This quality-along with a keen eye for human interaction and a good understanding of social and political institutions-makes Jemisin such a formidable writer. Both function within constraints, even if those constraints are vastly different, and it’s in understanding the limits of power and of any one person’s agency that Jemisin parts company with more escapist fare. Both novels, however, feature compelling protagonists, whether it’s Yeine Darr in book one, the heir to a throne, or Oree Shoth, the blind artist of book two. The Broken Kingdoms, which has received less attention, is actually a better-written book than its predecessor. Jemisin deserves for the first two novels in her Inheritance Trilogy to be appreciated separately, but Orbit undercut that possibility by releasing them both in the same year. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. (Heroic fantasy will be covered in a separate feature, by Larry Nolen, for Locus Online.)īest Fantasy Novel of 2010 (a three-way tie) While it’s a subgenre I enjoy, I didn’t read much of it in 2010.
Finally, I admit that heroic fantasy is woefully under-represented in this list. I would also like to mention Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month, which isn’t a novel but a wonderful exploration of fantasy in prose and poetry and belongs on any fantasy lover’s bookshelf. Please note that although this list isn’t meant to include science fiction, there’s some slippage in the form of novels in which there appears to be little SF intent. All three are fiercely unique.Īs for the rest, I’m becoming ever more suspicious of ranking novels and so I’ve presented my choices in alphabetical order by author. All three are the best fantasy novel of the year. To choose one as the best of the year would be impossible and unfair, so I haven’t tried. They are all great novels, but in wildly different ways. My top three novels exemplify this fragmentation and this promise: Michal Ajvaz’s The Golden Age, Michael Cisco’s The Narrator, and Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo. There is no center, no cohesion, no one way, and that’s a great and hopefully enduring quality.
What I found, most of all, wasn’t about trends or patterns-it was about the joyful fragmentation of a genre and the growth of unique voices. In 2010, my reading was at the very least comprehensive, and I discovered several novels that lived on in my imagination long after I finished them. Any year’s best list should be about passion and depth: the love of a book in the context of a lot of reading.
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