The 2016 Hugo Awards

The Hugo ceremony was presented last night at MidAmeriCon II. Results are at Locus, among many other places.

Again this year, the awards were dominated by the attempt of the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies completely to fill the short lists with their own nominees, and by fandom's push-back against that move. I haven't followed this issue as closely as I did last year's; apparently the Puppy slates included candidates who might well have been nominated anyway. Some of these candidates won, allowing at least some puppy supporters on Twitter to claim success, I saw. For example, Neil Gaiman's and J.H. Williams III's The Sandman: Overture won the Best Graphic Story category; the person accepting for Gaiman read Gaiman's statement repudiating his puppy nominators. No Award won in only two categories this time.

I watched the video live on ustream.com; segments are now on Youtube. Highlights, IMO:

Toastmasters Pat Cadigan and Jan Siegel did a great, funny job.

All the fan-award winners were especially visibly delighted to be up on that stage, to be recognized for the many thousands of hours they put into making fandom function.

Andy Weir (The Martian) won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Weir wasn't present, but had an actual astronaut, Stan Love, pick up his award. Later, The Martian won Best Dramatic Presentation – Long, and another astronaut, Jeanette Epps, picked up the trophy.

All four fiction award winners were women, three of them persons of color. The novelette winner, Hao Jingfang, is Chinese, and Ken Liu picked up a rocket statue for doing the translation. Liu also translated last year's novel winner, The Three Body Problem.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin won the novel prize. I'm pleased, partly because this is the only work I nominated that made the short list, but mostly because it's a terrific book.

Now, off to track down and read the winners.

I don't stay current. If any of this stuff stands up over time, I'll probably read it. What's the best stuff here? Jemisin?

I did read the Martian--great, but I prefer to reserve top honors in science fiction to stuff that pushes the boundaries, rather than just being a ripping story set in space.

I didn't read anything that really blew my socks off so I didn't make any nominations this year for the first time in a long time. I'm curious to see how the inaugural Dragon awards turn out in a couple of weeks.

The Jemisin is excellent. Be warned, it's first of a trilogy (second book, The Obelisk Gate, is out just this week), so you might be signing up for 1300 pages when it's done. The Fifth Season concludes (not a spoiler, really, but will use tag anyway) with the world apparently doomed to freeze and starve in darkness, but the story arcs do actually conclude. Trigger warning for the deaths of child characters.

Haven't read the other winners, but I think the short story and novelette are both online.

I recently reviewed short-list novella Slow Bullets, found it disappointing.

Mostly agree about The Martian, though the claim that it "gets the science right!" gets me thinking I might want to try it. There are so few that do that. I feel I should mention Mars Crossing by Geoffrey Landis from a few years ago, which told more or less the same sort of marooned-on-Mars story to much less notice; very worth reading.

>2 timspalding:

The Martian, as in the novel, didn't win anything. Andy Weir did for Best New Writer, and the film did.

Although I haven't read The Fifth Season yet I get the impression from reports that it is a more ambitious book than The Martian.

>3 tottman: My socks reached the stratosphere with Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson and Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente, so much so that I got stuck writing both reviews and haven't posted them yet. I nominated both, with no success.

>3 tottman:

I'm not at all interested in The Dragon Awards.

1) They still haven't listed the shortlist on their website - they prefer to use facebook and social media.
2) They didn't announce the shortlist at the scheduled time (they were some 10 days or so late).
3) The shortlists contain writers I've never even heard of - to me that indicates a vanishingly small probability they will be any good.

>4 dukedom_enough: The Martian claims to get the science right, but doesn't. The plot is kicked off by a hurricane on Mars which threatens to tip over the landing-craft. Martian surface level pressure is so low, a hurrican would feel like a gentle breeze... Ignore the book, watch the film.

>5 andyl: Andy Weir as best new writer... I've never understood the point of the Campbell.

I've heard the Jemisin is good, although initially I'd thought it was fantasy so not of interest to me. I've read Binti and thought it very ordinary.

>8 iansales: Binti is actually by Nnedi Okorafor, not N.K. Jemisin.

>6 dukedom_enough:

Good authors. I'll probably get to at least one of those two books eventually.

>8 iansales: In a Reddit thread from nearly a year ago, Weir claims to have made a conscious decision about the sand-storm. He said, "This was a deliberate concession to drama that I made because it's a man-vs-nature story and I wanted nature to get the first punch in." Once you get past the bad science distraction of the giant sand-storm, the rest of the science in the novel seems decently done, at least to a non-expert such as myself.

