Hugo Recommendations

It feels like every year people complain that it's a weak novel list, but: That's a weak novel list.

I don't think any of them are mindblowingly good, but Vinge's stuff is never weak, The Ghost Brigades was a pretty nice romp of a story, and Star of Stars had something resembling scope. I might go with Vinge just on general principles ("when all the novels are equal quality, go with the guy who has the best overall work"). None of these strike me as really ground-breaking stuff (Vinge has been writing about the Singularity for a long time, Scalzi is doing post-2000 Golden Age, and Star of Stars is another Big Object story), but the Hugo doesn't have to be for ground-breaking work; sometimes it's just for well-done storytelling. Not sure which of them is the best story, but all of them were fun to read and brought some new stuff to mind.

Naovik's stuff is a nice romp, and it's got some serious moral issues, but I really don't think of her as "the best new writer"; all she's done is cross Pern with the Royal Navy -- a fun read, and the fact that she's actually doing some serious thought about the moral consequences of dragon treatment instead of being a pure calque means that it can't just be dismissed, but even His Majesty's Dragon, the best of the three, is fluff. Good fluff, but fluff.

Vinge's stuff is never weak

This was.

Looking at the novels I read last year that actually came out last year, the only award-caliber novel is Walton's Farthing. It's not very "Hugo-y", but neither was Harry Potter up until it won.

It feels like every year people complain that it's a weak novel list, but: That's a weak novel list.

Yeah, pretty much. I thought last year was remarkable for how few of the books on Locus's recommended reading list I had read, but this year blew it away. Not only had I not read most of the books on the list, I didn't want to read most of the books on the list.

We disagree about the Vinge, though. I thought Rainbows End was really good. It's probably the best novel out of the stuff listed here, in my opinion.

Naovik's stuff is a nice romp, and it's got some serious moral issues, but I really don't think of her as "the best new writer"; all she's done is cross Pern with the Royal Navy -- a fun read, and the fact that she's actually doing some serious thought about the moral consequences of dragon treatment instead of being a pure calque means that it can't just be dismissed, but even His Majesty's Dragon, the best of the three, is fluff. Good fluff, but fluff.

Most of the Campbell-eligible folks were doing fluff, at least at novel length. Of the people I listed, I'd probably give the nod to Justine Larbalestier, whose YA series is really excellent. Brandon Sanderson is probably second-- all I've read is Elantris, which was really good.

It's possible (maybe even likely) that there's somebody on that list writing fabulous short fiction, who ought to win because of that, but as previously noted, I don't read much short fiction.

Looking at the novels I read last year that actually came out last year, the only award-caliber novel is Walton's Farthing. It's not very "Hugo-y", but neither was Harry Potter up until it won.

I didn't put it on the list for two reasons: first, that I read it in manuscript in 2004, and thus it doesn't occur to me as a 2006 book, and second, I didn't actually enjoy it all that much. I can see its virtues, and wouldn't be all that upset if it won, but I'm not going to nominate it.

As for the live action Hogfather it was produced for Sky (commercial satellite channel) rather than the BBC.
Also I can't believe anyone raved about it beyond the design and costumes as it was over reverent towards the original book and ended up being rather dull to watch and totally unfunny.

I haven't read much this year--the days of having read at least four of the five best novel nominees by the time the nominee list is actually published are over, alas--but I did just finish Sun of Suns, picked up on your recommendation, and was somewhat underwhelmed. The "gee whiz" factor never got to me, and characterization didn't really work either. Oh well. And Elantris, hoo-boy. I got about 150 pages into it, and at that point, realizing that I'd uttered the eight deadly words several times, finally gave up.
Oh, and Ghost Brigades was decent entertainment, nothing earthshattering.

Maybe I'm just becoming a cranky old git, or something.

It's definitely not that strong a year. None of the novels on that list really compare to Spin, say, but those are the best books that I read from 2006.

I'm also giving a slight edge to books by people I know, because it increases the chances that they'll make the trip to Japan, increasing the number of people I can hang out with at the con...

I can't think of an absolutely great book from 2006, but I never remember when books come out anyway. Guess that's my own fault. But I do know that Rainbow's End was good, but easily the worst Vinge book I've read.

