local fans and their favorite reading of 2011

Last night's meeting of Albuquerque's SF club was about our favorite reading of 2011. I limited myself to F/SF published in 2011 and started with Clevinger & Wegener's graphic novel "Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science", set in the 1930s and in which Tesla's robotic son finds the real reason why his dad came up with alternating current - it involved Thomas Edison, magic and a crystal skull. I then went on to say that I've read LOTS of short fiction, and focused on William Preston's "Clockworks", his second homage to Doc Savage, but this one from the point-of-view of a criminal mastermind after the latter was taken thru the hero's personality-correcting surgery. In the novel category, I mentionned M.K. Hobson's "The Hidden Goddess", about a 19th century where Magic is openly known and used and where a Mayan goddess is willing to destroy the world to bring back her long-dead boyfriend. There was also James S.A.Corey's "Leviathan Wakes", a space opera about a 'thing' that was shot at our solar system very long ago, and which threatens to change Life's matrix as we know it. Carrie Vaughn's "After the Golden Age" was about the daughter of two superheroes, but whose own lack of power has constantly made her the target of superbaddies. Finally, there was Lisa Goldstein's "The Uncertain Places", her first novel in almost ten years, this one about a strange Bay Area family in the 1970s and its relationship to a lost tale by the Brothers Grimm.

Recommended, all of them, and remember them for the Hugos.