All in all, after watching Interstellar recently, I think everyone would have been much better off had Matt Damon simply been left on Mars.

>9 sturlington: I think he consciously discusses the two stories, in two separate sentences. First "the Jemisin" (not "Jemisin") and then Binti. He is not saying that Binti is by Jemisin.

>8 iansales: >9 sturlington: Yes, I know. But there's a full stop between the two mentions :-)

>11 ScoLgo: I'd heard that too, but also that it was after the fact. It's one thing to fudge the science in favour of drama - sf does it all the time, it might well be a wrking definition of sf, in fact - but to sell a book on its science when the first thing that happens in it scientifically impossible is, well...

I can't remember if it's in the book but there's a bit in the film when the returning spacecraft uses its forward-facing airlock as a braking thruster... It's on a free-return trajectory, changing its velocity will mean it can't get back to Earth.

>12 anglemark: Misread. I was trying to make a connection between the two sentences.

I also thought The Fifth Season was more fantasy. I read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and didn't care for it much.

Andy Weir best new SF writer! SF really must be in a bad place. If I was being facetious I'd describe The Martian as brave attempt to create an SF anti-novel along the lines of Alain Robbe-Grillet but really it's just very very bad.

I haven't read either of the longer works but both the shorter works were disappointing. Naomi Kritzer's Cat Pictures Please just reads like one of those quirky but pointless stories that F&SF used to publish regularly to bulk out an issue. Folding Beijing is so flat and prosaic at times it reads like a first draft. (To be fair to Hao Jingfang Ken Liu has to shoulder some (most?) of the blame, his translations too often read like literal translations).

It's sad but it now seems that the two major (US) SF awards are now more about agendas rather than good writing. Can't we get the Shirley Jackson Awards people to launch an SF award, I'd have a lot more faith in their choices.

Still on the topic of awards, Strange Horizons have published the first half of Abigail Nussbaum's take on the Clarke shortlist: http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2016/08/the_2016_arthur.shtml

>16 iansales: That's a good article. I try to read a fair number of the Clarke nominees for just the reasons she stipulates, that I usually find them more envelope pushing and thought provoking than books recognized by other awards. I haven't yet read any of the first three she reviews of this year's shortlist, and she's convinced me not to. I do agree that the two I have read were subpar. I wish major awards wouldn't consider YA. There should be some spaces where YA doesn't intrude.

I am rethinking The Fifth Season, though I hate committing to trilogies that aren't complete.

>13 iansales: The timing of Weir making that claim is suspect, isn't it? Still, regardless of mistakes he may have made in his research - and his feeling the need to cover his ass post-publishing - I found the book entertaining even if the science was not perfect.

Thanks for the Strange Horizons link. Interesting reading.
--

>17 sturlington: I read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet a couple of months ago and Nussbaum illustrates, in detail, the myriad of problems I had with that book. At the end of the day, I found it mediocre at best - especially in characterization and dialog - and I simply don't understand why so many people are on that particular bandwagon.

I read and rather enjoyed Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms but the rest of the trilogy spiraled downhill for me. Like you, I am hesitant to begin an unfinished trilogy. I'm sure Jemisin will finish at some point but I intend to wait for a complete work before starting. There are too many other books/series already in my queue.

>17 sturlington: I wish major awards wouldn't consider YA. There should be some spaces where YA doesn't intrude.

Amen to that.

>18 ScoLgo: I read and thumbed your review of Angry Planet. Also sounds like YA. If true, then the Clarke shortlist this year had at least three YA-ish books on it, because I felt The Book of Phoenix was pretty much YA as well.

>8 iansales: Ah. I only saw the movie, but had to allow for the possibility that the book did it better. Several other problems with the movie, too.

>13 iansales: And how much braking could the escaping air provide, anyway?

>8 iansales: >14 sturlington: The Fifth Season trilogy (The Broken Earth) may be SF. Haven't read the second book yet.

>15 Jargoneer: Having just read it, I thought "Cat Pictures Please" was adorbs. The Hugo winner doesn't always have to be serious. And I thought "Folding Beijing" was restrained, not flat.

