Tim Weed's 3 favorite reads in 2023

This linked story collection is in the same inimitable vein as Egan’s bestselling A Visit from the Goon Squad—and every bit as good. Egan is such a gifted storyteller. She knows how to get and keep the narrative ball rolling and is extremely good at creating vivid characters you have no choice but to root for.

One of the things I love about this book of linked stories is its through-line, a fascinating science fiction conceit revolving around the idea of a mass-downloadable consciousness. In addition to capturing a reader’s imagination, this device allows Egan to display her virtuosity in creating gripping narratives with various highly creative and often experimental points of view.

For me, Egan is a genius, one of the most important and enjoyable short fiction writers of our time!

For me, this was a masterpiece. Then again, I admit to being a huge David Mitchell fan. But what this novelist is able to do—with language, with storytelling—well, I find it incredibly impressive.

And he clearly takes such delight in it. This book has few supernatural or quasi-supernatural fireworks of other Mitchell novels, and it's the opposite of futuristic, but you don't feel the lack. You can almost hear the author cackling in the background; he's a born entertainer who also happens to have a great deal of basic human wisdom to impart.

I stand in awe and eagerly await the next one!

It is a remarkably well-written and cold-hearted contemporary literary ecological thriller. I mean "cold-hearted" in the best possible way; Catton is a gifted enough novelist not to get too attached to her characters, and she does what she must to pull this tense, well-constructed, beautifully balanced story off.

Set at the edge of a national park in New Zealand and featuring a highly memorable tech-billionaire villain, Birnam Wood is a vivid, substantive page-turner that manages to be both brutal and fun. I couldn't put it down!