Best of 2008 Picks -- Robert Tilendis

2008 was, in books and music at GMR at any rate, a very good year, whatever you may think about it otherwise. It wasn't easy coming up with these selections, and I probably have too many, but that's just the way it is sometimes. This year really needs a trip through the Archives.

Elizabeth Bear's The Stratford Man (that's Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth, from her Promethean Age series) and And All the Windwracked Stars. Bear's hit a level this year that amazes me: these are all tough, haunting, beautiful books. Bear looks at the hard places and doesn't flinch.

And then there's the new edition of Joseph W. Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Take it as an indication not only of the importance I ascribe to that work, which puts in clear form some basic "psychomythological" concepts, but the sheer engaging seductiveness of Campbell's writing -- who knew such erudition could be such fun? And this is a lovely edition.

I would be grossly negligent not to mention Jon Courtenay Grimwood's End of the World Blues. Real, ready-for-prime-time "post-genre" fiction and terrific storytelling to boot. Add the three novels of Grimwoods Arabesks to this mention -- not new, but we did review them in 2008 and they are wonderful.

I looked at quite a few graphic novels last year. And manga - -just love the stuff. Not new in general, but it was for us: Kazuya Minekura's Saiyuki, or at least the nine volumes of the first series: bishonen boys with attitude on the quest to end all quests -- snappy, sharp, intriguing graphics (and the anime is even better, if you can believe it, so even though we didn't review it, try to get your hands on it).

Books Editor April Gutierrez threw one into the mix that captured my heart: David Petersen's Mouse Guard: Fall 1152. I'll confess quite readily that a big part of the appeal of comics for me is the visuals (all those years in art school had to go for something, after all), and Petersen has laid to rest a lot my complaints about Western comics: the drawing is wonderful, he does some intriguing things with layouts, narrative flow relies as much on the visuals as on the text, and it can be dense without being busy. Good story, too.

2008 was the Year of the Story Collection, for me, at least. Although I'm admittedly ambivalent about collections right now (enough is enough, already!), most of them were pretty good, but -- well, there were a couple of wonderful surprises. Robert E. Howard's Kull: Exile of Atlantis was one. Howard was a much better writer than I had thought -- and much more important to fantasy. And one can always count on Michael Moorcock for a good (if sometimes talky) story, as The Metatemporal Detective demonstrates quite nicely -- sort of a Western equivalent to Saiyuki, give or take the Buddhist priest.

I listened to a lot of music last year. Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in the recording by Britten himself comes immediately to mind. Profound, haunting, sometimes chilling, it's as strong a statement about the cost of war as you're going to find. Scary good.

And then there's that amazing performance by Leon Fleisher and the Julliard String Quartet of the Brahms Piano Quintet. It's as close to flawless as I think mere humans can manage.

I really like the music of Morton Feldman, and his The Viola In My Life -- a reissue of the LP that established Feldman as a major composer -- certainly did nothing to alter that at all. All you need to do to understand why is listen to it.

I get a lot of crap for liking Nickelback's music. Dark Horse is possibly their best to day -- it came out just before I submitted my omnibus review of their studio albums. Great album, a little more pop-ish than I expected from them, but only a little, and the music is terrific -- there's not a weak song on this one.

Steve Eaves' Moelyci came my way in a bundle of Welsh releases. I really love Eaves' throaty, soulful, urgent vocals (now that I've gotten adjusted to hearing the blues sung in Welsh). Under the category of "Heaven does smile on reviewers -- occasionally."

I don't get out to the movies much, and I generally am pretty careful about picking what I go out to see. Sometimes, that turns out to be even better than I could have hoped, as with Jonah Markowitz' Shelter. From this vantage, I can say simply that it's a tremendously human story about discovering yourself and finding your way to who you are. It's a love story, and one that pulls some real power from being just a quiet little movie.

Enough. I told you it was a good year. If I go digging any more, I'm just going to find more to list and the Chief is going to string me up.