FMK #11: Hugo and Nebula Winners

[melannen]

So it turns out my readership is not super-into random obscure sea stories! But there were enough votes that Captain Blood is the clear winner. Should be fun. There was a tie for K for the first time in awhile; I am picking Jack Absolute to K because apparently Mr. Bowditch is full of math so I shall be keeping that.

I still have not read Castle in the Air because there was a library book emergency where something I had checked out before I started FMK hit its renewal limit finally, so I had to read that instead. Hopefully this week you will get a combined response to both of them.

I figured it was time to do one where most of you probably had at least heard of them, so this week is Hugo and Nebula winners!

How FMK works, short version: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.

I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/ post the new poll on the following Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.

Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)

Poll #18344 FMK #10: Hugo and Nebula Winners

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 60

View Respondents

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (Hugo, 1960)

View Answers

F
22 (48.9%)

M
7 (15.6%)

K
16 (35.6%)

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller (Hugo, 1961)

View Answers

F
16 (41.0%)

M
16 (41.0%)

K
7 (17.9%)

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (Hugo, 1969)

View Answers

F
10 (35.7%)

M
9 (32.1%)

K
9 (32.1%)

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer (Hugo, 1972)

View Answers

F
13 (50.0%)

M
2 (7.7%)

K
11 (42.3%)

The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov (Nebula, 1972; Hugo, 1973)

View Answers

F
19 (55.9%)

M
5 (14.7%)

K
10 (29.4%)

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (Nebula, 1974; Hugo, 1975)

View Answers

F
14 (28.0%)

M
35 (70.0%)

K
1 (2.0%)

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (Nebula, 1975; Hugo, 1976)

View Answers

F
15 (48.4%)

M
6 (19.4%)

K
10 (32.3%)

Gateway by Frederik Pohl (Nebula, 1977; Hugo, 1978)

View Answers

F
17 (65.4%)

M
2 (7.7%)

K
7 (26.9%)

Downbelow Station by C. J. cherryh (Hugo, 1982)

View Answers

F
26 (66.7%)

M
11 (28.2%)

K
2 (5.1%)

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (Nebula, 1988)

View Answers

F
23 (47.9%)

M
21 (43.8%)

K
4 (8.3%)

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Nebula, 1992; Hugo, 1993)

View Answers

F
21 (51.2%)

M
12 (29.3%)

K
8 (19.5%)

Coraline by Neil Gaiman (Nebula, 2003; Hugo, 2003)

View Answers

F
24 (51.1%)

M
16 (34.0%)

K
7 (14.9%)

Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer (Hugo, 2003)

View Answers

F
6 (27.3%)

M
2 (9.1%)

K
14 (63.6%)

Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge (Hugo, 2007)

View Answers

F
10 (43.5%)

M
0 (0.0%)

K
13 (56.5%)

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (Nebula, 2007; Hugo, 2008)

View Answers

F
24 (61.5%)

M
12 (30.8%)

K
3 (7.7%)

Comments

[stellar_dust]

How have you not read Falling Free?

I almost put a K for Coraline but eh, it´s short enough you might as well read it before you toss it. (I didn´t get anything out of it other than, hi i´m neil gaiman and i can terrify children.)

[melannen]

For a long time I didn't have a copy and then I loaned it to someone and then it's about zero g which yay but also it's a love story so it might be bad so I was scared to read it and now its the only one left so I keep saving it for a special occasion and then being too busy to read when the special occasion actually happens

[rymenhild]

I would really love to see a book review of The Gods Themselves from you. It has these terrific alien gender and sex concepts right next to these totally troglodytic stereotyped portrayals of Earth women. Almost there, Asimov, almost.

[melannen]

Oh, Asimov.

I really like the Asimov books where he went "fuck it" and didn't include any women in major roles at all, and also the ones he co-wrote with a woman. He should stick with his strong points. :/

[petra]

Doomsday Book is Connie Willis at her most unrelenting. Since one of the plots of the book is about the Black Plague, I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say I cried through several hundred pages of it. It's less anxious and more "Fleas bite; everyone dies" than the Blitz duo and lacks the lighthearted-nervous air To Say Nothing Of The Dog. For reference, I also cried through a large portion of her Passage.

So, y'know, don't go in there unless you're hydrated and ready to deal with "This time traveler is in Europe in the 14th Century! Let's see what happens!"

[melannen]

...oh dear, that does not sound like a fun book.

[lannamichaels]

Oh hey, some ones I've read and/or tried to read!


Starship Troopers: give this one a good, hard fucking. It's like all Heinlein in that it takes death way too casually, but it's also really good and got some great worldbuilding and some interesting questions posed (that I don't think Heinlein ever touches, but if military service is a way to ~citizenship~ and it's required, what kind of accomodations/options do they have for people who, in actuality, would not be allowed into the military because of the military's x, y, z requirements (actually, come to think of it, I think this actually does get addressed, with one of the recruits. IDK, it's been 20 years). If you get a bit into it and it's not your thing, totally okay. But it's got some great stuff and I remember, when the book was much fresher in my head, being annoyed at how it was viewed in pop culture since I didn't feel it was that way at all.


