Review: The Saint of Bright Doors

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review which is a reasonable estimate of my experience.

I read this book as part of last year's Hugo Awards. This was nominated for "Best Novel".

This book is a classic example of how badly the ideological capture of the Hugo Awards has damaged the reputation of the awards.

I made it halfway through the book. Nothing really happened to move the plot forward. Lots of angst. Lots of "setup" and not much "pay off". Many unanswered questions that didn't look to have answers forthcoming.

This book came in below "no award" on my ballot, but not at the bottom of my ballot. I wouldn't have made it halfway through except I wanted to give my fellow nominators the respect due their nominations. Give the book a chance to live up to the reputation of the Hugo name.

[edited - grammar, erg.]



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Hugo Nomination Pool for 2025

Novel

Novella

Ghost of a Neon God by T.R. Napper - Napper is the underappreciated modern master of cyberpunk.  This novella examines our relationship with technology and considers the morality of dealing with a truly sentient AI.

Fancast

The Cinema Stories Podcast - Thus far this year, author/podcaster Paul Hale has surveyed Disney's Frozen and the Hanna-Barbera version of Charlotte's Web.  Paul routinely provides an entertaining and educated comparison between written stories and the movies they have inspired.

Series

Arcana Imperii series by Miles Cameron.  MilSF inspired by the the trading ships of old Europe as well as the great naval battles of WWII.

Review: Translation State

Translation State by Ann Leckie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star DNF review.

My patience for authors that focus on the "guess a gender" game is gone. The last Ann Leckie book I read I did finish...but wish I'd given up sooner as it had plenty of other problems.

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Hugo 2024 - Best Novel

As is my habit, I am buying and reading all the novel finalists for this year's Hugo Awards.  This is how my ballot will line up.  

1. Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh [currently reading] - This book reflects the best of genre fiction.  It asks the reader to consider a great many presumed perspectives.  There is an underlying theme of asking people to listen to one another that I find powerful.  There are other themes in the book that I will challenge in a longer review of the book.  The fact that there are challenging themes is part of what makes this a great work.  The author has crafted compelling characters and circumstances that motivate the reader to continue reading despite some of the kookier ideas presented.  There are some serious identitarian themes presented in the book.  I think it is useful to point out that while another serious identitarian finalist was a hard DNF, this one is a hard "have to finish".
2. No Award
3. Starter Villain by John Scalzi - This one will get a 4-star review on Goodreads.  John Scalzi does what he does best.  He creates relatable characters in reasonably relatable circumstances that draw the reader into the story in a way that motivates you to finish the book.  The first quarter of the book is pretty much a normal person going through normal bad times slowly sliding into a "excuse me what do you mean by that!!??!" sort of world.  You are buckled in for the entire ride.  The book exhibits a lot of John's wit and humor and is quite fun to read.  I won't spoil a good reading experience, so go read it.  So why is this below "No Award"?  Because this is a lightweight story.  The ending is telegraphed early on.  There are multiple instances where any normal person would have acted differently and concluded the story faster.  Starter Villain is almost on par with books like Piers Anthony's "On A Pale Horse" and other entries in the Incarnations of Immortality series.  I recommend those books as well.  They are entertaining with several deep messages woven into the series.  Starter Villain lacks any serious depth beyond some mildly "woke" (for lack of a better term) elements.  It simply is not in the same category as the works that have been awarded the Hugo.  Worth buying and reading.  Not one of the 6 best books of 2023.
4. Witch King by Martha Wells - I have thoroughly enjoyed (most of) Wells' Murderbot series of books.  She writes with great empathy and detail.  She invites the reader to experience different perspectives.  In Witch King, our supposed protagonist is a demon who has inhabited the body of another person.  The first act of possession was supposedly of a willing person.  The rest were not.  The single greatest flaw in Witch King is the presumption that the demons are benevolent and that the antagonists are evil.  We are shown that demons have great power that can be used to destructive ends.  We never learn what motivates them to interact with humanity much less how they might be morally constrained from wreaking havoc on the world.  A decent book.  But not one of the six best books of the year.
5. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - Conceptually, this was a really intriguing book.  The book presumes to tell a fantastic tale akin to some of the great fantasy tales in the Western tradition but from an Arab perspective.  As someone who grew up with many Sinbad stories, I was ready to warmly welcome a more native telling of a fantasy set in that region.  If one sets aside the hypocrisy involved in painting early Islam as tolerant of independent women, Amina al-Sirafi is a fine read.  Also, the book hides a lot of information from the reader.  The person relating the story tells the reader directly that they are lying, but they will get to the truth eventually.  This technique is an unclever method for stretching a good novelette into novel length.  And it frustrates the reader.
6. The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera - plain DNF.  No connection with the characters.  No real progress in the story.  I made it over halfway through the book before I just couldn't take it anymore.  I've got a half dozen books waiting in my Kindle that I already know will be better than this.  Definitely not one of the six best books of the last year.  People really need to start ignoring Locus for this sort of thing.
7. End of Ballot
8. Translation State by Ann Leckie - Hard DNF.  I've really got no patience for the "guess a gender" authors anymore.  My last experience with the Radsch Empire ended poorly.  I gave this one a chance but "noped" out early on.

All of the books that I nominated were better than the books that ended up below No Award.

• The Ferryman by Justin Cronin 
• Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson
• House of Gold by C.T. Rwizi
• Stand Alone by John Van Stry  (the weakest of my nominees, still better than this stuff)

Review: Way Station

Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3-star review. That is a charitable estimate of my experience with this book. I was expecting the classic of the SF genre and Hugo Award-winning "Best Novel" to be much better.

The basic outline of the book is that our protagonist, Enoch Wallace, lucked into being contacted by an alien from outer space. The alien, named Ulysses by Enoch, asks Enoch to manage an intergalactic waystation.

Essentially, beings are tossed across the galaxy. Dust and other galactic ephemera limit the distance that can be traveled in a single jump. Waystations are required to permit travelers to reach farther destinations.

There are two major and a few minor elements of this book that undermine the reading experience.

The first major element is the consistent use of internal monologues. Enoch carefully weighs each decision in his mind. He also reflects on the many new cultures and friends he has experienced courtesy of his position as a stationmaster.

We rarely see Enoch interacting with other characters. We do not learn about new cultures and new alien species as part of regular interactions. Enoch just reflects and emotes. This one factor alone almost caused me to not finish the book.

There are extended segments of the book where Enoch is faced with the choice between joining the galactic co-fraternity and leaving Earth or remaining on Earth with the hope that his new knowledge and experiences will help humanity survive. The essence of these sections is that this decision is hard. Not a surprise, but not terribly interesting after the first few pages of dithering.

This book is a classic example of why "showing" is better than "telling".

The second major element is the use of so many different aspects of alien cultures and technologies. One section will focus on a new system of mathematics. Another section will focus on alien "thaumaturgy" as a method for focusing spiritual essence to create a new being.

Some of these sections pay off at the end of the book. There are extended discussions with Ulysses about intergalactic politics influencing where new waystations are located.

Other sections just pad the number of pages. Enoch creates some spiritual friends using alien thaumaturgical techniques. They end up drifting away after Enoch fails to ignore the fact that they do not have and will never have a physical aspect. The presence of thaumaturgical "science" has no influence on the outcome of the book.

It is as if the author could not decide which genre tropes he wanted to use. In his moment of indecision, he found himself using all of them. The result is a reading experience that wastes time on marginally explored and incomplete plot lines.

