I thought I’d close the year with something of a shout-out re the books I’ve enjoyed the most in 2007.   Some are brand-newly published, others aren’t.  The criterion is that I read them in ’07 and thought they ruled, basically.  A substantial amount of the year’s best fiction (from my own, highly personal viewpoint) has been written by women.



The first one on the roll of honour is actually a reread- Joolz Denby’s storming third novel, ‘Billie Morgan’ (Serpent’s Tail).  A misfit girl, the cuckoo in the nest of her middle-class aspirant family, seeks a place she can belong in.  She finds it, briefly, but her own demons rise to the surface and end in murder.  Years later, the consequences finally come home to roost.  Brilliant, empathetic storytelling that pulls you in from the off and takes you on a haunting, harrowing, but ultimately cleansing journey.   I first read it in 2004, and it blew me away then.  It’s taken three years for me to reread it.  Because it’s that good- almost too good.  Also check out ‘Stone Baby’ (HarperCollins) and ‘Borrowed Light’ (Serpent’s Tail) by the same author.



Another one, brand new this year, was Sarah Hall’s ‘The Carhullan Army’ (Faber and Faber).  In the aftermath of ecological and economic disaster, Britain is ruled by the evermore draconian Authority, who force all women to where a contraceptive ‘regulator’.  The protagonist, known only as Sister, leaves her husband and the town they live in to seek the women of Carhullan Farm, a feminist commune from before the days of the disaster, under the sway of the damaged, charismatic Jackie Nixon.  Soon it becomes clear that the farm will not be left in peace, and Sister volunteers for service in the guerilla army Jackie’s training.  When does legitimate resistance become fanatacism.  Hall leaves the reader to decide.  Hall, like Denby, is a poet, but of a different kind.  Denby’s tradition in poetry is romantic and narrative; Hall’s is imagistic and bleak. ‘The Carhullan Army’ is beautifully realised; it pulls you in and tightens its grip, all the while sketching in the characters with ever-sharper definition and painting sudden, vivid pictures of the Cumbrian landscape this harsh, dystopian drama is played out in.  Any ideas that women are the ‘weaker’ or ‘fairer’ sex get blown out PDQ- and the rage that drives Sister is one any reader will rapidly come to understand and perhaps even feel. 

Another Sarah- Sarah Pinborough- provided a jump into a completely different kind of writing with the ‘Breeding Ground’ (Leisure Books), a punchy, well-told SF/horror/thriller in the John Wyndham vein.  Women, all over the world, undergo mysterious pregnancies that end with the emergence of the hideous, spiderlike ‘Widows’- killing the mothers and rapidly seeking out the men for their next meal.  Pinborough seems to have fastened on male fears of women and female sexuality and incarnated it with pinpoint (no pun intended) accuracy, before using it to unleash the hideous misogyny such fear ultimately authorises.  A grand pulpy read with excellent characterisation, strong emotional involvement, narrative grip and a building sense of dread and doom.

‘Dirty Prayers’ by Gary McMahon (Gray Friar Press), is the first short story collection by one of the best new writers on the horror scene.  Gary can do subtlety (as in the quiet and poignant tale ‘The Bungalow People’, a bleak and bitter parable on society’s treatment of the old and weak), or far more brutal, as the novelette ‘Like A Stone’, but what’s never lacking in any of his stories is heart.  Someone once said that the best way to write is simply to open a vein.  Gary demonstrates the this advice in action.  I also read his novellas ‘All Your Gods Are Dead’ (Humdrumming) and ‘Rough Cut’ (Pendragon Press)- both raw, powerful and chilling.

Read a lot of Conrad Williams this year- the British one, not the North American one.  After enjoying his novels ‘Head Injuries’ and ‘London Revenant’ and his story collection ‘Use Once, Then Destroy’, last year, I devoured three of his novellas in 2007: ‘The Scalding Rooms’ (PS Publishing), ‘Rain’ (Gray Friar), and ‘Game’ (Earthling).  All exactly what you’d expect from Conrad- beautiful, riveting prose with a pitch-black heart and the ability to throw you head-first into atrocity.  Read- but brace yourself for impact.

Paul Finch’s collection ‘Stains’ (Gray Friar Press, again) was another favourite read this year.  Eight good length horror stories showcasing Paul’s ability to belt out a raw, brutal tale with unflinching force, narrative drive and real style.  Finch can run the whole gamut of the genre- from the subtle to the savage, and he’s always good.  He’s already the kind of author whose stories people turn to first in any anthology, and thoroughly deserved to win the BFS Best Novella Award this year.  He’s one of the best there is, basically.  I also picked up his Pendragon Press collection ’The Extremist’ at this year’s Fantasycon.  Another belter.

Also well worthy of mention are Guy Adams’ ‘Deadbeat’ series- ‘Makes You Stronger’, and ‘Dogs Of Waugh’ (Humdrumming)- cracking, rollicking, blackly funny reads- and John Llewelyn Probert’s ‘The Faculty Of Terror’ (Gray Friar), a hugely enjoyable hommage to the old Amicus portmanteau horror films.

And last but far from least was Ash-Tree Press’s ‘At Ease With The Dead’, Barbara and Christopher Roden’s new ghost story anthology, which I for one thought was absolutely corking.  But of course, I am biased, as my story ‘A Small Cold Hand’ graced its pages.

And I’m afraid you’ll be seeing more of me in the New Year.  Ellen Datlow’s anthology ‘Inferno’ is already out from Tor Books, featuring my story ‘Hushabye’; and two, maybe three novellas are due out too.  ‘The School House’ will appear in David A. Sutton’s ‘Houses On The Borderland’, published by the British Fantasy Society, in the New Year, and ‘The Narrows’ will grace Gary McMahon’s anthology ‘We Fade To Grey’ (Pendragon Press) in time for Fantasycon ’08.  A third novella, ‘Angels Of The Silences’, is due to appear in Triquorum, also from Pendragon, but I’m not sure which issue it’s due in, or whether that’ll be in ‘08.  Fingers crossed!

Anyway, if anyone has been reading these rants, grumbles, opinions and preenings over the past few months, then many thanks.  Have a brilliant New Year and all the best for 2008.

Love, hugs and peace,

Simon Bestwick.