2019 Hugo picks: Novels

[stormsewer]

Getting this in just under the buzzer, but life gets in the way sometimes. All familiar names here, but this is a pretty strong set.



6. Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
Humans living on a fleet of spaceships go about their lives.
Part of me applauds the author for going so against the grain of the standard practice of what makes for a good plot. The other part sees this book as a case in point for why those standards are there. It didn't quite deliver what I want out of a reading experience [1]. This book was sorta interesting, but in general these people's lives were not greatly different from my own or people I know. While I respect the idea of depicting everyday life in a far-future space colony, the result is a little mundane. And while the book is not without some insight, I can't say it really changed the way I view things. And it's ultimately a space fantasy about full communism, which I have mixed feelings about.

5. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
A year after abandonment by her partner and mentor, a monster hunter on the Navajo Reservation is drawn back into the game.
Well, it was a page turner and mostly fun to read. I appreciate the MC as a damaged person trying to get better, but I frequently found her attitudes and reactions to things frustrating. More than most such books, I found the plot to be transparently just a device to continually put the MC into emotionally charged situations, with consistency of character or world-building as second-place concerns. So that was a little frustrating.

4. Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee
It's Jedao versus Jedao as competing factions battle to decide what the future holds for the former interplanetary empire.
I wasn't entirely impressed with the first two books in this trilogy, but I really liked this one. Having the third book take up where most stories leave off in exploring the question of what happens after you've toppled the old evil government is interesting, and the author does a good job of exploring the political and military intrigues that such a situation entails. Revenant Jedao is actually a pretty compelling character, and here we also finally explore the background of the big bad guy, who also turns out to be fascinating. And maybe it's just me, but is the writing and pacing a lot more solid in this book? And finally a bunch of things are explained that were annoyingly vague in the previous books [2].

3. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
In an alternate medieval Poland, young women get drawn into the machinations of powerful supernatural beings and must use their wits to stay alive.
I saved this for the end of my Hugo reading, because, on the basis of Uprooted a few years ago, I predicted this would be a solid and enjoyable read, and I was not disappointed. It has great characters, each of whom has a unique perspective on the world. It drew me in immediately, and I found it well paced throughout. Fairytale-inspired fantasy at its finest. I did find the ending a bit hrmph, though. If not for that, I might have put this at #2.

2. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
After a devastating meteorite strike in an alternate 1950s, humanity needs to get its space program going, and women refuse to be left out of the action.
This is kind of like a scif-fi mashup up of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Hidden Figures, which is to say I thought it was great.

1. Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente (novel, 2018)
Aliens arrive, and humanity must send a delegate to an intergalactic music competition and avoid placing last in order to not be wiped out.
Written with such verve, vision, wit, and ecstasy. Her writing style, despite its apparent velocity, does paradoxically inspire me to slow down and savor, so I took my time getting through it, but I loved every sentence. Valente is a strong candidate for my favorite living author [3]. It's long overdue that she won a Hugo for her fiction, so let's make this happen!




[1] This, of course, made me think about what I do want. I think I want a work of fiction to provide at least one of the following three things:
(1) people in higher-stakes situations than my own (one of the reason I found watching GoT relaxing, for instance, is that it was nice to observe people with bigger problems than mine, to put it all in perspective— I also like the problem-solving mindset works like that encourage);
(2) people in interesting places or situations relative to my own; and/or
(3) unique and valuable insight into my own situation.

[2] Like, what do they mean when they call their spaceships "moths"? How did the crazy calendrical system get set up in the first place? (Though I'm still wondering why people went along with it.)

[3] Her main competition is probably Ted Chiang. Honorable mentions to Charlie Jane Anders, Neil Gaiman, N. K. Jemison, Kij Johnson, Ann Leckie, Liu Cixin, Ken Liu, Naomi Novik, Ada Palmer, Kim Stanley Robinson, J. K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, Jeff VanderMeer, and Peter Watts.


See also:
Novellas
Novelettes
Short stories