For this very subjective survey of speculative fiction books of 2008, four of our reviewers each selected their three favourites. There were so many excellent books in print this year that choosing the best can only be a matter of taste and your top picks may well be quite different. But for what it's worth,  here we go: the top twelve of 2008 according to Ross, Carol, Katherine and Simon. 

Ross Murray:
Most of the books I read this year represented my first foray into that particular author’s work. I chose the following three on one simple criterion – would I be interested in reading further titles by the author? For each of these three the answer was a resounding “Yes”.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. The fact that the author is Stephen King’s son may have something to do with the strength of his writing. I mean, he didn’t want to use his father’s name to get him into the publishing industry so he wrote under a pseudonym, but the fact that he grew up in a house where dismemberment, murder, and the writing of horror gross out is the norm might give the lad a sense of story by osmosis if nothing else. And if Dad’s too busy to read little Joe’s latest offering, just give it to Mum. She’s a published author as well and the person Dad gives his manuscript to read before anyone else. Coupled with the fact that Dad’s made squillions out of scaring the bejeesus out of people, then horror writing seems like a pretty viable option for a likely young lad. Really, could he have become anything else but a horror writer? Apparently not, and we’re all the better for it.

Joe Hill’s debut novel is a really cool contemporary reworking of the classic ghost tale. And this razor wielding ghost isn’t confined to the dark of night. He keeps coming right through the day and drives a pick-up truck to-boot. Combined with the theme of family generational conflict weaved throughout makes Heart-Shaped Box an intelligently written standout novel.

Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross. For this one, Stross delved into his vast imagination and came up with a planet hopping action thriller where highly evolved and engineered robots are keen to genetically resurrect a dead race – humans. However not all are taken with the idea. Reintroducing humans, whom the robots were built to serve and accommodate, means their freedom will potentially disappear.

Stross’s writing is sharp, filled with character and style. Freya, the character at the centre of the story, is well rounded, likeable and has a sense of sassiness that makes you want to get to know her.

Saturn’s Children was really a joy to read, taken as I was with Stross’s confident and skilled storytelling. His place at the top of science-fiction writing is well deserved. And if you’re interested in what the title is referencing, look up your Greek mythology and see the layers that Stross invokes.

The part I loved best? That space travel is all about weight to fuel ratio. So if you want a cheap ride between planets that’s going to take a couple of years – then amputate your arms and legs. You won’t need them when you’re in deep sleep during the voyage and you just get a new set grown and reattached at your destination. There’s nothing like budget travel.

H.P Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by Michel Houellebecq. In my bio for The Specusphere I mention that my favourite artists are either dead or dying. The one which I failed to put down, the most dead of all, is one Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Houellebecq’s book–which is really an extended essay augmented by two Lovecraft stories–takes an interesting look at Lovecraft’s work and life. He establishes Lovecraft as a gentleman and a scholar without glossing over his less admirable traits. In reading this I was taken back to when I first read Lovecraft and perhaps the genesis of my urge to write. Thank you, Mr Houellebecq, for reintroducing me to my favourite first author.

Carol Neist:
The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie is a fitting conclusion to an outstanding trilogy. I love the way Abercrombie turns all the tropes and stock characters upside down and inside out, and the way he gets so closely into the minds and hearts of his very real and believable characters.

The Accidental Sorcerer by K.E. Mills is a great start to the first series Karen Miller has essayed under this nom-de-plume. Tension punctuated by humour is the trademark here, and it’s extremely well done. The characters are so clearly drawn you feel you’d know them if you ran into them in the street.

Heir to Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier marks the author’s return to the world of her first trilogy, and this stand-alone is a wonderful addition. Marillier has to be one of the best Fantasy-Romance reads around, but the romance never takes precedence over the adventure – in her books, the two stride hand-in-hand towards endings filled with tension and excitement.

Katherine Petersen found it hard to choose just three favourites, but here are ones she finally came up with:
Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs. While it’s the third book in the Mercy Thompson series, which is best read in order, I think it’s also the one that has the most depth and the best storyline.

Birthright by Mari Freeman With terrific world building, a fantastic protagonist and good romantic tension, Mari Freeman has created an incredibly strong urban fantasy tale.

Anam Cara by Keena Kincaid At the heart of this paranormal is a man on a karmic wheel trying to right an ancient wrong, and Kincaid has done her research well, bringing 12th century Carlisle to life for us; so much so that you can almost hear the harper’s music as you read.

Simon Petrie:
Matter , by Iain M. Banks started the year as the best book I'd read during 2008. Mind you, at that stage (early January) it was the only book I'd read for the year. I've managed probably forty other books in the intervening twelve months, but Matter is still up there. It's long, and it's slow-moving to begin with, particularly in terms of meshing its constituent storylines. A ruthless editor could maybe have hacked out fifty to a hundred pages without having substantially damaged it. But I really enjoyed it. Even when Banks isn't on form, he still writes beautifully, and to my mind Matter is the best space-opera he's written for the past dozen years or more. I just hope he doesn't expect us to wait so long for the next instalment...

Memoirs of a Master Forger, ostensibly by William Heaney, is a wonderfully witty, warm, and poignant contemporary fantasy. Heaney is a good-hearted con artist - his speciality is fake rare books, and his weakness is good causes - with a fair few demons in his past. Literal demons, rather than the metaphorical variety. "Forger" is one of those books that's compelling, ennobling, and very moving, and it's also serious fun.

2012, edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne. I'd rate this offering, by Australian indie Twelfth Planet Press, as one of the year's strongest local offerings, and you can read my review of it right here on Specusphere. 2012 is a dozen stories, set just a few years in the future, seeking to stake out the kind of problems we'll be facing as a society. Not all of the stories worked for me, but the nature of anthologies is that different readers prefer different stories, and the balance in 2012 is heavily towards the good stuff. If you're seeking to convince someone that home-grown SF can be world-class, this is as good a place as any to start.

So there we have it, folks - a hit parade of books according to Specusphere. I wonder if 2009 will produce as many goodies? No doubt it will. In the ephemeral world of modern publishing, good new books come onto the market faster than even our faster-than-light reviewers can read them. So if your faves of 2008 aren't in this list, it's quite possibly because none of the quartet above read them. Too many good authors, too little time...