100 More Books from the 21st Century (Part 1)

Very quickly, a couple of upcoming events:

I had the opportunity to contribute to the new Disinformation in the City playbook, a guide to help those working in cities to respond to mis- and disinformation. The playbook, from the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Cities, publishes at the end of the month, and also, there’s a PANEL! Please join us on August 29th for a discussion of how cities can face this pressing problem. 

Very early warning for a pair of very special events. The Bristol Film Festival are screening some science fiction film classics at the PLANETARIUM (caps for nerdjoy) at the end of November. Yours truly will be introducing a pair of cyberpunk gems: The Matrix (November 29) and Blade Runner (November 30).

‘Introducing a film’ has always been on my bucket list, and I’m extremely grateful to the Bristol Film Festival for this opportunity.

Ok, enough about me, let’s talk about… um… me! A lot more.

The New York Times did their ‘100 Best Books of the 21st Century’ which was, like all listicles, … sure a list. It got people talking and thinking about books, which is pretty great, and - to be fair - it combined the predictable pretentiousness with some pretty obscure picks. Lists gonna list, y’know?

Perhaps the best outcome has been in the slew of imitations, as other publications and individuals have indulged themselves in a near-past retrospective tour of literature. Am I jumping on this train? You bet your cotton socks.

What I wasn’t going to do, however, was just make a list of the ‘best’ - or even ‘best as I see it’. As I’ve written (a lot) previously, I loathe ‘best’ as a descriptor or a criteria. Objective or subjective, ‘best’ is meaningless on its own.

How the sausage was made

You can skip this section.

I used my (very hefty) Goodreads account to help. According to the site, I’ve been using it actively since early 2013, so this has given me twelve years of data (5,000+ books) to draw upon.

I hate, hate, hate rating books. I think slapping one-to-five stars is frustrating reductive, and is deeply unhelpful. I don’t use Goodreads to ‘rate’ books, but I do slap a five star rating on a book as a sort of ‘flag’. It makes a book easy to spot on the list, and easy to sort from the rest of the pack. Why do I do this? Basically if it is a book I want to remember for some reason or another: there’s a quote that stuck with me, there’s something particularly annoying I want to chat about with Anne, there’s an interesting theme I want to review, I want to find the sequel, or, y’know, it was really good and I want to remember to recommend it to people. Basically my ‘five star’ is a mish-mash of memorable/sticky/recommendable - that is ‘interesting to me’.

This was really handy for two reasons. First, I was immediately able to narrow down 5,624 books into 500 or so. A ‘top 10%’. I took those 500 and, was very quickly able to narrow those down as well by focusing on the books first published from 2001 and beyond. Interestingly, it was very easy for me to narrow down to 150ish, and then it was pulling teeth to shed those last few. But, hey, thanks Goodreads!

I only allowed one entry for each author. The repetition of authors on lists like this - and the NYT did it! - bothers me. I get it, each book is an individual effort. But I think the objective of content like this is to recommend and encourage a diverse range of reading, and it simply feels unfair to give multiple places to say… to pick a totally random name that in no way is meant to embarrass the NYT selectors… Alice Munro while leaving other authors off.

When the book or books were part of a series, I chose the first in the series (with a few notable exceptions). The other reason my bizarre five star mechanic is useful is that it gives me a rough criteria. So here goes:

‘The 100 Most Interesting* To Me Books Published in the 21st Century.’

*Interesting in a positive way, as measured by memorability, discussion, recommendation and ‘oh, damn, that book’ factor.

• Anthony Bourdain - A Cook’s Tour (2001)

• K.J. Parker - Shadow (Scavenger, #1) (2001) - KJ shows up a lot on my five star list. I used to joke that my personal Sophie’s Choice was picking between the Scavenger and Engineer trilogies, but, as time has gone by, the scales have tipped in favour of the former. It is rougher, and weirder, and more theological, and cunningly, perfectly formed. Obviously The Folding Knife is stuck in my head for all eternity, and I love that book, but the Scavenger trilogy is (believe it or not) a deeper work.

• Cecily Van Ziegesar - Gossip Girl (Gossip Girl, #1) (2002) - I was invited to write a piece on ‘fantasy worlds’ recently, and being kind of a dick, I suggested Gossip Girl’s New York City. It is, I argued (in vain and to no one’s surprise) a fantastic setting. Even as an imagined life of the upper 1% of the 1%, Gossip Girl is deliberately unreal. It is a fairyland complete with brand-name incantations, grand romances and epic quests for recognition. These books are underrated as satire. I’m a big fan of the TV show, but it is a very different thing, as the show takes the characters and their unbelievable, fantastical lives at face value. That’s fun in a ‘let’s watch hot people do hot people things’ way, but it isn’t as funny as the books are, which are witty, dry, and extremely aware of the characters’ flaws.

