181 thoughts on “2015 Hugo Best Novel Longlist Discussion Thread”

1. I ain’t read none of these yet. But this thread is a great idea.

2. First?

   ETA: Nope

   Also, have read, or tried, Lock In, Martian, Words Of Radiance, and Mirror Empire. City of Stairs and Souther Reach are on Mount F770. Would like to hear more about the Walton and the Okorafor.

3. Was The Periheperal not even on the longlist?
   (And wasn’t The Martian ineligible?)

4. More and more, I’m coming around to the view that the Southern Reach Trilogy was the most ambitious and unique thing I’ve read this year. I’ll reprint, rot13ed, a comment I made from a few weeks ago because it’s impossible to talk about what’s so great about it without revealing the big picture.

   V’ir orra guvaxvat zber nobhg InaqreZrre’f Fbhgurea Ernpu Gevybtl. Fcbvyref sbyybj.

   V qvq abg yvxr gubfr obbxf. V qvqa’g rawbl ernqvat gurz. Vg jnf qvfbevragvat naq hafngvfslvat. Ohg V svaq zlfrys guvaxvat nobhg gurz n ybg, abarguryrff, naq V ernyyl nqzver jung ur qvq.

   Vg’f uneq gb rira jevgr n fragrapr nobhg vg. Yrg zr gel.

   “Gur nyvraf ner…” Jnvg. Fgbc. Lbh xabj jung? Vg’f abg ragveryl pyrne gung gurer ner nal “nyvraf” vaibyirq. Gur guvatf gung ner unccravat pbhyq, V thrff, or cneg bs fbzr angheny cebprff gung unf abguvat gb qb jvgu ubfgvyr yvsrsbezf? Znlor?

   “Bxnl, gur sbeprf bcrengvat ba Rnegu ner…” Jnvg. Guvf fbeg bs cerfhccbfrf gung gurfr sbeprf unir n pbagrkg bhgfvqr bs Rnegu naq ner vagehqvat. Gung’f cebonoyl gehr? V thrff? Ohg jr qba’g ernyyl xabj. Znlor guvf vf gur jbex bs fbzrguvat ba Rnegu gung uhznaf arire abgvprq? Be, V qhaab, na nygreangr-havirefr Rnegu? Fbzr gvzr-geniryvat curabzraba sebz n shgher Rnegu? Uryy. V qhaab.

   “Gur fghss gung’f unccravat, jungrire gur uryy vg vf, vf hggreyl vapbzcerurafvoyr.” Bxnl? Bxnl. Tbbq. Gung jbexf.

   Jung’f tbvat ba znxrf abg n ovg bs frafr gb gur uhznaf va gur fgbel, naq gurersber gb hf, orpnhfr gur ernqre arire trgf nal cbvag bs ivrj bgure guna gung bs gur uhznaf va gur fgbel. Jr arire trg n fprar ba gur nyvra pbzznaq fuvc jurer jr yrnea jung’f oruvaq nyy guvf penml fghss. Jr qba’g trg n cebybthr gung rkcynvaf gung uhznavgl vf orvat “fpehgvavmrq naq fghqvrq.”

   Jr arire yrnea gur ernfba sbe nalguvat, abe rira yrnea nal ernfba gb oryvrir gung gurer vf n ernfba sbe nal bs vg. Vf vg n angheny cebprff? Vg vf fbzr xvaq bs vainfvba ol n ubfgvyr vagryyvtrapr? Vf vg gur jbex bs fbzrguvat fb ovmneer gung uhznaf pbhyqa’g rira haqrefgnaq gung vg vf na vagryyvtrapr? Vf jung’f unccravat whfg fbzr fvqr-rssrpg gb n cebwrpg gung’f tbg abguvat gb qb jvgu Rnegu ng nyy? Pbhyq nagf haqrefgnaq gung gur qrfgehpgvba bs gurve naguvyy jnfa’g nobhg na nggnpx ba gurz ng nyy, ohg vafgrnq unccrarq jura n onpxubr unq gb znxr n guerr-cbvag ghea naq fyvccrq bss gur ebnq n ovg, juvyr ba vgf jnl gb uryc rkgraq gur ebnq, juvpu yrnqf gb n fvgr jurer bvy unf orra qvfpbirerq, juvpu […znal cnentencuf qryrgrq…] na vasnag va Treznal pna unir n cynfgvp gbl.

   Be znlor vg JNF nobhg gur naguvyy. Jr qba’g xabj naq jr arire yrnea.

