Hey! You guys! There’s almost two months left in 2007. Shouldn’t you be waiting to publish these lists? No? Huh.
This is the same mindset that starts hawking Christmas merchandise in August.
Anyway, lists:
Inferno edited by Ellen Datlow
Acacia by David Anthony Durham
Ilario: The Lion’s Eye by Mary Gentle
In War Times by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Bright of the Sky: Book One of Entire and the Rose by Kay Kenyon
The Name of the Wind: Book One by Patrick Rothfuss
The Winds of Marble Arch by Connie Willis
The Terror: A Novel by Dan Simmons
Brasyl by Ian McDonald
Territory by Emma Bull
The Traitor by Michael Cisco
Spaceman Blues: A Love Song by Brian Francis Slattery
Shelter by Susan Palwick
The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) by Patrick Rothfuss
Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan
Tin House: Fantastic Women by Aimee Bender
The Coyote Road by Ellen Datlow
(via SF Signal)
One response to ““Best Book” Lists of 2007”
We have premature “best” lists for the same reason that Shadaughter’s senior pictures were shot late in her junior year, accelerated cash-flow. They get the promotional boost a couple of months early, and will undoubtedly issue a revised “best” list at or after year-end. The provenance for either list is suspect, anyway. PW simply credits the “Staff” for its picks, and Amazon calls theirs “editors’ picks.” Can anybody explain to me why Amazon needs editors? And if they’re not Amazon’s editors, whose are they? Interestingly, there is *no* overlap between the two lists, even though Amazon uses PW synopses extensively in their product description. I’ve read seven of the seventeen books listed and I’d only agree with the inclusion of two of them* in my own “year’s ten best” list and my own 2007 reading is a ridiculously small percentage of theirs.
*Morgan’s THIRTEEN (UK edition titled: BLACK MAN), and McDonald’s BRASYL.