• Andrea Bell and Yolana Molina-Gavilan (editors) - Cosmos Latinos (2003) - One of the best finds from doing cyberpunk research. This anthology is simply terrific. (Fun fact: not actually a lot of cyberpunk in it.)

• Mal Peet - Keeper (2003) - One thing I learned when I moved here is how UTTERLY FUCKED UP British ‘children’s’ books are. American YA (we’ll see some down the list) is like ‘pretty girl gets sads, but is also a spy! will she be valedictorian and also model? yes?’, British YA is all ‘I was starving in a forest, but a ghost taught me football’. Melvin Burgess almost cracked this list, and, honestly, his stuff is GRIM. Hey kids, want a book about heroin? Anyway, Keeper is the perfect balance. It is hard-hitting, but aspirational, but fun, but philosophical. It treats the young adult reader like an adult, and, wow, it really makes you want to go save a damn penalty.

• Lauren Weisberger - The Devil Wears Prada (2003) - Anyone who doesn’t think this book belongs on every top 100 list hasn’t read it. The movie is superb (cerulean!), but the book is even better - probably because the romantic subplot has a better resolution, as does, for that matter, everything else. (Anyone else bothered by how AWFUL her friends and boyfriend are in the movie? They’re hideous.)

• Jonathan Stroud - The Amulet of Samarkand (Bartimeaus, #1) (2003) - I recommend this series a lot, and yet, still not enough. It is one of those wonderful books that’s perfect for readers of all ages. It is genuinely actually incredibly funny. It has compared to Pratchett a lot (because a) funny and b) footnotes), but I think that’s missing the forest for the trees: it is Pratchetty because it has immense heart. The character arcs of the two protagonists are really rather beautiful, as is the book’s ultimate resolution.

• Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen - Superman: Secret Identity (2004) - Did I mention there are comics on this list? There are comics on this list. I think telling Superman stories must be the hardest job in comics. He’s invincible and they’ve all been told. Also, he’s invincible. Makes conflict hard. That’s why you get wingnuts like Snyder and Millar going all DaRk SuPeRmAn in order to find something vaguely interesting to say. (Spoilers: it isn’t.) Busiek retells the Superman story - and tells it to its conclusion, and makes it human and real and … sweet. There’s not a hint of darkness in it. It is, I believe, a lovely, contemporary reboot of a quintessentially American myth, that somehow stays true to the spirit of its origin.

• Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)

• Steph Swainston - The Year of Our War (2004) - I remember hearing Swainston on a panel once. Someone asked a question about Swainston’s ‘voice’, and if it were crafted in such a way to be oblique about time and space and person and whatnot (it was a very high-falutin’ question). Swainston answered with something like ‘No. I’m from Yorkshire.’ I really like this series.

• Frances Hardinge - Fly By Night (2005) - There were a few names that repeated a lot on my five star list (see: Parker, above). Hardinge is one of them. She’s really very tricky, as every book is different, every book is exceedingly clever and warm, and every book is very, very good. I basically punted by picking the first one. It is political and heisty and there’s an awesome goose.

• Riverbend - Baghdad Burning (2005) - This is such a weird thing to say, but Baghdad Burning (Riverbend’s blog about everyday life in an occupied Iraq) just reminds me of when the internet was better. In the main ways (it connected people and told stories that we didn’t otherwise hear), and in the little ones (remember long-form text content? or content that wasn’t force-fed and/or veiled by algorithms?). This is, well, all those things - a reminder of the power of personal storytelling and how we (briefly?) had a global platform that empowered it.

• Adam Roberts - The History of Science Fiction (2005) - Given his talent and speed, I think someone could probably do a ‘Top 100 Things Written by Adam Roberts in the 21st Century’ and still have space for a few hundred more. Choosing his non-fiction comes at a price (no Jack Glass or Bete), but this is a terrific, insightful, quirky field guide to a genre that’s very important to me. Even in 2005, Roberts was talking about a new era for science fiction, and how it was facing (actually quite badly) the realities of globalisation. The notion of these… pace layers… within science fiction and the poles of progression and conservatism in a future-facing genre… has stuck with me. Roberts is someone who can talk about anything, at length, with great erudition and humour. I’d read his history of the weevil.

• Daniel Abraham - A Shadow in Summer (The Long Price, #1) (2006)

• Bill Buford - Heat (2006) - A fairly recent read. At one point, Buford is training to be a prep cook. He talks about spending all day turning raw vegetables into huge stacks of immaculately prepared ingredients - that is, dicing carrots into teeny tiny cubes for hours and hours on end. “Carrots,” he writes, “don’t want to be cubes.” I say this like six times a week now, and I’m mostly disappointed that I’ve yet to use it as a newsletter headline.

• Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen - Nextwave (2006) - Ellis is another one that pops up over and over and over again. He’s got a lot of great work right around this time: Global Frequency, Fell, Planetary, even the tail end of Transmetropolitan and The Authority). Ultimately (oh, yes, and Ultimate Fantastic Four), I went with the one that made me laugh. This is a goofy, revisionist, madcap take on what superhero comics are. It is satirical and weird, but mainstream enough to be funny and have a nice edge to it. I think the overall cuddly Marvel editorial standpoint reined in some of Ellis’s more savage impulses, and the balance (especially with the art) is always fun and never mean. Also, weirdly, it means that Stuart Immonen is the only repeat on this list.) (cough, mostly.)

• Henry Jenkins - Convergence Culture (2006)

• Scott Lynch - The Lies of Locke Lamora (2006) - I wrote this piece earlier this century, and it still stands. 2006 was a good vintage.

• Joe Vaz and Vianne Venter (editors) - Something Wicked (2006) - A bit of a cheat, but I’m putting the first volume of their collected edition on here to represent both volumes, and, in a sense, the complete run of this SF/F/Horror magazine. I personally owe a lot to Vaz and Venter, and learned from them on my own editorial journey. But aside from me, this is a great collection of weird, genre-spanning stuff.

• Nick Abadzis - Laika (2007) - I dare you to read this and not cry, you monster. Bless him, it is worth tracking down the ‘alternative endings’ that he’s also written for fans and anniversary editions. They’ll make you cry all over again.

• Ilona Andrews - Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1) (2007) - Honestly the weakest book in the series, and very ‘I’m Kate, I wear leather pants flirt with sexy were-Lions and have Dark Secrets’, unexceptional urban fantasy. But the series as a whole up-epics in a hurry, and turns into a sprawling, entertaining magical mash-up that’s a huge amount of fun.

• Eloisa James - Desperate Duchesses (Duchesses, #1) (2007) - James was the first Regency romance I read, and there’s a lot of loyalty baked in. But I re-read these occasionally and… yes, they’re still very good.

• Richelle Mead - Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid, #1) (2007) - Mead also wrote the Vampire Academy series, and choosing between the two was hard. Succubus Blues is… pretty filthy… and a lot of fun. Again, a series that starts predictable and then becomes very epic, very quickly, while having a lot of fun with mythological constructs.

• China Miéville - Un Lun Dun (2007) - The obvious Miéville is Perdido Street Station, which is the best fantasy book ever written. Yes, I used ‘best’. Come at me. It is, however, a book from THE LAST MILLENNIUM. Miéville’s books can do no wrong, but Un Lun Dun is actually the one I recommend most. It isn’t a daunting read or a big ol’ tome. It is sweet and clever and character-driven. And it is an excellent deconstruction of your traditional young adult portal fantasy/chosen one narrative. Fine yourself a copy with the author’s illustrations though, as they’re lovely.

• Pierre Pevel - The Cardinal’s Blades (2007)

• Sarah Lotz - Pompidou Posse (2008)

• Gail Carriger - Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate, #1) (2009)

• Dave Cullen - Columbine (2009) - Another one I read recently. It is very good. Also a bit of a journey to remember what was happening at the time, and now have that peeled back to reveal what was really happening. Cullen does not dwell unduly on American gun culture here. The tough lesson is, more surprisingly, about the role of the media, and how the desire to get Stories led to spreading myths and misinformation, and created massively problematic second-order effects. That feels like a lesson we didn’t learn, eh?

• Seth Grahame-Smith - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) - The earliest meme novel? I don’t know how to think about this book. It did something creative (and silly) at the time, spawned a lot of knock-offs, and disappeared. Or did it? I think our cultural relationship with The Canon is very different now, and, although PPZ doesn’t deserve all the credit, it definitely gave us permission to treat literary classics with a little more familiarity.

• Dia Reeves - Bleeding Violet (2009)

• Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls (Ketty Jay, #1) (2009) - This and the above are two books that aren’t recommended enough. Were they ahead of their time? Was it a failure of marketing? Were they just too weird? I don’t know. But Reeves’ VERY dark and edgy YA magical realism and Wooding’s delightful heisty airship pirates both deserve all the love.

• Lauren Beukes - Zoo City (2010)

• Maurice Broaddus - King Maker (Knights of Breton Court, #1) (2010)

• Christopher Farnsworth - Blood Oath (President’s Vampire, #1) (2010) - I mean, 2010 was a pretty impressive year. Sandwiched between the others, one might think Blood Oath, about Cade, THE PRESIDENT’S VAMPIRE, is a bit of an outlier. But Cade’s skulked rent-free in my head for fifteen years now, as a perfect example of how books can be smart and unpretentious; fun without pandering. It is an immensely silly series, and pulp at its finest.