   Gur Fbhgurea Ernpu Gevybtl vf nobhg jung vg srryf yvxr gb or va gur cngu bs na hggreyl vapbzcerurafvoyr, birejuryzvat, zbfg-yvxryl-vaqvssrerag naq cbffvoyl-rira-ragveryl-hanjner sbepr. Gur obbxf ner haeryragvat–arire sbe na vafgnag yrggvat gur ernqre bhg bs gur obk. V qba’g erpnyy rire ernqvat nalguvat yvxr vg. (Naq V’z zbfgyl tynq.)

5. To agree with Laertes, yes, Southern Reach was mind-blowing.

   V’z fbyq ba ng yrnfg gur vqrn bs n cbfg-uhzna vagryyvtrapr, be n fvathynevgl, gung lbh jbhyq trg fbzr vapbzcerurafvoyr fhcre vagryyvtrapr. Ohg V nyjnlf guvax gurl’er n yvggyr gbb qbzrfgvpngrq, n yvggyr gbb phgr, n yvggyr Encgher-bs-gur-Areqf (naq ol gur jnl, lbh jrer evtug nyy nybat). Vapbzcerurafvoyr orpbzrf Tnaqnys; vagryyvtrag, npprff gb pbfzvp cbjref, ohg ybbxvat bhg sbe lbh naq arrqvat lbh uryc.

   Fb gung jnf nyjnlf zl yvzvgre ba fvathynevgl svpgvba. V pbhyq npprcg gur cerzvfr ohg abg gur varivgnoyr phgr raqvat, be cnenabvq snagnfl.

   Fbhgurea Ernpu fcraqf guerr obbxf gryyvat lbh gung abcr, guvatf ner pbzcyrgryl bss gur jnyy. Vapbzcerurafvoyr vf zvaq-funggrevatyl fb, fbzrguvat jurer gur Ybirpensg-yvxr haxabjnovyvgl vf fybjyl naq perrcvyl ynlrerq ba hagvy lbhe zvaq oybjf. Lbh pnaabg pbzceruraq gung infgyl zber cbjreshy naq xabjyrqtnoyr guvat, naq lbh arire jvyy.

6. @snowcrash, My Real Children was on my nominating ballot. It’s told from the point of view of an elderly woman who may… or may not… have dementia. Trying not to be too spoilery, she remembers two different and incompatible histories. This book is a memoir (memoirs?) of those personal histories, from the butterfly-effect event that split them to her old age in a nursing home. Is it dementia when one talks about the children in one set of memories to the nurse tending one in the other reality…? (It’s not so much “unreliable narrator” as “unreliable reality…) It’s a difficult, wrenching book. And it’s very well-written; I strongly recommend it.

   Don’t know whether to call it SF or fantasy, but it’s sfnal.

7. I’ve read three of these. Of those I haven’t read, I’ve read enough Torgersen to be unimpressed. Bennett’s been raved about enough that it’s already on my to-be-read pile. Anyone have strong opinions on Gannon, Sanderson, Okorafor? I see Vandermeer is being raved about upthread in rot13…

8. I don’t have a whole lot to say about Lock In. It was a fine near-future thriller, with some interesting world-building and some strong set pieces. It pushes very much the same buttons as, say, Rainbows End and I suspect that, modulo weird political bullshit unrelated to the works, they’ll appeal to broadly the same readers.

9. I liked Lock In but felt it was good more than something great and acclaim worthy. At least I thought so until one of the recent threads made me realize the main character was never given a gender, which I never noticed while reading and find impressive in hindsight and makes sense given those that are locked in live their lives through mechanical bodies. The eBook I felt was kind of a requirement that should’ve been somehow included in the novel spread out as interludes or something. A separate world building infodump felt awkward to me.

   City of Stairs was awesome. Great world, characters, and exciting action on top of questions about class and religion.

   The Martian makes hard science fiction fun, I’m really looking forward to seeing if the movie will do the book justice.

   Words of Radiance was good but it still almost feels like Sanderson is still setting everything up, like after 2k words I’m still reading the prologue.

   Southern Reach Trilogy is certainly unique, and I’m glad I read it, but that’s a hard one. Like I thought it was well written, interesting and something I thought about long after but I don’t know if I can say that I would use the word enjoy on what I felt about them. Fascinated, curious, etc, but enjoy? I could understand why others my nominate it.

