WHAT KIND OF A YEAR HAS IT BEEN? - 2016

What kind of a year has it been? - 2016

22/12/2016

So, then. 2016...

You know what? Let's not. There are going to be entire books written about this dumpster fire of a year, which seems to have been ground zero for every terrible idea of history and crass coincidence, and I have no desire to depress myself or you further.

Especially because this here is supposed to be a celebration: a reflection on all the great material I've read this year, a chance to take stock and say 'here's what was good'.

And it turns out, a lot was very good indeed. So, the normal rules apply; these are the best things I read this year, even if they didn't come out this year. I appreciate that makes things a little idiosyncratic, but a) there's plenty of 'proper' 2016 lists out there, so feel free to fill yer boots and b) this is my damn list. Also, it won't all be horror – I read pretty widely.

Also also, this isn't a 'best of'' list – this is a 'Kit's favorites' list. I don't claim to have a powerful subjective measure for discerning the quality of a story – I just know what I like and why. With that in mind, here are the works I enjoyed reading the most in 2016. The line between my favorites and the honorable mentions is both thin and wobbly – if you like the sound of any of the below, my strong advice is to check it out. It wouldn't be here if I didn't love it.

Let's talk about the good stuff.

Short Story of the year:

Paskutinis Iliuzija (The Last Illusion) by Damien Angelica Walters. I picked up 'Sing Me Your Scars' on a recommendation from my host and yours, Jim McLeod, and devoured it in a couple of sittings. It's a brilliant collection. Waters has a voice, style and vision that evokes vintage Barker and Poppy Z Brite – strong, dark, fantastic- but also has an emotional core and resonance all it's own. The Last Illusion was the jewel in the glittering crown for me – an aching story of real-life horror, loss, and courage. It's simply one of those perfect short stories where every element is in sympathy with every other – voice, character, plot, all moving in concert to create a rich tapestry of feeling more intense and satisfying than many novels. Like all truly great tales, I find myself returning to it on occasion, turning it over in my mind in admiration. In the best possible way, it haunts me. The whole collection is highly recommended (see the Gingernuts review here, and there really isn't a weak story in it, but 'The Last Illusion' is the kind of story you always hope you'll find. A thing of beauty.

Honorable mentions:

'The Man That Dogs Hated' by James Everington. Bit of a cheat this, as technically I heard this story in 2015 at James' Fcon reading, but as I only actually read it this year (as park of his excellent 'Falling Over' collection') I'm including it here. The central concept is as simple as it is brilliant, and perfectly expressed in the title, but it's the voice of the narrator that elevates the story to near genius levels. Fussy, meandering, no anecdote or digression left unexplored (yet brilliantly readable, a fantastically difficult trick that you may only be able to appreciate if you've ever tried to pull it off yourself), through what is said and left unsaid a picture is built of a monster all the more terrifying because of his mundane and commonplace nature. Powerful character study, stunning meditation on the horror of the suburban mindset and 'normality', and an utterly gripping story. You really can go off some people.

'Doll Hands' by Adam Nevill. Again, 'Some Will Not Sleep' is an outstanding collection of stories, as you'd expect from an author of Nevill's quality (you can read my review of it from earlier in the year here). There isn't anything even approaching a weak tale to be found. That said, there's a quality to Clown Hands that made it stand out, for me. Reflecting on it now, I think again it's a combination of factors – the narrator is a brilliantly realized protagonist, observing with horror, yet somehow possessing of his own queasy unease, a jet black set of events, and above all, a superbly realized setting. There's a sense of pervading horror, menace, unease, from the opening sentence to the close, and it leaves a stain upon the mind (or perhaps, more accurately, the memory of an aftertaste) that is very slow to clear. It malingers, even festers.

In the best possible way, obviously.

