Partial excerpt from official posting HERE

Best Novel

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)

Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)

Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan/Feb. 2007)

The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)

Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit)

Fifth year running that Stross gets a nomination. Will this be the year he finally wins it? Maybe not, Brasyl, the Last Colony, and The Yiddish Policeman's Union all have strong shouts (the less said about the Sawyer, the better).

I have never understood why anyone would want to read the work of Robert J. Sawyer. And the fact that he made this year's shortlist--I mean, look at his fellow nominees--is surprising (to say the least). Well, I'll bet on Stross or McDonald--think Chabon is not SF enough for the Hugo crowd but maybe I'm wrong. Interesting roster of work, for certain...

People read what they want to read and I prefer not to second-guess them. While I have no great problems with Sawyer I can think of people I'd rather see on the ballot who I don't think have ever been made it to the championship round; Liz Williams, Martha Wells, Karen Traviss, Richard K. Morgan, and Justina Robson are just a few people who I think have been writing better novels. Sawyer's characters just never capture my imagination and I don't think that his ideas are THAT cool. Do any Sawyer enthusiasts care to speak up for their man?

Message edited by its author, Mar 22, 2008, 7:11am.

Thanks, avaland.

It's interesting that the Chabon is on both the Hugo and the Nebula lists. (And it's not even shelved in the SF section.)

Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan musta been too edgy. The uber-male thing was a comment about the feminization of the modern Western world which is not exactly a popular area to speculate in. I have a feeling this book might crop up in gender studies somewhere down the line.

I have never read a book by Robert J. Sawyer. I would like to hear more about why people like or dislike his writing. For me Rollback sounds like the most interesting story on the ballot.

In execution he's simply not a very good writer. He stretches a decent idea that would have made a terrific short story into a long, meandering novel. His characters are flat, two dimensional, stock, central casting.

Er...is that sufficient?

That's what I was looking for. Thanks for the input.

I have read several Rob Sawyer books and found them all fairly enjoyable. The prose is lighter and more accessible than some SF writers (about as digestible as Asimov) and, perhaps formulaic in that he works each novel around 'one big question.' For example, in Flashforward the story plays off fate and free will. Without telling all the details, humankind is flashforwarded twenty years and sees 2 minutes of their future. Various characters play out the ideas of fate (I can't change that future) and free will (I can change that future). Calculating God played out science vs. religion. While I liked Hominids and the idea of this parallel world where the Neanderthals survived and Homo Sapiens Sapiens didn't; I thought the second one was awful and never read the third. One reads Sawyer for a nice, light, quick read that has a interesting idea to chew on.

>8 his novels are not long, relatively speaking (maybe 350 pages). Some of his characters are flat...etc., and some aren't. Oh yeah, there isn't as much willy-waving in them:-)

Message edited by its author, Mar 23, 2008, 8:20pm.

The only work of Sawyer's that I have read so far is Calculating God. Besides a nice read with interesting ideas to chew on, I just thought it was fun that the first alien to see Star Trek would remark that being part human and part strawberry would make more sense than a crossbreed between species from different planets. I haven't happened to pick up any of his other books yet but I wouldn't rule it out in the future.

The World Science Fiction is in Montreal in 2009. I expect that there were a larger number of Canadians who nominated Rollback. Also Sawyer always gets a big vote from the Analog crowd. I only read Sawyer when he is nominated, so I guess I will have to buy this one.

Personally I found the novels to be very disappointing. I wonder if I will have to vote for None of the Above in first place. My prediction for the winner is the Scalzi, The Last Colony, which I found "enjoyable, but not memorable."

>6 I nominated the Richard K. Morgan, even though I am female. I enjoyed it, but then again I grew up with a paucity of female writers, so I am inured to macho action as long as the writing itself is strong.

Disappointing that In War Times didn't make the nomination list. Probably our fault, we didn't nominate this year:-)

I consider Halting State to be Charles Stross' best since Accelerando. It succeeds at SF's hardest job these days, convincing, near-future extrapolation that manages not to be scooped by the real world before its publication. It recalls, for me anyway, the sense I had reading the stories that went into Accelerando - a sort of turbulent, not quite controlled crash dive through strata of challenging ideas.