>17 sturlington: >18 ScoLgo: I too wish people would write works complete in one book. I note that, though this may no longer apply to Jemisin, if one waits for all three volumes before buying the first, publishers may take that as a signal of no interest in the writer, and may not go ahead with second or third volumes. Crazy business, publishing.

My local bookstore is sold out of Binti, so I ordered a copy.

>21 dukedom_enough: I should clarify... If a work is not stand-alone, it does not prevent me from buying it with the intent of reading. It merely prevents me from jumping in and reading the book when subsequent material is not yet available. I made that (somewhat loosely abided by) personal policy after making the mistake of jumping into the first four Ice & Fire books from GRRM.

>22 ScoLgo: Apologies that I misunderstood.

>20 sturlington: Thanks for that. As much as I had problems with the plot, characters, dialog, etc... I did not get the impression that TLWtaSAP is a YA story. It might appeal to younger readers due to the simplistic nature of the writing but there are several elements of the story, (inter-species sexuality for one),that are definitely oriented more toward adult readers.

>23 dukedom_enough: No apology necessary! You make a great point and I did not clearly state my stance before.

>24 ScoLgo: Ah, I see.

TLWtaSAP was originally self-published, correct? In my experience, self-published books that "break through" are often hyped well beyond their merits, perhaps in an effort to legitimize self-publishing. For instance, while I thought The Martian was entertaining--a decent plane or poolside read--I didn't find it to be the end-all and be-all.

I am turned off by simplistic writing no matter what audience it's aimed at.

>17 sturlington: I have to correct myself. I only read one of the Clarke nominees for this year. I just haven't heard good things about many of the others, except perhaps the Dave Hutchinson: Europe at Midnight. Is that the second in a planned trilogy?

Speaking of trilogies, I still need to read Ancillary Mercy and I've already forgotten half the plot of the previous book. This is why I shouldn't attempt trilogies unless I've got all three books at hand. My memory is not nearly as agile as it used to be.

>21 dukedom_enough: I see that Binti already has a sequel out as well. Since these are short novellas, I expect they'll be packaged together at some point. Binti does conclude, though, so you can read it as a standalone. I don't say this often, but I really felt Binti should have been longer. Several aspects of it might have worked better for me if Okorafor had explored them more deeply. I enjoyed it more than The Book of Phoenix, though.

>27 sturlington:

I thought the sequel wasn't out for a few more months?

I really enjoyed the book and movie The Martian. Most of my education about Mars probably comes from reading SF so the storm anomaly "blew right past me". I would like to see some numbers on the density of the Mars atmosphere, maybe using an example of what velocities would be needed to put up a normal 2 ft. earth like kite?

>28 lorax: Oh, you're right, I saw it was available for Kindle and thought that meant it was out. The pre-order price on Kindle is $2.99.

>18 ScoLgo: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet read like Firefly fanfic to me.

>20 sturlington: I didn't think The Book of Phoenix was YA as much as I thought it read like it had been written by a teenager. How it ended up on the shortlist of a major sf award is mystifying.

>29 DugsBooks: Surface pressure at datum is 0.00628 atm, so divide everything by 160 to get a rough idea.

>31 iansales: Ah. So small kites (2/160 ft) would be ok? :-)

>32 bnielsen: More like one 160m across :-)

>34 supercell: So 4-6X higher than any wind speed yet recorded. I assume this is at max. Mars air pressure which can vary as much as 50%.

At the risk of too distracting a topic spin, NASA is way ahead of us on the kite thing! They have a website for "Forces on a Kite" {below}


and at that link is a link to "Interactive Kite Modeler Version 1.5a" where you can plug in values for different types of kites and it spits out the answers. My Java has to be adjusted to allow it to work. I have a mortgage to pay before I can mess with this but I thought it might interest you guys. The Mars data plugged in might be neat if it allows that change in atmos. pressure and gravity.

The page for the KiteModeler program says that it does permit kites-on-Mars calculations.

>31 iansales: >34 supercell: You are saying that the force on the kite scales linearly with air speed and density. Actually the speed scales as speed squared over a wide range of conditions, so the discrepancy isn't as great as one might think.

