A Quick Top 6 of 2012 So Far

A nod of the hat to Jared of Pornokitsch for reminding me that yes, we're halfway through the year. My answer to the question is always the same. It depends on what flavor you're after. These are my top six of the moment in no particular order:

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway - A gonzo pulp cold war thriller fest with crazy contraptions.
The Croning by Laird Barron - As perfect of a Horror story that I've ever read.
Faith by John Love - Imagine the crew of the Enterprise only they're all a bit off their rocker while battling a mysterious ship.
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed - Sword and Sorcery done right. Great characters and action.
Prepare to Die by Paul Tobin - A superhero novel that reminded me of a cross between Nick Hornby and Alan Moore.
The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis - The perfect middle volume in a genre bending trilogy. He used what was setup in the first so well. The wait was worth it. Nazi Supermen versus Dark Elder Gods indeed.

And yes, I'm just now realizing 3 of the top 6 are Night Shade titles as well as 4 being debuts, but I do tend to be a debut heavy reader. Wells's The Serpent Sea was another top book in addition to Kiernan's The Drowning Girl. Also, I'm almost halfway through with Black Bottle by Anthony Huso, the sequel to one of my favorite books of 2010, The Last Page. As of this moment I'm not sure if it would have made this list as there are plenty of pieces left to fall into place.

In the camp of best books I've read this year published prior to 2012 I'm still blowing the horn for Watts's Blindsight and Andre Norton's Forerunner. In the short story camp Loory's Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day as well as Ligotti's Noctuary are the bee's knees.

Some of my most anticipated books left for the year include The Broken Isles by Mark Charan Newton (another series closer), The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (already have a copy), A Red Country by Joe Abercrombie (on pre-order), The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi, The Inexplicables by Cherie Priest, and The Siren Depths by Martha Wells. Still plenty of time for some surprises as well.

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More Laird Barron is Always a Good Thing

While not a Horror aficionado I have been known to dip my toe in the area every now and again. One Horror author's work who I've found myself dipping into at regular intervals is Laird Barron. The man has won or been nominated for nearly every award he's been eligible, most notable winning the Shirley Jackson Award twice. His debut The Croning (released just last month) novel pretty much blew me away. It is a masterwork nailing the sense of dread combing folklore and Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror.

Around the same time The Croning was released I found out Barron was publishing a very limited (and expensive) edition of his long novella The Light is the Darkness and at over $200 it was out of my range. It is quite a beautiful edition that I found my mouse hovering over more than once. There's a couple photos of the lettered edition here. I held off knowing he'd probably include it in a future collection. I've just learned that there will be a trade paper release the middle of June for under $20 from Arcane Wisdom Press available through Miskatonic Books and other places like Barnes & Noble.

The blurb is below, but it is Barron. Just go and order it already and if you haven't gotten his collections Occultation or The Imago Sequence or novel The Croning get thee to a bookstore.

Conrad Navarro is a champion of the Pageant, a gruesome modern day gladiatorial exhibition held in secret arenas across the globe. Indentured by a cabal of ultra-rich patrons, his world is one of blood and mayhem, an existence where savagery reigns supreme while mercy leads to annihilation.

Conrad’s sister has vanished while traveling in Mexico. Imogene, a decorated special agent for the FBI, was hot on the trail of a legendary scientist whose vile eugenics experiments landed him on an international most-wanted list. Imogene left behind a sequence of bizarre clues that indicate she uncovered evidence of a Byzantine occult conspiracy against civilization itself — a threat so vast and terrible, its ultimate fruition would herald an event more inimical to all terrestrial life than mere extinction.

Now, Conrad is on the hunt, searching for his missing sister while malign forces seek to manipulate and destroy him by turns. It is an odyssey that will send this man of war from the lush jungles of South America, to the debauched court of an Aegean Prince, to the blasted moonscape of the American desert as he becomes inexorably enmeshed within a web of primordial evil that stretches back unto prehistory. All the while struggling to maintain a vestige of humanity; for Conrad has gazed into an abyss where the light is the darkness, and he has begun the metamorphosis into something more than human.

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