The Bodhisattva

60. - Secret Life by Jeff Vandermeer (2004)

Wonderful introduction into VanderMeer’s work, and more than his other works shows the wide range of his story telling. At the same time, it’s a startling reread of some earlier works that gives hints to works to come - I never knew a short featuring a refreshingly intrusive vine could be at the same time more entertaining and more telling than the contents of some multi-book sequences.

59. - Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link (2005)

Yes, I’m one of those people that you probably have seen a growing number of on the net in recent years that just love Kelly Link. There are certain writers who come around (too infrequently) that present a body of work that one simply cannot deny; as if doing so would be a denial of SF/F itself. To not savor Link is to tarnish Science Fiction - I’m sticking to that.

58. - The Thousandfold Thought by R. Scott Bakker (2006)

You get those rare moments when you read multi-book sagas, treasured moments that you become conscious of and yet do not disappoint. This is a unique moment, and one that only occurs when reading series that\’e2\’80\’99s books are closely linked - true continuances of each other, where an author brings satisfaction to the end of not just one book, but a series and with that several hours of your life - and the waiting in-between releases. The Thousandfold Thought was like this; perhaps not since reading Mckillip’s poetic conclusion to The Riddlemasterr, have I experienced this. Bakker closes the door on his debut sequence, and kicks down the door leading to the next level of epic fantasy - the one the majority of other authors were scared to venture to.

_{* No cover picture noted as I hate the pic on Amazon - this book and entire series have beautiful, understated covers.}

57. - The Onion Girl by Charles De Lint (2001)

De Lint is the author everyone knows, everyone mentions, but nobody really talks about. You will find some reference to him as spearheading ‘Urban’ fantasy, but you don’t see a particular surge of conversation about him that came with the recent popularity of the form. China’s massive appeal may have busted a whole in wall to shine a spotlight on the other side, but amongst what they found was Newford already there, and De Lint spinning his tales of Urban Folklore.

56. - The Phoenix Exultant by John C. Wright (2003)

I can’t say Wright isn’t recognized because he certainly is, but I find it to be minor miracle how many times on online message boards when the common thread pops up asking for a recommendation in the ’space opera’ mold (usually by a fan of Hamilton) pops up and I have to be the one that introduces Wright into the equation. His Golden Age trilogy is simply beautiful and a read I enjoyed more than other works I find outstanding by the likes of Macleod, Hamilton, or Reynolds. This is the second book in the trilogy and where the journey of Phaethon increasingly becomes one of the most interesting in recent SF, but at the same time Daphne may indeed steal the show.

55. - Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan (2002)

Richard Morgan was on fire for a little while, his Takeshi Kovacs books a buzz everywhere, but I think this one - his first - is still his best work to date. The mixture of SF and hard boiled detective work isn’t new, but this remains an example of the success of cyberpunk, not existing viably on it’s own any longer, but imbedded as a influence on a generation of writers.

54. - Luminous by Greg Egan (1998)

Fans of ‘Hard Science Fiction’ have read my list and given up. It’s no huge secret, I’m not a scientist, and where some people hate reading Tolkien’s over description, or Wolfe’s unreliable narrators, I don’t give a shit how scientifically plausible an element of a book is (unless an instance is beyond absurd like instances in KJA’s Saga of the Seven Suns), and if I did, I don’t want the technical readout of it in the novel I’m reading. It’s not a condemnation, I simply just don’t care. I don’t read authors like a Baxter for the science behind the fiction, I read them for the fiction (admittedly found many times behind the Science). Strangely enough, I enjoy Egan who may be the #1 culprit! I’d be the first to admit I probably wouldn’t be able to stomach a novel length effort by Egan, but I greatly enjoy his short fiction. This collection and his earlier Axiomatic are must haves for SF fans - collections of the mind bending variety.

53. - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)

Ishiguro is one of my favorite authors, and probably on many people’s short list of authors who they would consider among the best in the world. This is not his strongest novel, but was a subject talked about in SF circles due to minimal SF elements present that allowed the community to claim it. I think how one reacts to this book is based on how one takes to the ending, and sure this is (as many have mentioned) a story in the mold we have read before particularly in SF in various degrees of quality, but I’m not convinced it’s been written by a more gifted writer.

52. - If Lions Could Speak and Other Stories by Paul Park (2002)

I read Park’s A Princess of Roumania last year and was introduced to a writer that I was previously unaware, a situation that needed to be fixed. These lions need to speak, and after reading these stories you may want to tackle some and beat the truth out of them - this is one of the finest collections in recent years.

51. - The Limits of Enchantment by Graham Joyce (2005)

We will start to see my spacing problems arise as I try to smartly spread out the listings of the multiple authors with multiple-worthy books. Joyce is among authors like a Carroll, Shepard, or Ford who apparently have this gift of not even knowing how to write sub-par fiction. These are writer that after reading their books I have to ask (in the complimentary U.S. way), “what’s wrong with this guy?”, and why aren’t the rest of us this right? Joyce not only writes about elements we thought had reached their fictional limits - he redefines them, whether dealing with a tooth fairy or witch.

* Read 91-100 here.
* Read 81-90 here.
* Read 71-80 here.
* Read 61-70 here.