Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Favorites of 2014

As a tribute to the Visions of Paradise blog, I decided to start doing a year end review posting.

2014 saw the sixth anniversary for the blog.  Overall I did not get to post as much as I would have liked but I did read and watch a lot of good science fiction and fantasy this year.

FAVORITE BOOK

I was torn between a few titles this year but the winner was "A Night in Lonesome October" by Roger Zelazny.  As anyone who has read this blog or spoke to me can tell, I am a huge Zelazny fan.  This year I read four of his books (the others were "Roadmarks", "Jack of Shadows", and "A Dark Traveling").  I plan on continuing my Zelazny reading with "This Immortal" in January.

What made this my favorite book of the year was the combination of prose, storytelling and characterization.  Any time a writer can make a dog the main character and have it seem so human(?) is a gift not everyone has.  

FAVORITE SHORT STORY

This was another close race.  In the end I went with "Old Paint" by Megan Lindholm.  While it's own story, the author managed to invoke the spirit of Roger Zelazny's short fiction.  I can't think of any greater compliment.

LOOKING FORWARD...

I plan on doing more features inspired by the late Bob Sabella (of the aforementioned "Visions of Paradise").  They will revealed in the near future.  In 2014 I became more involved with NetGalley and that will continue in 2015.  I am joining more reading challenges than I did in the past.  It is a way to help motivate me to keep up to date on my reviews.  In 2014 I read many books that I did not get reviewed.  

Short story reviews will be a regular feature in the upcoming year.

Expect to see more reviews of Zelazny and my other favorite who I did not review in 2014-Isaac Asimov.

2015 will be a year where I am stepping up my game.  I want to look back at the end of 2015 and be happy with my production and level of quality.

2 comments:

Carl V. Anderson said...

I look forward to that stepped up game, Jim. Always enjoy your reviews. I'll have to check on that short story.

Fence said...

I loved the only Zelazny that I've ever read, the Amber books, but I haven't gotten around to reading anything else by him. I really must.

I also have a few books by Lindholm/Hobb waiting for me.