2020 Hugo Awards - Best Novel
That time of the year has come once again. It is time to vote for the Hugo Awards. While I usually cover at least three award categories each year, I'm only going to participate in one this year.
Time has been at a premium. And quite frankly I've experienced most of the fan-casting nominees already. They aren't that great. The novels were a mixed bag. My ranking and a brief version of my reasoning follow. I've added some other books at the end that would have provided stout competition to those that I placed above No Award.
This year was a pleasant change of pace from recent years. There was one piece of decent MilSF, there was some horror, there was some grimdark, there was some humor, there was more fun. Even the book that I didn't finish was pretty good. If I were reading for pleasure, I would have gladly finished the book regardless of the flaws. All of the works were quite engaging even if a few of them were not really Hugo Award-worthy material.
I've tried to keep the spoilers down to a minimum, but they do exist.
Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
A set of twins, brother and sister named Roger and Dodger, are bred to achieve ultimate power over reality. The man, James Reed, that bred them maintains a laboratory of Lovecraftian work where researchers continue lesser experiments. Reed is himself the product of a dark experiment by another scientist, Asphodel Baker, whose work was rejected by the academy for the crime of it having been created by a woman. Roger and Dodger were bred to be tools for someone else. Can they break free of that control and work on their own behalf?
There are lots of delicious layers to this book. There are some passages dealing with sexism in science. There are also some themes involving long term planning. Reed was created by Asphodel to execute her research on the world. The creation of Reed involves the death of Asphodel. Before her death, Asphodel seeds the global human consciousness with fictional literature that illustrates the theories of her scientific research. Which characters are playing the longest game of all?
Themes involving individuals complementing one another are present as well. Rodger and Dodger have different perspectives on the world; he lives in words while she lives in numbers and equations. Only together do they possess the potential to control the definitions of reality.
This book is a literary rollercoaster ride. Lots of ups and downs. There are many sections where there is a graceful pause just before the bottom drops out and you fall in terror. It skips back and forth between fantasy and horror with the lightness of a ballerina.
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing)
Gideon is of the Ninth House. She feels that the Ninth House has been oppressing her for her entire life. She is stuck living in a place and among people that reject her on a regular basis.
Harrow is the heir to the Ninth House. She has the ability to transmute the smallest bit of bone into a full-scale skeleton that will act (and fight) on her behalf. The Ninth House in general is a goth dream world with skeleton slave workers and everyone mincing about as though they will be in their grave within the next week. Harrow is called to the Emperor's House to train to become something more. She needs a knight at her side, and Gideon is all the Ninth has to offer. So they set off to unravel a series of mysteries and work towards the objective of becoming something more.
This book contains all of the hallmark attributes of good grimdark fiction. Morally compromised characters that inspire the reader to not really support any of them. At least not until it becomes clear at the end that there are worse options. Gideon is also imbued with a tremendous sense of wit.
At the heart of the book are themes of acceptance; acceptance by others and acceptance of oneself. There are times when the world denies you enough knowledge to be self-aware. How do your opinions of yourself and the world change once those obstacles fall away?
This was a fun romp with a thoroughly inventive bit of world-building. Who would have matched bone magic with rocketships and galactic armies? Every page was a delight. My biggest complaint is that it is written to be the first book in a series. The story is not reasonably well contained within this single tome.
Author Peter V. Brett has expressed his desire to write the first book in a series as a well-contained story that will allow the reader to walk away from the series satisfied with that single volume. His hope is that it will also be good enough to entice the reader back for more. While this book is a broadly satisfying read, it falls short of that ideal.
A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK)
A young Mahit Dzmare has been named as Ambassador to the Empire. Her nation/region uses memory implants to perpetuate communal knowledge and experience. Ordinarily, after being named Ambassador, she would have been implanted with the memories of the prior Ambassador.
He happens to be dead under troubling circumstances and the oldest copy of his memories is nine years out of date. The outdated copy that she does receive is flawed in some way. It eventually stops working altogether.
Mahit ends up searching for answers in a classic whodunnit style. The answers she finds may determine if the Empire will leave her little nation's region of space alone. They may also chart the future course of the Empire.
A modest nit to pick is that the Empire provides Mahit with a translator/facilitator that is a citizen of the Empire. The translator routinely puts Mahit's needs/objectives ahead of where any potential loyalty to the Empire. There are a couple other characters that are citizens of the Empire and employed by the empire that similarly put Mahit's interests ahead of the Empire. That arrangement seems unlikely.
