To mark the occasion, I asked Twitter-folk to tell me the one best 2014-released fiction novel they've read so far. It's clearly an imperfect science, canvassing opinions like this. Depends on who happens to be passing by on Twitter, instead of getting work done. But when someone takes the time to enthuse about someone else's novel, even in the breath of a tweet, it's surely worth checking out.
So here are the novels people tweeted back about, in absolutely no particular order. Neatly, there are 20 of them - a pleasing mix of Big Five, indie and self-pub. Of genres, too. I'm including the recommendations of tweeters who have read proofs or review copies of books coming out later in the year. If the hardback came out last year but the paperback came out this year, I included the title. All book-title links go to Amazon, while clicking author names takes you to their Twitter profiles where applicable.
The Girl With All The Gifts - M.R.Carey (Orbit)
Terra's World - Mitch Benn (Gollancz)Resistance - Samit Basu (Titan)
The Boy With The Porcelain Blade - Den Patrick (Gollancz)
The Three - Sarah Lotz (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Martian - Andy Weir (Del Rey)
The JackPort Killer - Kneel Downe (Lulu.com)
An Officer And A Spy - Robert Harris (Arrow)
The Incorruptibles - John Hornor Jacobs (Gollancz)
The Cormorant - Chuck Wendig (Angry Robot)
The Humans - Matt Haig (Canongate)
Words Of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson (Gollancz)
The Dark Inside - Rupert Wallis (Simon & Schuster Children's Books)
The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (Little, Brown)
Grasshopper Jungle - Andrew Smith (Electric Monkey)Smiler's Fair - Rebecca Levene (Hodder & Stoughton)
Annihilation (The Southern Reach Trilogy) - Jeff VanderMeer (Fourth Estate)
Galveston - Nic Pizzolatto (Sphere)
California Bones - Greg van Eekhout (Tor)
Dirty Magic - Jaye Wells (Orbit)
Because it's my blog, I get to throw in a further three great books not mentioned above and you cannot stop me. You are powerless and can only watch as the words pour forth:
- Broken Monsters, Lauren Beukes' brilliantly eerie and street-authentic successor to The Shining Girls, out in the UK through Harper Collins on July 31.
- The wonderfully funny and touching When Mr Dog Bites by Brian Conaghan (Bloomsbury).
- Claire North's eloquently brain-mashing The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August (Orbit).
So what about you? Want to lend an extra tip of your hat to one of the above? Or recommend one amazing 2014 release which isn't listed above and which you didn't write yo'self? Go right ahead, in Comments below, you irrepressible scamp.
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2 comments:
Neil Gaiman's 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' came out in paperback this year. No Greatest Novels of 2014 list can be complete without it! Well, in my opinion anyway.
The book I recommended was tremendous, however, had you waited another day or so to pose your question, I could have answered Half a King by Joe Abercrombie (Harper Voyager)
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