#14- Near-future won last year so maybe we're into a near-future era. Space Opera had a string of about ten years of being strongly represented in the Hugo awards but now it's been about ten years since that period. I think it's one SO as the winner in the last eleven years.

Brasyl, Halting State and Rollback all have a near-future tone.

> 13 When we see the breakdowns after the awards we will be able to tell how close In War Times came to being nominated. If it had been nominated, it would have been great, but I still think this is Scalzi's year.

>14 Halting State? Ah, not even close to being as good as Glasshouse. And Accelerando was a paste up of previously written short stories. I liked it, but it was wobbly.

>15 The Worldcon voters skew older and the voting site is Denver, so I say "American author".

>16

The work I'd be interested to see when looking at the breakdowns after the awards is Black Man. That's the most surprising omission to my eyes. You might be right about this being Scalzi's year. Indeed, I might revise my earlier stated opinion slightly and say that this year may see Scalzi and Stross slugging it out while the others trail in their wake.

The Hugo shortlist always seems to me to be a bit, well, unadventurous.

Sawyer is almost completely unknown here in the UK, and from what I have heard of his novels they seem very ordinary. But he's very active in the SFWA, isn't he?

Stross is ubiquitous. And has been for the last few years. The quality of his novels is pretty much irrelevant. (I've read Glasshouse and it wasn't award-winning material; and it's supposed to be one of his best.)

Scalzi has built up a huge fanbase through his blog, which is always an entertaining read. I've not tried his books, although I've read some very approving comments about them.

Looks like only Brasyl and The Yiddish Policemen's Union are on the shortlist from merit, then...

Sawyer is a master self-promoter, I would assume that's why he made the list of finalists. Dreadful writer, dreadful man.

Merit? Awards? Ian, it touches me that you believe there is the slightest connection. I had you pictured as one of those cynical bastards who KNOWS good writing and awards go together like shit and a slice of bread.

To me, if a book with merit makes a shortlist, almost always it's by accident.

See? Cynical...

I suppose that's why I think juried awards are generally more worthwhile than popularity contest ones. Mind you, the Clarke this year seems even more controversial than usual...

The Clarke seems to go against the grain, doesn't it? A bit more daring and literary?

I haven't read The Last Colony yet, but I have read Old Man's War and the Ghost Brigades, so I'm well prepared to accept that it is there on merit.

Indeed, the only one I would say isn't there on merit at all is the Sawyer. And while Sawyer may have won a Hugo before, it's worth noting (indeed, it's almost imperative to note) that he won it in a year where the Worldcon was held in Canada.

I started reading the Yiddish Policemen's Union today. It's very good, very Jewish (and I mean that as an observation, not a criticism), and also very unlikely to appeal to the Hugo voters, I feel.

>20

You must have missed the Clarke Award shortlist last year. That was several orders of magnitude more controversial than this year. Indeed, with the exception of the Red Men and the Raw Shark Texts, this year's shortlist controversy is positively benign. I mean, it could've been worse - one of McCaffery's bloody Arcona books was on the longlist.

>19 In balance to the declaration made here, I will say that Rob Sawyer is NOT a dreadful man. I do agree, though, he is a master self-promoter and authors could learn a few things from him. It's a useful skill when one is trying to create a fan base. I know we had him at the bookstore four or five times and the readers loved him. They found him interesting, charming and responsive to them.

...to other writers and colleagues, however, he does have a certain reputation for dismissiveness and pomposity. Inflated view of the importance of his standard and rather poorly rendered SF. Prickliness in terms of his sensitivity re: the literary value of his work. He knows how to work a roomful of fans but he is less confident--and pleasant--with other writers, whom he sees as competitors who look down on him (and he's right a lot of the time). Nope, not one of my favorite people (or writers)...

Imagine that! Not being nice to people who look down on you. Where does he get the nerve?

Wow, he sounds a lot like other people we know:-)

And what's with Scalzi listed as being a 'fan' writer? That's hugely unfair.

"Fan writer"? Can you explain the designation?

