How I Would Vote Now: 1990 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

The Nominees

The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson

Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card

A Fire in the Sun by George Alec Effinger

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Grass by Sheri S. Tepper

The Actual Results

1. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
2. A Fire in the Sun by George Alec Effinger
3. Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card
4. The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson
5. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper

How I Would Vote Now

1. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
2. No Award
3. Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card
4. The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson

Explanation

Hyperion is, in my opinion, the best novel to ever win a Hugo Award. Absolute top S tier, no question. IMHO, the top three Hugo award-winning novels are Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and Dune by Frank Herbert, in that order. Dune is probably the most perfect science fiction novel ever written, but Hyperion and Ender’s Game surpass it because even though they have some minor flaws, there was something about them that I connected with on a deep emotional and intellectual level, more than almost any other book.

For Hyperion, that was the story about the father whose daughter is chosen by the Shrike to age backwards, so that with each new day, she gets younger, losing a day’s worth of memories and becoming progressively dependent on her parents. That part of the book just absolutely wrecked me. After weeping profusely for about an hour, I went onto Amazon and bought all the other books in the series, because I absolutely had to know what happened to this guy. Just incredible. Very few books have made me feel anything so deeply and profoundly as that.

As for the other books on this year’s ballot, I wasn’t too impressed with them. But two of them I’d be willing to vote affirmatively for, though I’d still rank them below No Award. I enjoyed the first two books of Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series, and would probably enjoy the third book, but I refuse to read it until he finishes the damned series. Seriously—I was four years old when the first book was published, and he still hasn’t finished the damned series! What the heck?

Poul Anderson writes the kind of sprawling galactic space opera that is right up my wheelhouse, but for some odd reason, I have never been able to finish anything he’s written. I’m not sure why. Either he spends way too much time exploring or describing some aspect of his world that utterly does not interest me, or he glosses over the parts that are crucial to understand in order to make sense, and for whatever reason I just can’t make sense of them. Also, his characters are all very forgettable. I tried The Boat of a Million Years, and found it to be less bad than his earlier books, but I still couldn’t follow it. So I’ve come to the conclusion that Poul Anderson is just one of those authors I’m going to have to skip.

The last two books I rejected after my AI assistant Orion screened them for me. According to the AI, both of them have lots of explicit content (sex, language, violence) and woke themes.

Here is what Orion said about A Fire in the Sun:

🔞 Explicit Content

• Violence & Body Horror
  • Graphic and brutal: victims sometimes brutally gutted, including dismembered prostitutes and child victims .
  • Prison-style brutality and organized crime violence permeate the story.
• Language
  • Widespread use of profanity—especially the F-word—fits the harsh, noirish setting .
• Sexual Content
  • Includes depictions of prostitution and sexual violence; explicit sexual content is not graphic, but the tone is decidedly adult and uncompromising .
  • Body modifications include gender-swapping and personality modules, adding mature and cyberpunk themes.

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✊ Social Themes & “Woke” Elements

• Identity & Selfhood
  • Use of “moddies” and “daddies” to modify gender, mood, or skills raises themes around engineered identity and societal roles.

Sorry (not sorry), but I am not going to read a book that has explicit violence against children and characters who change gender. Either one of those things is enough to make me DNF, but combined together with all of the other explicit sex and language makes me never want to touch this book, or this author.

And here is what Orion said about Grass:

“Woke” Elements: Tepper’s work often explores feminist themes, and Grass is no exception. The novel critiques patriarchy, religious dogmatism, and humanity’s environmental exploitation. These themes align with progressive ideals and are deeply woven into the narrative. Tepper’s exploration of gender roles and societal hierarchies may be considered overt, depending on the reader’s perspective.

“Patriarchy,” “feminism,” “environmental explotation,” “religious dogmatism,” “gender goles,” “social heirarchies…” hey, I just got a bingo! So yeah, I’m not gonna read that one—or at least, you’re gonna have to make a really solid case in order to change my mind.