Scalzi's Ghost Brigades was good, enjoyable, worth reading - but not great. But I loved Android's Dream.

Anyone have opinions on Glasshouse? I haven't read it yet...

My Campbell pick would be David Louis Edelman, but then again, I haven't read anything from anyone else on the eligible list...

Ahem. May I point out a slight bias here? I've recommended Monette's The Virtu, Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora, and Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword. I don't care what people think, the Hugo is not awarded only for SF.

MKK

I can't think of an absolutely great book from 2006, but I never remember when books come out anyway. Guess that's my own fault. But I do know that Rainbow's End was good, but easily the worst Vinge book I've read.

Which Vinge books have you read?
It wasn't as good as A Deepness in the Sky, but it was way better than Tatja Grimm's World or The Witling. I'd probably put it between the Realtime books and A Fire Upon the Deep, though it's more polished than either of those.

Scalzi's Ghost Brigades was good, enjoyable, worth reading - but not great. But I loved Android's Dream.

I thought Ghost Brigades was the better of the two, but as I said when I booklogged it, I didn't read Android's Dream in the best of circumstances.

May I point out a slight bias here? I've recommended Monette's The Virtu, Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora, and Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword. I don't care what people think, the Hugo is not awarded only for SF.

I haven't read The Privilege of the Sword, and I didn't think the other two were as good as the books I did list. The Lies of Locke Lamora was very slick and good fun, but not really award-worthy in its own right (though it's probably good enough to get Lynch a Campbell nomination from me).

The Virtu annoyed me by being a mirror image of the first book-- having slogged through two-thirds of a book in which Character A was pathetically useless, whiny, and insane, we got two-thirds of a book in which Character B was pathetically useless and whiny. He wasn't insane, but the now-sane Character A was a prick, which balanced it out.

It's not an anti-fantasy bias, it just that I didn't think any of the fantasy books I read were as good as the science fiction books I listed.

Of Vinge, I've read Deepness in the Sky, Fire Upon the Deep, Marooned in Realtime, The Peace War and Rainbow's End. Of all those, Rainbow impressed me the least. It's easily the worst Vinge book I've read.

That's not to say it was a bad book, but I was disappointed.

I don't think either Ghost Brigades or Android's Dream is a Hugo winner, but I liked them.

And I don't care what people think, the Hugo is a "Science Fiction Achievement Award" given by the World Science Fiction Society - I can't imagine why there'd be bias against non-sci-fi books...

Perhaps you're confusing it with the Nebula awards, or the Gandalf award.

The WSFS Constitution says:

"3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year."

The categories section is similar.

http://www.wsfs.org/bm/const-2006.html#hugo

Mary Kay: No anti-fantasy bias here. Lynch's book was fun, but rough. It's the sort of thing I'd recommend only to people who like that sort of thing, and definitely not award-caliber. Kushner's book was very disappointing (though better than The Fall of the Kings), and similarly not award-caliber. I haven't read Monette's stuff.

The only fantasy of last year that strikes me as award-worthy is Pratchett's Wintersmith, and that doesn't have a prayer because it's merely an average installment in a long-running series. If it were Pratchett's only novel, I think people would be praising it like crazy, but as it is, yeah, no.

(To be fair to fantasy, I haven't read a lot of stuff that was published last year, due to my policy against reading unfinished serieses. But I doubt that many fantasy series are really going to be Hugo-ish.)

Instead of saying "Why is no one considering Fantasy novels for a Hugo?" say "Why is no one considering Fantasy novels for the Science Fiction Achievement Award?" - Yeah, I know what the rules say. But come on. Sci Fi readers and Sci Fi Society members just aren't going to put Fantasy at the top of their list 99 times out of 100. And I don't blame them.

I'd make Hugo recommendations, besides seconding the motion for Vinge's Rainbow.

But the last 2 Worldcons have been painful for me, since someone whom I thought was a friend managed to enrage the Chair of Programming Ops so much that she physically comitted assault and battery on me, and I was rejected (twice!) from a panel I'd been accepted onto. It was someone I used to sing with in Filk days decades ago, and who persuaded me to write a propsal for laser propulsion. The proposal was not funded, but he told me that Edward Teller liked my Math, and the proposal had the side effect of getting me a job offer, and them settling for my wife, who became a PI in the company, before she shifted into being a Physics professor.