A Canticle for Leibowitz: READER, YOU SHOULD MARRY IT. ok, so like the first thing about me is that I am not realy one for post-apoca stuff. If you are also not post-apoca stuff, OKAY THIS IS ABOUT HOW SOCIETY RECOVERS FROM APOCALYPSE. It's about society rebiulding and making mistakes and it's about conservation of written materials and monks and alksjdf;lakjsdf;lakjfsd I love this book, you should marry it.


Falling Free: Kill it. Kill it hard. I know what it was trying to be, but I've never managed to read the entire thing, just doing the skipping around thing. (exception: if you liked the quaddie stuff in DI, maybe try fucking it and see what happens?) (I should do a post some time about the vk books I have not actually completely-read. It'd be this one, Mountains of Mourning, and Ethan of Athos. I think it might come down to that theme I've been trying to find a name for, which comes down to "don't make me slog through 300 pages of thing-I-hate just so I can see the ~wonderful reveal where they learn lessons~, the most obvious being the dripping misogyny of Ethan of Athos)


Coraline: I'm sorry, but even back when I was a huge Neil Gaiman fan, I was more a fan of his blog than any of his actual books. I did read the entire thing. I don't recall being blown away.


The Yiddish Policemen's Union: Fuck this. I have attempted to fuck this several times. It has not managed to be-fucked. But perhaps you will have better luck fucking than I did? (This suddenly turned into a Rocky Horror Picture Show call back... um...) yeah, give it a try maybe? It came to me so highly recommended, I feel a bit bad that I haven't managed it.

[melannen]

A lot of what I've heard about Starship Troopers are along the same lines: that it's actually a lot better than you'd expect it to be.

I think I started Leibowitz once and didn't get very far but it was a very long time ago and I can't remember why or even if there was a reason.

I liked the quaddie stuff, and I am super into zero G, but I was also super-bored by the story of the opera, so idk. :/

Mountains of Mourning is quite short though, and if you've read all the Miles novels you know what happens in it anyway! So if you can't take the specific subject matter then I get it, but otherwise I'd say it's worth it. (Ethan of Athos does not ever need to be read, though.)

And yeah, the more Gaiman fiction I read vs. Gaiman blog, the less I was interested in Gaiman altogether. (well, also his Amanda Palmer thing did not help.) Very sad.

...okay, I have seen a downside to this format, because it took me a worried moment to realize you meant Fuck This literally for the Chabon and not as fuck that. It sounds like it should be something I should like a lot! Except that the people who really like Chabon seem to often be into the kind of books I don't like.

[rachelmanija]

if military service is a way to ~citizenship~ and it's required, what kind of accomodations/options do they have for people who, in actuality, would not be allowed into the military because of the military's x, y, z requirements (actually, come to think of it, I think this actually does get addressed

It does, actually. Not in any great depth, but basically if you're willing, the military will find something for you to do, even if it's essentially make-work. I think he says that if you're deaf and blind, they'll put you on a research project where you can feel the fuzz on caterpillars.

[sylleptic]

A Canticle for Leibowitz has three only-vaguely-connected sections, two of which I loved and the last of which made me utterly furious.

I've tried to read Doomsday Book twice, I think, and bounced off how sad it is both times.

[melannen]

I know I have heard nothing good, ever, about the sequel to Canticle, so that does not surprise me.

...it sounds like if Doomsday wins I may have to disqualify it on the basis of Too Sad.

[espresso_addict]

The Dispossessed is really interesting, but it's not one to rush through on a schedule. Falling Free is peculiar -- I'm a fan of Bujold and didn't much like it, but it's a very quick read and might be worth the time expenditure? As someone said above, the romance is a bit pasted on, so don't let that put you off.

[melannen]

I've been trying to get through Always Coming Home for a couple years now but feeling like I need to read it slower, so that makes sense.

Falling Free is indeed short, which as we have learned is always a plus for me!

(...the only otherwise-qualified Hugo winner I left off this list was Jonathan Strange because I was afraid it would win and it really needs to be saved for a MASSIVE TOMES THAT WILL TAKE MANY WEEKS poll.)

[ambyr]

Rainbows End (it doesn't have an apostrophe) made me screamingly furious with its sexism; I think I actually put my copy in the trash when I was done.

Others apparently had a, uh, more moderate reaction to some of the author's choices.

[melannen]

See, I knew there was a reason I had mentally filed Joan Vinge's ex-husband as horribly sexist! :D

(I am also super not interested in the Singularity either.)

....my failure at proofreading these polls is never not embarrassing.

[rachelmanija]

Coraline is my favorite Gaiman prose novel, though apparently that's really a minority opinion. I love it though.

The Dispossessed is one of my favorite Le Guin books, and this is not a minority opinion. ;)

I SO hope To Your Scattered Bodies Go wins Fuck because it is the pure distilled essence of '70s batshit. Everyone who lived ever is reincarnated naked and hairless with cylinders of '50s American food on the banks of a giant river. Murder! Rape! Neanderthals! Mark Twain! Lord Byron! Psychedelic visions! Aliens!