There were a few minor nits to pick.

The waystation system appears to exist solely for the transport of individual entities. It is never obviously used for the transport of freight. Here in reality-land, most transportation involves moving stuff rather than people. As the galactic system appears to be focused on colonizing new worlds, the absence of any freight traffic is a bit odd.

Within the book, there is an object referred to as the Talisman. It ends up being a sort of McGuffin. The Talisman is a device that is used by a spiritually sensitive person to connect various populations with a spiritual essence. The sensitive person travels with the Talisman to each world. They turn it on and the Talisman's connection with spiritual essence fosters peace for that world/population. As a secondary effect, a world where the Talisman has not yet traveled still experiences a sense of hopefulness, peace, and unity with the rest of the galaxy based on the possibility that the Talisman might eventually visit their world.

The entire concept appears to be an attempt to obtain the positive benefits of religion without the perceived obligations and objections that come with belief in a specific religion. It creates an appeal to authority without the need for anyone to submit to that authority.

Which leads to a final criticism. Enoch is of the belief that the various peoples of the rest of the galaxy are in some morally superior to humanity. He presumes that by dint of their acknowledged technical superiority, those peoples are peaceful, cooperative, and otherwise better. Humanity on the brink of nuclear war is considered to be below the standard for acceptance into the galactic co-fraternity. Various non-humans seem to confirm Enoch's self-denigratory perspective.

Yet at the end, a non-human shows up having stolen the Talisman. They are quite willing to commit acts of violence in the furtherance of their unexplored scheme. We also learn of factionalism within the galactic government based on competition for scarce resources as well as for the opportunity of pursuing policies that validate the pride and narrow interests of certain members of the galactic government.

Sounds an awful lot like Earth and the conflicts that occur between our nations and even between various cultural groups within a single nation.

"Waystation" is worth reading once for those interested in the overall history of the speculative fiction genre. Outside of that motivation, I see little to recommend in this book.


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Review: Tower of Silence

Tower of Silence by Larry Correia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a 5-star review, but it's closer to 4.5 stars.

Why the 1/2 star deduction? There were a few instances where the characters dropped into using early 21st-century idioms. And this is part of a series, so the tale is incomplete.

This is a solid entry in the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior series. Our hero Ashok finds himself on Fortress, a nearby island. He should be dead, but he isn't. And he has to find his way back to the mainland so he can return to guarding Thera.

In the meantime, the prophet Thera and the priest Keta must continue to lead their people despite Ashok's absence.

More people encounter some aspect of the Forgotten Warrior. They begin to suspect that their culture is not all they were told.

I don't want to go into too many details as they would spoil this book and it is a tremendous read. I will say that for a book with so many serious characters, it also has well-crafted moments of bust-a-gut humor.

There is never a page where you aren't interested to see what comes next.

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Review: Stand Alone: Wolfhounds - Book One

Stand Alone: Wolfhounds - Book One by John Van Stry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a 5-star review. My experience is closer to 4.5-stars, but this a great book. Go read it. Some modest spoilers are in my summary. Just go read the book.

Our protagonist, Chase, is not what he seems. Only he doesn't know it yet.

The society he inhabits is somewhat stratified. There are the common folks living common lives. It appears that moderate success is available to anyone who elects to put in the effort.

Then there are the "royalty". In reality, these are the genetically enhanced humans who can interface with artificial intelligence systems. Being genetically enhanced, the AI interfaced is passed down to their children. Humanity had previously experienced AI systems run amok. It took wars for humanity to reassert control over those computer systems. Now, AI systems require human input before they can carry out complex tasks. Those humans with the genetically engineered interface provide that input.

But wait! Not every interface is equal. Some interfaces provide better access and control of AI systems. The best interfaces are those possessed by the "imperial" family that are passed down to their children.

At some point, a commoner who lacks this interface gains enough governmental power to attempt to overthrow the entire system. He installs an authoritarian system to make things more "fair".

In the meantime, Chase just wanted to improve his position within the criminal world. Some judge tosses him into the Imperial Navy. Chase doesn't understand the judge's motivations. But he quickly adapts to the Navy and learns how to be useful.

His unit gets stuck in a sort of cryosleep. When they awaken, the unit discovers that they have been out of circulation for over a decade. The revolution has killed off the entire imperial family. Other "royals" are now forced to provide the control for the AI system; frequently at gunpoint. The new government is being about as effective as one might imagine.

And Chase might well be the most unlikely person in the universe with the possibility to influence the future.

A great story. Hard to put down. The author has put in a ton of work to make the plot logically consistent and interesting. There simply aren't any unexplained incidents.

I have two critical notes. The first is spelling and grammar. There were less than a dozen instances of poor spelling/grammar.

The second is the concept of "hot". As in "the smokin' hot babe sitting in my Camaro" type of hot. I've read several of this author's books. The women are always "hot". Brother, find a different way of describing women. This wouldn't have been an issue if I hadn't read those other books. But I did. And so it is an issue. Perhaps a minor issue, but an issue.

I will be nominating this book for the Best Novel category of the Hugo Awards of 2024. I think it is that good of a book despite my minor criticisms.

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Review: The Last Dance

The Last Dance by Martin L. Shoemaker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Captain Nicolau Aames commands a spaceship that travels the Armstrong cycle/circuit from Earth to Mars and back. It really is more of a space train that shuttles people and material to Mars and back.

The Captain is obsessed with details. Along the way, he trains people going to Mars and his own crew by forcing them to train for obscure scenarios. Essentially, he envisions a stream of cascading errors and demands that his crew be prepared to respond to any contingency.

Captain Aames finds himself in trouble as he refuses an order from command. The ensuing investigation eventually becomes centered on a death on Mars. If the Captain is correct, it is a murder. Command doesn't see where it could be a murder and just wants the investigation closed.

A second feature is the potential for the spaceship to become a self-contained polity that is free from the dictates of Earth. As an independent polity, the Captain of the ship would be free from many of the regulations imposed by Earth.

Mysteries within mysteries with the question of self-determination in the balance.

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Review: The Last Campaign

The Last Campaign by Martin L. Shoemaker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another fantastic installment in this series. Where before our protagonist was a spaceship captain, he has lost that high position and now works with his wife running various businesses.

Murders occur and those in power seek someone capable of running a detailed investigation. It turns out to be his wife that is called to serve rather than him. This naturally causes a great of stress between them.

What follows is a collision of principles in front of a background of people struggling to build a new civilization on Mars that is not dependent or based on an overly bureaucratic Earth.

The tension between personal principles, love for another, and the desire to live free creates space to explore the human condition from many directions.

This was on my nomination list for the Hugo Awards in 2021.

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Hugo Awards - 2021 - Short Stories

 I've been read other books lately and had not intended to return to the Hugo nominees.  But as I had them downloaded anyway....

1 - “Metal Like Blood in the Dark”, T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2020) - a great little story about the loss of innocence for a pair AI driven robots.  Or at least one of them

2 - “A Guide for Working Breeds”, Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris)) - An interesting twist on AI/robots as contract labor.  You never really see where the humans intersect with the AI/robots, but it's there all along.

3 - No Award

4 - “The Mermaid Astronaut”, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, February 2020) - a somewhat interesting space travel story with merfolk added on the side.  Good, but not above the bar on my ballot.

5 - “Open House on Haunted Hill”, John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots – 2020, ed. David Steffen) - a pedestrian haunted house story.  Nice, but not really notable.

