Fantastic Metropolis

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.)

6. Albion, Peter Ackroyd

Ackroyd’s non-fiction keeps getting better in the same measure as his fiction grows more disappointing. Here he uses the same technique of thematic classification he employed in London to tackle an even bigger subject—the history of English literature. So we get erudite, beautifully written essays on trees, on landscape, on rain, on melancholy, on gore, on ghosts, on the sea, on the art of the essay. It doesn’t necessarily do to trust Ackroyd’s conclusions too much, his is clearly an idiosyncratic vision, but anyone who can make you want to rush out and buy the works of the Venerable Bede must be doing something right. The chapter entitled “A Note on English Melancholy”, which touches on the composer John Dowland, on Robert Burton (obviously), on Hobbes and on Thomas Browne I found so impressive I read it through twice. “In particular the delight in demonstration, the vast expenditure of energy into words, characterizes this prose; there is no ontology, or metaphysic, but rather the plangent chords of a dying fall.”

7. The Thackery T. Lambshead Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts

I’ve decided that my own contribution to the book (consisting of translating one of the entries into Spanish) is sufficiently minor not to stand in the way of including this collection on my list. A kaleidoscopic array of fantasy, satire, surrealism and horror by some of the best fantasists working today. And John Coulthart’s meticulous, page-by-page design is appropriately over-the-top and some of the best work he’s ever done.

8. Living to Tell the Tale, Gabriel García Márquez

The first volume of the Colombian Nobel prize winner’s autobiography, covering his upbringing in the magical coastal town of Aracataca, his first efforts as a writer and columnist and his days as a university student in Bogota, where he lived through the massive civil disturbance of 1948. The most vivid figure in the book remains the author’s beloved mother, who raised a dozen children (plus those her errant husband sired out of wedlock) and died just before reaching her hundredth birthday. This engrossing memoir was a runaway bestseller in Latin America, with pirated editions hawked by vendors on street corners. In a faithful translation by Edith Grossman. A review by yours truly is forthcoming on The Modern Word.

9. Hiding the Elephant, Jim Steinmayer

Steinmayer, himself not an actual performer but a well-known developer of illusions for some of the top current working magicians, takes the reader on a tour of the Golden Age of magic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, profiling not only the main figures (including The Maskelynes, Howard Thurston, Robert Houdin, and Houdini) but also providing concise, illustrated explanations of how the main illusions worked. Something of a non-fictional companion to Glen David Gold’s Carter Beats the Devil. If you’re into this sort of thing (meaning you’re the sort of person who, like me, rhapsodizes over Ricky Jay) it’s an absolute delight.

10. The Facts of Life, Graham Joyce

After two somewhat disappointing novels, Graham Joyce returns with his best book since The Tooth Fairy, an examination of post-war Britain through the lives of the members of the Vines family. A uniquely British contribution to the magical realist tradition, it feels like Joyce’s most personal work to date. A worthy winner of the World Fantasy Award.

Books (Reissues)

1. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard

Del Rey releases in trade paperback the first of the definitive Wandering Star editions of Robert E. Howard’s classic pulp stories. Forget Jordan and De Camp and Carter and all the other pasticheurs—unavailable since Karl Wagner’s 1977 editions, this is the original sword and sorcery deal. The reissue of the year.

2. The Boats of the “Glen Carrig”, William Hope Hodgson

The first of Night Shade’s projected multivolume edition of the collected works of this weird fiction pioneer who happens to be one of my favorite writers. A beautiful edition.

3. Prince Zaleski, M. P. Shiel

Tartarus Press reissues Shiel’s stories featuring this most darkly decadent of detectives, with an introduction by Brian Stableford and featuring the additional stories completed by John Gawsworth. Hopefully we can jumpstart a Shiel renaissance—Hippocampus is planning a “best of” anthology in 2004.

4. Tales of the Grotesque, L. A. Lewis

Durtro’s Ghost Story Press reissues one of their most sought after volumes, this collection of weird stories by British writer L.A. Lewis. Includes the chilling, visionary tale “The Tower of Moab” which is making a bid for inclusion in my top weird fiction stories of all time.

5. Schalken the Painter, J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The first volume in the series of collected Le Fanu ghost stories Jim Rockhill is editing for Ash-Tree Press. Seminal macabre fiction that deserves reading. And re-reading.

6. The Garden at #19, Edgar Jepson

This eminently satisfying, spooky tale of modern paganism in the English suburbs was apparently a favorite of Aleister Crowley’s. Very tasty. From John Pelan’s Midnight House.

Music

1. Best Indie UK Pop: The Violet Hour, The Clientele

Gorgeous, atmospheric chamber pop featuring shimmering guitars and dreamy, languid melodies. I fell in love with 2001’s Suburban Light on first listen (which, for me, is very rare) and this one is almost as good. I have no idea what their lyrics are about and couldn’t care less—it’s all in the beautiful sound.

Haha Sound, Broadcast

Intelligent pop that gives a sunnier psychedelic gloss to the retro electronica of groups like Stereolab. As good as if not better than their 2000 release, the excellent The Noise Made By People.