WorldCon - being, after all, an organization of fans - also awards a Hugo or three for fannish activities.
(Edited to look them up and add what they are: Best Fanzine, Best Fan Art, Best Fan Writer. There's also the category of "Best Semiprozine" (which could go to fans), and, a couple of times, there's been a Hugo given for "Best Website", which could easily go to fans.)

There's a big fight going on over this.

The argument is that Scalzi's blog qualifies as "fan" writing; and nowhere in the rules does the definition of "fan" explicitly exclude somebody with professional sales. Because, after all, there are a million examples of people - starting with the Futurians, if not earlier - moving from the ranks of fandom into the heart of the professional SF world.
Does somebody stop being a fan because they make some sales?

The other side of the argument, of course is self-evident - how can somebody be up for both fan AND pro Hugos?

Message edited by its author, Mar 30, 2008, 8:56pm.

Well it would be nice if someone actually different then Langford actually won it.

Well, there you go - Langford has made a professional sale or two himself.

And nobody much complains that HE wins "fan" hugos year after year.

Langford is a professional writer. He makes his living from writing.

That's rather the point - Langford's a professional writer who has won the "Best Fan Writer" Hugo 21 times now. (He's been nominated 29? 30? times now?)

Without much in the way of controversy.

Scalzi is a professional writer who's been nominated for this year's "Best Fan Writer" Hugo.

I'm given to understand that the 'controversy' is that Scalzi is considered to not have been sufficiently fannish before he broke into the field professionally.

#29

Langford won a short story Hugo and fan writer Hugo in the same year.

Sorry. I was just amplifying your point, AsYouKnow_Bob - that Langford has not merely made one or two professional sales, but has been a professional writer for several decades.

Concerning Rob Sawyer: his work is certainly accessible, and doesn't challenge us in many of the varied ways SF can. I think that's fine - there's room for all sorts of writing. In an era where SF fandom, at conventions at least, is aging, accessible entry points to the field sound like a good idea.

As to pomposity - many of the pros have very high impressions of themselves. Maybe that's necessary in a profession where one is judged at every turn and there're more great writers than the market can really support. I find Rob's style much more forgivable than that of certain others.

Mr. Sawyer makes a living at writing and nowadays that's something. I'll give him that. Folks read him, folks enjoy him and that's fine. As long as people have a book in their hands, I'm not going to kick (too much). Whatever I think of Sawyer as a person or a writer (and that's not much), I'll give credit where credit is due...

Message edited by its author, Mar 31, 2008, 8:58am.

As I understand it, the distinction has never been that pros can't be fans. Indeed, lots of professional writers have been nominated for or even won the Best Fan Writer Hugo in the past. Bob Shaw, for one, I think, and there was one (whose name escapes me. Poul Anderson, perhaps) who won Best Fan Writer and Best Novel in the same year.

The distinction, and the fuss about Scalzi seems, to be down to the fact that olde tymme fans see a distinction between publishing fanzines and participating in cons, and writing on a blog. The latter, they feel, is not suitably 'fannish' in the spirit of things.

As to what other people think - well, Scalzi only lost by *one vote* last year. I think that speaks for itself.

Bob et al... I hadn't really thought about Langford, but really then I can't protest. Perhaps a Scalzi win might encourage some change (things do change sometimes). I think splitting the editor category was a good thing.

The novella category:
"The Fountain of Age" by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s July 2007)
"Recovering Apollo 8" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov’s Feb. 2007)
"Stars Seen Through Stone" by Lucius Shepard (F&SF July 2007)
"All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis (Asimov’s Dec. 2007, Subterranean Press)
"Memorare" by Gene Wolfe (F&SF April 2007)

I confess I've only read the Shepard so far. It was good, but he's done much better I think. Your thoughts?

>18 Robert Sawyer "But he's very active in the SFWA, isn't he?"

Oh, brother! He was President of SFWA and he ran on a "my way or the highway" reform platform then was miffed when others criticized him for actually acting in accordance to his platform. He not only didn't last a full term but later became the most noted Do Not Put Me On Panels With This Person for several worldcons. Yes, he is very gracious to his fans and is still hated by many writers. But that is the nature of SFWA politics. I think Howard Hendrix (ex-SFWA VP) is now Most Disliked, but there are always several contenders.