Let r be the density, p pressure, T temperature, M average molecular weight of atmospheric gases, and v wind speed; show subscripts by "_m" for Mars quantities, "_e" for Earth ones. From iansales we have the ratio of pressures p_m/p_e = 1/160. From supercell we see that the force on the Mars kite need be only 0.376 times that on the Earth kite, so we have the ratio:

(r_m*v_m^2)/(r_e*v_e^2) = 0.376

where the caret (^) means "to the power of." Temperatures are 70 F (294 K) for Earth and -55 C (218 K) for Mars (Wikipedia). Atmospheric densities are proportional to pressure and molecular weight, and inversely proportional to temperature (ideal gas law); Mars molecular weight is 44 (CO2), and Earth 29 (N2 and O2). Solving, we get

v_m = 8.22*v_e

for the ratio between wind speeds needed to fly the kite. Per supercell, use 3 meter/sec for optimal wind speed on Earth; then we need 24.7 meter/sec on Mars. That's 55 miles/hour, a bit less than what NASA says is the highest wind speed to be expected on Mars.

So you could maybe fly a kite in a major dust storm, but you wouldn't see people and habitats blown around - as already noted above.

I think my head just exploded :)

> I was saying nothing, just that the surface pressure on Mar was 160 times less than that on Earth :-)

If it was a dog show in the short story category the prize was awarded to the only dog that did not limp.

>39 davisfamily: A bit of a flashback to my old teaching-assistant days. :-)

>40 iansales: And I just wanted to note that I was using your number in the calculation.

So the Clarke goes to Children of Time. Leaping Lizards? No, jumping spiders.

I'm just a reader, and not at all an insider, and I assume that many of you know of Chuck Tingle. I hadn't ever heard of him, but after reading the article linked below on LitHub, I am definitely moved to buy one of his books.

http://lithub.com/how-a-self-published-writer-of-gay-erotica-beat-sci-fis-sad-pu...

Cool story on many levels!

>44 vwinsloe: No one knew of Tingle until the puppies picked one of his stories for the Hugo. He turned the joke on them, which won him a lot of respect. But I wouldn't bother reading any of his books unless you're into gay erotica.

>44 vwinsloe:, >45 iansales: I think the Tingle books work as over-the-top absurdist literature even for readers not particularly enthused by the gay aspect, but ymmv.

He got some measure of attention pre-Hugos by skewering some of the more ridiculous pop-culture trends last year:

March 2015: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/03/pounded-gay-color-changing-dress_n_6794...

November 2015: http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/oppressed-butt-inclusive-holiday-cups...

I see some mention of The Martian in this thread. I have read the book but not seen the film, and am not inclined to watch the film.

The book was a compelling read but I got fed up with each new disaster. Whenever the hero started planning some endeavour one knew there was going to be a disaster and that the hero would resolve it with his genius and the bits and bobs at his disposal. I found Weir used all the techniques to create suspense and keep the reader hooked but didn't add much serious meaning.

As disaster piled upon disaster I got bored because I knew the book could not end in any other way than with a rescue. That meant all the suspense was for nothing.

At the end of the day I felt I had read a book about MacGyver in space written by Dan Brown. It was an enjoyable enough, if somewhat tedious, book if you totally suspended your disbelief. As stated by another commentator above, if this is the output of the best new SF writer then SF is in a bad way.

>45 iansales: & >46 MyriadBooks: I said buy it, not read it. But somewhere I know that Kilgore Trout, or maybe Kurt Vonnegut, is smiling.

>47 pgmcc: Wow, I could not agree more! I was beginning to think that I was the only one in the world who thought The Martian was tedious. Actually, I never felt any suspense because I never identified with the protagonist. I was just a disinterested observer who felt that "... the breakneck pace of the problems, following one immediately after another, is like a never-ending roller coaster ride. While each twist and turn is believable and helps make the story hard to put down, their ceaselessness eventually numbs the reader." (From my review at https://www.librarything.com/review/113955584)

Am I the only one here who finds the term "person of color" offensive?

>50 SFF1928-1973:

Infelicitous, sure. Offensive? Not really.

>50 SFF1928-1973:

I can't say I've ever encountered anyone else who finds it offensive, other than based on mishearing it as "colored person". I assume you identify as non-white; what is your preferred term, when used as an umbrella term for various non-white people?

>50 SFF1928-1973: Since it appears to be what persons of colour would rather be called - and it's their call after all - then white people (myself included) have no say in the matter. Which is not to say some non-white people dislike the term - but I'm happy to use whatever term they prefer, rather than something they find offensive.

>50 SFF1928-1973: Mildly annoying as Americanisms are.

