Tag: Hugo awards

How I Would Vote Now: 2000 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

The Nominees

Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

The Actual Results

  1. A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
  2. A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
  3. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
  4. Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
  5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

How I Would Vote Now

  1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

Explanation

It’s been a long time since I read any of the Harry Potter books, but I thoroughly enjoyed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and would have no issue voting for it in one of these awards. But I DNFed all of the other books on the ballot for this year, so I couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of them.

I really wanted to enjoy A Deepness in the Sky, and will probably read it again at some point, especially since my wife really enjoyed this one and gives me a hard time for DNFing it. Also, it’s the kind of science fiction that’s right up my wheelhouse, so I kind of feel bad about not finishing it.

So what’s the deal? The first time I tried to read it, I got caught up in this enormous subplot where the good guys, after having been mentally enslaved by the bad guys, try to figure out a way to break them all free. It goes on for over 100 pages, with an elaborate plan that involves secretly drilling into an asteroid and taking enormous risks. I got really into it, rooting for them to succeed… only for the whole thing to fail miserably, to the point where all of the characters involved in the actual escape attempt to die horribly, and everyone else who was enslaved (including a 14 year old girl, a major character in the book, who is sexually exploited by the villain of the novel) to go on about their happy little mentally enslaved lives without even realizing what had happened.

After that enormous letdown, I just couldn’t get back into the book. The stuff with the aliens was really cool, and I enjoyed that very much, but all of the stuff with the humans just made me want to stop reading the book. It was a little bit like my experience with Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, except with that book, there was never the false hope that the humans were on the verge of heroically saving themselves; things just kept getting progressively worse and worse until the alien and human storylines converged, in an awesome and thoroughly satisfying way. And maybe that happens in A Deepness in the Sky too, but I don’t know if I’ll ever find out. Maybe someday.

I enjoyed the first few Vorkosigan Saga books, especially The Warrior’s Apprentice. I even enjoyed some of the spinoff novels that aren’t about Miles Vorkosigan, like Ethan of Athos. But the later books in the series just feel too much like a soap opera rehash of the characters from the earlier books. That was why I couldn’t really get into A Civil Campaign.

It also doesn’t help that I read a bunch of the books out of order, partially because they were written out of order and partially because the order of the books isn’t clearly labeled (and how can they be, with how Bujold is always skipping around writing in different parts of the timeline?) Whenever I start a new series, I always try to read it in chronological order, not publication order, but in every Vorkosigan novel I read, it seems that Bujold refers to at least half a dozen things that happened in some previous book that I haven’t read. Some of these, apparently, are books she hasn’t written yet (or books that she hadn’t yet written at the time when I was reading).

So my whole experience of the Vorkosigan Saga has just been very confusing all around. And looking back, I can say that neither the publication order nor the chronological order is the right way to read the series. Shards of Honor and Falling Free really aren’t the best books to start out with, even though they happen first chronologically, but a part of me wishes I’d read Barrayar before The Warrior’s Apprentice, since that would have made a lot of the political intrigue much more satisfying.

Honestly, though, it seems to me that the Vorkosigan Saga has just gone on way too long in general. Which is probably why I couldn’t get into A Civil Campaign.

As for Cryptonomicon, it was way too dense and raunchy. The first chapter has more homoerotic innuendo than explicit gay sex, but it was still just too much for me, and the writing was so dense that I never really got into the novel itself. Neal Stephenson’s writing has always been like that for me, and I’ve read enough of his other books to know that he definitely crosses the line in terms of explicit sexual content. I’ve never been able to finish anything he’s written. I was tempted to put Cryptonomicon beneath No Award, but I decided it didn’t quite cross that line for me. It’s close, though.

I forget why I DNFed Darwin’s Radio, but I think it mostly had to do with how I really didn’t care about any of the characters. I think the main character was having an affair or something, too, which made me really not like him. That’s the thing about high-concept science fiction: the plot or characters are often not nearly as well thought out, and since that’s what I often read for, I sometimes find it really difficult to get into those kinds of books. But it wasn’t terrible, just not my kind of story.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

How I Would Vote: 2025 Hugo Awards

The Nominees

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

The Actual Results

TO BE DETERMINED

How I Would Vote Now

  1. No Award
  2. Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Explanation

As if yesterday’s post wasn’t controversial enough, I’ve decided to jump feet-first into this particular tempest (though thankfully, it appears to be a tempest in an ever-shrinking teacup). And I suppose the thing that makes this particular post so interesting is that I could actually cast this vote, if I had no qualms about giving the clowns who run the Hugo Awards any of my hard-earned money. But I do have qualms, so I won’t give them my money, which still makes this a hypothetical exercise, even though I’m posting this three weeks before the 2025 Hugos are awarded.

To be perfectly honest, I have not read any of these books all of the way through. I’ve read enough of two of them to DNF them, and one of them enough (including the epilogue) to know that I will eventually read the whole thing. And I screened all of them first with AI, which told me enough to know that three of them were not worth reading at all.

First, Someone You Can Build a Nest In. According to ChatGPT (and frankly, the back cover description itself), this book is chock full of body horror, trauma, abuse, and sexual depravity. It is also quite possibly the wokest book on the ballot, which means that it probably has the best chance of actually winning. Which also means that you couldn’t pay me enough money to read it. So much for that.

The Ministry of Time also appears to be woke, with anti-colonial and LGBTQ themes. However, the thing that really turned me off were all of the content issues that ChatGPT listed, such as frequent strong language, lots of F-bombs, and several erotic “open-door” sex scenes. So yeah, I’ll give a pass on that one too.

It’s much the same story for The Tainted Cup. A few woke elements, a subtle M/M romance (which I’m sure plays into the “All True Love is LGBTQ Love” trope that I cannot abide), and a lot of explicit profanity, with some prostitution to round it out. Not interested.