2. Best Indie US Pop: Her Majesty the Decemberists, The Decemberists

I’m not sure those folks who compare this band to Neutral Milk Hotel because of their ostensible surrealism are paying attention. The group’s lyrics are actually quite precise and the stories they tell often linear, it’s just that the offbeat subject matter (including ghosts, chimney sweeps, whalebone corsets, pirates and prostitutes) might seem odd to anyone who’s not an Edward Gorey fan. Colin Meloy is an excellent songwriter and he clothes his lyrics in pretty melodies whose sunny disposition is often at odds with the dark tales he tells.

3. Best Electronica: The Lemon of Pink, The Books

The Books take the essence of electronica—sampling—and move it one step further into collage. A few banjo licks are followed by a voice repeating a couple of phrases, then by natural noises, then more strumming and snatches of song. It has the feel of a performance art project but the strange thing is that after a couple of listens it grows on you and you want to play it again for pure and simple enjoyment. Unexpectedly pleasant yet mind-expanding at the same time, this took me entirely by surprise.

Lost Horizons, Lemon Jelly

Is there such a thing as upbeat downtempo? Lemon Jelly produce a bouncy, funny, playful album of lounge music and get bonus points for having the prettiest CD packaging I’ve seen in a long time, recapturing in miniature the lost glories of the LP gatefold sleeve.

4. Best Alt-Country: Chinatown, The Be Good Tanyas

Some of the best alternative country music continues to be made by non-Americans, like the Australian Kasey Chambers or this trio of Canadian women. This is a lovely album, with spare, acoustic arrangements of melancholy tunes forming a backdrop to the appealing, gently slurring voice of the lead singer.

5. Best Jazz: Freak In, Dave Douglas

I’m finally ready to forgive Dave Douglas for the unfortunate self-indulgence of 2001’s Witness. Every musical genius is entitled to make one absolutely disastrous album and hopefully now that he’s got that out of his system he’ll come up with more excellent releases like the ultracool Freak In, which combines Douglas’s trumpet work with fusion and electronica and even throws in some world music into the mix. I honestly miss the Douglas that worked with accordionist Guy Klucevsek and others to create gems like A Thousand Evenings or Charms of the Night Sky, but you can’t argue with his drive to innovate—as with Davis or Coltrane you can either follow or get left behind. If I have to come up with a list of the most original, innovative, creative jazz trumpeters since Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman, only Douglas really makes the cut.

And for another 2003 release that combines jazz, electronica and world music to excellent effect see guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel’s Heartcore.

6. Best Latin: Caraluna, Bacilos

You couldn’t turn on the radio for more than a few minutes anywhere in Latin America without hearing the first cut from this album, “Mi Primer Millon”, which begins, appropriately enough, with the line “Yo solo quiero pegar en la radio…”. (“All I want is a radio hit…”) Yes, it’s unabashedly commercial, radio-friendly pop music, but its infectious tropical beat and amalgam of styles (there’s even a reasonably successful foray into ska) finally seduced me. The title song, “Caraluna”, is especially winning.

7. Best Classical: O Quam Gloriosum/Ave Maris Stella, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Westminster Cathedral Choir

If you’re a fan of choral music this reissue of an early eighties recording by the Westminster Cathedral Choir featuring two masses from the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria is a must have. The Agnus Dei movement in each of them is particularly sublime.

Corelli, Violin Sonatas, Andrew Manze, Richard Egarr

Not having listened to Corelli’s sonatas in any other version I can’t comment on those improvisatory qualities of Andrew Manze’s interpretation that appear to have caused such an incredible outpouring of critical praise. But I will say that this is some of the most gorgeous playing of Baroque music I have ever heard and that it made me rush and seek out everything else Manze had ever recorded. (NB: Check out his Handel sonatas.)

8. Best Tzadik: Masada Guitars, John Zorn (composer), Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, Tim Sparks

John Zorn’s Tzadik label, featuring experimental, avant-garde and new music of all stripes, has quickly become my favorite label and 2003 saw me buying so many of their new releases and back catalogue offerings that their own category seems in order. On Masada Guitars Frisell, Ribot and Sparks, three of the best jazz/avant-garde guitarists working today, perform solo interpretations of twenty-one compositions originally created by Zorn for his Masada quartet. Exquisite playing, and oddly accessible. Believe me, you can even play this for your baby. And for added fun, do a blindfold test and see if you can figure out which of the three guitarists performs on which tracks.

9. Best of the Weird: Maldoror, Erik Friedlander

I guess I could frankly combine this category with Best Tzadik, but I won’t. On Maldoror, downtown cellist Erik Friedlander (who’s played with Dave Douglas, among others) improvises solo on ten selections from Lautreamont’s protosurrealist horror novel Maldoror. The CD, which has particularly nice packaging, includes the ten short texts. (Sample: “I am filthy. Lice gnaw me. Swine, when they look at me, vomit. From my nape, as from a dungheap, sprouts an enormous toadstool with umbelliferous peduncles.”) The results are interesting, to say the least, whether appreciated on their own or together with the texts. I’ve been listening to it a lot. But hey, that’s just me.

---

Gabriel Mesa lives in New York City with his wife and daughter and 4,000 books. He is a contributor to The SF Site, Fantastic Metropolis and other online publications.