I’ve decided 2010 doesn’t start until 17th January — that is, the day after the end of the nominating period for the BSFA awards. So no best books of 2009 from me just yet, but they will come, fear not.
In the meantime, I have more half-formed plans for 2010 than I can plausibly keep up. I would like, for instance, to read the back-catalogues of Mary Gentle and Bruce Sterling, two writers whose work I keep thinking I should really be more familiar with than I am. I want to read some of the big books lurking on my shelves: Brian Aldiss’ Helliconia trilogy, Nicola Barker’s Darkmans, Dos Passos’ USA trilogy, Paul Verhaeghen’s Omega Minor, among others. Taking advantage of my shiny new Sony Reader, which makes it much more convenient to read short fiction, I have grand plans of writing a monthly short fiction review post, as well as potential story-by-story reviews of more anthologies. I want to keep posting short reviews of books here, as I’ve been doing over Christmas, and save longer reviews for elsewhere; though I suspect I will creep back to longer and less frequent as the year goes on. I want to organise more round-table discussions of new books, of course (any suggestions?), and another run of short story club, independent of discussion of award-shortlisted stories.
On top of all that (or even: before I get to any of that), there’s two issues of Vector coming relatively close together (ie both in the first quarter of the year), which still need some work; and the survey book should be mailing to BSFA members with one of those issues, assuming I get all the author bios done; maybe we can get a new Vector website up and running at some point this year; and there’s the Strange Horizons reviews department (plus new Clute column) to keep on top of, of course.
Anyway. I had an excellent holiday break; hope you all did, as well.
vector-bsfa.com 
Nice to know that more reviewing and discussing of short fiction is planned for this year. I really liked the short-story club.
Have a good year!
I’m looking forward to those monthly short fiction reviews. One of my 2010 resolutions was to better keep up with my short story reading and this’ll be a nice extra motivation.
And I heartily recommend Darkmans. Great book!
2010 is also a big book year for me. I’m going to try and get round to Darkmans and I’ve also just bought 2666 by Robert Bolano. I should really get round to Turn Of The Century by Kurt Andersen as well.
rreugen, Mark: well, we’ll see how it goes. As I say, I suspect I’m being a bit over-ambitious to think I can keep all these plates spinning…
Martin: I plan to start with some shorter Bolano. I’m vaguely tempted to have a go at The Kindly Ones when it comes out in paperback, though. (Also missing from my list above: Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic duology.)
“I want to organise more round-table discussions of new books, of course (any suggestions?), and another run of short story club, independent of discussion of award-shortlisted stories.”
Excellent, I plan on following both. In terms of suggestions, perhaps Reynolds’, Mieville’s and Maclod’s 2010 publications? I’d certainly anticipate reading each, and would be interested in following the likely diversity of reactions and analysis.
Those are possibilities, though I’m not particularly interested in the Mieville. Others that had occurred to me: NK Jemisin’s Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Tricia Sullivan’s Lightborn, Patrick Ness’ Monsters of Men.
The entire back catalogue of Bruce Sterling sounds like an excellent plan, there’s still plenty of his I haven’t read. I wonder if it would be possible to include all his short stories too?