The Qu'rm Saddic Heresy by Jasper Bark. Maybe a touch obscure this one, as it appears almost as an appendix to the Run To Ground novella, this is ostensibly an academic paper written about the The Qu'rm Saddic Heresy, a mythology that lurks around the dark edges of many of Bark's recent releases, including Bed Of Crimson Joy and The Final Cut. What I really loved about this one was the voice – Bark nails what a decent academic writer sounds like, and by interrogating something as ephemeral and nebulous as mythology using that academic approach, a tension is produced which exacerbated my interest in the subject. It's an audacious, even dangerous trick, opening the author up to accusations of clever-clever post-modernism (and worse, if it had been badly executed) – but Bark is just too damn good for that to be a problem, and the result, for me, was not just brilliant but enlightening. I'd gone in expecting a pleasant diversion, and ended up reading one of my favorite pieces of short prose of the year. Lovely work.

Novella

Winner: Jedi Summer with the Magnetic Kid – John Boden. Remember last year, when I said my favorite novella of that year wasn't out yet? Well, here it is – and despite some spectacular late challenges (see below), it's also my favorite of this year. My review explains most of why, so I won't rehash it here. I will, however, reiterate a couple of points. First, this absolutely is not just some nostalgia trip, and (much as I enjoyed it) it beats the living shit out of Stranger Things – this isn't hollywood childhood, nor it is hollywood poverty. This is real – dirty, dangerous, shot through with struggle and stoicism, poignancy and regret, but zero sentimentality. If that sounds contradictory, it sort of is, but it's also true. See for yourself.

Oh, and second point of reiteration – Boden is simply one of the best sentence by sentence prose writers out there. There's a lot of poetry less poetic than this man's prose, and I rarely get through a page or two without some turn of phrase making me smile with rueful jealousy. And this is the best damn Boden I've ever read.

Honorable mentions:

Paupers' Graves – James Everington. Some of that 'stiff competition' I talked about up top, James very nearly won out with this one, and in any normal year would have romped home. Certainly by any reasonable measure Paupers' Graves is as brilliant and accomplished a work as Jedi Summer, and depending on your own personal tastes, you may even prefer it. Certainly, it contains all the elements that I've come to expect from the author – economically drawn, utterly real characters with complex interiority, a vivid sense of place, and the gradual encroachment of the uncanny upon the mundane.

All of that is present and correct in 'Paupers' Graves', in spades, but what's new is a sense of burning anger, lurking just beneath the mannered prose and (to start with) quiet horror. That anger builds as the story rolls out, suffusing the narrative with both passion and pace which, coupled with Everington's considerable skills as a storyteller, creates something very special indeed.

This guy is going to win awards for his work, and he deserves to. Read Paupers' Graves and I think you'll see why.

The Girl On The Glider – Brian Keene. Stupid to say this came out of left fileld and knocked me down. This is, after all, Brian fucking Keene, author, and host of The Horror Show with Brian Keene, which has fast become essential listening for anyone remotely connected with horror writing, and a man who is a force of nature and publishing in his own right.

But that's how it happened. See, I fell out of horror in the early 2000's – mainly to read crime fiction and thrillers, or what I think of as 'existential horror', because let's face it, they are, for the most part, exactly that – the timing of which means I juuuuuuust missed out on Keene's explosive arrival onto the scene with The Rising. And bluntly, until The Horror Show had crossed my radar, I'd never heard of the guy.

(I kind of suck like that, to be honest with you. I'm not terribly widely read in any field, and especially not horror. I tend to find authors I like and read all their stuff, so don't get exposed to as much new material and writers and most people. Good job I'm not trying to pass myself off as a critic or anything...)

And I'm pretty sure The Horror Show is where The Girl On The Glider came up – possibly in the context of a reduced price on Amazon (that does sound like me. Widely read, perhaps not, but cheap? Oh, my, yes).

So I picked it up and checked it out.

And read it in one sitting.

And again, the next night.

And when I'd finally scooped my brain off the wall and gotten it back inside my skull, I reviewed it, here.