I found the book to be generally well written with engaging characters. While it was not terribly exciting to me, I can see where others might find this work to be an example of superior performance within the genre.
No Award
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK)
This is the tale of a young January Scaller. Born into our Earth. Born into our Universe. Born into a universe of multi-verses; each accessible through doors that exist at the point where the distance between two universes is narrowed. People can travel between universes just be walking through a door.
This is the tale of January's father, who traveled through a door as a boy to meet her mother. This is the tale of January's mother; an adventurist spirit who upon meeting that young boy decides to find her way to him through another such door. Spoiler - she finds a way through via a different door, and thus we have January.
The premise of the book was so intriguing that I was looking forward to reading it. I figured there would be lots of doors and lots of worlds to explore. Nope. I think you can count the interdimensional doors that characters actually visit within the story on one hand. You might need one or two other fingers. There are a few more that are mentioned "off-screen". Most of the exploration, such as it is, occurs here in our world.
The antagonist of the book leads a small group of explorers who are systematically destroying the doors. They are also strategically investing in companies that exploit natural resources around the world. The anti-colonialism message is unmistakable.
The conceit of the book is that the exchange of people from different universes that the doors provide actually fosters human progress. Therefore the doors should remain open. The antagonist is shutting them down to shut down progress and consolidate power on this Earth.
There is a strong element of identity politics within the book. All of the white people, especially the men, are remarkably intolerant and greedy. All of the non-white people are tolerant and nice. This arrangement has not yet been seen on our Earth. I can't speak to other multi-verses.
While I enjoyed this book, it contains a single, fundamental flaw. The antagonist came through such a door himself. As he is presented as a source of intolerance and greed, then intolerance and greed must exist in other multi-verses. If the source of trouble on our Earth came through an interdimensional door, then perhaps it is useful to know who/what is coming through those doors to ensure that the harmful stuff doesn't make it through?
The logical inconsistency creates a plot hole that makes this work one that I would not consider for one of the most significant genre awards.
The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor; Titan)
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 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.
[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.]
The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley (Saga; Angry Robot UK)
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 varying measures, to all of the works that I put below No Award.
The following are some books from 2019 that I found to be worthy of consideration for the Hugo Award. Some are works that I originally nominated. One is a novel published in 2019 that I did not, regrettably, read until 2020. As always, I encourage my compeer Hugo nominators to engage with a broad spectrum of works published by authors and publishers.
The Sword of Kaigen (Theonite), by M.L. Wang (Amazon.com Services LLC)
This book won the Self Published Fantasy Blog-Off in 2020. SPFBO doesn't necessarily follow an annual schedule. It opens for submissions when it opens and the results are available when the reviewers are done. Fortunately for me, The Sword of Kaigen was published in 2019. Unfortunately for Ms. Wang, her SPFBO win wasn't until well after the nominations for the 2020 Hugo Awards. Her book was a delight and clearly worthy of larger consideration within the genre.
Holy Sister, by Mark Lawrence (Harper Voyager)
Pilgrim's Storm Brooding, by Damien Black (Amazon.com Services LLC)
My review
A Little Hatred, by Joe Abercrombie (Orbit)
My review
The Last Dance, by Martin L. Shoemaker (47 North/Amazon Publishing)
As a head start for 2021, permit me to recommend
Scarlett Odyssey by C.T. Rwizi; published by 47 North/Amazon.
This is the first book in an epic fantasy series. The action is set in a world that seems inspired by Africa. The author was born in Zimbabwe, grew up in Swaziland, and eventually found his way to Dartmouth where he graduated with a BA in government.
The animals in the story seem to be mildly inspired by a fusion of animals traditionally found on the African continent and the mech animals of the video game Ark. Some of the animals contain stones that can be harvested and used to power machines and talismans. So there seems to be a steam-punk influence. And there is magic!
The world-building is completely unique. The plot doesn't really get started until about a third the way into the book. Everything up to that is setting up characters and explaining how they operate in the world. And that first third of the book has been utterly captivating.
This was a free book from Amazon. They give away a handful of titles each month to Amazon Prime members. This was the SF/F book for June. Very entertaining, thus far!
