Dusk Before the Dawn

Winner of the 1993 Hugo

Vernor Vinge is in the list of SF/Fantasy novelists with the most Hugo/Nebula awards. Yet I had not yet read any of his works. This is my first; it is excellent and imaginative space opera, with at least three alien species that are well thought through and intertwines micro and macro plot elements.

The macro element involves a Transcendent being called “The Blight” which begins absorbing worlds (apparently through their technologies) after being accidentally released by a human expedition. The Blight annihilates the human expedition and their home world, except for one freighter which escapes to crash land on a planet. Transcendence is only explained in adequate vagueness, but my assumption is that it refers to an AI gaining self-awareness and self-control. (more…)

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Winner of the 1991 Hugo Award

When I did my list of the science fiction / fantasy authors with the most number of Hugos and Nebulas in the novel category, I was somewhat surprised the Ms. Bujold topped the list with six (4 Hugos and 2 Nebulas). I had not read any of her works, and picked up The Vor Game to add to my reading stack.

Of the her five novels on the list (one won both awards) four of them feature Miles Vorkosigan, his parents and his worlds. The Vor Game starts with Miles graduating from the academy (at about 20 years old) and, instead of getting a ship assignment, he gets sent to man a weather station in a cold, icy location. I had no background in the character reading this book, but the reader rapidly finds out that Miles is friends with the emperor and that his father is the emperor’s main battle strategist. Miles apparently has demonstrated a problem with insubordination, and this is why he gets sent away.

This book almost lost me at this point, as, other than some brief character introduction, the first 84 pages have a very un-exciting plot. (more…)

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Winner of the 2006 Nebula for best novel.

My first McDevitt read certainly won’t be my last. Seeker is a page-turner, a combo mystery/sci-fi novel that was an excellent first read for me of 2008.

sEEkEr is the third of McDevitt’s Alex Benedict novel. Benedict is a seeker himself of antiquities, and has a knack for piecing the mystery of ancient civilization together and figuring out where in the known universe to look. This novel is told from the perspective of Chase Kolpath, Benedict’s partner, pilot and swell looker (to believe the text). Since I have not read the first two Benedict novels, I do not know whose perspective they are written in.

The titular sEEkEr (and I never figured why it was spelt that way on the title) is a ship that left earth many millineum ago with a group of folks unsatisfied with the politics and culture of earth at that time. (more…)

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A self-correcting space-time continuum meets British sarcasm and pomposity, with a little love thrown in.

Winner of the Hugo award in 1997, Ms. Willis’ novel had been recommended to me from several different people for reasons of good science, humor and time travel. When it finally popped off the reading stack, I now know why it won and has gotten such rave reviews (to which I will enjoin mine own!).

The idea of a self-correcting space-time continuum, vs. the multiverse/multiworld or “time travel is impossible” theories is one that begs a lot of plot twists, which this novel takes full advantage of. (more…)

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John at SF Signal did a great post on “16 SF/F Authors with The Highest Number of Hugo and Nebula Award Wins“. John is reading, reviewing and generally fanboy-ing short story collections (way to go John).

But I’m a novel reader (and sometime writer). So in the interest of stealing John’s excellent idea, I added a comment to his blog with what I calculated as the list of authors with the highest number of Hugo and Nebula Novel Wins. There are many with two wins, but the majority of these were for the Hugo and Nebula for the same book, so I stopped at three total. Let me know if you see any mistakes. (more…)

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4 stars: A decent story from one of the best SF writers

Robert J. Sawyer is a great science fiction writer, having won every major award in the US, UK, Canada, Japan, and would have won one in Antartica if they had a contest. This novel won the Nebula and was a Finalist for the Hugo.

Frankly, I do not see why.

The story is based on two scientific premises: detection of the soul leaving the body and computer based artificial intelligence. Detection of the soul leads to experiments in AI to determine what life after death might be like. Dr. Peter Hobson, the inventor of the “soulwave” detection, uses AI and nueral net scanning to create three versions of himself: a life after death sim, an immortality sim and a control sim that is just like him. Hobson has some issues to deal with in his personal life (I won’t play spoiler here), and those issues are duplicated into the three sims. One of them goes bad, and starts using the net to kill people.

Sawyer’s claim to fame is that he will take premises like this and wrap very real characters around them. The concept of science fiction is in making both the science and the fiction work for the reader. Many writers tend to forget this, either throwing out unbelievable science or getting the science right but forsaking the characters or the plot. Sawyer is normally magic in this.

The Terminal Experiment is a good read, with nice pacing. It bogs down at times in the explanations of the science, and some of the philisophical discussions of the AI’s. But the concept of killer AI computers has been hashed and re-hashed (remember HAL!), as has the concept of detecting something that proved life after death. And unlike other Sawyer novels, I had difficulty caring about the characters, esp. Cathy, Peter’s wife.

I’m glad I read it, but I’m gonna go now and read Hominids, Humans and Hybrids, his classic Neaderthal Parallax series.

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