What a year! 2016 was my best reading year in recent memory. I read 21 books in total, nine of which were by women, and 12 by men. 16 of those books I would categorize as Science Fiction and Fantasy - making this year an incredible scifi year. Looking at the Hugo nominees, I managed to read all five of the Hugo Best Novel nominees for 2016, which for me was a huge achievement. I'd like to continue to read at least all nominees for Best Novel in 2017 as well.
The best novel of the year for me was Naomi Novik's Uprooted. It's a fairy tale story that is modernized in the storytelling, and is at once ancient and fresh. The Polish / Eastern European feel of the world is certainly a unique part of the book that kept drawing me in. It didn't win the Hugo, but I feel it was a better book than the Hugo Winner of 2016 - The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin.
Which brings me to The Broken Earth Series - of which The Fifth Season was the first, and The Obelisk Gate was the second, with the third yet to be published. These books are probably the most important science fiction books to be written by a young living author of my generation. There has been many very important authors in SciFi - PK Dick, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Ursula Le Guin. But all of those - and countless others that I can't list here - they are either dead or have their prime writing and creation years in the past. I mean Ursula Le Guin is still writing strong, but she doesn't feel "of my generation." She's like a mentor in status.
With N.K. Jemisin (wikipedia says b. 1972), her books feel like "My Generation." Her book characters and world are still alien, still strange in the way science fiction and fantasy should be, but they feel so close and so present in emotion and mood. I had a lot of trouble reading The Fifth Season because I didn't like the structure of the book. For me, it isn't a book. It's more like a foreword, or a few chapters out of a book sent out to get a book contract. And so that's why I choose to look at The Fifth Season together with The Obelisk Gate, its sequel and partner. Together, they form a coherent and cohesive whole so overwhelmingly powerful and relevant to our times - it is something that I am honoured to read as it happens.
Against that kind of backdrop, how can any other books compete? Well, my sister recommended a graphic novel El Deafo by Cece Bell, about the experiences of a school girl going deaf. This is a very personal book and made me cry many times. I have a post in draft reminiscing my 2016 - and this graphic novel is a part of it. I loved every moment of reading this book.
Of course I read some lacklustre books, disappointing books, but I won't dwell on them because there was so much greatness in my reading in 2016. The great books I read this year are like the tide, washing out any blemishes that I experienced, leaving behind their all-encompassing taste and scent.
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