10. The first couple chapters of the Martian was all I read before I stopped. I didn’t care about the narrator, I disliked his voice, I didn’t care about his problems, and what I saw of the problem solving did nothing for me, so…

    The Bennett, Walton, Hurley, and Okorafor are all on the “get to eventually” list. Well, the Hurley once the series is done.

    I did like Southern Reach quite a bit.

11. Of these, I’ve only read The Southern Reach Trilogy. Annihilation made me go “wow!” and pick up the next two. I agree with the other posters who call it mind-blowing.

    I have the following on my to-read-someday list:
    Lock In, by John Scalzi
    The Martian, by Andy Weir
    Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor

    I tried City of Stairs, but didn’t like it enough to read past the kindle sample. I could be persuaded to try it again.

    The rest of the list don’t interest me (I find fight scenes boring and mil(s)f is not my thing (though I really like Malazan – but that’s more for the worldbuilding than the military stuff)) or seem like they would be too depressing.

12. I loved City of Stairs for basically the reasons that Matt Y. gave. Interesting setting, love the characters, great action, and (by the way) a look at colonialism, oppressed classes, etc. It would have been my first choice if it had made the short list.

    I liked The Martian for exactly the same reasons as everyone else. The xkcd comic is right – I love the “make it work with these pieces” scene in Apollo 13, too.

    I agree that Words of Radiance is still in a bit of setup mode, but I’m enjoying every step of the way and I trust Sanderson to keep it going in a good way. Especially after reading the entire Wheel of Time last year, I fully trust that he knows how to handle a really, really long epic.

    I hated The Mirror Empire. I wish it weren’t true, because I really enjoy Hurley’s fan writing. Mainly, I despised some of the viewpoint characters too much to keep going. The ethnic cleansing rapist character wasn’t great, but it was actually the girl who was searching for her mother who did me in. She was such a dumbass every step of the way and when she accidentally kills a 5 year old girl in a totally stupid way, it was all I could do to not throw the Kindle across the room.

    ETA – I forgot to mention, My Real Children was a beautiful book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It could be SF/F or it could be just literary fiction, but, regardless, it’s a lovely, touching look at two possibilities for one life. A part of me wishes that we could find out whether it was the main character’s choice that results in the two different paths the world takes (a la Sliding Doors), but I think that part is wrong – it’s the life of the character in these radically different worlds that matters.

13. I’ve read two of these.

    I loved the Martian. I can’t exactly say why since there was no characterization, no big ideas and not much happens. But the science problems were handled well and it was very readable.

    Trial by fire would probably have been a good novella, the basic story was good but Gannon used about 400% more words to tell it than he needed.

14. I also found Southern Reach unique and fascinating. I’ll probably be reading several of the others, but not right away. The Martian maybe in a couple of weeks.

15. I liked Trial By Fire – “competence porn” that avoids most of the pitfalls of that genre. But it wasn’t as good as the prior book in the series, and the ending was flat. Have only read that and Lock In, which was quite good. But neither quite rises to the level of a Hugo nominee, at least for me.

16. I thought the Martian was a really fun, fast read. Once I started, I didn’t put it down (and was very tired at work the next day.) However, it wasn’t a book that stayed with me or thrilled me and was definitely not “mind blowing” (see Southern Reach comments). The science and problem solving was interesting to me but I wouldn’t include this on my Hugo list. But for sure on the To Be Read list!

17. Of the novels listed the only one I have read is The Martian which I enjoyed tremendously. Unlike MaL I loved the narrators voice. The way I thought of it was is a defensive mechanism. He obviously knows that the odds are against him but he can’t just sit there and await the inevitable.

    Lagoon is on my near future TBR pile. I’ll eventually get to Lock In and My Real Children.

18. My Real Children: Loved it. Wept over it. Jaw dropped over it [spoiler]jura V uvg gur rneyl pyhrf gung obgu yvirf ner nygreangr uvfgbevrf pbzcnerq gb bhef.[/spoiler] And I felt the idea of “which was the right choice, given the world that emerged from each” is the wrong question, and maybe even a guiltily self-aggrandizing one–her choice made a difference, but so did every choice she made since then, and every choice every other person in that world made too. What it really brought home for me was how we tell ourselves so many fantasies to make ourselves feel empowered, and those fantasies hurt us, both by making us feel more “important” than we are and more responsible. Who needs that kind of pressure? We all do the best we can, but we have to allow others their role in our internal lives–in the musical call-out from the not-unrelated The Lathe of Heaven, we have to remember to accept a little help from our friends.