I don't have a lot to add to that review, but I will restate here and now – if you're a writer, especially a horror writer, this book is as important as King's On Writing. Still not kidding about that – more sure than ever, in point of fact.

Detritus In Love – John Boden, Mercedes M. Yardley.

Two entries in the same category is showing off, I guess – but then, I also guess John Boden is that damn good. He sure was this year, anyway, and his sparring partner in this book is no slouch either – I've thoroughly enjoyed Yardley's flash fiction in Shock Totem, so I was very curious as to how this collaboration would pan out.

And, you know, the short answer is very well indeed – there's Gaiman and Barker elements, but also a dark lyricism, even poetry, that is original to the authors, who manage to sing with one completely consistent authorial voice. I have no idea how they managed it (I guess I should really ask them some time) but the result was a dark, grubby, twisted, but very beautiful gem that I won't soon forget.

Novel

Winner: The Fireman by Joe Hill. I know, I know. What a mainstream, predictable, boring choice. All those great indie authors and novels, so why oh why...

And that's worth addressing for a second, so I will. Firstly, up top I said the line between favorite and runners up was thin and wobbly, and that's perhaps especially true of this category. Depending on what you like, and your mood, any of the below might be more your cup of tea. All of them are utterly brilliant.

Also, though, I'm not grading on a curve here. You don't get 'extra points' for being indie. Quality is quality and quality will out. Are some books that reach mass market success, to use a technical term, crap? Well, yeah. Of course. So is some indie work. But it would be just as churlish to reject a mainstream work for being mainstream as it would to reject (say) a self published book for being self published. I'm not going to be That Guy.

And anyway, fuck it. This is my list. And, bottom line, The Firemen was the most fun I had reading a novel this year.

So there.

I just loved everything about it, that's all. It all worked; the lead character and her relationships, the genius of making the infected 'the good guys', the collapse, the Lord-Of-The-Flies-meets-Jonestown qualities of the settlement where we spend much of the narrative. Like the best stories, everything fed into and off everything else, it all felt cohesive and, well, real. I know some have complained about the length, but I found the narrative just tore along, with a palpable sense of menace and threat hanging over virtually every scene.

For me, at it's core, this is a story about the essential fragility of what most of us laughably think of as 'stable society'. It confronts – as most apocalyptic fiction both attempts and fails to do – the animal survival instincts that lurk just beneath the skin of all of us, and manages to both celebrate the depth of our humanity and recognize how monstrous we are prepared to be in the face of a perceived threat.

For various personal reasons, that subject matter will always be catnip to me. Couple that with Joe Hill's incredible gifts for character and imagination, and ferociously readable prose, and this was always going to be a trough book to beat out this year.

Or as it turns out, impossible.

Honorable mentions:

Zero Saints – Gabino Iglesias. Holy Mother of God, this is a beast of a book. I mentioned earlier about my own feelings on how blurred the line between crime and horror fiction really is, and then here comes Iglesias and smashes that line all to hell with a barnstormer of a novel – dark, ferocious, furious, stomping about the place like an amphetamine fueled madman with murder in his eyes. This is an absolute grab-you-by-the-bollocks masterpiece of violent crime fiction with a splatterpunk edge – in both it's humor and it's fuck-you-if-you-can't attitude. Lean, sharp and swift as a razor, you're so shocked you barely notice the bleeding until you're done.

The Fireman was my favorite novel read of 2016. But Zero Saints was by far the most important book I read, and will be even more important in 2017, as the wallbuilder-in-chief slouches toward Bethlehem, his hour come at last. But please don't let that put you off, because mainly it's just fucking brilliant. Believe the buzz.

Skullcrack City – Jeremy Robert Johnson. Talking of Gonzo literature. As I noted in my review, the correct answer to which genre SkullCrack City is, is basically 'yes'. Like that old Richard Prior gag, it's all of 'em. And like Zero Saints, a big part of what keeps it going is sheer bloody energy, a relentless, hysterical quality (in both senses of the word) that perfectly fits the hyper-tense setting of the book. An absolute joy to read, a chain of explosions of the imagination that drive not just boredom but sleep from your mind as you wonder, with each twist, how on earth he's going to top that, and what the hell is coming next. Glorious.