As for the Scalzi Fan Writer controversy, since Worldcons skew older and many older fan are STRICTLY fanzine fans (see All Our Yesterdays for more minutiae about TruFan wars) anyone who has not LOC'd or pubbed an ish can never be a FAN. And boy do they HATE the internet. And bloggers. If it's not mimeo, it's not a FANZINE.

Dukedom, I'm not really a Wolfe fan, much, so you could probably add half a star on to most of his stuff if you are. :)

Shepard's story is excellent, I thought, and the best of that lot.

I actually thought the Kress was her weakest for the year, but she talks on her blog about different people picking different stories for year's best, so funny.

Willis' is an amusing communication with aliens story that is pretty good, and I liked the Rusch effort too.

I see that often - 'not Shepard's best', which always seems to imply to me, well, he is generally better than everyone else on average? (which is true).

I'll disagree here, though, I think this is one of his best stories.

I always find Kress' and Willis's short fiction a bit meh. And I hate Wolfe's short stories (but I like his novels and consider The Book of the New Sun a classic work). I've not read the Shepard yet, although I do rate his fiction very highly.

bluetyson,

Well, it is nice to see a Shepard story that ends in something other than death or eternal torment for the protagonist. It's a fine story. Maybe death-and-torment is what I look for from Shepard, and I should allow him more latitude.

I have finished all the Hugo nominated novels. My ballot?

Brasyl
No Award

That's it. On to the short stories.

Here's a link to a page that has links to most of the short fiction online:

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006433....

Um, you'd think Kristin Kathryn Rusch's 'Recovering Apollo 8' would appeal to me, but I thought it quite poor.

Okay so, I remember there being a ton of hype around Brasyl when it first published. Where did all the hype-rs go?

Maybe it was just authors, in which case my *prediction* goes for McDonald.

Brasyl won the BSFA Award, which shows it must be good.

iansales: is that sarcasm? Theres quality in the BFSA but the way you phrased it makes it ambiguous.

Also, I'd like to say I want Halting State to win even though I've never read it. I love Stross and he got shafted on Accelerando.

I like Brasyl a great deal. A lot of people I have talked to over the past year really like it as well. Whether it fits with the tastes of the Hugo voters as a whole this year I don't know - I hope so but I am pretty poor at picking the winner.

#50 - no, not sarcasm. I like Ian's novels (and he's a nice bloke too), although I've not read Brasyl.

I thought Brasyl quite fine, although not the equal to the previous River of Gods. I thought Halting State the better of the two - though they're quite different. Ian McDonald does better characters, I think.

Ian: Not surprised you thought little of the Rusch offering.

Hack, hack...

Sorry, I must have had something caught in my throat.

>47 - thanks for that link.

Just read the Rusch. Never read her before. It is appalling. She is a terrible writer. English must be her fourth language. Can't believe it was nominated. What were people thinking? Thinking is good. Sometimes bad. The moon is very white.*

*written in the style of Rusch

She edited F&SF for many years, and was good at it. She's also had loads of books published. I read one or two many years ago. They were... competent. But that story is a) poorly-written, b) dull, c) inaccurate, and d) entirely pointless*.

(* I'm allowed to say this: she rejected a few of my stories when she edited F&SF...)

Some writers baffle me, how they manage to parlay a minimum amount of talent into long and lucrative careers. Name recognition helps, and I'm sure Ms. Rusch's editorship at F & SF allowed her to network like hell. This woman has denuded entire hillsides with her crap. Her books should be stickered by the Environmental Protection Agency as toxic waste...

Having just read the Willis novella as well I now remember why I started reading outside the sf ghetto - that's a 5 page gag (which isn't particularly funny) stretched out interminably and yet it still gets nominated as one of the year's best.

Can someone explain Willis to me in general? IMO, at best, she's a functional writer whose work has no real substance; less an adult writer than a YA one.