    Wow, that para went places I did not expect I was going to go when I started it.

    Okorafor: I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I am not her ideal audience, so I have not read her latest. I got very impatient with Zara: The Windseeker because it seemed to use language that belonged in Dr. Seuss books–and for me that’s out of place in a YA or even a middle grade. Teenage-me felt talked down to. The phrase “Forbidden Greeny Jungle” gagged me every time. A lot of the adult characters’ dialogue was completely unbelievable to me–it was as though Pratchett had given Vimes an in-character voice that belonged in “Where’s My Cow”.

    But I thought, OK, this is how Okorafor does YA. Cool. Not my thing, but there have been authors whose YA felt “talking-down” but whose adult books wowed me. So I read Who Fears Death, decidedly an adult book–and her choice to connect it to and position it in time relative to Zarah by referencing the Forbidden Greeny Jungle nearly caused me to fling the book across the room.

    I hasten to repeat, I’m sure it’s me, not her. So much acclaim has come her way, and her voice is sorely needed in SF. But her voice does not speak to me.

    (There are subjective tastes and preferences of mine that make me fear I’m, deep down at heart, a bad person. Disliking Okorofor’s prose goes in there alongside of deeply disliking reggae and the sound of children whistling.)

    —

    Southern Reach: Hit me right in all my feels. Hit me right where my love for House of Leaves lives, for what that’s worth. Turns out I prefer exploring supernatural mysteries via those characters who are confronting those mysteries, rather than actually getting those mysteries solved. The weird is where the WOW is. And sometimes the answers, when answers are finally provided, just serve to deflate the WOW. (See pretty much everything about River Song during Matt Smith’s run as the Doctor. But not, oddly, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, probably because even when Karou’s story seemed to bog down in cliche, Zhuzhana was being fantastic elsewhere. “We have wasted our lives. Why didn’t we train to be samurai?” is a line that will live in my funny bone forever.)

    So my reaction to the Southern Reach books wasn’t so much “Why that dolphin?” but “OMG SHOW ME MORE OF THE DOLPHIN”.

    [spoiler]Rnpu fheivivat punenpgre’f wbhearl jnf gbjneq abg ivpgbel ohg npprcgnapr–orpnhfr lbh unir gb npprcg lbhe fvghngvba orsber lbh pna svther bhg ubj gb fheivir va vg, naq lbh unir gb znxr lbhe crnpr jvgu vg vs fheiviny vf jbegu qbvat. Npprcgnapr gbbx qvssrerag sbezf sbe rirelbar naq pnzr ng qvssrerag gvzrf. Ohg guvf vf jul gur svany fprar jvgu Tubfg Oveq naq gur Nffvfgnag Qverpgbe jnf fb qrrcyl fngvfslvat gb zr–fbzrguvat yvxr, “gurl xrcg jnyxvat, guebjvat crooyrf nf gurl jrag”–V sryg yvxr gurl ernyyl jrer tbvat gb or nyy evtug, va grezf bs fheiviny ohg nyfb rzbgvbany crnpr, nsgre gung. Gurl jrer gnxvat Nern K ba vgf bja grezf abj, ab ybatre svtugvat vg ohg npprcgvat vg, orvat phevbhf nobhg vg rira. N arj fgbel pbhyq ortva sbe gurz.[/spoiler]

    Also – though I have already gushed about this – the choice to people the onstage portion of Annihilation entirely with four women scientists was one I really appreciated. Women doing science, and not being there because they had boobs and uteri! The only romantic content was in flashbacks, and those flashbacks showed the protagonist doing romance wrong (her own self-diagnosis). Everything about the protagonist made me deliriously happy. She is pretty much my go-to example of character traits which our sexist mainstream media deems ambitious and focused and dedicated in men, but cold, heartless, and “unlikable” in women. Especially considering “unlikable” is itself a trait which the mainstream forgives in male characters but condemns in female characters.

    I really, really liked her, “unlikable” as she was. I felt for her and I fell for her so hard. We are talking complete intellectual crush.

    —

    I forget what else I wanted to talk about. This is long enough though.

19. Great idea, JJ. Maybe at some point you could do a vote by the commentariat to see how these books would have been ranked.

    I’ve only read Lock-In.* I thought it was an interesting world, enjoyable story, well-written but not what I’d consider a Hugo winner. I actually think Scalzi’s novella that explains the history and causes of the disease that causes lock-in is much more interesting. I might have voted that one a Hugo.

