Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

There will be no nominations or polls for April. Last year, several members requested a "catch-up" month, where you can read monthly books you missed, or put some time into challenges. Tell us your catch-up plans for the month in this thread when you figure it out & maybe we'll find some commonality for a catch-up buddy read!

My plans aren't changing much from the normal, since I've often already read the monthly books. However, I do have a handful or previous monthly reads I skipped: Up the Walls of the World, A Midsummer Tempest, Too Like the Lightning & The Wanderer. I might also use the time to get ahead in the Old Man's War challenge & read either Stand on Zanzibar or Cryptonomicon.

I've mapped out a big chunk of my year's reading already so I have the answer to this one. My plan A is:

1. The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
2. Embassytown by China Miéville

(I could also read Up the Walls of the World, was thinking about reading it in the fall but could bump it up.)

I didn't have time to read Powers when it was our monthly read. That's the one I regret missing the most, but now's my chance to remedy that!

Kalin wrote: "1. The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
2. [book:Embassytown..."

Excellent! Both top notch favorites of mine, you'll be glad you read them.

I might join you for Embassytown Kalin and will also try for Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.

How is catch-up month going? I'm just catching up to March!

I'm starting to get really into The Curse of Chalion! I'm early into the book and it's classic Bujold "functional household snapshot" which is like a salve to my childhood wounds.

Kalin wrote: "I'm starting to get really into The Curse of Chalion! I'm early into the book and it's classic Bujold "functional household snapshot" which is like a salve to my childhood wounds."

I think that was the first Bujold book I read, even before Vorkosigan, and it's top five of what I've read since I started with this group. Really good. I will reread it someday but not this month.

I finished Curse of Chalion last night, it was amazing. Only one more Bujold book before I've read all 11 of her H/N books. But at this point I plan to read everything she has and will put out, whether or not it's been nominated for anything.

Rebecca wrote: "I might join you for Embassytown Kalin and will also try for Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang."

I didn't see this comment before but I plan to read a novella over the next couple days, and then finish the month off with Embassytown if you want to join me! Also, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang was weeiiiirrd.

Allan wrote: "My plans aren't changing much from the normal, since I've often already read the monthly books. However, I do have a handful or previous monthly reads I skipped: [book:Up the Walls of the World|910..."

I have both Up the Walls of the World and The Wanderer on my TBR, but I won't have time this month. Maybe we can BR during next year's catch-up if you haven't already gotten to them. (Although The Wanderer sounds like it's really quite bad.)

Only Too Like the Lightning was favored by the group. The others....not so much.

Sounds like we are in sync on The Curse of Chalion. A really, really great book. The next book, Paladin of Souls, won both Hugo & Nebula, and was also really good, but Chalion really struck me. The third book, The Hallowed Hunt, did not win anything, but I plan to read it soon & am looking forward to it. Maybe a BR there when you're ready.

Catch-up has been decent so far. Finished Downbelow finally & I'm all caught up with OMW. Legends & Lattes came off library hold, but I finished the audio in one day due to good timing. I'm also finishing up Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series with The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. I have a few books in progress but not urgent, so I can go wherever I want now. Got another vacation trip in a week, this time to Florida, so not sure how much reading I'll get done, but I was able to keep up last year. Definitely want to get a head start on In the Ocean of Night and The Human Division.

I started re-read of The Curse of Chalion today, reads great

Catch-up has been decent so far. Finished Downbelow finally & I'm all caught up with OMW. Legends & Lattes came off library hold, but I finished the audio in one day due to good timing. I'm also finishing up Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series with The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. I have a few books in progress but not urgent, so I can go wherever I want now. Got another vacation trip in a week, this time to Florida, so not sure how much reading I'll get done, but I was able to keep up last year. Definitely want to get a head start on In the Ocean of Night and The Human Division.

I finished re-reading The Curse of Chalion, my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Interesting review. I see you compare it to Guy Gavriel Kay’s All the Seas of the World for its approach to historical fantasy. In Kay’s case I think the analogies to European history are closer, but his invented religion is left relatively vague. Bujold’s is elaborated quite a bit and the invented theology tends to play a role in the plot.

Just a couple of thoughts that come to mind, comparing the two authors.

Stephen wrote: "Bujold’s is elaborated quite a bit and the invented theology tends to play a role in the plot."

True, but her five gods can be with some effort turned into saints/angels, just like the Christian church turned pagan holy dates (e.g. equinox), Roman temples, etc. as a part of its structure

I ended up reading Robert J Sawyer's Factoring Humanity instead for catch-up this month because I needed something easier than a Miéville. (good thing, too, because I've been super sick this past week and barely able to focus or read...)

The book is... really bad. Having read it, and knowing it's the only RJS this group has read collectively, I can see why you keep voting down nominations of his other books.

Get well, Kalin! Sawyer's works are different, say much later The Oppenheimer Alternative was ok [far from great], esp. if you're interested in the Manhattan Project and related stuff, but not for an average SF fan I guess

I thought The Oppenheimer Alternative was pretty solid biographical story with some fictional twists. It was the first RJS book I read actually, I read Flashforward last year and then this one just now. This is the worst of the three.

Sawyer has many nominations, but I don’t find his works very compelling. I read Rollback & Factoring Humanity, which were mediocre, and The Terminal Experiment, which won the Nebula, and which was just ok. They read more like Michael Crichton style bestsellers than typical sf.

The Sawyer novel I’ve read is Hominids, which won the 2003 Hugo. I thought the premise was interesting but the book was rather slight. I haven’t been inclined to try another of his books.

Late to this month but just started Embassytown, so far it’s quite interesting but I wish there was a bit more explaining. I’m not sure I’m following everything, but that does happen with audio books.

Mieville would not be an author that would work well for me in audio. The complexity & color in his prose is too great for my brain. Everything I’ve read of his has been paper. But more power to you if you can do it!

I was thinking the same think - Embassytown on audio is ambitious, but if you're having a hard time following, don't feel attached to this method!

Haha, wasn’t aware of what I got myself into but I’ve slowed down the playback speed and that’s helped a lot. What’s cool is that the “language” is spoken with two voices on the audio version. I’m curious how the physical book portrayed that bit? I’ll try to find the thread from when you read this and add my thoughts.

I'm going to join you on Embassytown in the next week or two, Rebecca, and I'll let you know what the paper copy looks like.