Locus List: best sf/f/h of 2012

Locus magazine has just released its 2012 Recommended Reading List of science fiction/fantasy/horror, which is always a great reading guide (and a fabulous resource for those of us nominating for the Hugo awards. I'm delighted to see my novel Pirate Cinema and Rapture of the Nerds (written with Charlie Stross) on the best novel list!

Novels – Science Fiction

* The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* Bowl of Heaven, Gregory Benford & Larry Niven (Tor)
* Any Day Now, Terry Bisson (Overlook; Duckworth ’13)
* Blueprints of the Afterlife, Ryan Boudinot (Black Cat)
* Arctic Rising, Tobias S. Buckell (Tor)
* Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
* Intruder, C.J. Cherryh (DAW)
* Caliban’s War, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* The Rapture of the Nerds, Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross (Tor)
* The Eternal Flame, Greg Egan (Night Shade; Gollancz)
* Angelmaker, Nick Harkaway (Heinemann; Knopf)
* Empty Space, M. John Harrison (Gollancz; Night Shade ’13)
* Rapture, Kameron Hurley (Night Shade)
* Intrusion, Ken MacLeod (Orbit UK)
* In the Mouth of the Whale, Paul McAuley (Gollancz)
* Fate of Worlds, Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner (Tor)
* The Fractal Prince, Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz; Tor)
* Blue Remembered Earth, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz; Ace)
* Jack Glass, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
* 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* Turing & Burroughs, Rudy Rucker (Transreal)
* Redshirts, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)
* Ashes of Candesce, Karl Schroeder (Tor)
* Lost Everything, Brian Francis Slattery (Tor)
* Slow Apocalypse, John Varley (Ace)
* The Fourth Wall, Walter Jon Williams (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
* The Last Policeman, Ben Winters (Quirk)

2012 Recommended Reading List

• [Slartibartfatsdomino]

  The only ones I’ve read of these, Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds and 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson were both pretty great. 

• [manybellsdown]

  Oooh thank you.  I hadn’t realized Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance was out!  I know what I’ll be doing today.

• [elusis]

  Am I right in inferring that there is exactly one female writer on that list?  (A couple of names are ambiguous).  And… how many people of color?

  Oh Science Fiction.  Never change.

  • [Peter]

    C.J. Cherryh and Lois McMaster Bujold are both women, so that’s two.  I don’t know all of the others who are ambiguous (not to mention that occasionally female authors deliberately choose male names, although that is somewhat less common these days), but yes, they do seem to be mostly male.  And it’s not just Science Fiction, but Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror, remember.

• [Peter]

  I haven’t yet read any of these, because except in a few rare cases I wait for the paperback version that takes months or years to come out. 

  However, on my “highly anticipated” list is:

  The Hydrogen Sonata, Iain M. Banks (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  The Rapture of the Nerds, Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross (Tor)
  The Fractal Prince, Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz; Tor)
  Ashes of Candesce, Karl Schroeder (Tor)

  I actually just ordered the Fractal Prince yesterday after greatly enjoying The Quantum Thief (and having a gift card from Xmas I needed to use up).

  Anyway, that’s not to say that I won’t read any of the others, just that either I’m not all that familiar with them, or I’m not 100% excited by them yet but may pick up once they got paperback and/or if I find them in a used bookstore.

• [stretchoutandwait]

   The Hydrogen Sonata – meh. 2/5 bloated chickens

• [Mark Pitcavage]

  Wow, there’s an awful lot of bad fiction in that list.  

• [Elliott Frodahl]

  I feel as though I’m the only one who didn’t like redshirts… it was an underwhelming Stranger than Fiction in Space.