I think the YA allusion re: Willis is a perceptive one and maybe she should start directing her career that way.

She's never really grabbed me and when folks I usually respect tell me she's pretty darn good, we just have to agree to disagree.

But, y'know, I detest awards (ANY awards, genre or otherwise), I think it's a ridiculous notion, sifting through thousands of works to emerge with a final four or five. Are they truly representative of the best? How can they be? Did the judges or voters read EVERYTHING that was eligible that particular year (especially with more work being published on the net)? I can't tell you who won last year's Nebula or the 2007 Governor General Award-winner (Canada) or who's just won a Booker. Haven't got a clue and couldn't care less.

F&SF was pretty good under Rusch. But good editors rarely make good writers. Just look at Dozois.

I read Willis' Doomsday Book when it was published. That wasn't bad. And I've read a collection of short stories by her, Fire Watch. That's currently available for sale on eBay... Her cutesy Christmas stories just make me barf.

What about Kress? She always seems to me to write the same bloody story. But she's an Asimov's writers - and they've all had nice careers, thank you very much, whether they deserved them or not...

Nancy Kress, another good example: a workmanlike author, a few neat ideas...but beyond that...?

I don't know if this is worthy of a separate thread or not. I'm a newcomer here so I don't know what obtains in this regard (isn't that a lovely, nearly meaningless phrase?). But, here goes...

I haven't much sci-fi or fantasy in probably 30 years. What would you consider the top ten works of adult sci-fi (no YA, or pure fantasy such as Donaldson or Harrison or others, mostly science based sci-fi.) for someone to get back into it with?

Flash Forward was a lot of fun. It may turn out to be prescient, depending on what happens when CERN turns on the collider.....

#62: A top ten list is beyond my powers. But to get into modern hard SF, I'd start with Diaspora, A fire upon the deep, Excession, and Manifold: Space. Then more books by the same authors if you like those :)

30 years, you say? Then also Eon if you missed it. It has aged well.

Altered Carbon, Foreigner, and Glory season have a bit less of the science and a bit more of the social consequences.

Wow, that's eight! Almost there. Let's see. I recommend Dread empire's fall simply because it features properly thought out space combat. And The reality dysfunction because it has a realistically nasty interstellar society, none of this United Federation of Planets crap. That last one does have some unexplained magical elements though.

Message edited by its author, Apr 15, 2008, 2:18pm.

Gene:

There's a couple of threads already existing here that might offer you a pretty good range of selections re: adult SF worth reading. Look for "Recommendations for return readers", "Outstanding over-looked books", "2007 best reads in the genre" and "Under-rated SF authors". Good suggestions, good debate.

Is that helpful, muchachos?

>53 My husband just finished reading Halting State and we both agree that is a confusing mess. The virtual reality is poorly done. The spy LARP is laughable. And the Scottish accents make parts of it unreadable. As much as I like Charlie and as much as I feel he deserved a Hugo for Glasshouse (NOT Accelerando which was a stew of various short stories that had previously won plenty of awards), I vote on what piece is actually nominated and not how I feel about the writers and their oeuvre personally. That said, I agree that River of Gods was much better than Brasyl, but I voted River of Gods first and was overruled by the rest of the Hugo voters.

Rollover is unreadable, The Yiddish Policeman's Union is not science fiction or fantasy, though reasonably well written, and The Last Colony is not as good as Old Man's War or even The Android's Dream. Without In War Times or Richard K. Morgan's Black Man, the selection this year is reprehensible.

I was certainly hoping that In War Times would get a nomination.

#62 asked, "I haven't much sci-fi or fantasy in probably 30 years. What would you consider the top ten works of adult sci-fi (no YA, or pure fantasy such as Donaldson or Harrison or others, mostly science based sci-fi.) for someone to get back into it with?"

Let's see, 30 years ago takes us back to 1978. There are always movements and sub-genres coming and going in SF. Here's some of the main ones since 1978. Others might think of more. The dates below can be argued about but these are approximate.

Cyberpunk- 1983 to 1998 There still influences of it around but it's basically run its course. Probably the two most cited books are Snow Crash and Neuromancer. Sticking to strict science not always stuck to in this sub-genre.

