My Hugo Votes: Best Novel 2013
This was a tough category to get through. There were two plodders, one half-half, and two good stories.
(6) Blackout by Mira Grant - Third in the Newsflesh trilogy, the other two were nominated in previous years. Book #2, Deadline, made me want to go out and poke a zombie with a stick. This book made me want to find a whole mob of zombies and poke them with a stick.
Grant managed to finish the destruction of what was good about the first book and then added more illogical plot twists and really stupid villains. She added more and more words. I could not finish it.
(5) No Award (By the way, bellinghman uses this to mean he'd be embarrassed if the work below it won. That's how I've been applying it.)
(4) [Hugo winner.] Redshirts by John Scalzi - A Star Trek parody should be right up my alley but it went on for far too long. It's a pity so much time was spent stretching the joke because near the end, Scalzi finally had something interesting and philosophical to say.
Also, it may have been intentional to have the characters sound like identical smartarses, like the 2D characters they're meant to represent, but I had the same problem with Old Man's War. It's worse here because this book is even more dialogue-driven and by the end I was still struggling to tell some of the characters apart.
(3) 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Ructions in the solar system again as various factions fight for power. I loved parts of it, but it took a long time to pull together and the ending fizzled out. The bits I loved: most of the descriptions of the setting and science, e.g., the Mercurial launching gyres were fun and then there's Terminator, the city that's pushed away from the heat of Mercury by the expansion of the track it's on. How cool is that? And the description of the planets makes you content with being confined to the solar system.
A major weakness is that the base of the story is supposed to be the relationship between Swan and Wahram, but the two don't work apart, much less together. This approach only exacerbates the problem I have with KSR, which is that characters are there for plot or for preaching and only occasionally allowed to be living, breathing creatures. Worse, Swan and Wahram downright annoyed me acting the Lord and Lady Bountiful, "helping" the poor people of the Earth without much in the way of consultation. The people on Earth might be stupid and short-sighted in causing a continuing ecological disaster but Swan and Wahram are no better for their vaunted intelligence and spacer privilege.
(2) Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed - When you slog through something like 2312, you really appreciate something that is just an enjoyable read. It's the first novel by the previous John W. Campbell nominee (I voted him #2 in 2011) and the first in a trilogy. It looks like bog standard sword and sorcery -- the US cover is appropriately hideous -- but it's definitely a notch above.
The book is notable for the Middle East inspired setting and some great characters. And the novelty is that it's the older characters and their relationships who shine: grumpy fat old bastard Adoulla who gives up his love to hunt ghuls and the magic-using couple Lita and Dawoud.
Despite the weakness of the plot, I'd quite like to read the rest of the trilogy.
(1) Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold - There are a lot of Ivan fans who waited a long time for him to get his own book in the Vorkosigan saga and here it is.
I'm not an Ivan fan.
That said, it's a good story that gives the bumbling Ivan his due and shows his ways have value, as compared to his brilliant and annoying cousin Miles Vorkosigan. And unsurprisingly, Ivan gets into a mess because of a woman. And gets in deeper, and deeper, eventually involving the highest authorities on a couple of planets.
Bujold has the comedy / romance / caper combo down pat, but to be honest, she's written other books more worthy of a Hugo. I'd rate this at about the same level as her previous Vorkosigan book, CryoBurn. In other words, 4 stars.
(6) Blackout by Mira Grant - Third in the Newsflesh trilogy, the other two were nominated in previous years. Book #2, Deadline, made me want to go out and poke a zombie with a stick. This book made me want to find a whole mob of zombies and poke them with a stick.
Grant managed to finish the destruction of what was good about the first book and then added more illogical plot twists and really stupid villains. She added more and more words. I could not finish it.
(5) No Award (By the way, bellinghman uses this to mean he'd be embarrassed if the work below it won. That's how I've been applying it.)
(4) [Hugo winner.] Redshirts by John Scalzi - A Star Trek parody should be right up my alley but it went on for far too long. It's a pity so much time was spent stretching the joke because near the end, Scalzi finally had something interesting and philosophical to say.
Also, it may have been intentional to have the characters sound like identical smartarses, like the 2D characters they're meant to represent, but I had the same problem with Old Man's War. It's worse here because this book is even more dialogue-driven and by the end I was still struggling to tell some of the characters apart.
(3) 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Ructions in the solar system again as various factions fight for power. I loved parts of it, but it took a long time to pull together and the ending fizzled out. The bits I loved: most of the descriptions of the setting and science, e.g., the Mercurial launching gyres were fun and then there's Terminator, the city that's pushed away from the heat of Mercury by the expansion of the track it's on. How cool is that? And the description of the planets makes you content with being confined to the solar system.
A major weakness is that the base of the story is supposed to be the relationship between Swan and Wahram, but the two don't work apart, much less together. This approach only exacerbates the problem I have with KSR, which is that characters are there for plot or for preaching and only occasionally allowed to be living, breathing creatures. Worse, Swan and Wahram downright annoyed me acting the Lord and Lady Bountiful, "helping" the poor people of the Earth without much in the way of consultation. The people on Earth might be stupid and short-sighted in causing a continuing ecological disaster but Swan and Wahram are no better for their vaunted intelligence and spacer privilege.
(2) Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed - When you slog through something like 2312, you really appreciate something that is just an enjoyable read. It's the first novel by the previous John W. Campbell nominee (I voted him #2 in 2011) and the first in a trilogy. It looks like bog standard sword and sorcery -- the US cover is appropriately hideous -- but it's definitely a notch above.
The book is notable for the Middle East inspired setting and some great characters. And the novelty is that it's the older characters and their relationships who shine: grumpy fat old bastard Adoulla who gives up his love to hunt ghuls and the magic-using couple Lita and Dawoud.
Despite the weakness of the plot, I'd quite like to read the rest of the trilogy.
(1) Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold - There are a lot of Ivan fans who waited a long time for him to get his own book in the Vorkosigan saga and here it is.
I'm not an Ivan fan.
That said, it's a good story that gives the bumbling Ivan his due and shows his ways have value, as compared to his brilliant and annoying cousin Miles Vorkosigan. And unsurprisingly, Ivan gets into a mess because of a woman. And gets in deeper, and deeper, eventually involving the highest authorities on a couple of planets.
Bujold has the comedy / romance / caper combo down pat, but to be honest, she's written other books more worthy of a Hugo. I'd rate this at about the same level as her previous Vorkosigan book, CryoBurn. In other words, 4 stars.