    *Before the pupfluffle I basically read a year behind…I used the Hugo, Nebula and Locus finalist lists for recommended reading. Since I’m frantically trying to read and watch enough to nominate next year, I don’t have time to read the best of 2015 yet. (Plus the astounding F770 TBR list I’ve acquired!)

20. I’ve read about half of the list, but all this year. If I had read them in time for nominations, I’m not sure what I would have chosen as my top five. I loved City of Stairs, Mirror Empire, and Annihilation (if not the other two Southern Reach books as much). Mirror Empire doesn’t have the polish of the other two, but it makes up for it in its ambition. My exact response to it was “holy shit this book”.

21. Read 3:

    The Martian – good fun, a quick read. Some science bits made me go arrgh (mainly around the LED light level to grow stuff) but Apollo 13 is my favorite movie, so I liked it a lot. Be interesting to see how Hollywood screws it up.

    Lock In Another fun read. More of a relatively near term techno-thriller, but an interesting world building exercise. The protagonist is less snarky than normal from Scalzi, and there were some differentiated characters, which is again unusual for him. Well done, well polished. Can see him aiming at the Michael Crichton market with this sort of book. I did notice the non-gendered protagonist, but it doesn’t really impact the story due to the threeps.

    Mirror Empire – not a fan at all. Although it was a major achievement to make the rapist ethnic cleansing character well drawn and realized, the kid protagonist is profoundly annoying. As mentioned above, accidentally blowing up a 5 year old made no impact on her. The pacing is all over the map, some parts drag terribly, other parts are perfunctorily disposed of in a couple of pages. The magic for the lead is almost non-existent, then suddenly comes in fully formed in at an unbelievably convenient point in the narrative. Felt like it needed another couple of runs past the editor. Also, I think Hurley was going for a claustrophobic, small population world, but it didn’t seem to fit together, somehow – although they killed a lot of people, it was less than 10,000 I think, which shouldn’t upset the economy – felt like the numbers were out of kilter, somehow. I really enjoy her blog posts, but the novel just didn’t do it for me.

22. For me, I was sucked deeply into the world of the Southern Reach trilogy from the first chapters of Annihilation and almost could not come up for air until the final chapters if Acceptance. It had a fever dream quality, and I’d been warned by the reviews in Locus not to expect any sort of neat tidy puzzle-story resolution. The character are clearly in the grasp of some process so vast in scope, so far beyond them, that they aren’t even sure if there is something directing the process that can be appealed to. It is emphatically not a human wave story, by Hoyt’s categorization.

    I have gotten much pleasure on re-reads on spotting signs of incursion. If VanderMeer is giving eavesdropped-upon dialogue between unnamed characters, there is a reason. If he’s describing the carpet, there’s a reason. Look for serious inconsistencies in the ways locales are described between characters not that far separated in time… Mimicry. Camoflogue. These are the tools of Area X. 🙂

23. I’ve only read the Southern Reach books and My Real Children, greatly loved both of them in different ways.

    @Laertes, I felt the same about SR although for me the experience of reading them was not so much “didn’t enjoy, disorienting & unsatisfying, but thought-provoking” as “disorienting and also very enjoyable.” Sure, it deliberately neglects to provide various things that my genre habits lead me to expect, but I still thought it was a thoroughly involving narrative and I always looked forward to the next page. So, mileage varies, but the books are great either way.

    @Nicole, I agree about MRC. I think it’s easy in alternate histories to fall into the trap of “this change was the important one, therefore there must be some rationale for why all other differences follow from that one”; Walton acknowledges that that’s a natural thought, but her approach makes more sense to me: trying to control for all other variables is hopeless, so as soon as you sort of let the universe off its leash and allow one person to follow different paths, then everyone else gets to do that too, and you’re looking at a world that’s the sum of N zillion semi-independent choices but happens to be close in some regards. But of course she doesn’t lean too hard on the “what are the rules” aspect, it’s much more about character and human behavior, and her depiction of those is extremely moving.

24. @LunarG: I don’t think I could endure the ordeal of another read-through, but I’d be fascinated to see the notes about these inconsistencies and these subtle signs of incursion.

