Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

A couple of years ago, Art posted some questions for people to summarize their past year of books. Mainly focused on monthly group reads or challenges, or books from our shelves, but you can mention other titles.

The novel you enjoyed most
The book that made you think the most
The weirdest group read
Your favorite newly discovered author
Favorite sci-fi and fantasy
The book that exceeded your expectations
Your favorite protagonist & villain
The novel you'd like to re-read in the future
The most difficult read
The novel that failed to live up to its hype

1 - Enjoyed most: Perdido Street Station. I know some didn't like it but I liked it and think Mieville is amazing.

2 - Think the most: Blindsight. Not the best executed, but really interesting ideas.

3 - Tie between (1) and (2). Although it's weird that The Glass Bead Game is even on our list.

4 - New Author: Peter Watts

5 - Favorites: best sci-fi, A Memory Called Empire, Memory, A Clockwork Orange. Fantasy: The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Perdido Street Station, The Golem & the Jinni.

6 - Exceeded expectations: Going Postal, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

7 - Good guy/bad guy: Miles Vorkosigan, who else? The slake moths, they were really creepy.

8 - Re-Reads: none, I rarely do this.

9 - Most difficult: The Glass Bead Game, more boring than difficult. DNF for now.

10 - Hyped: Blindsight & Rainbow's End weren't as good as I expected.

BONUS: Best book read during the year was Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. Informative and very intense. The audio version was superb.

Thanks for posting this, Allan.
If members are struggling to remember what we read as a group, here's a link to the reading history:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

1 - Perdido or the Fifth Season, both are very creative and though the messages are very different, they both stuck a chord in me.

2 - Blindsight or Windup Girl, one has some concept that were hard to wrap around the noggin and the other one was relevant, in terms of pandemics and inability of the government to control the deterioration of the order and society.

3 - Perdido, that book broke many a mold and stroke of birth sci-fi and fantasy

4 - Jemisin and Mieville

5 - Same as 1

6 - The Fifth Season, I'm not a huge fan of modern fiction and seeing a recently published novel becoming an instant hit was refreshing.

7 - this year was pretty stingy with those. Miles for good, Randall Flag for bad, from Stephen King's universe.

8 - The Stand, hands down.

9 - The Glad Bead

10 - Lucifer's Hammer - Niven in general does not strike me like much of an author I'd chase after. Good ideas poorly executed or maybe good ideas that other authors executed in a better manner

The novel you enjoyed most Piranesi (and some of the Vorkosigans, of course--alsoMagic Bites and Magic Burns. Then also Skinwalker, and two Fforde rereads The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book)

The book that made you think the most The Ministry for the Future

The weirdest group read Up the Walls of the World

Your favorite newly discovered author Faith Hunter

Favorite sci-fi and fantasy--Sci-fi Vorkosigan. Fantasy Thursday Next series. Also Ilona Andrews and Faith Hunter and Jasper Fforde and . . .

The book that exceeded your expectations ==I thought it would be a slog, but it certainly was not. Piranesi

Your favorite protagonist & villain--Vorkosigan, no particular villain-can't think of one right now.

The novel you'd like to re-read in the future Piranesi

The most difficult read--Aside from the ones I didn't get through enough to count? Blindsight What I recall is that I would finally catch on to something and just when it got interesting it would change to something else I didn't understand

The novel that failed to live up to its hype--there were several, but I say both Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth

The novel you enjoyed most Piranesi, Little Brother, The Doors of Eden, The Mechanical
The book that made you think the most Blindsight, The Ministry for the Future
The weirdest group read The Glass Bead Game
Your favorite newly discovered author Ian Tregillis, Lois McMaster Bujold (for SF, I've read her fantasy earlier), Cory Doctorow, M.R. Carey
Favorite sci-fi and fantasy SF maybe The Doors of Eden or Little Brother or The Book of Koli; fantasy Piranesi
The book that exceeded your expectations Little Brother, Niezwyciężony
Your favorite protagonist & villain Miles Vorkosigan and Naomi (from Expanse)
The novel you'd like to re-read in the future hard to tell, maybe Blindsight
The most difficult read Blindsight, Perdido Street Station
The novel that failed to live up to its hype Gideon the Ninth

I'll limit myself to only books read in this group this year:


The novel you enjoyed most - The Fifth Season. Very original worldbuilding, complex characters, this book had it all.

The book that made you think the most - Perdido Street Station, probably. Great and complex wordbuilding, novel ideas about punishment through body modification, meditations about morality.

The weirdest group read - Bellwether. I didn't know much about it beforehand, but I thought it was going to be another easily forgettable tale. It turned out to be a zany office comedy, which I totally didn't expect, and a good one, to boot!

Your favorite newly discovered author - I think the only author I discovered through this years group reads was Connie Willis.

Favorite sci-fi and fantasy - I think I have to say the Vorkosigan saga, which was such a varied bunch of books: sometimes great fun, at another times deep and moving, sometimes admittedly poor. But still, I enjoyed it immensely.

The book that exceeded your expectations - Leviathan Wakes. I had formed an impression that the Expanse was some sort of generic space opera, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find complex socio-political worldbuilding.

Your favorite protagonist & villain - Favourite protagonist was Cordelia Naismith/Vorkosigan. Favourite villain was Dresden from Leviathan Wakes, who was seen only very briefly, but gave a great speech when captured, making the characters (and readers) start to doubt whether he was doing the right thing, after all.

The novel you'd like to re-read in the future - Blindsight. I didn't read it this year, since my last re-read was just a couple of years ago, but in a few years time it might be time for Watts again.

