Ursula

Fri, Dec 23, 2005

The quite wonderful wordsmith known as Ursula Le Guin was interviewed in the Guardian this week. Was she really born in 1929??? It seems hard to believe that when you read her books, the latest of which, Voices, will be one of the Book Picks in the next FPI managazine early next year. Ursula has entranced generations of SF and Fantasy readers, young and old alike; Voices is part of her new young adult range but, like the classic Earthsea tales, it is likely to be a book read by adults as much as children.

Long before JK Rowling or Phil Pullman were writing younger readers books that adults also enjoyed we had Ursula. Her Left Hand of Darkness, which features a planet with a single gender, is still, in my opinion, one of the cleverest SF novels ever written (even more than 30 years on) – those unfamiliar with it were amazed how many ideas and observations she fitted into such a slim novel when it was the book of the month.

It has been a very good year all round for graphic novels and for SF&F books; frankly I’ve been spoiled for choice and would need five additional heads to read every graphic novel and book I’ve wanted to this year (but I try my best with my mono-skull). From incredibly rich, layered prose and delightfully disturbing ideas with Hal Duncan and Jeff VanderMeer to tight action heroine ass-kicking with social observation from Marianne de Pierres, biting social satire came courtesy of the good offices of my fellow comic geek James Lovegrove, Ken MacLeod put an intelligent (of course) new spin on First Contact tales, Charlie Stross warped my mind with Accelerando (before pocketing his Hugo), Neil Gaiman made me laugh out loud and Jim Butcher made me laugh and cry with his Harry Dresden novels which sucked me into the ever-escalating life of Chicago’s only private eye wizard I read all six back-to-back.

The graphic novels have been similarly diverse and standards of writing, artwork and production have all been very high. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely were simply superb with We3, managing to take a mutant version of one of Disney’s old Incredible Journey tales and mix it with horror, violence, conspiracy, cute animals and hope. One of my fave SF writers made his comics debut as Richard Morgan racked up a body count with a revamped Black Widow and just in the last week or so DC have published The Best of the Spirit, making some of this classic 1940s hero by the late, great Will Eisner available at a rather more affordable price than usual (their Spirit Archive hardbacks are terrific not every comic fan can stretch to them, even with our discounts); Will remains one of those creators a lot of comics fan know of but many haven’t actually read, so I’m hoping this volume encourages more of them to pick up Will. And Dark Horse get my blessings for the tasty new reprint volumes they are now running of Paul Chadwick’s Concrete series – when Harlan Ellison tells you that this is one of the best comics works around you need to listen.

And there is so much more to come next year – new Jeff VanderMeer in January, the conclusion to Sam Kieths’s The Maxx in February, Margo Lanagan’s award-winning Black Juice, a slew of House of M titles from Marvel, more Concrete to come and Mike Carey’s debut novel to look forward to. The third FPI magazine will be due in January, choc-full of goodness (with an exclusive Todd McFarlane cover no less) and our world-famous catalogue stuffed with everything desirable in the world of SF, comics and cult merchandise, including the next Book Picks, graphic novels, manga, plush toys and lots of objects of desire. Stay tuned folks, we have many more delights to look forward too; hope you all have a good time over the holidays.