Read and Appreciated in 2003
A Year’s Best List
The following is a list of what I found to be the best books and music released in 2003. I have made separate lists for newly published books and for reissues of previously published material. (The numbering of the items, by the way, is irrelevant.) I should point out that, as is usually the case, life irritatingly got in the way of my reading everything I had hoped to finish by the end of the year. It’s quite possible that if I had read certain 2003 releases by the likes of Jeff Vandermeer, Michael Cisco, Rhys Hughes, Gene Wolfe, Rosamond Purcell, Mary Gentle or Neal Stephenson, all writers whose work I’ve particularly enjoyed in the past, the list would look quite different. Or maybe not!
Books (Newly Issued)
1. The Light Ages, Ian R. MacLeod
The influence of Peake and Dickens courses through this exquisitely written, deeply melancholic, world-weary fantasy of unrequited love. Word for word I’m hard put to think of a better craftsman writing in the genre today…
2. Things That Never Happen, M. John Harrison
...except perhaps for this gentleman. That two superb short story collections like Harrison’s The Ice Monkey and Travel Arrangements could not find a home with a major US publisher is indicative of the sorry state of publishing in this country, and the fact that they have been brought out by Night Shade Books is testament to the crucial role that the small press has come to play. Contains “Egnaro” and “Gifco” and so much more excellent material. The book of the year as far as I’m concerned.
3. Kalpa Imperial, Angélica Gorodischer
Small Beer Press has finally seen fit to publish this landmark of Latin American fantastic fiction in a translation by Ursula Le Guin. A meditation on time, empire and power in a style reminiscent at times of Dunsany, at others of The Arabian Nights. (Just please don’t call it magical realism…)
4. Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
If Bruce Sterling’s near-future science fiction is sometimes referred to as taking place “the day after tomorrow” then Gibson’s novel can be said to be set one minute into the future. Which among other things means it will become dated five minutes from now. Until then, however, it’s a terrifically entertaining thriller of globetrotting, backstabbing symbolic analysts, marred only by the ending, which cries out for a courageous metaphysical treatment but instead fizzles into a rather humdrum resolution.
5. White Hands, Mark Samuels
With his unique style, best described as something of a cross between Lovecraft and Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti has become an inescapable influence on the younger crop of promising writers of literary horror like Matt Cardin, Stephen Sennitt, Quentin Crisp and Mark Samuels. Samuels may be the best of the lot, if this excellent collection of weird fiction tales from Tartarus Press is any indication. There are times when I actually prefer Samuels to Ligotti, partly because he eschews the latter’s often maddening obliqueness but also because of his uniquely urban sensibility. (Those seeking a more affordable way to sample Samuels’s talent may choose to read his collection Black Altars, out in a slim trade paperback edition from Rainfall Press in the UK. I haven’t read it yet.)
