Right then, as another year draws to a close it's time for me to look back on my favourite books of the past twelve months. Due to 'stuff' this is probably going to be a fairly brief post (well briefer than I originally planned) but hopefully I may be able to expand it a little in the new year.
I'm going to start with
Best Young Adult novel - Three favourites in this category and all came from David Fickling Books. The Nest by Kenneth Oppel and The Call by Peadar O'Guilin would have both been good enough to take the title any other year but The Wrong Train by Jeremy de Quidt just took the lead as it was the one that constantly had me thinking 'NO! He's not going to go there' (Spoiler Alert - He did)
Reviews for all three can be found on the blog post list
Next up -
Best Collection
To be fair there was only one contender for this as this one blew all others out of the water - Arcanum Unbounded by Brandon Sanderson. This is a collection of his shorter tales from The Cosmere with added extra bits. Some of these I'd read before but having them all in one edition really gives you an idea of the scope of the man's imagination.
And now for a bit that a lot of people will disagree with me about
Biggest Disappointment
This goes to Mr. King's little boy Joe Hill for The Fireman - started out really well but just tapered off and lost my attention. I'd really been looking forward to it too as I've really enjoyed his other stuff.
Right, back to the good stuff now.
Best Shorter Novel
Several were up for this, namely:
Bradley P Beaulieu - Of Sand And Malice Made
Paul Kane - Sherlock Holmes and The Servants of Hell
ClovenHoof and The Trump Of Doom
but appearing on tables in Waterstones already, Tad Williams scoops this one with 'The Heart of What Was Lost' a return to his land of Osten Ard.
Best Short Story In An Anthology
This one goes to KT Davies for 'The Devil's Spoke' which was in 'Eve of War', a cracking anthology from those lovely folks at Fox Spirit Books. Any of these stories could have come out on top but 'Spoke' was the one above them all that had me really wanting more, to see the short turned into a novel.
Best Horror
This one does go to Paul Kane - Sherlock Holmes v The Cenobites in 'Sherlock Holmes and The Servants of Hell' by an author who is pretty much an expert on both Holmes and all things Hellraiser. A corker of a read
Finally (for now)
Best Novel
Again many to choose from here but, narrowing it down
New Pompeii - Daniel Godfrey
The Tiger and The Wolf - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Spiderlight - Mr Tchaikovsky again
The Black River Chronicles - David Tallerman and Michael Wills
The Malice - Peter Newman
The High King's Vengeance (which I am 3/4s of the way through) - Steven Poore
All most excellent but there is one that stood out for me, and that is
DRUM ROLL.............
The Silver Tide by Jen Williams. This will probably not come as a surprise to many as I seem to have been 'bigging up' both this book and the Copper Cat series to all and sundry constantly.
So, why this book? Well, it's the end of the series, ends needed tying up and they were. Once again the location, and thus the type of story changed (this was Pirates of The Caribbean ish with added time travel). The story has got better with each volume (and it started off at level AWESOME). And then there was the ending, oh my days the ending. The final scene is one of such cinematic beauty and wonder that, I'm not ashamed to say, I had a tear in my eye. THAT is how you finish a series.
And now, just because I can, I'm adding a final category
Best Debut
New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey (review, as with most of the mentions on here on the blog list page) - Jurassic Park but with Romans instead of Dinosaurs. Epic Stuff
So, maybe not as brief as it was going to be but there you have it. 2016 has been a good year for books and I feel 2017 may well be even better
Have yourselves a Happy New Year and see you in the future
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