25. Example of a great moment in Southern Reach that, for me, is totally satisfying in a flat-out horror thriller mode despite all the unanswered questions and subtle ambiguities before and after it: nsgre ohvyqvat hc ybgf bs perrcvat qernq nobhg gur qnatre bs Nern K’f obeqref rkcnaqvat, naq univat gur Qverpgbe qvfnccrne be qvr va gur svefg obbx… gung zbzrag va gur frpbaq obbx jura nyy uryy svanyyl oernxf ybbfr, Pbageby svaqf n ubeevoyr yvivat jnyy vafvqr gur ohvyqvat, naq gura ur frrf gur obeqre ivfvoyl oneeryyvat gbjneq gurz jvgu gur genafsbezrq Qverpgbe jnyxvat ng gur urnq bs gung jnir. BRRR.

    (Edit: although the BRRR was meant to be outside of the rot13’d section, I see that if you un-rot13 it you get OEEE, which is also an appropriate reaction)

26. have read Lock In, The Martian, & Annihilation … would have nominated both Lock In and The Martian and probably voted The Martian first … didn’t really care for VanderMeer’s book .. even though it’s garnered lots of positive reviews.

27. @LunarG: I would love to re-read the SR books. I’m sure there are so many things that make more sense, or at least have more resonance, in light of later events. While reading, I discovered that what I really wanted to do was something like read 1, then 2, then circle back and re-read 1, then 3, then re-read 2, then maybe 3 again (though maybe not). But I was getting them one at a time from the library so I couldn’t manage it. Maybe I’ll buy them someday.

28. Woo-hoo! I have my own tag on File770. Between that, and having been whapped upside the head — not once, but twice — by a Campbell-winning author, I can die fulfilled.

29. Read (or started) Trial By Fire, The Chaplain’s War, Lock In, City of Stairs, The Martian, My Real Children and The Mirror Empire

    I didn’t like TBF much although it’s a perfectly competent story. Same for TCW, although I didn’t finish it because, funnily enough, his God bothering distorted the logic of the story for me. Of the rest, I would have likely only nominated City of Stairs and The Mirror Empire. I quite liked the others and wouldn’t be aghast at the nomination of them, but Lock In was a good read, but not particularly exceptional. My Real Children was immensely well crafted but didn’t grab me at all. The Martian was the opposite; grabbed and pulled me through the book, but it was awkwardly written in parts, switched narrative tracks at least twice, and really needed a better balance in its plot points.

    City of Stairs was both interesting and intriguing prose. There was a real artfulness to how it was constructed. The Mirror Empire was Hurley finally finding what I think of as her voice, and really put together a complete package.

    That being said, I would have put Lines of Departure and Ancillary Sword ahead of them both. I have yet to read TBP or TGE, so I wouldn’t have nominated them.

30. Southern Reach is being treated as a single work? It first came out as three novels. If it is eligible as a single work, it gets my nomination for best work, errr, novel.

    Where do short story collections go? I managed to read more of the buggers this year than I usually do.

31. Cat Eldridge: Southern Reach is being treated as a single work? It first came out as three novels. If it is eligible as a single work, it gets my nomination for best work, errr, novel.

    The Longlist shows only Annihilation; however, all 3 parts of the trilogy came out last year and I don’t think any of them stands nearly as well on its own as it does as part of the whole, so I thought discussion would be most effective for it as one entity.

32. Just a note for those of you who are interested: Fire with Fire, the first novel in Gannon’s series (Trial by Fire is the second) is available to read for free as part of the Baen Free Library (you can read it online, get a .mobi sent to your Kindle, or download in any of several formats).

33. I’ve read all of the books with the exception of Words of Radiance, which is Book 2 in Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series (which is currently a part of Mount File770).

    I loved The Martian — I ripped through it in 3 hours or so. It’s a great, fast, fun adventure read. There’s not a lot of character development, and not a lot in the way of food for thoughtful contemplation — but then, I like to watch action flicks now and then just for fun, too.

    I hope the movie is great. I was not at all (and am still not) thrilled about the casting of Matt Damon as the main character; he does not seem to me to have the personality I would have expected for the character. But if it took a Big Name to get such a geek engineering movie made, so be it.

34. @Cat, I think the rationale for treating it as a single work is that it was conceived as such and the three books were all published in quick succession within the same year.

35. I absolutely loved The Southern Reach. Strange and scary and spooky and weird and paranoid and the whole atmosphere of wrongness and terror. Really should have been nominated.

36. Laertes: I did not like [The Southern Reach] books. I didn’t enjoy reading them. It was disorienting and unsatisfying. But I find myself thinking about them a lot, nonetheless, and I really admire what he did.