6 - “Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse”, Rae Carson (Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2020) - Surviving the zombie apocalypse without men.  But they still want babies.  Almost half of which will end up being men.  Illogical setting/world building.

7 - Little Free Library, Naomi Kritzer (Tor.com) - a twee little story using a plot device that has been done too many times already.

2021 Hugo Awards - Best Graphic Novel

Once & Future vol. 1: The King Is Undead, written by Kieron Gillen, Illustrated by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain, lettered by Ed Dukeshire (BOOM! Studios) - An innovative twist on the Arthurian legends in all their guises.  Great art.  Thoroughly engaging storyline.

Monstress, vol. 5: Warchild, Author: Marjorie Liu, Artist: Sana Takeda (Image Comics) - Liu and Takeda continue their series in style.  There were very few moments where I felt that I was missing something important from the volumes that I had not read.

Ghost-Spider vol. 1: Dog Days Are Over, Author: Seanan McGuire, Artist: Takeshi Miyazawa and Rosi Kämpe (Marvel) - Classic Marvel art style. Good story.  Not exactly groundbreaking work, but still very enjoyable.

DIE, Volume 2: Split the Party, written by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image Comics) - Further adventures of people that end up playing D&D for real.  Several mini-plots.  A derivative plot culdesac involving Charlotte Bronte and her siblings.  Good art.  Decent story.  Too much of the plot is dependent on knowledge of the past volume.

No Award 

Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, written by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, illustrated by John Jennings (Harry N. Abrams) - Marginal art.  I don't think the original work by Ms. Butler translates as well into the graphic novel format.  At least in this case there was a lot of telling and not as much showing.  I dropped out about a third of the way through due to the style of the graphic novel, but am now inspired to read the original book.

Invisible Kingdom, vol 2: Edge of Everything, Author: G. Willow Wilson, Artist: Christian Ward (Dark Horse Comics) - Unremarkable art.  Unmemorable story.  Not worthy of consideration for this award.

Hugo Awards - Novelette 2021

I am motivated to read this year's novelette nominees primarily based on the first story listed below.  It was originally published as "I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter".  The author was then subject to all manner of abuse and harassment until they asked Clarkesworld [to withdraw the story].

I thought at the time that the story was marvelous.  The text of the story was great.  One need not delve into the subtext to enjoy the story.

But...if you wanted to reflect on that subtext, gender in general and transgender specifically, then there was a lot to chew on.  Most importantly, the author didn't kick the reader out of the story for wanting to think about it further.  The best method for attracting converts is to leave the door open.

1. “Helicopter Story”, Isabel Fall (Clarkesworld, January 2020) - well...see above.  This is a top-notch story.
2. “The Inaccessibility of Heaven”, Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny Magazine, July/August 2020) - The story tells of fallen angels that rebelled against Heaven/God who are forced to live among common humans.  It isn't clear if this is our Earth, but it is close enough.  The rebellion lives on while they are on earth.  Humans are subject to angelic "effects".  The angels long to return to their home in heaven.  I thought it was a well-crafted tale.
3. “Two Truths and a Lie”, Sarah Pinsker (Tor.com) - This story is about a young woman who slowly discovers that she and most of her childhood friends were subjected to a sort of mystical storyteller whose stories about the children seem to come true.  It is a bit of a think piece on the impact of our words on one another and especially on our children that slowly resolves into a horror ending.  Pretty good stuff.
4. “Burn, or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super”, A.T. Greenblatt (Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2020) - The world of this story includes people with supernatural abilities.  Unfortunately, the normal humans don't like the supers...at least until the supers can step in and save the normal humans.  The ending wasn't the greatest as our protagonist, Sam Wells natch, discovers that he doesn't want to use his powers.  He just wants to be an accountant that helps the "front line" supers do their thing.  We discover at the end that Sam is immune to fire.  His clothes, not so much.  I think a better ending would have involved Sam being adopted by firefighters as he can wander into fires to rescue people without the fear of being burned alive.
5. No Award
6. “Monster”, Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld, January 2020) - A young scientist goes to China in search of her high school friend that just so happens to be a ubiquitous super-brilliant villain that has murdered many people to develop a serum that makes him super strong and quick.  She ends up killing the villain and destroying all evidence of his discovery to prevent it from falling into the government's hands.  This was not a bad story.  It just didn't measure up to what I think Hugo-worthy work should be.

Not mentioned -

“The Pill”, Meg Elison (from Big Girl (PM Press))

It seems like this story might be in conversation with Cliff and the Calories by Robert A Heinlein.  In Heinlein's tale, our protagonist is committed to a diet to keep her in a super svelte condition because she thinks that is what her boyfriend wants.  Spoiler, he prefers her with a little more meat on her bones as being too skinny makes her look unhealthy.

In The Pill, our protagonist is obese in a world that is discovered a pill that causes everyone to be a healthy weight.  The downside is that one in ten people who take the pill die.  Our heroine eschews the pill and ends up being a sort of live porn star who is steadily being encouraged to go from obese to morbidly obese.

The story has several significant flaws.

• It portrays the US FDA as rapidly and cavalierly approving the drug even though the 1:10 death rate is well documented from the trials.  The FDA never approves a drug quickly.  And FDA officials are terrified of approving a drug that kills one out of 100,000 much less one out of every ten people.
• As an aside, it should be pointed out that America's problem with obesity is primarily the result of poor government policies originating with the food pyramid of the 1970s that advocated an increase in starches and carbohydrates.
• Obesity is not healthy.  The NIH estimates that obesity reduces a person's lifespan by an average of 14 years.  There are real-world consequences for being obese that include heart issues and diabetes. Our various public and private means of funding health care are strained by obesity.
• As an additional aside, consider the implications of a treatment that kills one in ten that then improves the health of the other nine such that they regain 14 years of healthy, productive living?  While we lose a person 30-40 years early, we gain over 120 cumulative years in the other nine.  I wouldn't accept a 1:10 death rate in a pharmaceutical treatment, this particular cold equation suggests that our society would be better off even with that disastrous sort of drug.
• The story briefly entertains and then immediately discards, the idea of changing one's diet and increasing one's physical activity as a means of losing weight.  Instead, the story validates and excuses poor eating habits.
• The story describes those that take the pill as having a single body style.  There isn't any more diversity of appearance as everyone has the same chiseled features.  That is utter nonsense.  If you look back at older photos before American prosperity gave rise to the American obesity epidemic you will see a wide range of appearances that were all very healthy.  The author is offering a false choice to the reader.

Unlike Heinlein's tale that supports a healthy lifestyle, this story endorses a decidedly unhealthy lifestyle.

Being honest here, I have struggled with my weight.  In my prime in the Corps, I was 190 lbs.  After the service, I gradually increased my weight to 255 lbs.  After I got serious about my health, I was able to go back down to 195 lbs. - they were good-looking pounds, but I still had more to lose.  Various factors over the last few years have caused me to go back up to 225 lbs.  I want to go back down.  Losing weight is hard.

But it isn't impossible for the vast majority of obese people if they are willing to learn some simple rules about eating and commit to a very modest amount of exercise.  This story does harm to the obese by offering succor to their desire to be seen as "normal".  Rewarding this story with being a finalist for a Hugo is unconscionable.

2021 Hugo Awards - Best Novel

Typing is still a bit hard these days, so this will be brief.  My final ballot for the Best Novel Hugo Award for 2021 will be as follows.  I think.

1. Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery / Saga Press / Solaris)
2. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
3. Harrow The Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com)
4. Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tor.com)
5. No Award
6. The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books / Solaris)
7. [blank]

Unmentioned

• The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Black Sun was a fantastic read.  It was infused with several mythologies from the pre-Columbian Americas.  The book also contained some elements of the grimdark sub-genre; a personal preference.  I was ignoring everyone so I could read more.  Ms. Roanhorse is a tremendous talent.  This book is a showcase for that talent.  Just read it.

Piranesi was also a great read.  It contained reality-bending elements that were reminiscent of Philip K. Dick.  A worthy nominee, but not quite as good as Black Sun.

An aside before we continue.  I have previously suggested that the pool of Hugo Award nominators appears to have a limited range of authors/topics/publishers that they will consider as suitable for their nominations.  I periodically encounter a modestly provicial attitude that this limited range of experience is suitable because "it's the Hugos".

The result of that attitude is that successive novels in a series end up being nominated even though prior entries nominated in prior years were not selected for the award.  My general experience is that the quality of successive entries in a series frequently declines as the series progresses.  That is partially the result of successive entries either relying on the reader being familiar with prior entries to fully engage with the current entry and/or the author creating a cliffhanger ending to encourage the reading of the next installment.  This award is for the "Best Novel".  A novel should be a complete piece of work.

I am considering the option of a personal rule that puts any novel from a series below No Award unless all of the prior entries have won for the years that they were nominated.  At the very least, I think the bar should be higher for a subsequent entry to win a Best Novel Hugo if the prior entry/entries did not also win the award.  Other people will make other choices.

Harrow the Ninth is the second in a series from Tamsyn Muir.  The first entry, Gideon the Ninth, was fantastic.  I had it in second place behind Middlegame on my ballot last year.  Harrow the Ninth was a fun and engaging book.  While it included most of the same characters as the prior entry, their relationships were substantially different.  One need not have read the first installment to enjoy this book.  Unfortunately, the book ends on a cliffhanger, so this isn't a complete story.  The entire book bends reality in so many ways.  The ending was a completely unexpected twist.  I will read the third installment eventually, but probably not when it comes out as I suspect that it will be heavily nominated for the Hugo Best Novel category.  If this were 2022, then I'd probably put it below No Award based on the principle discussed above.  I think this series would make a great Best Series nominee.

Network Effect is the latest entry in the Murderbot series from Martha Wells.  I read the entire series in one sitting last year.  It is a great series.  The series is nominated for the Best Series award and I have voted for it for that award.  However, there are a couple of reasons why Network Effect doesn't belong at the top of the Best Novel ballot.  First, as described above, the reader really needs exposure to the prior entries in the series to get the full effect of the novel.  The novel does not stand on its own.  As a separate plot flaw, our protagonist, Murderbot, still isn't wearing armor despite several entries in the series where a little armor would have been very helpful.  While Murderbot is continuing to develop in other areas, they simply haven't learned that part of their old existence, the wearing of armor, might continue to be useful from time to time in their new existence.  Again, if this were 2022, then I'd probably put this below No Award despite finding it to be a very enjoyable book.

No Award - this should be self-explanatory.

The Relentless Moon is the third entry in the Lady Astronauts series by Mary Robinette Kowal.  It continues the tradition of heavy-handed virtue signaling.  The reader is to take but one message from the book and no enjoyment of the book is to be permitted unless that message is received and accepted as gospel truth.  Also, the story involves a level of trust in the competence of the United Nations that has never been justified in the entire history of that clubhouse for national chief executives.  I noped out of this one early.

I am not mentioning The City We Became at all on my ballot.  The book began with a reference to the demonstrably false narrative that modern police in the US kill black men willy nilly without repercussions.  The facts do not support that narrative.  The facts do support a long-overdue national conversation about how police interact with all of our citizens.  The facts do support changing police culture so that Americans that are black are treated with the same level of trust and respect as all other Americans receive.  But no rational reading of the current statistics regarding people killed by the police justifies the narrative that the police are routinely killing American black citizens.  Shortly thereafter, the author included a signal that she doesn't care for white people to read her book.  I accepted her racist language on its face value and promptly gave it the Dorothy Parker treatment.  I rarely regret purchasing a Hugo Best Novel nominated work.  This is one such exception.

2016 Hugos - Novel

I found the following while looking through my unpublished blog entries.  Most of this written back in 2016 with the exception of the last two novels on the list.

---------------------

I didn't get around to the novel category last year.  I focused on the sub-novel length works last year and ran out of time.

My mistake.

This year, I started buying the novel nominees as soon as the finalists were announced.  I didn't wait for the packet as I really wanted to get through as much material as possible. 

My thinking on the finalists in this category has changed over time.  I finished the last one in late May or early June.  Since then, I have changed my vote a couple of times. 

This is not a full-on book review.  It's just my impressions relative to my voting for the Hugos.  Without further delay, here we go.

Spoilers!!.....duh

The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher (Roc)

While this book was not my first read, it was by far my favorite.  The novel includes multiple character perspectives and very detailed fantasy world-building.  

I thoroughly enjoyed the positive themes of people governing themselves politically and individually.  There was a tension between the idealized version of how people viewed themselves and the reality of how they interacted with the world around them.  There was a sub-text of people aspiring to be better than they were.

That goes for many of the antagonists as well.  One of the hallmarks of good writing is to create interest/sympathy for an antagonist.

In addition to creating a well-formed and coherent world filled with a variety of character types, he has also accomplished the unique task of making a steampunk-themed world sensible to me as well as making me like cats.

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Reflection on this novel has resulted in the most significant change to my ballot.  It has moved twice from fourth to second place.  In terms of world development and plotting, I find it to be a very narrow second to The Cinder Spires.

Ms. Jemisin has created a wonderfully detailed world.  The one regrettable feature is the unquestioned class/career social structure that affords few opportunities for individuals to follow a unique path.

Four issues separate this novel from being in first place.

The acceptance of socially imposed class/career structures.  The protagonists don't really mind being limited to what they are as long as they aren't on the bottom of the social structure.  They don't advocate for equal liberty.  They advocate for some other caste to be on the bottom of the pile.

The idealization of society as a sort of quasi-socialist utopia.  For a brief time our protagonists are free from their masters and join a quasi-socialist society run/led by people of their "caste".  The society indulges in common cooking arrangements rather than household/individual sufficiency.  The society survives by stealing the productive wealth of others instead of producing something of use that can be traded.

(Socialism appears to be the currently preferred political system of fantasy writing.  Which is appropriate as the only place where it works is as a fantasy.  In the real world it is the most bloody and oppressive system invented by humankind.)

The primary characters are self-absorbed with their social position without a sense of humor.  They are almost wholly consumed with achieving revenge.  No matter how justified their revenge might be...and it is justified...I just am not interested in reading about characters that do not aspire to be something better.  Ms. Jemison might take a look at Joe Ambercrombie's First Law series to see characters with both nasty and humorous sides that want to be something better tomorrow than they are today.

The book centers on the plight of the social cast of orogenes;  people that can manipulate the earth.  Among other skills, they can create or silence earthquakes; quite useful on a planet that is quite seismically active.  The orogenes are kept under control (effectively held as slaves) by another caste.  There is precisely one orogene in the book that is free to do as he pleases.  I find the lack of refugee bands of orogenes to be less than believable.  Of course, groups of free orogenes running around would result in a very different book.