The most difficult read - The Glass Bead Game, which required some concentration. It wasn't anything like the Nova Express, though!

The novel that failed to live up to its hype - I'll go with The Vor Game, although "hype" is the wrong word for it. I just don't completely understand why this mess won the Hugo.

I'm only using books that were H/N nominees and that I read in 2020 to answer the questions (with one exception)

The novel you enjoyed most

Little, Big by John Crowley, a Fantasy novel of the quite other kind


The book that made you think the most

Probably Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon, from teenage time on his books made me think.

The weirdest group read

Definitely Blindsight by Peter Watts, what an utterly strange book!

Your favorite newly discovered author

I only this year discovered Jo Walton and I'm so glad for that. She's a terrific author.

Favorite sci-fi and fantasy

SF: Death's End by Liu Cixin
F: Little, Big by John Crowley

The book that exceeded your expectations

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner and
The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
for both I was prejudiced cause of the time they were written. Yet both turned out excellent reads.

Your favorite protagonist & villain

Going through my read list nothing came to my mind where I was especially fond of either protagonist or villain, so here I will put in

Navani Kolin (protagonist) and King Taravangyan (villain), both from Rhythm of War

The novel you'd like to re-read in the future

nothing comes to mind atm

The most difficult read

see "weirdest book"

The novel that failed to live up to its hype

Raven Stratagem (I only read it last month and I already can't remember what it was about ... same goes for the third book, where I even remember less ^^')
Trail of Lightning - way too pubertal for my taste
Ringworld - what an abysmal character writing

Z, glad to see you liked Little Brother. I read it in 2019 and was sold on Cory Doctorow completely. You might also like Radicalized, it was in the same vein. Little Brother has a sequel, maybe two?, but I haven’t read it yet.

My group reading was pretty limited to the Vorkosigan challenge in 2020. Didn't pick up a lot of monthly reads and some of them I'd already read.

The novel you enjoyed most
It's not one book, but the Saga, Vol. 1 series by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples.

The book that made you think the most
From our reads: Blindsight -- I did a lot of research alongside reading this.
Outside the group: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges -- many thought experiment and mindgame short stories.

The weirdest group read
Definitely Perdido Street Station.

Your favorite newly discovered author
Lois McMaster Bujold -- thanks Kateblue for leading the charge on Vorkosigan!

Favorite sci-fi
Probably the Vorkosigan Saga as a whole, with highlights to Barrayar, Mirror Dance, and Diplomatic Immunity.
and fantasy
The Ten Thousand Doors of January

The book that exceeded your expectations
Definitely Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen after all the shade it got here and elsewhere.

Your favorite protagonist & villain
I have to copy Allan on this. Miles Vorkosigan for protagonist, and those motherfucking slake moths, holy crap.

The novel you'd like to re-read in the future
Saga.

The most difficult read
Perdido Street Station again. The only English-language book I regularly needed a dictionary to understand in a LONG time.

The novel that failed to live up to its hype
Rainbows End as an absolutely undeserving Hugo winner, A Memory Called Empire as a runner up.

Allan wrote: " Little Brother has a sequel, maybe two..."

I finished the sequel, Homeland. While it maybe a tiny bit weaker (mostly because it the 1st book he sets the situation and in the 2nd he is bound by own narrative) but still quite strong. I got a lot of work now, so I'll write reviews on weekend I hope

Kalin wrote: "The novel that failed to live up to its hype
Rainbows End as an absolutely undeserving Hugo winner, A Memory Called Empire as a runner up. ..."

Agreed, "Rainbows End" was unbelievably bad.

Art wrote: "10 - Lucifer's Hammer - Niven in general does not strike me like much of an author I'd chase after. Good ideas poorly executed or maybe good ideas that other authors executed in a better manner"

This is a belated response, but I have said elsewhere that I believe Larry Niven to be a wonderful short story writer and a pretty mediocre novelist, except for Inferno. Try Neutron Star and All the Myriad Ways for some great short stories.

He also writes great little non-fiction funny essays. Someone posted this one here a year or so ago. http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html (Thanks to whomever that was . . . and here it is again.)

If we ever do any short story challenges, I would give some nominated or winning Niven short story a chance. I'll never read another novel of his.

I also like Frederic Brown's short stories and many are in Mega Kindle books that are like $1.

Kalin wrote: "If we ever do any short story challenges, I would give some nominated or winning Niven short story a chance. I'll never read another novel of his."

His shorts are fun, esp. about a detective with ESP and prosthetic arm

Is that the Gil somebody character?

I think Gil is a character from A. Lee Martinez.

I did a search. There is a Larry Niven character also. https://larryniven.fandom.com/wiki/Gi...

I don't remember reading these . . . looks interesting

Oleksandr wrote: "... I got a lot of work now ..."

Why are you working at (Orthodox) Christmas? Grandfather Frost will be disappointed.

Even my company let's our Ukrainian slaves consultants take a few days off.

Kateblue wrote: "I did a search. There is a Larry Niven character also."

Hmmm. That does look interesting.

Ed wrote: "Why are you working at (Orthodox) Christmas? Grandfather Frost will be disappointed.."

LOL. It is more just that right now I'm part of preparing a quarterly publication and it has a strict schedule :) and I dragged some parts a bit too close to deadlines.

Also the Grandfather Frost was originated in Russia as a version of German Klaus and then was used in the USSR due to his seemingly unreligious nature. In Ukraine more traditional gift-bringer was St. Nicholas but he was almost forgotten during the Soviet rule