    Thank you! This encapsulates my reaction perfectly. They were like reading a mystery, where you’re given some clues, but not nearly enough clues to solve the mystery — and in the end you still never learn what happened. They’re also a bit horror, and a bit psychological study.

    It’s not necessarily the sort of book I’d normally read — and I certainly wouldn’t want a steady diet of similar fiction — but I’m glad that I read it.

    (If you hatehatehate books which have no real resolution, you may want to give the Southern Reach trilogy a pass.)

    VanderMeer created something that is interesting and thought-provoking as hell. But I still don’t know what that “something” is.

37. Cassy B: My Real Children [is] told from the point of view of an elderly woman who may… or may not… have dementia… she remembers two different and incompatible histories… (It’s not so much “unreliable narrator” as “unreliable reality…) It’s a difficult, wrenching book… Don’t know whether to call it SF or fantasy, but it’s sfnal.

    I really wanted to love this book. I was able to get absorbed in it — but I just didn’t think it went where it went successfully. It was interesting, but as a whole I just didn’t think that the structure and content worked.

    And, as with The Drowning Girl, I didn’t think it was really SFF — to me it seemed more like the imaginings of a person with dementia.

    I found the book really unsatisfying. YMMV.

38. Mirror Empire struck me as just more typical grimdark trash with the genders switched around.

    On a ballot with Goblin Emperor, it would never have a chance.

39. XS: Mirror Empire struck me as just more typical grimdark trash with the genders switched around.

    I really, really liked Hurley’s Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy. It’s dark and dystopic, yes — but the worldbuilding is absolutely amazing and the character development is rich.

    I found The Mirror Empire (book 1 in the Warbreaker Saga) really intriguing — but it’s very dense and complex; her worldbuilding is deep and layered — and I finished it not really feeling that I had “gotten” it all.

    I’m probably going to read it again when Empire Ascendant (book 2) comes out. But if I read both books and still end up not feeling satisfied, I may give any further books in that series a pass. I’m hoping that instead, I’ll feel as though I’ve really “gotten” it.

40. Oops, sorry, Hurley’s series is the Worldbreaker Saga.

41. JJ, it’s ok for mileage to vary; that’s what makes life interesting. (My grandmother used to say, “it’s good that we don’t all like the same thing, or just think what a shortage of oatmeal there’d be…”)

    My Real Children worked for me because 1) I bought the sfnal idea that both realities were real, and 2) neither were OUR realities. (If one of them had been our reality, I’d’ve been more inclined to ascribe wishful thinking.)

42. I enjoyed Lock In a lot. I think I still would’ve put The Goblin Emperor in first place, but I’m pretty sure Lock In would have taken second place ahead of Ancillary Sword and Three Body Problem. What nudged it over the top from being a competent and entertaining sfnal thriller to being a book I really loved was that the disability stuff felt very real and very accurate but also the sfnal trappings had a material affect on the community (one example: #hospitalglam, wheelchair/crutch/breathing mask fashion, and similar – but with threeps – and the Agora was great – and so was the continuum of attitudes – basically I got the impression that Scalzi did the research really thoroughly). I also really liked having a disabled protagonist because that doesn’t happen very often, and everyone likes seeing themselves represented, don’t they?

43. I think the Southern Reach trilogy is the most ambitious work on the list – and I nominated Annihilation. I was tempted to nominate the entire trilogy but I thought that more people would be nominating the first in the series.

    I also nominated Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor which I thought was very good too. Some bits of speech are in pidgin which I know will probably annoy some people but I cope with stuff like that OK. The narrative structure seems to have a strong hint of fairy tale at times and at one point seems to almost disintegrate as it mirrors events in the novel.

    I think Lagoon is also eligible again this year. USA edition was published July 2015 (hardcover and ebook). So if it is sitting in people’s TBR piles it might be worth bumping it up closer to the top. Certainly some places are listing it as eligible and recommending it.

44. First time i could access File770 on my travels.

    Read some of the first of the books that Trial by Fire is the second. Okish. 007-mary sue in space.

    The Martian: great “does what it says on the tin.” Well executed, fun, hope the movie is at least half as good.

    Southern Reach: brilliant. Just finished reading The Vorhh which I suppose falls into that same subgenre of The Fantastical Geography intruding into our own (cf Lost, Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Neverwhere, Mythago Wood). I read Annihilation not realising it was intended to be a part 1 and I enjoyed it and found it statisfying. You just have to accept from the start that there will be no satisfyimg answers. Was worried that the next book would be less good but “Control” was a great focus for a story – LeCarre meets weird shit.

