Hello 2010. How’s it going? Strangely, bizarrely, impossibly, it’s already near to end of the first week of the new year. Time ticks, so let’s knock off the awesome and radical of 2009, slots four to nine.

Reading

There are a zillion blogs posting their ‘best of’ lists of books for 2009. Some are top tens, some are top one hundreds. Some bloggers claim to have read 280 novels last year, which just tells me that they are just looking at printed pages very quickly and are not actually reading. I guess it can be easy to confuse reading with looking (??).

I’m not a slow reader, but I enjoy reading and I like to think about it, so I average about one book a month, but I’m not going to post a list of what I read in 2009. Look me up on Goodreads if you want. I’m going to focus on my two favourite books of last year. These were Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, and Under the Dome, by Stephen King.

I talked about Stephen King a few days ago, and he already makes an appearance on my 2009 awesome list, but Under The Dome is really a remarkable book. It’s not horror, but is quite horrifying. It’s not science fiction, except for the nature of the invisible, impenetrable, indestructible dome that descends on the town of Chester’s Mill one October morning. It’s a story of people, and what happens to them under extraordinary circumstances. It’s an extraordinary book, and while I haven’t read any other King novels, it is being touted as his best. I can believe it.

I read the US “copper” edition (now to track down the regular “white” edition) although I did start the UK hardcover first. However, the UK hardcover suffers from poor internal typography, presumably to condense the 1100 pages of the US edition down to the 800 of the UK edition. As soon as my US edition arrived I switched, as I was already getting tired of the walls of text printed in the UK version. It’s a real shame, as UK readers also miss out on the US cover. If you’re a fan, or a collector, grab the US one – copper or white!

A comparison between Under the Dome and Boneshaker is both pointless and impossible, so they take the joint number one spot. Boneshaker is a steampunk adventure set in an alternative Seattle, where a mining machine ran amok and destroyed most of the city. The ruins are now walled and filled with blight gas which has turned those left behind into zombies.

Zombies and steampunk isn’t necessarily new – indeed, they’re an integral part of my own steampunk series – but the Pacific Northwest setting is. What makes Boneshaker stand head and shoulders over nearly every other steampunk novel is not just the setting, but the fact that it’s really only steampunk at a push. There are airships, and various bit of high-tech Victoriana – including some which are steam-powered – but they are very much at the periphery. Aside from the airships, there are none of the steampunk cliches or tropes here. Boneshaker is like a breath of fresh air.

Story and setting aside, what struck me about this book was the writing itself. The prose is mature, detailed, complex, and beautiful. The pacing and rhythm are almost poetic, and the whole thing is tinged with the sadness and melancholy of Briar and her situation. Cherie Priest is not a new author, and I think this actually shows in this book. Boneshaker is assured and confident, which comes, I suspect, from the assurance and confidence of the author, having honed her craft with her earlier works. Which, I might add, are now firmly on my reading list for 2010.

Boneshaker was kindly supplied to be as an ARC from Tor. Which, pretty as it is with its simple white cover, means I missed out on the jaw-dropping cover. Tor have made high-res images of the cover painting available on their site. The cover is so eye-catching, so wonderful, that I’ll be picking up the book as-published just so I can have it on my shelf.

Scrivener

As I mentioned in part 2, 2009 was the year I started taking writing seriously, and this wouldn’t have been possible without Scrivener. I’ve talked about Scrivener many times before, and was using it prior to 2009, but last year was when I fully got to grips with all it can offer. So far I’ve written two and a half full-length novels in it, so I know full-well what it is capable of and how it has helped my writing.

For the uninitiated, Scrivener is a Mac-only writing app that allows unparalleled flexibility. I’ve turned a few people on to Scrivener, and more and more authors – big names and small – are now using it. To say Scrivener transformed the way I write is an understatement. It’s a night-and-day difference, the BSE (Before Scrivener Era) and ASE (you get the drift). The best thing you can do is check out the video demonstrations on their website, and then (if you have a Mac), buy it instantly.

SomaFM

I class SomaFM as another writing tool, although perhaps not an obvious one. SomaFM is a commercial-free, listener-sponsored internet radio station based in San Francisco that offers a multitude of channels to suit a multitude of tastes. My personal pick is Indie Pop Rocks.

When I write, I need music to block out the outside world. Listening to my own music doesn’t work, as I am familiar with it and I find it too distracting. The beauty of Indie Pop Rocks is that I recognise hardly any of it, yet their gigantic playlist is more or less brilliant. In fact, writing aside, I’ve discovered many new bands that have now become firm favourites thanks to SomaFM.

SomaFM is an essential writing tool for me, just as Scrivener is.

Meeting Your Heroes

Two of them in person, one via the interwebs. Did I ever think I’d meet Nathan Fillion and Leonard Nimoy? Or spend an hour talking to Scott Sigler about his plans for world domination? Nope. But I did, and they were some of the highlights of 2009 for me.

San Francisco

I travel a fair bit. In 2009 I made it to San Francisco, and within a few days it became my favourite US city. I’ve been to a lot, and while San Diego has held my affection for eight years, there is something about SF that just pips it. Maybe because it’s the home – more or less – of Apple, MC Hammer, Borderlands bookstore, SomaFM, NaNoWriMo, Scott Sigler, Gail Carriger, Pier 39, The Maltese Falcon. Maybe it’s because – perhaps more than San Diego – it reminds me of my home city, Auckland, with its harbour and bay and famous bridges. Maybe it was because, on my very first day, the lady at the local 7-11 was the nicest person I’d ever met. Whatever. San Francisco was an amazing week.

This website

I’m a perfectionist, and a fussy one at that. Is that tautology? Perhaps. But after a lot of looking and a lot of hacking and a lot of teaching myself CSS by trial and error, I got myself a website. This website, to be precise. People seem to like the design. I’m pleased to have a proper home on the internet, and that happened at last in 2009.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some books to write. A week into the new year and I’m already behind schedule!