I’m a huge science fiction fan, and, having read a list of what are alleged to be the top 200 science fiction novels, I decided to next tackle a read-through of all the Hugo Award winners and nominees for best novel. Let me know your thoughts and favorites. I’ve marked the winner as well as my own choice for which novel would win, had I the choice among the nominees. I’ve also dropped a short reflection on the year’s Hugo list at the end.

Rainbow’s End by Vernor Vinge (Winner)- Grade: C+
Vinge is full of great ideas. Rainbow’s End is on the cusp of greatness. It starts with a bang, but quickly sputters outs. There is quite a bit of hand-wringing about the singularity, a common theme for Vinge. This is paired with an intensely visceral reaction against separation from reality. Where’s the harm in using technology to separate oneself from reality? Vinge has some words about that. While these are all fascinating themes and ideas, the plot somehow plods along, despite a fantastic introduction. We get a glimpse at the beginning of what seems like a thrilling cyber detective novel but then only catch hints of that throughout the book as it takes a sharp 90 degree turn and follows different characters. Those characters are rather boring in comparison to the setup, which is unfortunate.  If you’re the kind of reader who enjoys ideas just as much as the journey, check this one out. I was ultimately disappointed by it.

Blindsight by Peter Watts- Grade: B
How do I score a novel that I’m not sure I fully understood? Watts’s prose is opaque. His ideas profound and strange. The integration of science and fiction here is much deeper than I thought it would be. Did I enjoy it? I don’t know. I think I did. This is a first contact novel that is full of the strangest ideas I’ve seen incorporated into sci-fi. I don’t really want to spoil things for it, so I’ll not give away some of the bigger secrets, but I’ll just say it’s the most seriously I’ve seen an author treat some genre tropes–with fully developed reasons for different things to happen within the world building. I think I’ll grab the sequel just to see if I can figure it out.

Glasshouse by Charles Stross- Grade: C+
I’ve said it before, but Stross is definitely an “ideas” type of author. Sometimes those ideas work phenomenally well, and sometimes they don’t. They’re usually interesting. What makes it difficult is that because he’s so full of ideas, sometimes those ideas take over the plot and characters to the point that there’s little more than cardboard cutouts moving about to show Stross’s ideas. Glasshouse reads like that kind of book. I’ve loved plenty of Stross’s work, but I did not love this one. It throws too many ideas at the reader all at once. The plot is convoluted and difficult to get into because almost every time a page is turned, there’s a new concept to deal with, some new sci-fi magic to absorb, or something else. It reads, to me, like William Gibson’s most difficult works. If I have to work so hard to understand a book, I expect absorbing characters and fascinating plots. This one read like it could have been a fun article online about all the ideas instead of a book.

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik- Grade: A-
Novik is a master of creating characters for which you can’t help feel empathy. Here, my heart was taken over by a man and a dragon, each with their own quirks, challenges, and goodness. It’s a beautiful story. Normally, I’m not terribly interested in premises that are “It’s Napoleonic Wars, but with dragons!” but here, the depth of character makes the setting almost irrelevant. That’s not to say the premise is not compelling, because it absolutely is going to scratch that itch for posh (and definitely not-so-posh) British people talking to each other. What I mean is this book has a man and a dragon that are unforgettable and I have been slowly consuming the rest of the series–slowly, because I love it so much.

Eifelheim by Michael F. Flynn (My Winner)- Grade: A+
Some of my favorite books leave me with that feeling of both fulfillment and emptiness. Fulfillment, because the book did exactly what the author wanted it to do. Emptiness, because even though I realize that and that it did it well, I still want more. I feel that way having just finished Eifelheim by Michael F. Flynn. The story bounces back and forth between present day (2000s, so far as I can tell) and the 14th century. In the 14th century, Father Dietrich encounters aliens in the Black Forest and has to figure out how to fit them into his logical-theological-scientific framework. In the present, Tom is an historian trying to figure out why the town of Eifelheim not only didn’t survive but was never replaced. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Sharon, a theoretical physicist, is finding out new things about how the universe works. These disparate threads all come together as the physics explains the aliens explains the history. It’s done slowly and methodically, while readers are engrossed in a story of coming understanding through Father Dietrich. I loved everything about this book. It’s beautiful and haunting.

2007- I am appreciative of how diverse this set of books is from the nominations. It runs the gamut from a fairly traditional fantasy-historical fiction (His Majesty’s Dragon) to an absolutely wild, bewildering ride of ideas (Glasshouse). The subgenres get blended quite a bit, too (again, …Dragon, but also Eifelheim). This is a year where fans of stories filled with big ideas are absolutely feasting. While they’re not all my favorites, I can see where each one is coming from and how they might be quite successful.

Links

J.W. Wartick- Always Have a Reason– Check out my “main site” which talks about philosophy of religion, theology, and Christian apologetics (among other random topics). I love science fiction so that comes up integrated with theology fairly frequently as well. I’d love to have you follow there, too!

My Read-Through of the Hugos– Read more posts in this series and follow me on the journey! Let me know your own thoughts on the books.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies/scifi/sports and more!

SDG.