In thinking about the sub-text of the world, consider the orogenes as government power instead of as individuals.  From that perspective, the novel suggests that their unrestrained power is in some way a good thing.  Human experience suggests that unlimited government power generally results in poverty and oppression.  But that is not a sub-text that the author intends.  I think that subtle shift would have made this a better novel.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey)

I loved Uprooted from the start.  This is a tale about a young woman living in a land where a wizard comes every few years to take a young maid to his castle.  The maid is always returned safe and sound to her family, but after the experience is rarely satisfied with her small-town life thereafter.

The wizard usually takes the most beautiful young maid.  But one year, he takes the one who appears to have some innate ability to learn/use magic in lieu of greater physical beauty.

The story unfolds along the intersection of two themes.  One theme is the conflict between good and evil.  Evil is represented by an unknown malignancy that grows in a specific forest.  The forest seeks to spread itself and thereby spread the evil.

The second theme is that of magic that is traditionally learned as more of rigorous science with formal rules and traditions as to how magic is performed.  As a contrast, our young heroine slowly blossoms into a sort of magic performed by intuition and feelings instead of as the result of rules and study.

The novel begins at a modest pace that unfolds the world in an interesting manner.  The pace rapidly accelerates as the "evil" spreads and the wizard must respond to ever-increasing threats.  The storyline unfolds in a reasonably linear format that primarily follows the one central character.  The linear format is not as complex as the multiple threads used in the two preceding works.

The weakest part of the story is the last few chapters where we learn that the "evil" is simply misunderstood and the "good" isn't as good as they think.  The "healing" comes from the new wizard, our young, intuitive heroine, who slowly repairs centuries of harm with intuition and empathy.

I was less than impressed with the ever flawed concept of being able to feel our way to new solutions to old problems.

I loved the writing, the use of language, and the general story.  The subtext was less than inspiring.  That subtext coupled with the generally more simple/linear framework put this book in third place on my ballot.

Seveneves: A Novel by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow)

Seveneves is two novels in one.  The first half presents a global catastrophe in the form of the destruction of the moon.  The resulting detritus rains down on the earth, raising the atmospheric temperature, and generally making the planet uninhabitable.  Humanity races for lifeboat rockets that will allow a limited number to survive until the planet cools.

Hijinx ensue.  People cheat the system designed to preserve the most genetically/biologically fit individuals.  There are daring rescues and grisly conflicts.  The close of the first half brings us to what is left of the moon still in the usual orbit.

Seven women are the sole survivors among the thousands of humans that left the planet.  Fortunately, one of them is a highly skilled geneticist who can create sufficient genetic diversity to allow humanity to survive this rather extreme genetic bottleneck.

The second half begins by leaping a few thousand years in the future.  Humanity has built a myriad of space-born structures.  The population has expanded and split into seven discrete groups based on their progenitors.  Each group reflects inheritable qualities from each of those seven women.  There is some interbreeding between the groups, but not all that much.

All of the cultural norms from thousands of years of human civilization are gone.

The earth has cooled and humanity is ready to come home.  Exploration has begun.  It turns out that the humans that left the planet are not the only ones to have survived.  There is conflict and confrontation between all of the descendants of humanity.

While I enjoyed this book a great deal, there were a couple of issues.  The first is the behavior of the seven surviving women.  They meet in the immediate aftermath of a conflict that results in the death of every other human.  They immediately sit down for a conference on how they can survive.  One of the first topics is the lack of genetic diversity.

The geneticist indicates that she can manipulate genetic codes to create the diversity that will be needed to help the human race survive.  What is ignored is the comparative treasure trove of genetic material present in the bodies that are floating all around them.  Instead of sitting down to have a chat, they could have immediately improved their genetic diversity by collecting and freezing samples.

The second issue is the range of "technology" that develops in the centuries that follow.  Some of it is impressive and seemingly possible.  Some of it represents flights of fancy.  Books that attempt to be hard science fiction should avoid flights of fancy.

One such flight is pretty significant.  There is a structure that is a spinning ring that orbits the earth.  Other human settlements/structures pass through the middle of this ring as it swings around the earth.  The big problem here is that the axis of motion for the spinning ring would be roughly parallel to the equator.  This would result in the precession of the axis; the ring would rotate as it orbited the earth.  There would be too many times when this precession would preclude any other object from passing through the middle of the spinning ring.  

There were other flights of fancy in the back half of the book that had my "nit-picking reader" fully operational.  There was so little of that sort of thing in the first half of the book that it was a bit confounding to find so much of it in the back half.

I very much enjoyed the book and understand why others would nominate it.  But it wasn't as good as the other works listed above.

No Award

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Orbit)

This is being written in 2021.  A few years have passed.  This novel bounced off of me pretty hard for a couple of reasons.

One of those is the plot point that the controlling political forces don't care about gender.  Humans care about gender even if there are alien species that do not.  I am moved by books about humans and human reactions.

Another is that this is a putatively MilSF novel in which our intrepid military protagonist response to every point of conflict by sitting down to a nice cup of tea.

Those issues aside, this was a reasonably interesting if not terribly memorable novel.  It just didn't clear the bar relative to the Hugo Awards for me.

Potential Hugo Nominees - 2022

 To be updated as the year progresses.

Best Related Work

THE PUNK IN CYBERPUNK: A CYBERPUNK MANIFESTO by T.R. Napper

Hugo Nominees 2021 - Preliminary Thoughts

The short-listed nominees for the 2021 Hugo Awards have been announced.  Like many, I have thoughts.

Best Novel -

• Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery / Saga Press / Solaris)
• The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
• Harrow The Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com)
• Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tor.com)
• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
• The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books / Solaris)

As I have suggested in the past, the nominators seem to be focused on a limited range of authors.  I purposely didn't read Harrow The Ninth or The City We Became in 2020 because I knew they would be on the short-list this year.  I did read Network Effect as I was working through the prior novella-length entries in that series already.  

The point is that four of the six nominees have had other works nominated recently.  Of the other two, Martha Wells' series is popular with many nominators.  I was unaware of Piranesi before it was nominated.  Upon reading the summary at Goodreads, I have high hopes for this book.  I can't say where it will appear on my ballot, but the concept sounds interesting to make it worth my time to read.

At least three of the works are subsequent entries in a series.  In my experience, subsequent entries in a series rarely surpass (much less equal) the quality of the first entry.  Very rarely.  If the initial entry didn't win, then I doubt subsequent entries will do any better.

I participate in the Hugo Awards to encounter new works and/or authors that I might have otherwise missed.  Having so many repeat nominees and/or serial entries diminishes that possibility.

Meryl Streep is the only actor that gets nominated for an Oscar for almost every movie she makes.  That's a bit odd, but it's Meryl.  Now we have a cadre of four authors that are repeatedly making the short-list?  Nope.

Best Novelette -

I nominated the novelette I Sexually Identify As A Helicopter by Isabel Fall.  I found it remarkable.  The con staff has shown the title as "Helicopter Story".  The original publisher, Clarkesworld, has indicated that the author changed the name at some point in time.  The author has indicated a willingness to accept the award.  It is Isabel's prerogative to rename the story.  While I will use the new title for participation in reading/reviewing/ranking the nominated works, I do wish that Isabel had kept the original name.  The only way to beat bullies is to never give them an inch of what they are asking.  Isabel was indeed bullied last year over this story.

Best Series - 

This is the first category where I would like to have a method for putting certain titles below "No Award" without harming the chances of the rest of the field.  I don't know that I will have time to sample all of the series.  While I have heard good things about a few of the nominees, I consider only one of the three series that I have sampled to be worth considering for the award in this category.