I wish to make peace with the man who screwed me off the panel (entitled, as I recall, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a rocket scientist." It might have been an accident. Maybe. Except for how he won a grant with a proposal almost identical to one by someone I know who submitted a proposal two years earlier. The winner used a term invented by my friend, and couldn't (when confronted at a Seattle panel) explain where he got that term. The gentleman also (I heard by cellphone of the panel) personally attacked me by name, with an absurd accusation that I "claim to have invented everything."

Used to love doing panels at Worldcons, since about 1980, and being in the Hugo Loser's party as an invited guest (or member of the card-carrying Press).

But it only takes one bad apple to ruin even Glasgow, where I'd done several science panels a decade earlier.

Sorry for the mild-mannered rant, but I'm part of a family that's had at least 10 (ten) professional authors and/or editors, including my father, a noted Science Fiction editor:

http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/authorsP.html#SamPost

Cephyn, you are so right. I mean, okay, yeah, the rules TECHNICALLY allow fantasy, but it'd never happen. There's no way that Harry Potter, American Gods, Paladin of Souls, or Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell could ever REALLY win the Hugo.

Got to add that Harry Potter, American Gods, Paladin of Souls, and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell all deserved to win. American Gods was amazing, a highlight of urban Fantasy, putting immigrant Gods in superfically mundane contemporary American settings. And Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell -- probably the greatest First Novel in Fantasy or Science Fiction in decades.

And what do we even mean by "science fiction" anyway? In one sense, the first article to define the field was published over 150 years ago, before
the field was widely ackonwledged to exist:

New Species of Literature

"We learn that Mr. R. A. Locke, the ingenious author of the late
'Moon Story' or 'Astronomical Hoax,' is putting on the stocks the
frame of a new novel on a subject similar to that of his recent able
invention in astronomy.... His style is nearly as original as his
conception. It is ornamented and highly imaginative. He may be said
to be the inventor of an entirely new species of literature, which we
may call the 'scientific novel'.... We have had crowds of 'fashionable
novels'; but fictitious history, founded on the discoveries and
scientific hypotheses of the day has seldom been attempted until
Mr.Locke did so. In fact, Mr.Locke has opened a new vein, as
original, as curious, as beautiful, as any of the greatest geniuses
who ever wrote. He looks forward into futurity, and adapts his
characters to the light of science." [New York Herald, 5 September 1835]

http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/thisthat.html#sfdef

Since there aren't a lot of filksinging laser propulsion researchers, I assume (and anyone else can easily determine) that Jonathan vos Post is talking about me.

This isn't the appropriate forum to discuss fannish history; suffice it to say my recollection of events apparently differs substantially from Jonathan's. However, I do feel obliged to protest his implication that I may have copied or otherwise misused someone else's work in a proposal.

For the record, he's referring to the fact that a gentleman named Forrest Bishop and I independently developed concepts for using streams of very small "light sails" for space propulsion -- sails millimeters or centimeters across, instead of the meter or kilometer size of "standard" solar and laser sails. Not terribly surprisingly, we both described these itty-bitty sails as "Micro-scale light sails," although the two concepts were different in almost all other respects (his were metal sails, mine diamond; his were for solar-system propulsion, mine for interstellar). Also not too surprisingly, we both submitted study proposals to the same organization, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, since it's about the only place you *can* submit proposals to study exotic space propulsion ideas these days.

Mr. Bishop's proposal predated mine by a couple of years, and he apparently convinced himself that the coincidence of proposal titles meant that I must have seen his proposal, perhaps as a NIAC reviewer. In fact, I had never had anything to do with NIAC, and had seen neither his proposal nor any of his publications, when I submitted mine. Indeed, the only way I knew about Mr. Bishop (before encountering him on the panel Jonathan mentions) was that some time after I finished my NIAC study, I was "vanity googling" and ran across a post by him that mentioned my work.

Jonathan, I do apologize for taking your name in vain in a public forum on that panel; it was an offhand (and obviously hyperbolic) comment, but inappropriate nonetheless. I trust you will similarly apologize for your comments above.

I suspect cephyn is a troll, so I leave it as an exercise for the reader to look up what exactly membership in the WSFS means.

