Fantasy Book Critic: Liviu's 2009 Remarkable Small Press Reads

Here I will present the 2009 Small Press reads of mine that impressed me a lot. All are strongly recommended by me if you have the chance to read them, all deserve as wide an audience as possible and all are in some ways my main "reward" for my work on FBC since I would not have heard about them otherwise. I am extremely grateful to the authors/publishers who offered me the chance to read them and I again strongly wish these books to get a much wider audience than now. I reviewed all except Clockwork Heart which I covered in a smaller post but I plan to do a full review when its announced sequel is out.

Desideria by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Omega by Christopher Evans (UK)

Filaria by Brent Hayward

Interregnum by SJA Turney

Angelglass by David Barnett

The Manhattan Prophet by Jake Packard

The Choir Boats by Daniel Rabuzzi

Clockwork Heart by Dru Pagliasotti

The Crystal Cosmos by Rhys Hughes

Impossibilia by Douglas Smith

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The two books below were not as excellent reads as the above, but I would still recommend them since both were compelling despite their flaws (for me) and made me read them end to end without trying another book in the meantime. I wrote on Goodreads about them and I planned to cover both here at FBC but ultimately time-constraints intervened so I will use this opportunity to mention them here.

Geas by Jonathan Webb

"Very good writing and a great start get lost in ultra-predictable and by the numbers plot; kept my interest to the end and I am very eager to see what Mr. Webb brings out next, but this book had great promise which was not fully realized in the end due to the storyline"

Anyone who wants a relatively predictable but entertaining and page turning fantasy should look at this one

Camp Desolation and an Eschatology of Salt by Uncle River

"Weird, dark, compelling but finally a bit too short and with too many loose ends".

The review I linked above covers very well the book and I tend to agree with most of it including the conclusion.

Notes:

1: I did not include the several eligible titles that made my Top 2009 Book List: The Babylonian Trilogy/Doubinsky, Escape from Byzantium/Mark Mellon, Purple & Black/Parker and Avempartha/Sullivan to avoid repetition, leave the spotlight to different books and to emphasize again that the Top 2009 Books post was specifically about *2009 first English language releases* read by me.

2: Omega is in the top 10 sff books I read in 2009, while Desideria is in the top 10 "mainstream" novels I read in 2009.

3: Crystal Cosmos and Impossibilia are in the top short fiction 2009 reads of mine

12:01 PM |

Posted by Liviu |

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5 comments:

Unknown said...: I'm not surprised that Omega is overlooked. I mean you mentioned it in the respective review, but... (and pardon my language) bloody hell!

It's really expensive. I could buy whole series of books in paperback for much the same cost.

It's a shame really because from the linked review it sounds like an interesting book and one I'd probably buy, although again not for the prices I've seen. 10 pounds is usually the upper limit I spend on a single book and that's either because it's an omnibus edition or a hardcover of something I've got to read ASAP (see Best Served Cold).; January 3, 2010 at 8:13 PM
Liviu said...: I am all with you and this is why I emphasized my wish that this one (and most mentioned here - not all though since some are available quite inexpensively at least as ebooks if not print) would be available in a mass edition...

Hopefully the new era of e-publishing will make this a reality

On the other hand if me or anybody else does not talk about it, there is no chance it will be available at a reasonable price...; January 3, 2010 at 10:06 PM
Unknown said...: Yeah. That is true. I thank you for bringing it to my attention at the very least. Without this article I would probably never have come across it I think. At least now I've got it in mind so should it become available for cheaper, I will be right on it.; January 5, 2010 at 6:32 AM
Brent Hayward said...: Liviu,
You have become quite the champion of ChiZine Publications. We thank you. Their roster is consistently great, but I might be considered biased. Really nice to see two titles on this list.

Brent H. (he of Filaria); March 4, 2010 at 5:13 PM
Brent Hayward said...: Ooops, three books!; March 4, 2010 at 5:16 PM