Best Related Work -

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form - 

There is at least one and perhaps two nominees in each of these categories that I would like to put below "No Award" without harming the chances of any of the rest of the nominees.  Alas, this is impossible.

Best Graphic Story -

• DIE, Volume 2: Split the Party, written by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)
• Ghost-Spider vol. 1: Dog Days Are Over, Author: Seanan McGuire, Artist: Takeshi Miyazawa and Rosie Kämpe (Marvel)
• Invisible Kingdom, vol 2: Edge of Everything, Author: G. Willow Wilson, Artist: Christian Ward (Dark Horse Comics)
• Monstress, vol. 5: Warchild, Author: Marjorie Liu, Artist: Sana Takeda (Image Comics)
• Once & Future vol. 1: The King Is Undead, written by Kieron Gillen, iIllustrated by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain, lettered by Ed Dukeshire (BOOM! Studios)
• Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, written by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, illustrated by John Jennings (Harry N. Abrams)

On a positive note, there isn't a Saga entry for this year.  On another positive note, I have been meaning to read DIE Volume 2.  On a negative note, Monstress is nominated for the fifth consecutive year.  I have thoroughly enjoyed Monstress.  I might even put Volume 5 in the first spot on my ballot.  But I am suspicious when consecutive works in a series always find their way onto the short-list over and over with only 303 people nominating in the category. 

Best Semiprozine - 

Escape Pod & PodCastle do not seem to be properly placed in this category.  They are both podcasts that are comparable to podcast nominees from prior years in the "fancasting" category that were also headlined by professional writers.  Fortunately, I probably will not get to this category.  If there was a means of placing those nominees below "No Award" without harming the chances of the rest of the nominees, then I would surely use it.

Best Fancast - 

While there are a couple repeat nominees, there are also several new titles.  I'm looking forward to sampling their work. [updated] I just couldn't do it.  There were too many repeats to want to wade through all of the entries to give them a fair sampling.

-----------------------

I wish entertaining times for everyone in the coming months.  If you haven't participated in the Hugo Awards in the past, then I recommend you give it a try.  You will encounter some of the best work being done in the genre.

"But The Book I Like Is Better!"

 I was engaged in an online discussion about the relative popularity of novels that were nominated for the best novel Hugo award.  This discussion was sometime last August (2020).  

The primary assertion being made last August was that Larry Correia's works aren't as popular as those selected for the Hugo best novel shortlist.  A couple of other conservative-leaning authors were included for comparison purposes by one interlocutor.  I am interested in not seeing authors excluded from critical evaluation based on their politics.  Also, I'm not a specific fan of Mr. Correia. His Saga of the Forgotten Warrior series is on my TBR pile.

These discussions frequently end in pointless goalpost shifting, confirmation bias, and very selective cherry-picking of data.  A book that sells a lot of copies will be called great as long as the right sales numbers can be used to buttress a person's perspective; "my book is so good that everyone read it".  Once sales volume information runs against their perspective, there will be a switch to how the book is underappreciated and better than some best-selling bit of popular drivel; "your sales numbers don't matter because popular drivel isn't as good as my obscure book".  Or two different sub-genre categories will be used to "prove" something.

Watching two people, or two groups of people, flip and flop over what defines a book as "great" was once entertaining, but now is just tiring.  Given the growth in the number of genre titles published each year, it is becoming easier and easier for a reader to find a quality piece of genre literature that has not come to their attention previously.

As an exercise, here were the books for the 2019 Hugo Best Novel award along with their rankings via Amazon.  These are overall Kindle rankings as I couldn't find a good method for limiting it to the SF/F genre.  The data was pulled on 4/7/2021.

#65,263 - The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)

#144 - Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Macmillan)

#15,771 - Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)

#38,356 - Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

#66,783 - Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

#166,183 - Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)

I was partial to Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence; also published in 2018.  It didn't even make the long list for the Hugo best novel category.  I would easily put it above at least half of the short-listed works.

#31,699 - Grey Sister - Mark Lawrence

[An aside.  I pulled data last August for those same books and got VERY different results.  The Calculating Stars was closer to the #10,000 to #15,000 range.  Spinning Silver wasn't nearly that high in Kindle sales as it was on 4/7/2021.

Perhaps Kindle rankings aren't a great comparison method as it shifts over time.

My original point was that Grey Sister was an equally popular book that was largely ignored by the pool of Hugo nominators.  I think the point is worthwhile even if the shifting sands of the Kindle ranking algorithm aren't of any utility in proving the point.

End aside.]

Simply focusing on a few, select conservative-leaning authors is a distraction from the larger point that there are a lot of really good books out there.  When making comparisons, it is better to compare a book with the contemporaneous cohort of books published that year.  As an example, I think The Legend of Huma by Richard Knaak was a big miss by those with an interest in awards. It was on the NYTimes bestseller list in 1988. I found it to be a satisfying read with both an entertaining tale and engaging subtexts. Yet it didn’t receive any recognition from the various “literary” awards.  As a guess, this is because the Dragonlance series and Wizards of the Coast (publisher) were not seen as being capable of producing a literary meritorious work.

Using a similar Amazon yardstick, The Legend of Huma fairs fares[1] pretty well against all of the Hugo Best Novel finalists from 1989 as well as almost all of the works listed in the 1989 WorldCon report of nominations.  (I believe these numbers are from Kindle Books - Science Fiction/Fantasy sub-category.  But it's been a while.  Again, sorry.]  The only book with better sales was by Isaac Asimov.  And...well...he was Isaac Asimov!  The data was pulled on the same day in August of 2020.

#26,458 The Legend of Huma by Richard Knaak

Not listed in KS – Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh [winner]**

#488,544 – Red Prophet, by Orson Scott Card

#67,218 – Falling Free, by Lois McMaster Bujold

#106,791 – Islands in the Net, by Bruce Sterling

#53,799 – Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson

Not listed in KS – The Guardsman, by P.J. Beese and Todd Cameron Hamilton – [withdrawn]

[from the long list of 1989]

#1,851,058 – Orphan of Creation, by Roger MacBride Allen

#1,326,895 – Deserted Cities of the Heart, by Lewis Shiner

Not listed in KS – Alternities, by Michael P. Kube-McDowell

#67,483 – Dragonsdawn, by Anne McCaffrey

#464,446 – The Gold Coast, by Kim Stanley Robinson

#487,340 – Ivory, by Mike Resnick

#12,177 – Prelude to Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

#175,591 – Hellspark, by Janet Kagan

#245,495 – The Paladin, by C.J. Cherryh

** There was a 3-book collection that seems to represent the nominated work. It was only available in audiobook and paperback. No Kindle edition.

This is an apples-to-apples comparison in that all of the books are from the same year. But it’s cherry-picking because I picked 1989 and of course the Amazon ranking algorithm can significantly shift the ranking from week to week.  My point remains that there is a wealth of quality works of SFF literature that do not attract the attention of Hugo nominators in any given year.

In the 1970s, the SF/F genre was small enough that having authors present as repeat nominees was normal.  The number of authors has exploded since then as have the total number of works published each year.  It should be harder for a specific author to be a repeat nominee unless their work is incredibly special - every author can't be Connie Willis.  Given the expanded competition and even taking Sturgeon's Rule into account, a pool of nominators with broad experience in the genre should find it harder to repeatedly nominate the works of any specific author.

