Best of 2008 Picks -- Cat Eldridge

Best chocolate treat? Without doubt, that would be the dark chocolate bread pudding baked by Sara, the bakery manager, at Standard Baking Company in Portland, Maine. Best served warm with a scoop of real vanilla ice cream!

And it was another fine year for reading!

In the science fiction genre, Neal Asher's Line War novel and The Gabble and Other Stories collection continued to flesh out the details of his Polity series which I now consider the finest space opera series ever undertaken. I've now read all ten novels and the one collection that make up this series -- time I'd say was well-spent! My other great sf experience this year was METAtropolis, a shared universe audio drama that was a very enjoyable experience! If you don;t like Audio productions, METAtropolis will be released as a book by Subterranean Press later this year.

In the fantasy genre, Christopher Golden's The Borderkind trilogy wrapped up brilliantly with The Lost Ones. Great characters, wonderful settings, and a story that holds up across all three novels -- a very good show, Christopher! Also well-worth a mention is Kage Baker's wonderful pirate novel, Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, which may or may not have a tinge of magic realism in its story.

As regards graphic novels, I recently re-read all twelve volumes of Bill Willingham's Fables, his ongoing series that plays off some of the themes in aforementioned trilogy. At least a few of the characters here can also be found in The Borderkind trilogy demonstrating how rich the source material is that both writers shared!

For the outstanding mystery of the year, Rock & Roll Never Forgets, first in Deborah Grabien's The JP Kinkaid series, is the clear winner. This is a mystery series which I hope will last for many years to come, so I am pleased that Deborah tells me that she's written the first seven already!

For good pulp-style reading that crosses genres at will, I love Simon R. Green's writings. His latest Nightside series novel, Just Another Judgment Day, was worth not one, but two, readings! (This series consists mostly of far too short novels.) For a longer read by this author, I wholeheartedly recommend the second of his Secret History series, Daemons are Forever. Yeah, the titles in the latter series are Bond spoofs.