I have a little piece in today’s 2012 in Review feature on Strange Horizons, talking about my speculative fiction highlights of the past year. The books I chose to talk about won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who’s seen my favourite reads of 2012 list; but I have tried to tie everything together in a way that makes a larger point:

…the key opposition in the field right now is not between genre and mainstream, but between texts that play into genre conventions and those that go their own way.

I’ll be looking for more of those works that “go their own way” over the months ahead.

(Incidentally, I was especially surprised – and pleased! – to see three other mentions for Hawthorn & Child: not bad going for a novel that isn’t, technically, speculative fiction.)