Jonathan Vos Post, a tale of your victimhood tends to be the bit of snow coming down the mountain that forecasts an avalanche. Do try and restrain yourself for the sake of the conversational space around you.

Kate Nepveu: Thank you for a constructive suggestion. Jordin Kare made an apology in comment #20 above. Though less than I'd like, it is a step in the right direction. I am not intermediating in the more serious disgreement between Jordin Kare and Forrest Bishop, over money and intellectual property right, both gentlemen of whom I've known for many years.

Since I am a scientist (with a career of scientific publications and reputation to defend), and since I am an author, editor, and publisher (in science fiction and other genres, with a career of publications and reputation to defend), and since I am not just a science fiction convention panelist for roughly 30 years, but also a Con Runner (i.e. currently on an Executive Committee and responsible for all Plenary Speakers for a conference where I've bought, introduced, and hosted Dr. David Brin, Dr. Geoffrey Landis, Dr. Stanley Schmidt, Dr. Mary Turzillo, Dr. Marvin Minsky, John Forbes Nash, Jr., and others), the intersection of Science and Science Fiction is an area where I must work assiduously to have cordial relationships with all people, in the interests of the con committee chairs, my colleagues among science and science fiction communities, and the attending public.

I am sensitive to issues of intellectual property, as a consultant in the field who has earned over $100,000.00 from major patent law firms; and as a 7-time elected officer and delegate of the National Wrioters Union (with special Copyright training), as well as active in Science Fiction Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and other organizations of authors. For that matter, I was a literary and multimedia agent for some years, though I am not now.

It was Dr. Milton Rothman, who created the structure of the modern Worldcon (hotel, badges, multitrack programming) on the model of APS annual conferences, who introduced me to this issue, circa 1962, at his laboratory in Princeton.

I also have my father's reputation to uphold, as a pioneering editor of Science Fiction since roughly 1949, and the reputation of my wife, who is also a scxientist (and Physics professor) who publishes science fiction.

I have achieved roughly 2,400 publications, presentations, and braodcasts to my credit. With that number, it was a statistical likelihood that some would have problems contractually or by reputation or other disputes. Perhaps 1% have been problematic. The honor of coauthoring or coediting with Asimov, Bradbury, Feynman, Clarke, and the like is more than worth the rare friction in a few contentious events.

Again, Kate, I accept your suggestion in the constructive manner in which you offered it. This is not the venue for me to negotiate further with Jordin Kare, who did take a big step here, to correct the record with worldcon chairs past (Glasgow, L.A.) and future, where there has indeed been a problem where mere difference in recall is not conclusive.

Nor is this a venue for me to establish that I did indeed invent, for instance, "artificial metorite strike spectroscopy" as used in the Deep Impact mission, and published first, which Dr. Kare has disputed.

Nor am I a victim. I am a rather successful scientist and author, who wants all scientists and authors to benefit from the sophisticated protocols of science conferences, science fiction conventions, publication, and peer review.

Peace!

Again, Kate, I accept your suggestion in the constructive manner in which you offered it. This is not the venue for me to negotiate further with Jordin Kare, who did take a big step here, to correct the record with worldcon chairs past (Glasgow, L.A.) and future, where there has indeed been a problem where mere difference in recall is not conclusive.

Nor is this the venue for lengthy recitations of your curriculum vitae, your many publications, and brilliant ideas for which you have not received enough credit.

I haven't said anything up until now, because I'm a tolerant guy, and I have things to do other than moderating my comments section. Consider this an official warning, though: you are coming very close to the line between participating in the conversation and dominating it with your own axe-grinding. Please make an effort to channel your enthusiasm, and restrict your comments to the actual topics under discussion, without wild excursions regarding famous people you know, and not-famous people who have done you wrong.

If you want to talk about that sort of thing, do it on your own blog. If you persist in doing it here, you'll be facing lossy compression.

Chad Orzel:

You're completely correct. I shall comply with your reasonable request. I thank you for being a very "tolerant guy."

I am enthusiastic, by nature, but none of us like "axe-grinding" or namedropping. I apologize to anyone whom I've offended. Please feel free to let me know here an/or by email if I ever get close to the line again. I like this blog very much. I respect all positive contributors. I now return to a balance between lurking and responding, less often, and on-topic.