2014 Hugo nominees: best novel
Jul. 6th, 2014 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonelvisI'm going to Loncon this year, and as a member of the con, I can nominate (and vote!) in this year's Hugo awards. As I did several years ago, I plan to read all the nominees for novel, novella, novelette, and short story and post impressions here.
Warbound, Larry Correia
It's not a bad book, but it's the type of Manly Man book I think I'd have enjoyed a lot more had Robert Heinlein or Philip José Farmer written it. Correia is a perfectly competent storyteller (although I want to talk to his editor about comma splices), but I found the characterization lacking. There were only two or three characters I found well-rounded enough to care about, although admittedly, I might feel differently had I read the first two books in the series. It could have also used more women, and I wasn't exactly thrilled by what read to me as exoticising an Asian female character.
Parasite, Mira Grant
I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did, because body horror is really not my thing. But it was a fast-paced story and an intriguing mystery, and even though I'd mostly guessed the big reveal at the end, it still felt shocking. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series!
The Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson
Yes, that's right: the entire Wheel of Time series, all 14+ books of it, is nominated for Best Novel, because the Hugos allow an entire series to be nominated in the year in which the series is completed. To Tor's credit, they released every single book in electronic form as part of the Hugo packet, which means I now have a 10,000-page e-book on my iPad.
Mind you, there's no way I'm getting through all 10,000 pages before the voting deadline at the end of this month, so I'm voting based on my impressions of the first book. It started off slowly for me, and I was worried it was just going to be an endless slog through generic faux-medieval fantasy clichés. But even if the fundamental "young chosen one must battle the forces of darkness" narrative isn't terribly original, there was a lot more interesting worldbuilding than I'd expected from the first few chapters; enough to hold my attention through the rest of the book, anyway. I'll probably read more in the series, since I have a trans-Atlantic flight coming up -- but I do wonder whether Jordan and his successor can sustain a compelling narrative over the full series.
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
This was slow to start and a complicated read, but it was worth it: the pacing provided enough time for the plot to fully unfold, for the characters to become truly relatable, and for the social and cultural complexities of the Radch to reveal themselves. Of all the nominees, this is the one that stayed with me the most, and is the one I'd most like to re-read -- but sadly, there's not enough time to do that before Hugo voting begins.
Neptune's Brood, Charlie Stross
I made it 56 pages into the excerpt from the Hugo packet, which was easily 50 pages more than I thought I would read. Given how much what little of Saturn's Children I read annoyed me (the last Hugo nominee of Stross' I had to read for voting purposes), I was expecting to be annoyed by Neptune's Brood as well, though I tried to give it a fair shake. Unfortunately, both books have exactly the same problem: a focus on overly clever sci-fi terminology and concepts instead of characterization and compelling narrative. Stross is clearly a skilled writer, but his style just doesn't work for me. (And oy, I see I have a novella of his to get through, too.)
The verdict
Hugo balloting is preferential, so I don't have to pick one winner; I can rank my choices. Those rankings:
1. Ancillary Justice
2. Parasite (which would have been my #1 choice had Ancillary Justice not come along)
3. The Wheel of Time series
4. Warbound
5. Neptune's Brood
Warbound, Larry Correia
It's not a bad book, but it's the type of Manly Man book I think I'd have enjoyed a lot more had Robert Heinlein or Philip José Farmer written it. Correia is a perfectly competent storyteller (although I want to talk to his editor about comma splices), but I found the characterization lacking. There were only two or three characters I found well-rounded enough to care about, although admittedly, I might feel differently had I read the first two books in the series. It could have also used more women, and I wasn't exactly thrilled by what read to me as exoticising an Asian female character.
Parasite, Mira Grant
I didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did, because body horror is really not my thing. But it was a fast-paced story and an intriguing mystery, and even though I'd mostly guessed the big reveal at the end, it still felt shocking. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series!
The Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson
Yes, that's right: the entire Wheel of Time series, all 14+ books of it, is nominated for Best Novel, because the Hugos allow an entire series to be nominated in the year in which the series is completed. To Tor's credit, they released every single book in electronic form as part of the Hugo packet, which means I now have a 10,000-page e-book on my iPad.
Mind you, there's no way I'm getting through all 10,000 pages before the voting deadline at the end of this month, so I'm voting based on my impressions of the first book. It started off slowly for me, and I was worried it was just going to be an endless slog through generic faux-medieval fantasy clichés. But even if the fundamental "young chosen one must battle the forces of darkness" narrative isn't terribly original, there was a lot more interesting worldbuilding than I'd expected from the first few chapters; enough to hold my attention through the rest of the book, anyway. I'll probably read more in the series, since I have a trans-Atlantic flight coming up -- but I do wonder whether Jordan and his successor can sustain a compelling narrative over the full series.
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
This was slow to start and a complicated read, but it was worth it: the pacing provided enough time for the plot to fully unfold, for the characters to become truly relatable, and for the social and cultural complexities of the Radch to reveal themselves. Of all the nominees, this is the one that stayed with me the most, and is the one I'd most like to re-read -- but sadly, there's not enough time to do that before Hugo voting begins.
Neptune's Brood, Charlie Stross
I made it 56 pages into the excerpt from the Hugo packet, which was easily 50 pages more than I thought I would read. Given how much what little of Saturn's Children I read annoyed me (the last Hugo nominee of Stross' I had to read for voting purposes), I was expecting to be annoyed by Neptune's Brood as well, though I tried to give it a fair shake. Unfortunately, both books have exactly the same problem: a focus on overly clever sci-fi terminology and concepts instead of characterization and compelling narrative. Stross is clearly a skilled writer, but his style just doesn't work for me. (And oy, I see I have a novella of his to get through, too.)
The verdict
Hugo balloting is preferential, so I don't have to pick one winner; I can rank my choices. Those rankings:
1. Ancillary Justice
2. Parasite (which would have been my #1 choice had Ancillary Justice not come along)
3. The Wheel of Time series
4. Warbound
5. Neptune's Brood