usually my cup of tea, but this world with its far-future Vietnamese empire was just neat. Plus throw in a faltering AI, politics, and a slow-burn narrative... Aliette de Bodard seems to like to create science fiction and fantasy worlds with unusual settings. Here we have a futuristic Dai Viet Empire, and in one of the other series of hers that I'm reading, the books take place in the Aztec Empire.

My review of On a Red Station, Drifting.

5. Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal

This was another read that just clicked for me, and it was also my first introduction to Mary Robinette Kowal's writing. It was a creepy and thought-provoking tale of a woman who drops off the grid in a hyper-connected world when she's kidnapped by a man whom she surprises tranquilizing a deer. A lot of questioning of how much we can take data for granted and did I mention it was really creepy?

So...three sci fis, an urban fantasy, and a historical fiction. I guess I really do like science fiction. :)

Some honourable mentions:

 This popular science book with its descriptions of how trees in a forest communicate and share resources was so close to making the cut but I went with Forest of Memory instead. I do think a society that could actually communicate with its forests and negotiate with them would just be downright cool, and so I still say this should be mandatory reading for science fiction writers.

There's also a bunch of stuff about how trees that don't grow up in a mature forest get short-changed in how their wood develops because they aren't forced to grow slowly. The book explains it better. Go read the book.

My review for The Hidden Life of Trees.

 This was a great concise overview of the issues that have set back women’s rights, societal expectations, and health. It was an interesting read, and I used it to find more interesting reads via the references it makes. I've even started to go down a bit of a rabbit hole because those books have led to other books which have led to yet other books right down to my current read, Alas, Poor Darwin.

I thought it was so good that I bought a copy for my shelf and ended up with two copies because Canada Post was so slow that the first copy took two and a half months to get to me. Still haven't figured out what to do with the extra copy.

My review for Inferior.