First of all, you should know that this is not the Kafka you're thinking of. Kafka Tamura is a teenaged runaway in search of his long-lost mother and sister. Together with a vagabond who may not have it all together upstairs, Kafka embarks on an outlandish journey of discovery, involving talking cats, immortal soldiers from the second World War, a murder wherein both the murderer and the victim are unknown, a ghostly pimp, and many weirder things. And yet, all becomes clear in the end -- or clearer, anyhow.

McCarthy has built a reputation as a literary writer, and this novel has been marketed as mainstream fiction in spite of the post-apocalyptic setting. Together, a father and son attempt to find their way in a nightmare world they barely recognize. As you would expect from this author, the book is quite beautifully written in a spare and direct style that brings the horrors of the ravaged setting into sharper focus. But it's not all doom and gloom; even though the world has ended, there are still a few tiny sparks of hope left.

In this novel, Vinge has created an uncomfortably plausible near future world in which computer technology is even more ubiquitous and the US government has even tighter control on the flow of information. Virtual reality is now able to create and superimposes a real-time overlay on your perception of the real world, essentially allowing you to live in the VR world of your choice. But some clever cookie has also created extremely slick mind control software called YGBM (You Gotta Believe Me), which causes you to believe whatever the originator want you to believe.

Girl Genius is an online comic, currently up for the Web Cartoonist Outstanding Comic Award (to be announced mere days after I write this). There are also hard and softcover collections, including Volume 4 Agatha Heterodyne and the Circus of Dreams (December 2005) and Volume 5 Agatha Heterodyne and the Clockwork Princess (July 2006). Mad science, romance and madcap adventure in a bizarre steampunk setting -- the pace has never slackened for Agatha Heterodyne, heroine with a "spark"!

As the Age of Enlightenment is dawning, superstition still reigns supreme. And the persecution of "witches" continues. Jennet Stearne is the spirited daughter of a witchfinder, and sister to a brother who is apprenticed to their father's vocation. Jennet spends much of her time with her scholarly Aunt Isobel. What? Scholarly women? Sounds suspicious; probably they're witches. This novel has shipwrecks, humour, kidnapping, passion, Newton, and oh so much more.

What starts out as 1940s-style murder mystery story among the English upper crust quickly slides into alternate history. The Tories, currently led by the Farthing Set, made peace with Hitler in '41, so the English never really entered the war. Lucy Kahn (nee Farthing) is at odds with her family because she married a Jew and because she's not very sympathetic with the deal her family cut with the Nazis. She and her husband David have come to the Farthing country home under protest, and now there's been a murder. Scotland Yard is on the scene...

The title story in this, Ford's second collection of short work, won the 2003 Nebula Award for best novelette. It's about a synaesthete who taps into another reality when he comes in contact with coffee (or coffee ice cream). There's also a modern fairy tale, a ghost story, and more. All the stories here are introduced by the author, and it's a varied and highly polished set from one of speculative fiction's best.

Kit Nouveau, ex-pat Englishman, is drifting through his hollow shell of a life. Kit runs a biker bar in Tokyo and is sleeping with the wife of a local crime lord. So perhaps it isn't too surprising when someone blows up Kit's bar, incidentally killing his wife, a famed Japanese potter. On the same night, he's rescued from a hit man by a teenaged girl who's just stolen 15 million dollars. But this girl may actually be visiting from a sentient castle at the end of the world, trying to retrieve some of her stolen memories...

Beautifully illustrated by Charles Vess, this is a collection of short stories about English magic. Some of the tales feature characters you'll recognize from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and just as in her award-winning novel, the author will have you believing in magic -- and the faerie realm. Most of these stories share the 19th century atmosphere of Strange & Norrell, but they are generally and as a whole more whimsical. Certainly this is a fantasy collection that will not pass unremarked into obscurity.

Frank Marrity and his 12-year-old daughter Daphne have developed a limited telepathy with each other. Marrity's grandmother disappears under mysterious circumstances and later turns up dead, several hundred miles away. Suddenly covert organizations are trying to find out something from Marrity and Daphne that they don't know. Everyone is interested in something in grandma's shed, but no one knows quite what. This novel has everything from Einstein to action-adventure, buried treasure to lucid dreaming espionage, time travel to Charlie Chaplin. It's a head-spinner for sure -- Tim Powers in his finest form.

Duncan Shriek authored the famous Early History of Ambergris (see City of Saints and Madmen). His sister Janice has left a manuscript of a "belated afterword" to her brother's famous Guide. She wrote this afterword shortly after the Guide was published and Duncan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. However, Duncan has returned and discovered the manuscript of his sister's commentary on his work, only now Janice has disappeared. Duncan, true to character, cannot resist inserting his own comments throughout his sister's commentary, which, by the way, isn't an afterword on the "Guide to Ambergris" at all...

VanderMeer has an uncanny ability to paint vividly with his words, which enables him to quickly bring a reader into his creation. He also has a knack for writing stories that are outrageously funny and at the same time extremely disquieting.

Truth really is stranger than fiction. For the first time in 10 years, a work of non-fiction is topping the SF Site list of the best books of the year. This is a biography of one of science fiction's most enigmatic short fiction writers, whose name is still remembered today primarily due to the annual James Tiptree Award bestowed for science fiction or fantasy that explores or expands our understanding of gender.

The life of Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree was certainly full of adventure and passion. But the credit here goes to Julie Phillips for bringing to light the vibrant and painful life of this utterly fascinating individual. From big game safaris in the 1920s to a turn as a WAC in WWII, from CIA analyst to science fiction author, from repressed sexuality to seduction and infidelity, and ultimately ending in murder and suicide, this is a powerfully emotional account of a truly unique life.