Clumsy, yes. Offensive, not in the least.

Its all rather silly. Most humans have varying degrees of pigmentation.

As a bearer of white privilege, suffering the imputation of colorlessness doesn't seem a lot to ask.

>56 Darth-Heather: This is my own thinking on the subject. It seems to be another term that encourages "black and white" thinking. I hope that one day these distinctions will seem less important.

>57 paradoxosalpha: Um, speaking of offensive terminology...

>58 SFF1928-1973:. No one wishes that these distinctions will seem less important than the oppressed victims of them.

>61 vwinsloe: We're all oppressed, which is something we can understand when the mortgage or rent is due.

>62 SFF1928-1973:. To look at it another way, we are all privileged in one way or another. Some of us are privileged in many more ways than others. Being able to have a home to rent or a mortgage to pay, is a privilege that not everyone has.

>47 pgmcc: Better movie than book. Anyway that's what I felt about The Martian

>63 vwinsloe: That would be true, if it's really a privilege to spend the better part of your life paying for something only to find out that, sorry, it actually belongs to the bank.

>65 SFF1928-1973:. It is true; for people who have somewhere to live. It is a privilege to have a home and to not have to deal with homelessness.

>65 SFF1928-1973: It is also a privilege to be able to open your front door, or walk down your street, without being arrested - and that's not something everyone in the US can boast.

>62 SFF1928-1973:

With all due respect, you are not American, you do not understand American race relations, for the love of all books please either stop talking about them or take it to Pro and Con.

Oops,rough tone creeping in here. I agree we could do with a moratorium on the depressing topic,but maybe a quiet private message from Lorax to SFF would have been kinder?
Anyhoo,I like it that this group tends to stick to SF/F rather than getting embroiled in the sad doings of the world around us.We can depress ourselves thoroughly with the angst and misery of future worlds problems,and then leave them behind with relief as we return to the real world with all its miseries and horrors. Catharsis is as ever a major function of reading.
So,getting back to the Hugos themselves,I of course am way out of the picture. I am working my way through the whole Hugo list,and have completed the 80s. I am now reading Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep,and will have Stations of the Tide and KSR Green Mars coming up after that,so I am far far behind all the Puppies controversies lol
WWEnd has a very nice page of the best novel winners/nominees for the last 10 years.

check out - https://www.worldswithoutend.com/books_hugo_index.asp?emulate=1693&Page=1&am...

From 2011 onwards we have had a rather odder assortment of books than even in the past,but got to confess that a lot of these steampunk,YA,light genre fiction stuff, are at least quick, easy,quite fun stuff to just read and forget.Believe me,after some of the 70s stuff I have had to read lately,a YA book about zombies is very light relief! :0) I am a major Harry Dresden fan for instance,but was very surprised to see Skin Game there on the list in 2015,and I have read all the Mira Grant YA stuff,again light and enjoyable but hardly stuff that will be classic reads in 10 years time!
So,help me out here.Here are the best novel candidates for 2016
Fifth Season(winner)
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher
Seveneaves by Neal Stephenson
Uprooted by Naomi Novak

What did you enjoy most? What shouldnt have been there? What should have been there? What would you recommend me to read (only read the Ancillary Mercy book,and wasnt exactly overwhelmed. I think the whole series,while enjoyable,was seriously overhyped)
Please lets get back to book discussions! :0)

>69 dustydigger:

What I wanted on the short list were Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, and Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente. Two very different books; each so good that I've been stuck for almost a year on writing a review.

(edited 10/19/2016to fix touchstone)

I did nominate Radiance.

>71 anglemark: Fabulous novel.

Marvellous. And as icing on the cake I got to conduct the GoH interview with her at this year's Finncon.

>70 dukedom_enough:, wrong touchstone there. It should be Radiance. But I'm glad you mentioned it because I am putting it on my wish list. I love Catherynne M. Valente's way with words but for some reason I didn't hear about that book.

It sounds very strange,and everyone seems to emphasise its difficulty,but it does sound interesting. I have read a few of Valente's junior stuff,the Fairyland serieswhich certainly showed a distinctive voice,but I havent got round to her adult fiction yet.So Radiance will go on the TBR pile along with Palimpsest and In the Night Garden,which also appear to be challenging reads.

Radiance was likewise unknown to me and now wishlisted.
Thanks for the mention, dukedom_enough!