This problem gets worse when it comes to some of the less active categories such as "fancast" and graphic novels.  There are fewer nominators for those categories.  Those nominators appear to be focused on a limited range of works.

Either expanding the range of works experienced by Hugo nominators or expanding the number of Hugo nominators to cover an expanded range of works would improve the quality of the works that make the shortlist of nominations.  I do not know how to make that happen structurally other than to continue advocating that nominators push themselves to experience a broader range of works.

What is counter-productive is the occasionally seen response that the shortlist for any given year is an excellent representation of the best of the field.  In my opinion, it may be a good representation of the best of the field but it can, will, and does omit equally worthwhile works by dint of the biases present in the limited pool of nominators.  A pool of nominators with a broader range of experience would provide a better quality shortlist.

[1]At least I have mastered "there, they're, and their"!

Hugo 2021 - Nomination Pool

It's that time of year when genre readers nominate their favorite works for the annual Hugo Awards.  My nominees follow.  Updates to be made as circumstances require.  I have one or two other properties that I might nominate for the Dramatic Presentation (Long) category.

If you love science fiction/fantasy works and want to see the best of those works be acknowledged, then please participate.  You can purchase a membership at the Discon III website.  Supporting members still get a chance to vote on this year's finalists and will be eligible to nominate for the 2022 awards.  Members generally get access to a great range of fiction in the voter's packets.

As always, please don't nominate anything that you haven't personally experienced.  

Novel

The Last Campaign - Martin L. Shoemaker - 47North

Scarlet Odyssey - C.T. Rwiz Rwizi - 47North

Short Story

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter  — by ISABEL FALL — Clarkesworld Jan. 2020
Martial Arts Master - by Alan Baxter - Twitter

Novella

The Weight of the Air, The Weight of the World by T.R. Napper - from Neon Leviathan ~23,000 words

Dramatic Presentation (Long)

Locke & Key - Netflix
Warrior Nun - Netflix
October Faction - Netflix

Dracula - Netflix

The Mandolorian - Disney+ *

Editor - Short Fiction

Adrian Collins

Editor - Long Fiction

Adrian Collins

Semiprozine

Cirsova

Grimdark Magazine

Graphic Novel/Comic

XKCD

Fancast

Sincast by CinemaSins

The Disney Story Origins Podcast

Series

Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

The Empires Corps by Christopher Nuttall

* In light of Disney Studios' canceling of Gina Carano, I feel disinclined to support their products.  I am uncomfortable with the larger changes to our society over the last 20 years.  Where once tolerance for diversity was perceived as a laudable benefit to advancing the human condition, we are no longer able to appreciate a diversity of opinion.

With respect to Science Fiction/Fantasy, I would prefer to appreciate a diversity of works while largely ignoring the personal behaviors of creators.  Ms. Carano's statements might be worthy of a critical response.  They are unworthy of terminating a creative relationship.

Should The Mandolorian make it to the final round, it would surely go below "no award" on my ballot.

Review: The Light Brigade

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read this book as part of voting for the Hugo Awards this year. This book was in the last place on my ballot, three after "No Award". A 2.5-star DNF review reflects my experience with this book.

Dietz is a soldier in a future army. She enters the service in part to obtain citizenship; with all of the rights that go along with citizenship. There are three levels of existence; citizenship, legal resident, and just living. Where you sit in that pecking order determines the resources available to you.

The army she serves is fighting an enemy on Mars. But it is expensive to move soldiers into space and then to another planet. It's also hard to launch a surprise attack.

The scientists have discovered a way to convert soldiers into electromagnetic energy (i.e. light) so that the soldiers can be transmitted to the battlefield at the speed of light. There are a couple of problems with that theory presented in the book. The first is that being converted from matter to light and back tends to cause a sort of mental psychosis and physical deformities (think of the worst Star Trek transporter accident). Numerous trips increase the odds of something weird (and probably lethal) happening in transit. For Dietz, the problem is that she has stopped experiencing linear time. Her unit launches with a brief for one mission and she ends up on a different one; one she should remember, but doesn't, or one from the future that she also doesn't remember but is definitely out of linear order.

The second problem is that she never seems to land on Mars; the battlefields are always on Earth. The Martians that she and her unit fight are actually descendants of the humans that emigrated to Mars who have returned to restore the (nuclear?) wasteland of Canada. They are communists.

On the positive side, the book presents the interpersonal relationships of military service almost perfectly. Those characters and there relationships with one another were very believable. Coupled with the mystery of experiencing the non-linear passage of time, this book is a fine read as long as you aren't willing to take any of the rest of it seriously.

The author's lack of familiarity with actual military service is revealed early on. The characters take part in "marksmanship" training during boot camp that involves using bayonets on dummies. Marksmanship training involves shooting bullets. Bayonet training falls under "close combat training". There is also a boot camp sequence where the recruits go on an extended survival march after only 2 weeks worth of physical training and no survival or combat training.

The author uses the word "corps". In a military sense, the "s" is silent and describes a defined unit within the military. The author intends the word to be short for corporations; sounds like "corpse". That is a confusing use of the term within a MilSF context.

At one point, the author is describing "fire teams" and "squads". There are references to a commanding officer. What is never clear is how units break down (i.e. how many fire teams to a squad, squads in a platoon, etc.) nor is it ever clear how many soldiers report to a given CO. It is inferred that a platoon commander is a commanding officer. Nope.

One of the soldiers ends up being wounded. Another soldier opens up their own med-kit and begins rendering aid. It is the standard doctrine that you always, always, always use the wounded soldier's med-kit before touching your own.

One character, Major General Stakely, is referred to as Major Stakely. Nope. That should be either "General Stakely" or "Major General Stakely". Otherwise, you are demoting the character by four levels.

There are more examples, but the point is made. The author's familiarity with military structures and traditions is nearly non-existent.

[Please permit a brief pause. I hate the idea of "sensitivity readers". I think authors should be free to explore cultures and experiences that may beyond their remit. I do think that authors should pursue sufficient information to lend accuracy to their work. "Accuracy readers" are a great idea as they help the author understand where they are bending reality and where they are breaking reality. Sometimes a purposeful breaking of reality is justified. This book could have used an accuracy reader so that the author would know what they were breaking.]

This book seems to be an attempt at a conversation with Robert Heinlein and his book Starship Troopers, among others. It is woefully inadequate for that task.

In Heinlein's books, the people leaving earth are always described as seeking relief from an ever intrusive amount of government. They always use their newfound freedom to innovate in ways that the legally sclerotic Earth governments always regulated against. In Heinlein's works, success was always presented as the first fruit of individual liberty.

This has been the story of humanity throughout recorded history. Heinlein wasn't making something up. He was echoing human experience.

In contrast, the author has the Communists leaving earth for Mars where they develop the technology needed to restore a North American continent that has been ravaged by war. I believe nuclear weapons are implied, but the devastation is on that scale nonetheless.

The problem is that human history relative to Communism documents that it causes oppression and poverty. It slows technological advancements and stifles human knowledge. That which the party disapproves is simply a topic that will never be explored regardless of the potential benefits. That which the party approves is enacted regardless of the demonstrable harm.

Any author suggesting that Communism has (finally!) worked is automatically obligated to demonstrate how it worked. In light of the unbroken series of failures that have led to mass poverty (at the very least) and mass graves (over 100,000,000 killed), the suggestion that Communism is a functioning political and economic model places a heavy burden on the author to demonstrate how it works. Within the context of the first 2/3s of the book, this is just hand-waved away. How an intellectually backward political and economic system of governance with a demonstrable history of creating poverty and oppression is able to develop a new technology that is unavailable on Earth stretches the suspension of disbelief well beyond the breaking point.