• Karen Lord - Redemption in Indigo (2010)

• Niki Segnit - The Flavour Thesaurus (2010) - This book rewired my brain when it came to cooking, and gave me the courage to play more in the kitchen. Big fan.

• Jonathan Strahan (editor) - Swords and Dark Magic (2010) - There’s a slim chance that this newsletter is on Strahan’s radar, and, if so, PLEASE DO YOU HAVE AN EXTRA COPY? I lent mine out years ago, and that was such a mistake. The problem is, this is an immensely recommendable (and lend-able) anthology. It is like all those fun swords & sorcery tales from the Weird Tales era, but modern, and fun, and not full of racism.

• Joe Abercrombie - The Heroes (The First Law #5, 2011) - A series exception. You can classify this how you like (TFW #5, or #2 in whatever the second trilogy is called, or just a standalone), but it is the best of the lot, and the perfect thematic encapsulation of what Abercrombie brought to fantasy in the 21st Century. This is a big, cat-squashing tome of a fantasy book about a huge fantasy war in which lots of fantasy heroes go bashing against one another like it is the Illiad, and, actually, none of it means a damn thing. Because, ultimately, it is the big establishment systems that change the world, not glorious charges on the battlefield or individual acts of bravery, and my god, this is a cynical book. But it is also a brutally, painfully tender book: it cares a lot about the voiceless people who are habitually losing out in these big, geopolitical games. It is very, very good. Going out on a limb, mostly to annoy niche corners of the internet, I’d say that grimdark, as a genre, ended with this book. There are books since that were Grimmer or Darker, but, thematically speaking, we were done in 2011. Abercrombie said it all.

• Libba Bray - Beauty Queens (2011)

• Loretta Chase - Silk is for Seduction (Dressmakers, #1) (2011)

• Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon (2011) - You could put any Fagan book on this list, and I’d be happy with it. The Panopticon is, however, the one that lingers with me the most. It is painful and beautiful, and about reality and our need to escape it.

• S.L. Grey - The Mall (2011)

• Grant Morrison - Supergods (2011) - One of the greatest comics writers, so let’s pop him on for his non-fiction, shall we? But Supergods helps explain why Morrison is so damn good at what he does, as well as being an all-encompassing theory of life, the universe, and everything. By far one of the most interesting (!) speakers I’ve ever heard, and I’m very grateful the higher entities from the 42nd dimension returned him to us.

• Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls (2011) - The last of the people with many, many five star reviews by them. Again, you could pick any Ness novel (or collection) and I’d be happy for it to sit on this list. But A Monster Calls is a truly transcendent work. There’s something to be said about the fact that my list is skewed - heavily - towards books that made me laugh and/or cry. Nothing broke my heart as much as this one though.

• Henrietta Rose-Innes - Nineveh (2011)

• Elif Shafak - The Happiness of Blond People (2011)

• Lavie Tidhar - Osama (2011)

• Megan Abbott - Dare Me (2012)

• Jesse Bullington - The Folly of the World (2012)

• Kate Griffin - Stray Souls (Magical Anonymous, #1) (2012) - I really, really like fantasy books about the ‘other’ people. The ones that aren’t the chosen ones, but are just muddling through in ‘interesting’ times. Griffin’s series does an excellent job of making heroism more egalitarian. That, combined with her absolute burning love for London makes this a keeper. (One of the characters is an ‘urban druid’, which is something I have spent approximately twelve years wanting to play in an RPG.)

• Aleš Kot and Riley Rossmo - Wild Children (2012)

• Courtney Milan - The Duchess War (2012)

• Maajid Nawaz - Radical (2012) - This is a very good and well-written memoir of a man who was radicalised and then de-radicalised. (And then, after publication, re-radicalised, because life is fun like that.) Nawaz is an excellent, lucid writer, and, with the benefit of hindsight, is able to identify some of the key moments and influences that led him down dangerous paths - and why they were so effective.

• Sarah J. Maas - Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1) (2012) - Another instance of the first book in the series being the weakest, but, wow, does this series go places. Unexpected places. Possibly even unexpected by the author: Throne of Glass has very strong ‘making it up as we go along’ vibes to the plotting and character ‘development’, and, you know what? Life is short. Embrace it.

what I’m reading (online):

Andrew Griffin wonders what phones are for in Indy/Tech:

Metalabel on 1990s vs 2020s definitions of ‘selling out':

Joe Posnanski takes a break from sports to talk about ‘choosing the world to see’:

Rep Buck’s old team.