45. andyl: I also nominated Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor which I thought was very good too. Some bits of speech are in pidgin which I know will probably annoy some people but I cope with stuff like that OK. The narrative structure seems to have a strong hint of fairy tale at times and at one point seems to almost disintegrate as it mirrors events in the novel.

    Lagoon was another book that I really wanted to love but just couldn’t. I liked that it gave me insight into a very different country and culture. But a lot of the dialogue is in pidgin English, and it’s not all easy to decipher, which made the book hard work. And I was waiting for the plot to “wow” me, but in the end it turned out to be basically “K-Zra zrrgf gur Punatryvatf sebz Qrrc Fcnpr Avar”. I was hugely disappointed.

    ETA: I’m a really generous reader. So it’s saying something that My Real Children and Lagoon were disappointing.

46. I don’t think it’s in dispute that the woman in My Real Children has dementia. In fact I think it’s the dementia that makes her capable of accessing both sets of memories at once (this isn’t a spoiler, you can see it happening almost immediately).

47. Of these, I’ve read —

    City of Stairs. Great book. Inventive, complex and well-realized, vividly drawn characters. Definitely a highlight read for me. There was one infodump scene I found minorly irritating, but it was literally a few pages in the whole book. Among those that I’ve read of these and the ones that made the ballot, I’d have ranked it either second or third for the Hugos.

    Words of Radiance. I … almost agree with the person who said the first two doorstopper books in this series feel like a prologue, but WHAT a prologue it is. I’m willing to watch this spin out for as long as he wants it to take. I think this is shaping up to be Sanderson’s masterpiece, if he sticks the landing. And having read other works by him, I think he’s going to. Among those that I’ve read of these and the ones that made the ballot, I’d probably have ranked it fourth for the Hugos (although bear in mind that’s out of a total of more than five books.)

    My Real Children. Ah. Well. Jo Walton is a favorite author of mine. Farthing is a book I press on other people with “oh read this one” noises. I loved My Real Children … right up until the ending. The ending made this the very first Jo Walton book I wanted to throw across the room. Because of that, among those that I’ve read of these and the ones that made the ballot, it would not have been in my top five.

    The Southern Reach Trilogy ( Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance). Brilliant. I know it’s not for everyone, but I was happy to let it take hold of me and take me wherever, even if I didn’t know how or what or why. Not just an exercise in exploring the unexplained, but also a set of books with great, vivid, intelligent, flawed characters. Among those that I’ve read of these and the ones that made the ballot, I’d have ranked it first for the Hugos.

48. I’ve read The Martian, City of Stairs, and Lock-In, and I hope to read the Southern Reach books by nomination time. Of the three, City of Stairs was my favorite. I’m writing this on my phone while waiting for the train and can’t figure out how to do ROT13 so I shouldn’t go into to much detail but I really loved the world building.

    I also love that the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the File 770 commentariat put Torgerson’s book on their long list. I haven’t read it but it’s almost seems like the pinko SJWs here evaluate books based on literary merit without regard to the identity or politics of the author. Hmm.

49. Too late to edit but I meant that I planned to read the Southern Reach Trilogy before the end of the year. On that note, I would love a thread dedicated to works eligible for next year’s Hugos since I really enjoy reading everyone’s recommendations and it helps me order my TBR list.

50. Of the ones I’ve read:

    City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett:

    This was my #1 SFF pick last year. Really an excellent novel all around.

    The Martian, by Andy Weir:

    I enjoyed this as a great nostalgic trip through NASA geekiness. It lacked any real character development but was clever and fun.
    Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson:

    Phew. I may be giving up on this series in Book 2. I like Sanderson in general but this is juvenile, simplistic, and predictable. (Does anyone die??) Sanderson can write hugely entertaining fantasy but I wish he would stretch a bit.

    The Mirror Empire, by Kameron Hurley:

    I don’t love this (yet) the way I love her Bel Dame series yet, but you can’t deny the ambition that animates this novel. I am happy to see where this goes.

    The Southern Reach Trilogy ( Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance), by Jeff Vandermeer: City of Stairs was my sentimental favorite of this list, but this trilogy is perhaps the most ambitious and thought-provoking work listed. It is certainly the one I imagine re-reading and pondering most often.

Comments are closed.