There is also the sub-text of a limited set of corporations running the world. Anyone familiar with the 1970s vintage movie "Rollerball" will have already experienced a far more effective treatment of that unlikely outcome. Within the course of human histories, corporate monopolies rarely last without a government mandate.

This is a decent book if you aren't going to think about the themes and the details too much. The characters are quite engaging. The plot involving a non-linear procession of time is intriguing.

But after reading ~2/3s of the book, I knew that it was going well below No Award on my Hugo ballot. I knew that the author was just splashing militarium (well-crafted militarium, but a splashing of it nonetheless) around without really understanding anything about military training and operations. And I knew that the political/economic theme was going to be a hot mess. This was a DNF read for me.

Reading this book put me in the mind of a quote by author Jim Butcher: "Never preach harder than you can entertain." When the sub-text supersedes the text, an author has shifted from story-telling to preaching. Butcher's aphorism applies in spades.

View all my reviews

My reviews of all of the 2020 Hugo finalists for best novel are here.

Review: The City in the Middle of the Night

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book as part of voting for the Hugo Awards this year. This book was in sixth place on my ballot; two below "No Award". A 3-star review reflects my experience with this book. Charlie's past success is the only reason this book didn't go into the DNF pile. I had hoped that the ending would redeem the work and justify the time invested. Nope.

Sophie and Bianca are college students studying to be something influential in the future. They live in a city that tightly controls all facets of society. So they are lucky to have their privileged positions. Bianca steals some money for food that she doesn't really need. The police randomly detain them. Sophie thinks she is saving Bianca by taking the money which the police soon discover. Sophie is taken outside of the city and forced her to climb a hill (more like a small mountain) into the dark side of the planet.

The planet is tidally locked with the sun! One side of the planet always faces the sun and the other side exists in perpetual darkness. The hot side is hot. The cold side is very cold.

The humans arrived on this planet via a generation ship from Earth. As the story unfolds, we learn there is a sentient, intelligent species that is native to the planet. The humans are invaders.

This book continues to cause me so many problems. Charlie Jane Anders is a wonderfully gifted author. Charlie's writing is thought-provoking in unusual ways.

This book would have been above No Award if it didn't have so many plot holes. Where to start.

The planet is tidally locked. The hot side is hot enough to cause wood to auto-ignite

Humanity is largely concentrated in two cities/regions. There is a narrow band of the planet that is suitable for human habitation that exists about the terminator between "day" and "night". Assuming that this planet is reasonably Earth-like (i.e. similar size, mass, etc.) that stationary terminator is bound to be roughly 35 to 40 miles wide. The moving terminator on Earth is roughly 37 miles wide.

When the police were forcing Sophie over that hill, they were forcing her into an area of an eternal and bitterly cold night. During her venture into this frigid zone, she meets one of the planet's natives and communicates with them. Eventually, the native gets her back to the city where she slips inside the wall and hides.

She reconnects with Bianca. Then end up traveling to the other city and learn about a different, far less regimented lifestyle.

The comparison between the two cities reads to me as comparing your average socialist state (complete with currency manipulations and other tricks) and near-total anarchy. That general theme was handled better in Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart several years ago.

Eventually, the two join with some activists in the anarchist city and they go back to the authoritarian city to take over and "change things". Just what every young college student is determined to do. Sophie gets separated from the group during the trip home and ends up going to the native city that is under the icy nighttime surface. She learns about how humans have been unknowingly screwing with the native environment. She learns a bit more about the humans that first settled on the planet. The natives end up doing surgery on Sophie to change her into something that is not human and not wholly native.

As a past Hugo winner, Charlie Jane Anders has a record of superior writing performance. Based on that past work, I felt that I should read this book in full to give it (and Charlie) the fullest opportunity. The characters were engaging. There were several themes that were quite thought-provoking.

But there were so many questions.

Why did the humans elect to come to this planet? They had built a generation ship so they could have elected for another, more hospitable planet.

Within the narrative of the story, different cities...and thus different ethnicities...contribute different parts to the design of the generation ship. As a result, one group of citizens is able to use their knowledge/resources to gain power over the rest of the ship. A war breaks out. While the intergroup dynamics are understandable, the origin for those dynamics, the division of labor/design based on region/ethnicity, doesn't make much sense.

Given the extreme temperature of the side of the planet facing the sun (the autoignition temperature of wood is roughly 700°F), I find it difficult to believe that they had landing craft capable of sustaining life from the generation ship down to the surface of the planet. That would be comparable to temperatures on either Mercury or Venus. The extreme temperature differential should cause nearly non-stop storms raging across the terminator zone.

The humans of this world are inhuman. It is suggested that all of the resources that one could imagine are located on or under the daytime side of the planet. Yet the humans have done nothing to pursue those resources in an attempt to build a civilization. They just exist on the scavaged remains of the generation ship until their ability to get back to the generation ship ends. This inaction by humanity is inhuman.

Anyone with some basic familiarity with thermodynamics will know that having such a high and constant temperature differential creates a source of nearly limitless, cheap power. Yet the humans do nothing to exploit that potential. Crops are raised on contraptions that slowly rotate like giant Ferris wheels so that the crops can all get sun and shade. Humans physically power that motion.

The native city/culture reads like a prototypical utopian socialist state. While the other city read as the predictable result of a human socialist state, the native city is an echo of the tired cliche that "real socialism hasn't been tried". People talk. Things happen. There are puppet shows in theaters. Everyone communicates with everyone else. Things just get done based on quasi-mystical consensus. Individualism is suppressed.

There is even some sort of Ancestor ghost-god that everyone consults for guidance. It is suggested that the ghost-god exists somewhere between a mass illusion, to collective memory, to actual existence. The only progress that occurs is when a couple of natives isolate themselves from the larger group to develop new devices. This is the culture that strips Sophie of her humanity so that she can join their collective.

The close of the book is a dream sequence where the altered Sophie takes some sort of astral projection dream trip out into space to recall the time when humans first arrived. It is stated that this vision doesn't reflect any actual lived experience of the natives. I found it to be a cheap gimmick.

Throughout the book, there are various suggestions that some of our modern problems are in play. Greed, sexism, racism, and a host of other intersectional causes appear and then quickly disappear from consideration. There never is a single flaw nor a single solution beyond the questioning of basic human existence. This was particularly disappointing as Charlie has done a fantastic job in the past of illustrating multiple flaws/issues in a way that lends clarity to the human condition.

Between the troublesome plot points and the general thematic issues, I simply did not find this to be a compelling work worthy of higher recognition. This book was the greatest disappointment out of six nominees. I thought there might be some discussion of challenges associated with space travel, or on developing new worlds, or general engineering obstacles. All of that ended up being the potted plants in a tableau designed to question the value of human existence.

Reading this book put me in the mind of a quote by author Jim Butcher: "Never preach harder than you can entertain." When the sub-text supersedes the text, an author has shifted from story-telling to preaching. Butcher's aphorism applies.

[A brief coda. I was so enthused by Charlie's prior Hugo winning book that I was genuinely looking forward to reading this year's nominated work. This was like having eaten fine food at a Michelin starred restaurant and being served a Big Mac and fries on a subsequent visit. I originally had this book one slot higher on my ballot until I got done writing this lengthy post.]

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My reviews of all of the 2020 Hugo finalists for best novel are here.