The Last Days Of Jack Sparks – Jason Arnopp. Picked up a pre-release copy of the paperback at Edge-Lit, essentially on the strength of the Alan Moore blurb, and loved it. Genre savvy, smart as hell, and proof positive that the key component for a lead character is to be compelling – not, necessarily, likable. Oh, and plotting so ridiculously clever that it's borderline irritating. More, please.

The Rib From Which I Remake The World – Ed Kurtz. This one just got in under the wire. I'd read some of Kurtz short fiction in the past – enough to snap up the review copy of his novel when it landed at Gingernuts Towers – but I really had very little idea what to expect. And I was mightily impressed. This one haunts me, too. Jojo is a brilliant noir creation, true to the traditions of the genre but with an interiority and roundedness that elevates him well above his pulp staple roots into a character you really care for, and root for. Kurtz does a magnificent job of grounding his tale in the atmosphere and attitudes of his period setting, before turning the dial up all the way past ten into... hell, we run out of numbers and he just keeps on going. Probably the single most pleasant sup[rise of the year, and I'm really looking forward to getting to grips with his back catalogue.

Non-fiction (book)

Winner: Neoreaction: A Basalisk – Phil Sandifer. He's done it again. I am sure Dr. Sandifer shares my misery in noting that this is a work far more urgent and vital now than when it was written, Sandifer combines the bogeyman product of AI thinkers, the Alt-Right, the nihilism of Ligotti, and more to create a potent, queasy cocktail of a treatise that will rattle around in your mind long after you finish reading. It's a stunner of a book.

Let us assume that we are fucked, indeed.

Honorable mentions:

The Hammer Dracula Films and other vampires - Noah Berlatsky. Berlatsky has been putting out a few essay selections this year ebook format. I've previously reviewed Fecund Horror for this site, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I have to say having just finished THDF I think it's even better. Partly, I think that may be down to the focus – starting with a series of essays covering each of the Hammer vampire movies in chronological order creates a sense of grounding and theme, as well as a foundation that can be returned to for reference as the collection moves to more contemporary outings. That said, what I actually most enjoyed most were the last sections of the book, starting with a playful takedown of Groundhog Day (not, you may note, a vampire movie, and undertaken, it seems, purely to push against a perceived sense of critical unanimity on this beloved film), before closing out with a positively gleeful and full-throated feminist reading/defense of Twilight

To be clear, along with all right minded people, I love Groundhog Day and detest Twilight. But I have unreserved admiration for a critic willing to take on these accepted positions and turn them on their heads. Both the attack and defense are wonderfully written, and whether intended as smiling exercises in contrariness or sincere conviction, there's a puckish playfulness and lightness of touch that had me grinning from ear to ear even as I shook my head.

Berlatsky is a welcome and, I think, much needed voice in horror criticism, and I hope there'll be more of these collections in the future. Great fun.

Film Gutter Vol's I and II – Alex Davis. Facebook friends will know what a fan I am of this blog series, a brilliant part of the Gingernuts family. I picked up the paperbacks at EdgeLit and ploughed through them in a few days. Collecting together Alex's weekly reviews with a wealth of additional material, including interviews with many of the creators, and featuring lovely cover art, these 'pocket guides' to extreme cinema are just lovely objects, and written with Alex's customary insight and style in full effect.

Even if you don't like extreme cinema.

You know what? Nearing the end of a crappy month in a very crappy year, this really has picked me up a bit. The world may be descending into lunacy, but I've read a lot of exceptional work this year. Thanks to all the authors who made this list for providing much needed points of light. And for goodness sake, keep it up. You are needed. Now, more than ever.

KP
20/12/16

Comments are closed.