Hit my target of 52 books read for the year. As I keep saying (because it’s true) reading is part of the job of a writer. I put aside a couple of hours every evening to do so. When I do this, and especially when the book is good, I can feel the changes in my brain. It becomes calmer, more thoughtful and focussed, and seeks immersion in imagined worlds.
This is a phenomenon dealt with by Maryanne Wolf in ‘Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.’ In essence, the digital brain – distracted by social media, fiercely hunting for the next endorphin hit, its attention span severely limited – is anathema to the reading brain, which needs time, sustained concentration, vivid imagination, and critical thinking skills.
More and more we lose the ability to immerse ourselves in a book, because we’ve rewired our neural pathways to the digital experience (reading, I should add, is much like the writing process, insofar as the internet is the constant bane of the writer, sitting there, tempting us with entertainment; offering up addictions (shopping, gambling, porn, hate); luring us into the rabbit-hole of irrelevant research, where we look up one thing and thirty minutes later find ourselves somehow reading the bios of Oscar-winning supporting actors from the 1960s).
I’m no saint, for the record. I’ve had to install apps on my work computer to stop me being distracted by the internet. I’ve had weeks we’ve I’ve fallen off the wagon and found myself all-consumed by the omnipresent god of distraction, the algorithm. A good book, I’ve found, is the best medicine. The noise in my brain quiets, and I learn to think again, to feel, to imagine.
Right. That was something of a digression. I didn’t watch much in the way of streaming or film this year, but of what I did watch, The Holdovers (2023), Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013), Furiosa (2024), Invincible Season 2 (2023-24), and Cobra Kai Season 6 (2024-25) were the best. The Dune doco was excellent, bizarre, compelling, and for me more enjoyable than Dune 2.
In rough order, below are my top ten reads for 2024 (plus two re-reads). #1 and #10 are probably correct, everything in between is mostly correct, though could be shifted up or down a slot depending on the day. I had a great reading year, I should add, in terms of finding books I loved. Usually I’ll average about five or six, but I hit a quality seam, for which I am grateful.
Here we go:
1) Cold Mountain (1997), by Charles Frazier (American)
An American Civil War novel that follows Inman, a deserter from the Confederate Army, and Ada, a minister’s daughter who he knew briefly before going to war.
Historical fiction is one of my least favourite genres, but this really blew me away. Perfect prose, descriptions of the wilderness, character depth. Frazier details the transformative brutality and pointlessness of war, and the desperate longing of love denied.
The final few chapters are both inevitable and breathtaking.
2) The Wasteland (1922), by T. S. Eliot (British)
Holy shit. I read this three times this year, and still don’t quite know precisely what it was about. ‘The Wasteland, Prufrock and other poems’ by T. S. Eliot (apparently) revolutionised poetry. I don’t know enough about the form to comment on what he may or may not have done, but I can say this: the startling imagery in this collection, the rhythm of the verse, the aching power of just a few precisely chosen words. Wow. A must for anyone who loves language.
3) The Sea, The Sea (1978), by Iris Murdoch (Irish)
Won the Booker Prize in 1978 and I can see why. A compelling, uncomfortable book about a narcistic playwright (Charles Arrowby) who is both obsessive and self-destructive. It’s an uncomfortable read, as well. One of those very rare books that I wanted to put down, not because it was bad, but because the protagonist kept making horrible deluded decisions and I couldn’t stand it anymore.
An absorbing novel.
4) Winter’s Bone (2006), by Daniel Woodrell (American)
Exceptional American neo-noir. Woodrell is a superb prose stylist.
5) Dissolution (2025), by Nicholas Binge (British)
A taut techno-thriller written with compassion and intelligence. This is an intricately plotted and – from a craft perspective – a technically difficult novel to write. Nonetheless, Binge creates a gripping narrative that takes the reader on a page-turning journey through both time and memory.
(Note: Dissolution will be coming out in 2025 – I received an early copy from the author).
=6) Sea of Tranquillity (2022), by Emily St. John Mandel (Canadian)
Mandel tells beautiful stories. I read this in two sittings, which is unusual for me and a testament to how compelling I found the novel. Faultless prose, quality characterisation, good dialogue, excellent plotting, exquisite (literary) craftmanship.
I did have some quibbles with the world-building. Time travel, in particular, can be one of the most unforgiving of thought experiments. While time travel can never make perfect ‘sense’ (because it is impossible, and gives rise to paradox after paradox), there are ways for it to make more or less sense within the rules defined by the world. It wasn’t perfect here. Normally I’m fiercely critical on matters of flawed world-building, but the strength of the storytelling was enough to push these concerns aside.
