“Best of the Year” lists start appearing as early as November, so we are perhaps a little late in asking folks around the community:
Q: What were the best genre-related books, movies and/or shows you consumed in 2009?
[Also added was this note: They don't have to have been released in 2009. Feel free to choose any combination of genres (science fiction/fantasy/horror) and media (books/movies/shows) you wish to include.]
Read on to see their picks (and also check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4)…
Sandra McDonald
Sandra McDonald‘s novels –
The Outback Stars,
The Stars Down Under, and
The Stars Blue Yonder – are about an Australian military lieutenant, her handsome sergeant, and their adventures in deep space. She also write short stories that have appeared in
Asimov’s,
Strange Horizons,
Realms of Fantasy and other magazines and anthologies. Her short story collection
Diana Comet and Other Tales, the fantastical romps of a Victorian heroine of questionable gender, will debut at Wiscon from Lethe Press.
For television, my favorite genre-related show continues to be Supernatural. I was a little late to the party, having resisted the handsome heroes for as long as possible, but finally fell hard. This year I’ve been watching in awe as Dean and Sam Winchester follow separate hero’s journeys that nevertheless always bring them back to each other. We’re currently in season 5 (no spoilers here) and let’s just say the showrunners have taken that journey to places I never anticipated, with awesome interior and exterior obstacles to hurdle, and I’m looking forward with great anticipation (and not a little fear) to the season (or series) finale coming next spring.
I’ve also read a lot of Supernatural community writing this year, and deeply appreciate the legions of writers out there weaving tales of the apocalypse, rewriting canon in inventive ways, and spinning the characters into hilarious, tragic, and complex alternate universes (sometimes all three at once). Some stories are short romps, some are novel-length adventures, and more than a few are written by traditionally published authors. If you’re on twitter you can follow Henry Jenkins at USC and his informative links about transmedia, participatory culture and digital storytelling. Or email me for story recs – I’ve got dozens. Maybe hundreds.
On the book-related front, I’ve been catching up on Rachel Caine’s excellent Weather Warden series, enjoying Linnea Sinclair’s romantic military sf (the Dock Five series, including Hope’s Folly), and reading more than a few YA adventures, from science fiction (Pete Hautman’s Hole in the Sky) to Victorian fantasy (Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty). All highly recommended. Break down the barriers of genre and I think many writers would get a kick out of Steve Hely’s How I Became a Famous Novelist. For the craft of writing itself I’m very much enjoying Pat Schneider’s Writing Alone and With Others.
Movies? Who has time to go to the movies? Okay, I confess to sneaking away to the cineplex once in awhile, but nothing genre-related had me reaching for the popcorn in 2009. Here’s to 2010!
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I always thought the alien in The Thing was great, because at its heart, it deviated from the ‘actors with bumps on their forehead’ sort of approach you get in movies so much. A parasite, with some intelligence (it builds that spaceship out of spare parts), it really is quite a fun stretch that you don’t see too much of. It never communicates (language is already such a gulf between us, let alone something truly alien). You get a strong sense out of that movie that you’ve encountered something truly alien.