Revival of Space Opera- 1984 - 2000. Still going on but not as fevered at the moment. Some called it Hard Radical Space Opera. Hard for the science, radical for the politics. Wide range of work here. Some authors: Peter F. Hamilton, Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Macleod and many others.

Singularity Movement- 1994 to present. This deals with a technological singularity. Basically, humans get overwhelmed and left behind. Some of the big names here are: Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross, Rudy Rucker and others.

The New Weird- 1999 to present. Hard one to define. It takes elements from SF, fantasy, horror, politics and even economics and combines it with literary risk taking. Big names: China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer, and even M. John Harrison.

Now to your mostly science based authors writing SF since 1978. Like anything else, arguments can be made for how science-literate authors are but here's my three choices: Stephen Baxter, Greg Egan, and Peter Watts. Of course there are others still working the hard SF sub-genre.

#66 I'd heard Halting State was a mess - second person narration, Scottish accents, too much reliance on UK idiom... and as for the technical aspects, I've always said Stross is a counterfeit geek... The only book of his I've read is Glasshouse, and I thought he had a neat idea there and threw it away in a sub-par adventure plot.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union is alternate history, which makes it sf according to majority of sf readers. If it isn't sf, then neither is The Man in the High Castle, Aztec Century or Weapons of Choice, among countless others.

The real difference between the Chabon and The Man in the High Castle or Weapons of Choice is FOCUS. The focus in The Yiddish Policeman's Union is the noir, the murder, and the personal relationships. As far as I could see there was no particular reason to set it in Alaska. Why not Poland? And though the loss of Israel to Arabs fuels part of the plot, it seems more an adjunct than a basis. Other alternative histories focus much more on the change between their history and ours. How people in that reality react to the change and how they are fundamentally the same as we are.

I particularly like the sociological differences between the future and past culture in Weapons of Choice. If you identify with the people from the future, are you condoning a more warlike, less polite future? Does technology always lead to a less "personal" and "humane" future?

Then there are plenty of Hugo voters who don't think that alternative history has any place in science fiction, like my husband. He is going to HATE the Chabon.

The plot of The Yiddish Policemen's Union could only have happened in the world of the novel. Yes, Alaska could just have easily been Uganda or Madagascar (both places offered to the Zionists in lieu of Palestine), but the story itself required Israel's UDI to have failed.

I fail to understand how you can write an alternate history in which "people in that reality react to the change" because how would they know that it was different?

"Focus" seems a peculiar form of taxonomy. Does that mean that Catherine Asaro writes romances and not sf? Does Ursula Le Guin write anthropological stories and not sf?

Message edited by its author, Apr 16, 2008, 4:41am.

I quite liked Halting State.

After a short while the multiple second-person narrative bedded in and I didn't notice it. I don't mind books with a regional identity or difficult accent (I had no problem with Feersum Endjinn either but I know a lot of people did). As I am in the UK and a Briton I don't mind reliance on UK idiom although I can see it might hurt US reaction to the book. I guess I have more of a background which appreciates some of the in-jokes in the book.

Having said all that I don't think it is deserving of a Hugo. It is too light a book.

I voted for River Of Gods as my number one choice in Glasgow and although I didn't vote last year I did pick out Glasshouse as my choice. This year it has to be Brasyl.

I agree that the Chabon probably isn't going to make it. I think it is too divisive.

In Halting State, Stross is attempting the most difficult sort of current SF story - near future extrapolation. He'll fail, as must anyone. The world changes quickly and unpredictably. But there are stretches of the book where I felt I was keeping barely ahead of a rush of new ideas. There's a segment where two characters walk through the city, and one talks about how the buildings may look unchanged but the infrastructure is new, just within recent years. For me, age 56, that's modern life generally, and I'm thrilled to see it reflected in fiction. Much more interesting than yet another novel about some quantum effect that might as well be magic.

I'm no fan of complex, thriller/mystery plots, and I can see how that might make the book look a bit of a mess. I'm not a gamer, and can't comment on how well he does that part. But consider looking past those flaws to see what Stross has here. At his best, he's the equal of anyone writing pure SF. He's usually not at his best, but this time, in part, he is.