Excellent.
=6) The Glass Hotel (2020), by Emily St. John Mandel (Canadian)
The second novel by Mandel I read this year, one not generally as well received as The Sea of Tranquillity. I think I really gel with Mandel’s writing and in some ways enjoyed this book more. The speculative elements were far more subtle here, but worked very well.
8) No Country for Old Men (2005), by Cormac McCarthy (American)
Cormac wrote this originally as a script, and it shows. Lean, mean, and dialogue-driven. A page-turner with compelling characters (Anton Chigurh must be one of the all time most vivid villains of literature, although his on-screen portrayal by Javier Bardem might have influenced my thinking here) that explores the themes of justice and morality against a seemingly cold-blooded, venal, and chaotic new world.
9) Spearhead (2019), by Adam Makos (American) (non-fiction)
Follows the crew of a Pershing tank in the 3rd Armoured Division (‘Spearhead’) during the final weeks of World War Two. What elevates this is not just the story-telling – which is very engaging, though nothing exceptional – but the effort made learn about the individuals who manned the tank, and what the experience did to them.
The story of delayed PTSD is heartbreaking and moving. Towards the end of the book, the gunner (Clarence Smoyer) watches a video recording of the ‘Battle of the Cathedral,’ in Cologne. He was in that battle, and yet, decades after it occurred he finds himself traumatised, wondering if he killed an innocent civilian in the crossfire between his Pershing and a German Panther (the video shows a civilian car being hit by tank fire). The author’s clear desire to help the American gunner understand what really happened on that day adds depth and emotion to this historical non-fiction work.
10) Atonement (2001), by Ian McEwan (British)
I did not have this in my top ten the day I finished it. My #10 slot was taken by Midnight in Peking (2011), by Paul French (British) (non-fiction), an excellent true crime novel about the last days of the foreign concessions in China. But damn, I kept thinking about Atonement for at least a couple of weeks after I read it, so it snuck in.
Atonement is both fiction and meta-fiction, a heart-breaking story, and a meditation on writing a heart-breaking story. How to atone for an unforgiveable act, and whether such an act can be written about truly.
Re-reads
- Red Harvest (1929), by Dashiell Hammett (American)
Hammett is a master of the spare prose style. This, his first novel, is a tour-de-force on this count. A bloody, cynical, compelling journey into the corrupt heart of modernity.
- A Game of Thrones (1996), by George R. R. Martin (American)
It’s been more than a dozen years since I read Game of Thrones, and the first time I’ve read it since becoming a writer. While it was a different experience this time, and there were things that bothered me that I didn’t notice the first read through, it is still excellent. George is a grand master of world-building and characterisation.
In Summary
I had two new works out this year, Ghost of the Neon God (novella) and The Escher Man, both through Titan books. Critically they have been very well received. Commercially they’ve 
underwhelmed, which I cannot account for. But I’ve never understood how this business works – and, most of the time, it seems no-one really does. I’m enormously proud of both works. My philosophical approach to being an author is this: words are king. Write the best book you can, and the readers will come. Naïve, yes, probably incorrect, but I wouldn’t want to do it any other way.
Two of my works from last year were shortlisted for an Australian Aurealis Award (our most prestigious spec fic award). Aliens: Bishop (Best SF Novel) and ‘A Marked Man’ (Best Fantasy Novelette or Novella). They didn’t win, but it was good nonetheless to get the nods. I also had a short story (‘Highway Requiem’), included in ‘The Year’s Best Science Fiction on Earth 2’.
I have no trad published works planned for 2025. I will have a new novella coming out in Asimov’s (March/April) which I’m excited about, but that’s seemingly it for me, in terms of published works, for the coming year.
Over the next 12 months I will be focussing on two manuscripts. The first is a new cyberpunk/military SF novel. I’ve completed two drafts, but it will take much of the year for me to finish the third (I’m a perfectionist). The second WIP is a fantasy novel. That’s right, a stonking huge dark fantasy epic with a heart blacker than the gods themselves. That will take me another couple of years to finish, but I’m halfway through at the moment and loving the process.
So, all the best to you and yours for 2025. I hope good health, laughter, and a bit of luck goes your way.
Buy books, read books, talk about books; listen to some live music, watch a decent film in the cinema. Reject AI in all its forms, support human artists, and try not to let the god of the algorithm shape your days.
Happy New Year.
