I haven't been able to chose a favourite book since I was about seven, but this, HANDS DOWN, is my favourite. The writing is breathtakingly beautiful. The characters are alien and sometimes (literally) soulless but still sympathetic and tragic. The plot is so complicated and layered that a quarter of my way into the first reading I decided that I was going to have to re-read it. Elizabeth Bear rips into the traditional literary ideas regarding faeries, Faerieland, and magic and rends it limb from limb. The end result is bloody but breathtaking, like watching a tiger hunt.

Which is overly dramatic, yes. But this book is just--beyond fantastic. Go read it.