markbernstein (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} markbernstein) wrote,@ 2009-06-28 23:25:00 |
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Hugo Sundays: Novels
This is the seventh and final entry in my review of my votes on this year's Hugos.
Mostly, it was a good year for novels, but the rankings were pretty easy to determine:
6. Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi. For me, this failed on the most fundamental level. As you might guess from the title, everything depends on Zoe. Unfortunately, I never believed in her, and as a result, never cared about her. She's just too perfect. And her Big Scene at the end, in which she Learns Her Big Lesson, and gives a Big Dramatic Speech that Saves The Day, well, it felt just as manufactured and artificial as my sarcastic use of capitals here implies.
5. No Award.
4. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. An engaging, involving, entertaining fantasy, written with all the skill I've come to expect from Gaiman. It's just up against some great competition.
3. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Doctorow got the strongest emotional reaction out of me, no question. But he did it by pressing my political buttons. It's a good book, and I might even say an important one. The one problem is that while the protagonist and his friends are believable and sympathetic, the villains are a little too cardboard.
2. Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. I want to see a set of annotations for this book. I spotted references to Heinlein and Bester, and I suspect there are other references to Golder Age authors that I missed. That aside, the characters, the plot twists, and especially the world building all impressed me. It's not my favorite Stross - that's still Accelerando - but it's up there.
1. Anathem by Neal Stephenson. No, I didn't always completely follow what was going on. And I admit, the first fifty pages or so, before I became accustomed to Stephenson's made-up vocabulary, were something of a slog. But this is by far the most ambitious of the nominees, and for the great majority of the time, it delivers. I became completely immersed in the world of Arbre, and the tribulations, relationships, dialogs, and Dialogs of Fraa Erasmus and his friends. Clearly the best of the year, IMO.
And that's a wrap. I have until Friday to submit my ballot, and I'll probably take care of it in the morning.
This is the seventh and final entry in my review of my votes on this year's Hugos.
Mostly, it was a good year for novels, but the rankings were pretty easy to determine:
6. Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi. For me, this failed on the most fundamental level. As you might guess from the title, everything depends on Zoe. Unfortunately, I never believed in her, and as a result, never cared about her. She's just too perfect. And her Big Scene at the end, in which she Learns Her Big Lesson, and gives a Big Dramatic Speech that Saves The Day, well, it felt just as manufactured and artificial as my sarcastic use of capitals here implies.
5. No Award.
4. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. An engaging, involving, entertaining fantasy, written with all the skill I've come to expect from Gaiman. It's just up against some great competition.
3. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Doctorow got the strongest emotional reaction out of me, no question. But he did it by pressing my political buttons. It's a good book, and I might even say an important one. The one problem is that while the protagonist and his friends are believable and sympathetic, the villains are a little too cardboard.
2. Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. I want to see a set of annotations for this book. I spotted references to Heinlein and Bester, and I suspect there are other references to Golder Age authors that I missed. That aside, the characters, the plot twists, and especially the world building all impressed me. It's not my favorite Stross - that's still Accelerando - but it's up there.
1. Anathem by Neal Stephenson. No, I didn't always completely follow what was going on. And I admit, the first fifty pages or so, before I became accustomed to Stephenson's made-up vocabulary, were something of a slog. But this is by far the most ambitious of the nominees, and for the great majority of the time, it delivers. I became completely immersed in the world of Arbre, and the tribulations, relationships, dialogs, and Dialogs of Fraa Erasmus and his friends. Clearly the best of the year, IMO.
And that's a wrap. I have until Friday to submit my ballot, and I'll probably take care of it in the morning.
