I was very pleasantly surprised to see Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (my favorite SF series) at the top of this List--with Light and Hyperion right behind it. Awesomeness.

For some reason I just couldn't start the Book of the New Sun, as well as Game of Thrones. I haven't stopped trying since, and I don't plan on stopping. One of these days. For me, it takes a particular state of mind to actually get into a book. I'm really looking forward to Empty Space, the sequel to Nova Swing and Light coming up this July. I heard about a Hyperion movie, or a miniseries, at least. You down with that?

I've been sort of following the Hyperion movie ever since like 2007 or so--I even saw a teaser preview with the Shrike at one point, but it seems to have sort of fallen through. I think it would make a better television show than a movie; the idea of fitting even one of the cantos into a movie is kind of... impossible.

Empty Space is probably the book I'm looking forward to most this year; Light and Viriconium are both favorites of mine. I'd definitely suggest The Book of the New Sun though. I'm not a Game of Thrones fan (I don't enjoy large battles, books about whole kingdoms, where the plots rest on intrigue, etc), but Book of the New Sun is sort of in a category of its own: it's very personal, subtle, and rests mostly on elaborate high concepts (in the philosophical sense) and very well controlled surrealism, not to mention some extremely elliptical plotting.... It's probably the SF book I suggest most often, so I've noticed I tend to get pretty enthusiastic when it comes up....

....I do still want to see that Hyperion movie exist though.

I've got Shadow and Claw on hold, and see if I can make a successful run this time around.

I have a theory about M John Harrison's books. The civilization of Viriconium is actually the feeble remnants of humanity thrashing in its own decay long after the events of Light and Nova Swing. The insects in A Storm of Wings are actually what's left of the Nastics. The Centauri Device could be set some time before Chinese Ed's time - no K ships yet, just the good old dynaflow freights. I'm not too sure about The Committed Men. It was his first novel, after all.

Did you know that he also co-wrote a trilogy about cats under the pen name of Gabriel King? It begins with The Wild Road.

When I re-read Hyperion a couple of years ago(time before that was maybe 95 or 96. I remember bringing that book with it's awesome Shrike dominated cover to read in church and getting weird looks for it), I kept picturing Carrie Ann Moss as Brawne Lamia. IT's a new habit I picked up sometime ago, seeing who I'd cast for a movie version. Philip Seymour Hoffman was Silenus. I had a couple of others, especially for Kassad but I either forget their faces or names.

I remember the Shrike covers! (Especially the ones from later in the series, though the first 2 were much stronger than the Endymion books, despite a lot of the cool stuff that happened later on). I remember showing them to lots of my friends because they were so cool--none of them read the books of course, but it was a good idea.

You know, I was thinking about picking up the Gabriel King novels a few years ago, except at the time a novel about cats sort of disgusted me. Now, for some reason, I'm looking at the novels and they sound fascinating. The idea of a Harrison book that's not intensely dark is enticing (with the bleakest probably being the two collected in Anima).

I'm curious: do you know if the Gabriel King novels are any good? I think I might be compelled to check them out sometime this year.

Well, I own Wild Road somewhere in the countless boxes of paperbacks that I have in storage here and there but I have not read it yet. You were right about the 'intensely dark' part; from what little I've read, his skilled prose is still there. I think that's why I didn't read it through because at the time 'intensely dark' was what I was looking for