Fifth Season(winner)
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher
Seveneaves by Neal Stephenson
Uprooted by Naomi Novak

What did you enjoy most? What shouldnt have been there? What should have been there? What would you recommend me to read (only read the Ancillary Mercy book,and wasnt exactly overwhelmed. I think the whole series,while enjoyable,was seriously overhyped)
Please lets get back to book discussions! :0)

Uprooted has a fairy-tale ambiance with some very original vibes, and is quite good for what it is.

Seveneves is one of those massive scope science fiction epics that suffers from including too much--I could have done without the whole part three, but it IS epic science fiction.

The Aeronaut's Windlass is steampunk lite but I found it completely enjoyable as a light adventure tale within an intriguing world. Presents as fantasy but the possibility is there that it will actually be science fiction on an alien world. Some who don't like Butcher's writing style complain of it here--I've never made it through the Dresden Files but will definitely follow up the sequel here.

I haven't read Ancillary Mercy yet, but I did really like the first book (the next two are on my nightstand and those who liked the first one seem to feel the final book was the strongest of the lot.

Fifth Season I thought was excellent: an original and fascinating world with interesting magic system, interweaving plot lines that all come together at the end. I have the second book up next in my queue, after I finish Four Roads Cross, the fifth of Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence. Also recommended, but only after you've read the earlier books.

>75 dustydigger: In the night garden and its sequel are on my list of the ten best books I've read. The Fairlyland books are OK, but don't really show off her real talents.

>78 anglemark:. Except that the wordplay in the Fairyland books are the best since Lewis Carroll, in my opinion anyway. I really liked Palimpsest. It was reminiscent of Dhalgren to me in some way.

>78 anglemark: >79 vwinsloe: I threw Palimpsest across the room - could not get on with it at all. And I count Dhalgren as a favourite novel.

>74 vwinsloe: Thanks for the touchstone; fixed.

>75 dustydigger: I don't think it's difficult once you see that (almost) everything is some sort of document, not necessarily reliable.

>76 igorken: you're welcome. I believe the paperback version just came out.

>80 iansales: That lush prose isn't for everyone. But Radiance is less so, and more varied in style.

>81 dukedom_enough: There's lush prose and there's lush prose. I love Lawrence Durrell's work but Palimpsest was no Alexandria Quartet.

>69 dustydigger: I'd resolved not to comment again until I calmed down a bit. Will try to stay on topic next time.

I particularly enjoyed your comment about catharsis :)

>83 SFF1928-1973: I too much prefer the older stuff.-,and have been reading a lot of 50s and 60s books the last couple of years,but one of my main focuses for 2017 will be 90s SF,of which I am woefully ignorant! I am working my way through the Hugos and Nebulas,and there are some massive tomes there which I am not really enthusiastic about....sigh..... However ,I do have some reads from earlier times,and intend to read from the 333 list which bookstopshere pointed out to me. Lots of good things there,with a short essay on the genres plus notes on the bibliography, :0)
check out - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3388998;view=1up;seq=84
I have already almost completed picking all my 2017 reads in the SF/F genres,chosen about 52 out of the 60 books for next year..:0).
By the way,I see you are an Abraham Merrick fan. I couldnt locate any of his books on Open Library,but then found a Megapack of many of his works on Amazon for the huge amount of 71p. Wow!

>84 dustydigger: I've only read two books of Merritt, but they were both great. I never plan my reading much in advance. I like surprises!

I'm a bigger fan of fantasy than science fiction, yet I still feel there's an inappropriateness when a fantasy novel takes a Hugo. Or is The Fifth Season more sci-fi than what I've understood so far? Ancillary Mercy was my expected winner. I haven't read either one, so what do I know, not much.

Definitely want to sample more by Valente.

Hugos are technically SF and fantasy (even if I wish they were just SF).

And The Fifth Season is fantasy -- unless if something changes in a later book to pull a Pern-like explanation, it is fantasy. :)

>86 Cecrow: >87 AnnieMod: The Fifth Season initially seems like fantasy but by the end of the novel it's looking like highly advanced tech. A clear example of the Clarke dictum IMHO.

>88 justifiedsinner: Maybe - I am not convinced yet (and I did read it :) ). It looks like tech but there is still enough space left to remain fantasy. The second one is waiting for me to get around to it - maybe it will make it clearer.