Cool. Probably read that one in the next few days I think. (I am not a gamer, either, apart from extremely occasionally).

One review I read recently referred to MOBY DICK as "a beautiful mess".

I think that sums up Stross's stuff. I like his imagination but a little discipline with editing might help. It would take an editor of great skill, who was familiar with Stross's strange vision and could help him bring more clarity to his prose.

I feel similarly toward Richard K. Morgan--overlong, meandering, too many asides and digressions...

I'm working my way through the Hugo shortlists - not that I'll be able to vote as I'm not going to the worldcon.

'A Small Room in Kodoldtown', Michael Swanwick - not bad, although I think the hard-boiled detective cross-genre has been done to death.

'Distant Replay', Mike Resnick - I've never understood why Resnick appears so often on shortlists, and this story still doesn't explain it. It's so slight I'm surprised it made any kind of blip on anyone's radar.

'Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?', Ken MacLeod - the only short story I'd read before it was nominated (in The New Space Opera). Reads a bit like two stories welded together. It wasn't the strongest in the anthology.

'Tideline', Elizabeth Bear - change the war-robot to a grizzled veteran and you've got soemthing that isn't even sf. This is story by formula. Plug in the tropes, and off you go.

'Last Contact', Stephen Baxter- this is more like it. A sort of updating of Clarke's 'Nine Billion Names of God'. Definitely an interesting spin on the end of the world. The Mundanistas probably love it.

>71 ""Focus" seems a peculiar form of taxonomy. Does that mean that Catherine Asaro writes romances and not sf? Does Ursula K. Le Guin write anthropological stories and not sf?"

Well actually, I probably do. I'd certainly say that most of my hard boiled SF friends would not be able to finish one of Catherine Asaro's novels. The romance factor is simply too high. Though I could probably give one to my fantasy friends and they would never even notice the hard SF basis, even in the novel where she explains exactly all the quantum effects that she used to describe the character interactions.

As far as the LeGuin, that is a more difficult issue. I do a panel called "Page 119" where a group of us read selections from novels around page 119 and let the audience decide what the book is about, how good a writer the author is, and whether they would like to read it. Every time I read a LeGuin, people LOVE the writing. And then they admit that most of them have never read any LeGuin beyond The Left Hand of Darkness. I am not denying that LeGuin writes science fiction, but I find it anthopologically interesting how many people who say they have read a lot of science fiction have read very little Le Guin. Is this because her more recent books have been more fantasy than hard SF? Or just because her books are thought to be dense or hard to read? (They are not.)

I happen to like alternative history, from Turtledove and Birmingham to Priest and Stirling, but I do think you will get an argument from some who consider themselves science fiction lovers, who reject the tropes of the alternative history genre.

Yes, well, "I don't like it therefore it's not science fiction" is a pretty feeble argument.

I've tried one of Asaro's novels myself. They're certainly sf, although there is way too much romance in there for my taste (and I like Georgette Heyer).

I think Le Guin's fantasies are better known among non-genre readers than her sf works - especially the Earthsea books.

kd9@79,

How interesting about LeGuin. Every story of hers I've read is good, often stunningly good, and quite accessible, too. Maybe people think she's an Important Writer and therefore too stuffy? She's not a bit stuffy, but maybe that's the association people have?

>81 - She can be a dry writer, a little too didactic at times. On the positive side, she treats her readers as intelligent adults, which could be one the reasons why many fans don't read her - the majority of sf is still aimed at the YA market, and that seems to be what sells.

"...the majority of sf is still aimed at the YA market, and that seems to be what sells..."

Bang on again, jargoneer.

Publishers are trying to appeal to the eternal fourteen year old. Of course, 14-year olds don't have the strongest aesthetic sensibilities, do they?

Le Guin has written a story where anthropologists explore a place that turns out to be the simplistic fantasy of a 14-(or thereabouts)-year old. One suspects she understands the situation. Not that I don't have an inner 14-year old, but he doesn't pick that much of what I read.

