2023 Hugo Awards(thehugoawards.org) |
2023 Hugo Awards(thehugoawards.org) |
That might be just tracking what gets written nowadays rather than the opinions of the people giving out the awards, though. And I did really like Babel (which won the Nebula this year although I guess was not a finalist for the Hugo) and N K Jemisin's work (three Hugos in the past decade).
With the death of physical stores, I no longer have a way of discovering new science fiction. I wish there was an award or recommendation engine that could find these gems among all of the trash.
Interestingly, I did find one book that was quite enjoyable, from a John Carmack tweet of all places, The Powers of the Earth.
Besides, it doesn't take a whole lot of nominations to get something onto the ballot. An energetic and motivated clique can capture the whole thing.
And surely it's apparent that they reward a certain type of work, and disregard others. For e.g., Analog Magazine -- which specializes in hard science fiction -- didn't pick up a single short story or novella nomination.
"The Mountain in the Sea" by Ray Nayler.
"Beyond the Burn Line" by Paul MacAuley.
"Eversion" by Alastair Reynolds.
"The Thousand Earths" by Stephen Baxter. (Who, surprisingly, has never won a Hugo. This fact alone reflects very poorly on the Hugos.)
"How High We Go in the Dark" by Sequoia Nagamatsu.
I feel that all of these books were better than any of the nominated ones.
I like Ken MacLeod's Lightspeed Trilogy (thus far) too, but only one of them was published in 2022 and the series is still incomplete...
I love the Hugo awards, I am almost never disappointed by their best novel nominees and winners. I went on a spree earlier this year and was amazed by some of the books I read, like The Goblin Emporer, A Memory of Empire and its sequel. Going to enjoy checking some of these books out.
In Potter's defense, the world really was out to get him.
Obviously you have to be open to the fantasy setting, and I'd describe it more as a bit of a reaction to the cosiness of Potter than a mere derivative.
I liked her previous two non-series books (Uprooted and Spinning Silver).
Be warned, however, that it covers Terry's deterioration with alzheimers' without pulling its punches much. There were a couple of points where I had to put the book down for a bit and take a break because it was too sad.
2023 voting details aren't available yet, but for 2022 it only took 26 nominations out of 1368 nominating ballots to make it onto the final ballot for that category.
I've listened to Travis Baldree narrate Cradle, so I'm probably gonna check out his Legends & Lattes book.
It didn't win, but I read The Scholomance which is listed in the series section. If you're interested in unconventional magic systems then I'd recommend it.
Nettle & Bone was the big winner. Reading the blurb doesn't immediately call out to me. Worth checking out?
I haven’t read this one, but I’ve read basically all her other stuff apart from the horror, which I’ve noped out from. I’m not sure if this one is more reimagined fairy tale or horror, which is how I made it past release week without reading it.
It's very different than the Monk & Robot series but makes me feel a very similar way to those books. Highly recommend. There's a sequel coming out in November called Bookshops & Bonedust. I think it's technically a prequel.
Travis Baldree did amazing with Cradle as well. Going to miss getting new books in that series.
Severance however was pretty good.
Children of time - amazing.
And I say "was" because it fell off a cliff after season 2.
As for "everything everywhere all at once". Quite meh. Turned it off halfway.
Workum seems closest to Worldcon, and Drogeham to Dragoncon.
Hugo winners usually come from magazines that make their stories available for free online.
All of them are, in a sense, the same type of story -- Person Goes on Journey Through Strange Territory -- but that's a solid foundation for a science fiction novel, and McAuley does it well, with more than enough variation to keep things interesting. Austral has near-future climate fiction and crime fiction elements; War of the Maps takes place on a Dyson Sphere around a white dwarf star in an aged and dying universe; Beyond the Burn Line is a middle-distance cautionary tale about AI and, in a sense, religion...
McAuley has a novella in this month's Asimov which is also quite similar, and also very good. "Blade and Bone" is about the sole survivors of an annihilated infantry battalion as they make their way across a hostile Mars -- which has been terraformed but is reverting to a cold and dry baseline.
This kind of engaging hard SF is, emphatically, not appreciated by the people who vote on Hugo awards. So much the worse for them, I think...