400,000 hits

This site passed 400,000 hits, so I did a quick scan of my favorites from the past year, plus things I read in the past year but still haven't reviewed yet.

Best novel was Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, discussed here. The recollection of it still wounds. I doubt I'd read it again, but a fine, troubling novel.

"Brenda" by Margaret St. Clair (book reviewed here) -- I can't shake the imagery of this one. St. Clair was firing on all cylinders. You can find it in her collection: The Hole in the Moon. If you read nothing else by St. Clair, read this one although she has a few other well known works.

Bruce Boston’s “The Ruined Library” You can read it online here and my commentary on part of what makes it so successful here.

Best new poetic voice I've read in a while -- Clif Mason's Knocking the Stars Senseless (reviewed beginning here -- interview begins here)

Speaking of new voices, Daniel Braum's is one to read, reminiscent of Lucius Shepherd (short novel reviewed here, He's also published a few story collections), with future work forthcoming in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror.

Best book of poems -- Speech Minus Applause by Jim Peterson -- Catalogs the tipping of a worldview (perhaps). Some poets excel at the poem, some the book. This one does both admirably. Stunning, revelatory, haunting. I'm still writing the review--interrupted by illness and lunar lacunae. Hopefully an interview will follow.

Best series: Peter V. Brett's The Demon Cycle. It begins well  with The Warded Man, but really is most stunning in The Desert Spear. Enthralling. More reviews to follow.

Two of the most thought-provoking if flawed yet highly recommended SF novels: Dark Universe by Daniel Galouye -- fascinating speculation -- is discussed here. Pierre Boulle's brilliantly designed Planet of the Apes is discussed here.

Most attention for written works: David Gerrold's novel The Man Who Folded Himself got the most hits--an eye-popping wonder--although the middle doesn't quite stack up as strongly as the beginning and end (SF readers of the old school might look into his When HARLIE Was One, a thought-provoking, speculatively high-octane work). Joe Lansdale's Cold in July, a fascinating look at the male psyche, was right up there with the hits. Jane Yolen's collection and discussion of such a literary form, How to Fracture a Fairy Tale, trailed by a nose hair.

The #1, biggest hit winner of the year by a landslide: Poet and editor, Sarah O'Brien's interview.

Review: Witness by Carrie Brown

Witness 

by Carrie Brown 

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 

Vintage 

General Fiction (Adult)

Hector's girlfriend, Azmina, is a head-scarf-wearing Muslim who plans to get rid of the scarf although Hector likes it. She tends clean his apartment, an apartment he paid extra to have his own room. He would like that they went somewhere else. Her brothers would not approved of his relationship. Meanwhile, Hector fears his roommates snooping around his room and his girlfriend finding out he's not only undocumented but not good at school since she is about to go to college.

There is no plot here. I read it three or four times to be sure (recently--I'd read it a few time earlier). Random things happen like meeting Jehovah's Witnesses preaching about life and the end of the world.

But it is a layered experience where "witness" takes on several different shades, and Hector as an impoverished immigrant hungry to get ahead, ready to help himself. I will say those last words are meant for the reader, not words occurring to Hector as he hasn't exactly been building up to this. Still it's an interesting read once you figure out what you're reading for, and I gave the game away, so have at it. Recommended for literary types only.