Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Time to start gathering nominations for June! The two themes for the month are:

The 80's: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Retro Hugos: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

80s Little, Big, because I've read and enjoyed his Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr a few years back

Retro Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord because Olaf Stapledon is a great but underappreciated SF author

I almost hesitate to do this because I may hate it, but I've been meaning to read The Handmaid's Talefor quite a while

For retro--Donovan's Brain

Oleksandr wrote: "80s Little, Big, ..."

That is the only thing I've read by Crowley. I liked it very much.

I'd like to nominate No Enemy But Time for 80's and Carson of Venus for Retro. Burroughs was an early favorite of mine and it's been a long time since I read anything of his.

Well I looked through the options and haven't heard of any of them except Gather, Darkness! but I think we may have read that already? So I'll vote but won't nominate.

Yes, we read Gather, Darkness! in December, so it would not be eligible.

Thanks Allan, and that is probably why I recognized the title.

I'm seconding Little, Big for the 80's.

For the Retros, I'm nominating Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement.

Wow, I don't have a single 1980s book on my TBR right now.

I still want to read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, but I think that's better as a challenge than a monthly read (all four books were nominated individually, but I don't think they are available in print separately anymore). These books are also apparently very dense and difficult, and are probably contenders for the toughest reads of the whole list.

I’m sure you can think of something, Kalin!

I wouldn’t mind a New Sun challenge at some point. I read the first one, The Shadow of the Torturer, but haven’t made it back to the series. I know its reputation didn’t find it hugely difficult. Plus the four books are not overly long at about 325 pages each.

Allan wrote: "...didn’t find it hugely difficult..."

It is easy to read, hard to understand. The first book seems simple, but as you go further you might realize you didn't understand it as well as you thought.

So far we have:

80's:
Little, Big by John Crowley
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
No Enemy But Time by Michael Bishop

Retro Hugo:
Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak
Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord by Olaf Stapledon
Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

I'll post polls tomorrow evening if no one has any new nominees.

Alright, for 80s I'll nominate The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Full disclosure: Carson of Venus is the 3rd book of ERB's last adventure series. I don't feel like this is a big issue as I don't think many of our members would read the whole thing (and maybe not even vote for it). I suspect it's a good representation of that early type of pulp writing & ERB's style in particular. He was one of my early entry points to SF as a teenager.

Polls for June are up! Please vote!

The 80's
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

Retro Hugos
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

Looks like it's going to be Sirius and Handmaid's Tale... not a lot of votes in either poll though.

At least I have copies of both of these!! Sirius I just got. 99 cents Kindle US
https://smile.amazon.com/Sirius-Olaf-...

Kalin wrote: "Looks like it's going to be Sirius and Handmaid's Tale... not a lot of votes in either poll though."

Votes have been light for several months now.

Winners are indeed:

Retro:
Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord by Olaf Stapledon

80's:
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Having already read Handmaid, I'll probably use June as another catch-up month and read something the group's already done. Will still participate in discussion (if there is any!).

I’m with you. I read Handmaid a few years ago and thought it was great. Sirius is also short, so I’ll have time to work on challenges or catch up further.

Handmaid’s is a bit too much for me so I’ll sit that one out and I can’t find Sirius at either library systems I’m a part of! So I might do a catch up month as well. I know I’m not helping here.

Sirius= 99 cents in Kindle if you are in the US https://smile.amazon.com/Sirius-Olaf-...

It is also available at Archive org as a scan - https://archive.org/details/oddjohnsi...

The book has two novels, the second one is ours

This may be the same place as Acorn posted, Open Library:

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL32907...