Thoughts on the Hugo and Campbell nominees

[fivemack]

To a good approximation I don't read short fiction; indeed, given that all the nominees are available on-line, I demonstrably don't read even free short fiction. On the other hand, I do tend to react to the Hugo nominations by buying those of the nominees that I don't already have, and to the Campbells by picking up novels by the novel-nominated writers.

I have now managed to read these, and might as well review them since I've not received a ballot.



Michael Flynn, Eifelheim. A bit dense to get through, though this may be that it's a long book disguised by typography between close-together covers; it struck me as being over-arch (a priest happens to decide that static electricity is like the behaviour of rubbed amber, and incidentally call the machinery in the alien spaceship elektronikos), and to have the critical flaw of comparing real scientific advances with a fictitious Theory-Of-Everything. I think my real complaint is that all the little bits of pop science inserted are too obviously points of 2007-timebound dramatic irony - pages about the different kinds of wool-sorter's disease because all readers will know about anthrax, quantised red-shifts because that's something fans will have seen already. Good medievals, though.

Naomi Novik, His Majesty's Dragon. A swift read, a comfort read, a picaresque in the company of Hornblower around the implications of Napoleonic-War England equipped with extra dragons. The sequels are better, though you have a slight feeling that the journey is in part arranged to convert the author's gap year travels into research material.

Charles Stross, Glasshouse. Post-Singularity, which is a genre only Stross really dares to write in; heavy-handed discussion of the flaws of the Fifties attitude to the world, which felt like preaching to the choir since I doubt anyone convinced of the merits of that world-view would penetrate the Slashdot-infused prose.

Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End. This is Vinge's long-awaited near-future novel, and had a well-built world with the small defect that, whilst there's clearly a desireable outcome, it's very difficult to care about any of the characters approaching it. A cliched Academically-Bullying Professor feels as if he has been seeped too long in the villanisation bath. Does have a good scene of the awakening of numinous powers, which are Vinge's forte. I have a horrible feeling this will be the novel people think of as Vinge's first brush with the brain-eater.

Peter Watts, Blindsight. It's bleak. Greg Egan-grade world-building and thoughts on the nature of consciousness, in a setting cold and sharp and inhumanly precise rather than the warm mouldering slime of Mieville. No more comforting than Alien, but some really striking scales of characterisation: this is what SF should be doing.

I'd vote Watts-Stross-Vinge-Novik-Flynn.

And now for the Campbells. Lawrence Schoen doesn't seem to write at novel length, and I suspect is nominated for having invented Klingon as a language some time ago; Naomi Novik appears on both lists.

Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora. This is pretty much a perfect first novel; deeply exuberant, deeply enthusiastic, endearing characters, a Mafia-ridden Venice which manages not to be entirely derivative, requilladores, and piling in all things including at least one kitchen-sink scene.

Sarah Monette, Melusine. A world even more decadent than Lynch's, filled with the lilies and languors of vice; engaging characters but damaged ones (including first-person madness scenes); not a great deal happens, but one fears for the characters while it does, in a way that you could be sure Lynch's would come out well in the end. There's a sequel which I haven't got round to yet.

Brandon Sanderson, Elantris. I like the narrative voice here, and the world-building is excellent; but the focal characters are irritatingly flawless, and the whole thing has much too comfortable a closure to it. I have Mistborn but have not started it yet.

I'd happily vote the Lynch for a Hugo if it were on offer, and feel uneasy ranking any of the authors last - I think this is a stronger set of novels than the Hugos, where I feel Flynn and Vinge may owe their positions to a strong body of work rather than to this particular piece. Then again, I tend to be a fan of the long-concentrated essences that gush forth in first novels. If I have to vote, Lynch-Sanderson-Monette-Novik.

Comments

Notes on *Rainbow's End*

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

I didn't find Vinge's villains particularly plausible, myself--"evil" isn't that schematic and is usually, well, more physical--behind the verbal brutality and arrogance there is usually physical greed and brutality. And is global climate change just gone with the wind? I find I don't believe very much in the Singularity; after 50 years of serious work we still don't even have the beginnings of AI, let alone superhuman AI, and in any event the Singularity may be entirely defeated by physical realities like climate change and habitat destruction. I am suspecting that Vinge's Zones may be the truer picture. Ulp!

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Hmm, googling reviews for the first book brings up:

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/books/classic/sfw1219.html

(a mediaeval-time-travel tale called Doomsday Book).

Ever come across it? I'm tempted to pick it up simply because I like the premise, but wary of a book set in Oxford now and in the fourteenth century written by an American.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I've come across it and read it, perhaps eight years ago, and remember of it not one fraction of a smidgeon.

Eifelheim is set in medieval Germany just before the Black Death, which is I think very much your period; it has Armlader, aliens, and William of Ockham, and I think if you read the medieval-German bits and ignore the intercalated 21st-century parts you might well enjoy it.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The medieval bits are good, the future Oxford bits were dated at the time and very odd now -- I mean nobody in future Oxford has a cell phone, and "call waiting" and email are unknown.

But on the whole it's worth reading for the medieval stuff, with surprisingly little teeth-gritting considering.

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good to know...

My trouble is Oxford is the closest thing I have to a hometown (as in it's the place I've lived longest in my adult life) - so it wouldn't take too many references to, ooh, I dunno, the university campus, Chancellor or Oxford's staunch participation in the Parliamentarian cause to cause my head to spin round and fall off ;)

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Err, that should be Chancellor [insert actual academic here]. Darn HTML.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

Avoid, avoid, avoid, if, as you seem to be, at all allergic to people writing authoritarily of places and getting it wrong. The writer's view of what Oxford looks now seem to have been shaped by a superficial acquaintance with Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster novels and Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night...

[pompe.livejournal.com]

The most useful reviews I've seen in a long time. Thanks!

Thanks!

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

My French literature teacher at school managed, through enormous investment of time and fury on my part and hers alike over about four terms, finally to get me to write reviews which weren't plot summaries; I'm glad I can still manage it.

It helps to be reviewing good books in a hundred words apiece, of course.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Blindsight seems to be fairly reliably getting excellent reviews.

[mistborn.livejournal.com]

Competition is very stiff for me this year, just like it was last year. (When Scalzi dominated.) If it comes down to pure fun, Novik is going to win. If it comes down to literary chops, Lynch is going to win. My poor book gets trapped between the two. (And Sarah’s no slouch of a writer herself.)

I appreciate your compliments, though. I'd be curious to hear what you think of Mistborn. One of my goals going into it was to fix the character issues Elantris had, presenting people who were a little more rounded, a little more real.