Gateway has an absolutely fabulous concept, really well-done. That's the concept. It also has a lot of really sketchy sex/race/etc stuff. I found it very compelling, but I love the concept a lot. The main character is frustrating, though deliberately so.

The Forever War was groundbreaking at the time but hasn't aged well.

Falling Free is forgettable but if you're a Bujold completist...

Doomsday Book is possibly the most heartbreaking book ever written, interspersed with another story I didn't care about.

[melannen]

I've read some of Gaiman's discussions of the reactions to Coraline and it seems like a book that really needs its correct audience. (I also think that the people who have voted so far are not huge Gaiman fans in general, though.)

I hope To Your Scattered Bodies Go doesn't get K, at least, because it sounds like beautiful, beautiful RPF batshittery and a delight!

It sounds like "fabulous in some ways but frustrating in others" is the secondary theme of this one, though.

[stardreamer]

Interesting. I've read some but not all of these; the ones I haven't read I mostly left blank, with the exception of The Forever War. If you read that one and like it, you may want to go on to the sequel, The Forever Peace. Haldeman has said that too many people missed the points he was trying to make with the first book and that's why he wrote the second one.

The alien side of The Gods Themselves is much more interesting than the human side.

I read Downbelow Station and didn't get into it at all, but I know a lot of people who like it, and it's the entry to a whole lot of her other stuff, so definitely worth a shot.

Falling Free is definitely worth it for the entire ethical arc; I viewed the romance as being secondary, but YMMV.

Hominids, OMG. Content warning for a rape scene early on, but the story is amazing -- and even more so if you go on to the rest of the trilogy. And Sawyer can WRITE! All of his characters have strong development arcs, which is catnip for me. And the aftermaths of the rape (for the rapist, the victim, and a lot of other people) are critical to the overall plot development and the optimistic ending.

After you read The Doomsday Book, go listen to this song based on it!

[melannen]

Hominids is just... so very much not a book I would expect to win a Hugo award, in terms of just the way it's presented genre-wise, that I keep looking at it and going "why did I keep this this long, it isn't even my genre" and then seeing the Hugo note on the front and remembering.

[mrkinch]

OMG! I would have voted MARRY for Carry on Mr Bowditch, too! Loved this book, own a copy with the Newberry award on the dust cover, though I can no longer find said dust cover. Dang. I hope you enjoy it. The denouement gave me goosebumps.

[melannen]

I have a really old copy! It may even be as old as yours. (It's a library copy though so it has the mylar cover.)

[torachan]

I've only read two of these, Coraline and Gateway. Coraline I would definitely recommend, no qualifications. And it's a really quick read, too. Gateway I do remember liking, but this was like twenty years ago and I cannot guarantee my taste wasn't terrible back then, lol.

[melannen]

So much of my knowledge of SF is based on my taste twenty years ago, it worries me.

"A really quick read" is always a good rec for me, though!

[katherine]

I remember A Canticle for Leibowitz as very weird. Vaguely. Got weirder towards the end.

[melannen]

Nothing wrong with weird, right?

[blueswan]

I've read several of these, but I want to talk about TYSBG by Farmer. Back in the day this was a series which I'd read and liked most of the individual books. I tried to start a re-read a couple of years back and was horrified. The sexism, the outright misogyny of the TYSBG was so clearly present I don't know how my younger self missed it altogether. Ugh. In fact I am now going to change my vote for K because this book doesn't need you to try it. There are many more books that are worthy of your time.

[melannen]

Oh, yuck. In concept it sounds really cool, but I had been starting to suspect there was some reason nobody talks about it anymore.

[copracat]

It is hilarious that the Starship Troopers vote is split between fuck and kill. I believe it is worth reading to immediately see the movie after, to truly enjoy Verhoeven's blisteringly sarcastic take. It's a thing of beauty.

[melannen]

This is the first week that the K leader has consistently had way more F than K votes - I may have to make up a new rule for that situation. :P

[synecdochic]

I adore Starship Troopers, but it's definitely one of his more misunderstood works. Way too many people take it at face value, not realizing how much it's a case of unreliable narrator (and unreliable authorial voice, if you don't read critically enough). It's another odd the ones where you could see the glimmer of the progressive under his uber conservative outer shell, even if you have to do some adjusting for era and socialization.

[melannen]

...I think I may definitely have to come up with a new rule if it wins the K voting this time.

[snickfic]

Yay, books I have read and have opinions on!

I voted Marry for both The Dispossessed and Canticle for Leibowitz, and kind of for similar reasons? They're both slow-paced and moody and give you a lot to think about, although Canticle is considerably weirder. I really should reread Canticle, especially now that I have Google Translate to tell me what all the untranslated Latin means. :P

Coraline is not my favorite Gaiman. Have you read Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge? Coraline is somewhat in that vein except not nearly as good.