Hugo Awards: Best Novel 2015
Months ago, I knew I would have a hard time choosing between The Goblin Emperor and Ancillary Sword. With the Hugo Award voting deadline coming up, I finished The Three-Body Problem this week and found myself with a Three Book Problem that I needed to have a good night's sleep on.
(1) The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison This promised to contain much court politics and intrigue and I was definitely looking forward to having a good wallow. As an added bonus, it's about what happens after a downtrodden individual has become the Chosen One, ie, emperor in this case, and how they come to terms with it. But what makes me want to give Addison the Hugo is that she presents us with a protagonist who is a fundamentally decent person.
(2) Ancillary Sword - Ann Leckie The first novel in this trilogy, Ancillary Justice, was a compactly written space opera that won all the awards last year. Instead of going bigger and better with Sword, Leckie chose to explore her themes of colonialism, power and identity in a smaller setting with a more intimate focus on her protagonist. A good choice and I'd be happy to see Leckie win another Hugo for it.
(3) The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu This book is massively popular in China and has now, several years after its release, been translated into English by Ken Liu. In this first book in a series, messages are secretly being sent to aliens who might be invaders or saviours, or both. The numerous old school scientific info dumps were enjoyable, the numerous old school plot and character info dumps less so and they slowed down what could otherwise have read as a great tech thriller. That said, I look forward to reading more of this series and I wouldn't be at all upset if this got a Hugo.
(4) No Award Unfortunately, some racist misogynists got together and succeeded in getting their preferred works on the ballot. Because... they hate the Hugos so much that they want their side to win some. Even though some of "their" side turned out not to be on their side. Whatever, I don't have time for this, so No Award goes above their selections.
(1) The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison This promised to contain much court politics and intrigue and I was definitely looking forward to having a good wallow. As an added bonus, it's about what happens after a downtrodden individual has become the Chosen One, ie, emperor in this case, and how they come to terms with it. But what makes me want to give Addison the Hugo is that she presents us with a protagonist who is a fundamentally decent person.
(2) Ancillary Sword - Ann Leckie The first novel in this trilogy, Ancillary Justice, was a compactly written space opera that won all the awards last year. Instead of going bigger and better with Sword, Leckie chose to explore her themes of colonialism, power and identity in a smaller setting with a more intimate focus on her protagonist. A good choice and I'd be happy to see Leckie win another Hugo for it.
(3) The Three-Body Problem - Cixin Liu This book is massively popular in China and has now, several years after its release, been translated into English by Ken Liu. In this first book in a series, messages are secretly being sent to aliens who might be invaders or saviours, or both. The numerous old school scientific info dumps were enjoyable, the numerous old school plot and character info dumps less so and they slowed down what could otherwise have read as a great tech thriller. That said, I look forward to reading more of this series and I wouldn't be at all upset if this got a Hugo.
(4) No Award Unfortunately, some racist misogynists got together and succeeded in getting their preferred works on the ballot. Because... they hate the Hugos so much that they want their side to win some. Even though some of "their" side turned out not to be on their side. Whatever, I don't have time for this, so No Award goes above their selections.