>80 "Yes, well, "I don't like it therefore it's not science fiction" is a pretty feeble argument."

Well, as the thread on "What is science fiction" shows people do feel strongly about what is or is not SF or Fantasy or Mystery, etc. There were howls of protest when Harry Potter won a Hugo. Certainly there were mutterings when Neil Gainman's American Gods won the Hugo. Some SF fans ARE strictly Analog fans. If it isn't tech, if it isn't space, if it isn't rockets, it's NOT SF.

I'm not a slicer or dicer of categories myself. Since logging all my reading since April, 2007, I find that I read almost 1/3 nonfiction, some mysteries and an equal amount of what most people would consider SF and an equal amount of what most people would consider Fantasy. I also have a good background in traditional literature and modern literature. If it's good writing, I'll read it.

My inner 14-year old buys plastic model kits off eBay and hides them in the basement so my wife won't see them. Those old 50's style spaceships. Don't tell anyone, duke, will ya?

Won't tell, Cliff. I collect rockets, too, but more eclectic -- rugs, ceramics, pins, art.

Cliff,

You're safe there...

Thanks, folks, I knew you could be discreet re: my peculiar vices.

Message edited by its author, Apr 19, 2008, 6:00pm.

Working my way through the Hugo-nominated novellas...

'The Fountain of Age', Nancy Kress - it's about, er, hang on I've forgotten... oh yes, it's a forgettable story about an old man who loved the woman whose bizarre tumour made immortality possible; I gave up halfway through. Dull.

'Memorare', Gene Wolfe - I've never liked Wolfe's short fiction and for the very reaons plainly on display in this one: that horrible, dated folksy style. Couldn't finish this one either.

'All Seated on the Ground', Connie Willis - a Christmas story. Nuff said. Oh, all right - it's entertaining enough for a bit of light-hearted lightweight fluff. There's nothing to offend in it, and nothing much that's memorable either.

'Recovering Apollo 8', Kristine Kathryn Rusch - one o fthe few works of fiction, it seems, she's written under her own name. Man is driven by the loss of Apollo 8 during its flight round the Moon and invents, well, just about everything. An entirely pointless story.

'Stars Seen Through Stone', Lucius Shepard - clearly the best of the lot, although perhaps it's a bit long. An easy read with some memorable characters and some good stuff in it... And, on the last page, "villains" mispelt as "villians". You'd think F&SF were smarter than that...

I'll take your word for it on those ones, Ian. You're a good, critical reader...though how you made it all the way through MATTER...

That was a feat of endurance; you earned your medal with that one, kid.

I thought Brasyl well worth my time. I thought if more SF than the Chabon which I also liked a great deal (and purchased). Haven't read the Scalzi, though i just finished old man's war and was v. pleasantly surprised. Nor this years Stross, though i've certainly enjoyed others of his books.

20: All awards, even juried ones, are popularity contests. The only difference is the size of the pool of people making the choice.

When I saw the novella shortlist, the only ones I remembered reading were All Seated on the Ground and Recovering Apollo 8, and I only remembered All Seated on the Ground because it was a Christmas story. My memory of it was that it was that the Christmas element seemed forced. Recovering Apollo 8 was okay, but the writing was pedestrian. It was an interesting base idea (the failure of Apollo 8 causes the space program to flourish in prvate hands), but the execution was overly long, and the coincidences too random.

The Fountain of Age: Kress seems to always write about genetic modification, and this wasn't anything different. It was a good story, and probably the one nominated that I read that I liked the most, but I didn't think it was anything special.

Memorare: I missed the issue of F&SF that this one was in, so I haven't read it, and can't really offer an opinion on it.

Stars Seen Through Stone: I hated this story, and found it dull and overly long. There's only so many ways you can explain the personal offensiveness of Stanky and illustrate the loser life of Vernon and keep my attention. The resolution was silly too.

The only novel I have gotten to is Rollback when it was serialized in Analog. It was serviceable, but nothing that really made me sit up and take notice. The others are in my TBR pile.

Message edited by its author, Apr 12, 2009, 2:00pm.