geekyBecause every group is essentially a sociological tide pool, shifting slightly whenever the tide comes in but still cross-contaminating itself at a remarkable rate, we also tend to have a somewhat distorted view of "everybody." I bet if you polled a sample size of, say, the readership of this journal, you'd discover that Rosemary and Rue was one of the best-known books of 2009. Why? Because I wrote it, and talk about it constantly, and you read this journal, hence exposing you to it on a constant basis. I'm a literary pathogen!
On a more localized scale, we loan books to our friends, talk books up to our friends, and constantly infect each other with our literary passions. In the last year, I have caused my friends to read I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Shivers, A Madness of Angels, the complete works of Kelley Armstrong, The Mermaid's Madness, The Enchantment Emporium, and Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded. These aren't the only good books I've read in the last year; they're just the ones new enough to still be available, and to have excited me with their sudden existence.
So here is today's challenge: Infect us with books we may not have heard of, but which are so damn AWESOME that it verges on a crime that more people don't know about them. Go for out-of-print things (that's why libraries and used bookstores exist), or the first books in series that started eight years ago. Bring enlightenment to the heathen, in the form of literary smallpox.
I'll start with five of my favorites, books I honestly think everyone should read (whether you enjoy them is up to you):
Hellspark, by Janet Kagen.
Mermaid's Song, by Alida Van Gorres.
Emergence, by David Palmer.
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, by Tim Pratt.
Paper Moon, by Joe David Brown.
Authors, feel free to pimp your own work here; just get the word out, and let's see what we're not reading!
May 23 2010, 00:22:07 UTC 7 years ago
English actor Ian James follows the vicar and a local estate agent into the woods near his village one night, finds himself in a faerie court right out of Shakespeare, and in return for trespassing is recruited to save the faerie folk from diminishing into nonexistence. This is an utterly charming and severely overlooked fantasy with elements of Gilbert & Sullivan, Peter Pan, Arthurian magic, English-village mystery, and the lightest touch of low-key romance. If you like Esther Friesner and/or Patricia Wrede, you'll likely fall in love with Haldeman; this is one of three book-length fantasies she published in the 1980s (if memory serves, she subsequently lost a battle with cancer). Haldeman also penned one of my all-time favorite Dickens-riffs, a lovely short story called "The Marley Case", in which we learn just what happened to Scrooge's partner.
The Butterfly Kid by Chester Anderson
Hippie SF in which the author, being naturally suspicious of first-person SF novels wherein the narrator's name isn't the author's name, presents a novel starring hippie writer Chester Anderson (and his real-life friend and fellow writer, Michael Kurland). Giant blue crustaceans are invading from outer space (and showing up in Greenwich Village), and the solution involves Reality Pills and a boy who makes butterflies. Source of one of my all-time favorite signature lines: "My mind very carefully boggled." Mary-Sue gimmick notwithstanding, this is funny and fun -- and, impressively, well thought out besides.
Windmaster's Bane, Tom Deitz
This also dates from back in the 1980s, and begins a series set in rural Georgia -- and in the lands of the Daoine Sidhe of Irish legend, for the barriers between worlds are growing frail, and at times the two realms bleed together. Our hero is David "Mad Davy" Sullivan, who's been interested in Irish folklore long since, and leaps in with both feet when he accidentally invokes the Sight. Deitz writes his Sidhe characters with equal measures of authenticity and common sense, and the countryside settings are vividly detailed. This is closer to high fantasy than to today's "paranormal" genre, and I count it among the very best modern spins on Irish folklore.
May 24 2010, 18:24:42 UTC 7 years ago