I forget why I DNFed A Sorceress Comes to Call. All I remember was that when I tried to read it, I felt repelled from it like a magnet. Since that has been my experience with basically everything else that T. Kingfisher has written, I didn’t feel compelled to try again.

Which brings us to the two books by Tchaikovsky. I really enjoyed his Children of Time, though I didn’t really get into the sequel (just didn’t feel compelled by any of the characters). He is a good writer, and specifically a good science fiction writer, though his scientific materialism strikes me as outdated.

Alien Clay didn’t appeal much to me, though—honestly, I found it difficult to believe that a government that would expend so many resources to transport their prisoners halfway across the galaxy wouldn’t also spend the tiny fractional cost to make sure they all got there alive. So right from the start, it felt like a melodramatic parody of all the left’s fears about “fascism.” And skipping to the end, it basically turns out the way Halo would have ended if the Flood had won. So I decided to DNF it, even though it wasn’t the worst book I’ve ever DNFed. And also, I don’t think that any one author should have more than one book on the ballot in any given year. So that’s why I’d put it under No Award.

Service Model, though, is pretty good. The best way I can describe it is Murderbot meets Kafka. It’s sort of an absurdist comedy in a post-apocalyptic world where the humans have (mostly) vanished, and the robots are malfunctioning in hilarious (and sometimes disturbing) ways. Not my favorite kind of book, and it probably could be improved by ruthlessly editing it to half the length, but I was enjoying it right up to the point where someone else put the library copy on hold, and I had to return it without renewing it. Skipping to the epilogue, I found nothing particularly objectionable, so I will pick it up again, and will likely finish it.

Which is more than I can say of most Hugo-nominated books in the last ten years.

[ETA 23 Feb 2026: I’ve decided to DNF Service Model after all, not because of anything objectionable that I read, but because I just couldn’t bring myself to pick it up again and finish it. It just wasn’t compelling enough for me to want to finish it more than I want to pick up something new. I could be persuaded otherwise if I heard someone really gush about it, but right now, I’m just not going to bother.]

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

Anti-AI is the new virtue signaling

According to Merriam-Webster, “virtue signaling” is:

the act or practice of conspicuously displaying one’s awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action.

Because it is much easier to signal your virtue than it is to actually be virtuous, the people who virtue signal the loudest also tend to be the ones who have something they’re trying to cover up. This hypocrisy is a big part of what makes virtue signaling so obnoxious.

Time for me to spill a little tea. A couple of years ago, after I wrote “Christopher Columbus: Wildcatter,” I got an acceptance from the editor of Interzone. It wasn’t formalized yet, but he expressed over email that he was interested in purchasing the publishing rights for that story, the sequel, and possibly others after. It got far enough along that we were going back and forth on editorial details, our vision for the stories, etc.

Then the time came for him to send me a contract. Aaand… he ghosted me. Flat out ghosted me. A month went by without any correspondence at all. I didn’t want to seem too forward, but I also was starting to get a little concerned. So I sent out a brief follow-up email, asking about the contract… and I got a response that read like something copy-pasted from a form rejection.

Now, as far as literary transgressions go, that’s kind of tame. It’s not like the editor owed me money and refused to pay. And as far as I know, Interzone is prompt with all of their payments and pays all of their authors in full. After all, everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.

But that sort of unprofessionalism really wasn’t cool, either. In fact, it was enough that I stopped sending Interzone any submissions. After all, if the editor saw nothing wrong with yanking my chain around before he published me, that’s kind of a yellow flag. Not to mention that it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

So when I saw this story from Jon Del Arroz, with the editor of Interzone accusing Asimov’s of using AI art, and using that as a pretext to blacklist all of their authors, I immediately recognized that sort of behavior for what it is: virtue signaling. Which made me wonder: how much of the anti-AI vitriol that’s ubiquitous in online writing communities these days really just a new form of virtue signaling?

Think about it. It explains so much about the insane anti-AI faux controversies that have been blowing up around 2025 WorldCon. For more than a decade now, the people chasing the Hugo Award have been among the worst offenders of gratuitous virtue signaling (especially Scalzi). It also explains why so much of the anti-AI content on YouTube is less about presenting well-reasoned arguments, and more about sighing dramatically or making snide, sarcastic remarks. Virtue signaling always appeals to pathos before it appeals to reason.

I expect this phenomenon is going to get a lot worse in the next few years, at least until AI-assisted art and writing become normalized (which is going to happen eventually, it’s just a matter of time and degree). So the next time you see someone publicly posting about how horrible it is for creatives to use AI, take a good, hard look at the person leveling the accusations. Chances are, they’re just virtue signaling.

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.

✊ 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.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

Thoughts on the Worldcon 2025 AI “scandal”

I’ll just come out and say it: I predict that the world’s last Worldcon will happen before 2034, and that after that, the convention (and possibly the Hugo Awards themselves) will be permanently disbanded. That’s what I think will be the ultimate consequence of the latest “scandal” regarding Seattle Worldcon’s use of ChatGPT, and the anti-AI madness currently sweeping the science fiction community on Bluesky.

If you haven’t been following the “scandal,” you ought to check out Jon Del Arroz’s coverage of it. He’s definitely partisan when it comes to politics and fandom, but he’s neutral on the subject of AI, or as neutral as you’re going to find, especially in writerly circles.

But here’s the TL;DW: the people organizing Worldcon 2025 in Seattle decided to use ChatGPT to help them decide which authors and panelists to put on which panels. This triggered a bunch of authors and panelists who are opposed to generative AI, simply on principle. Some of these authors—including Jeff VanderMeer, who is up for a Hugo award—have bowed out, while others have called for resignations and apologies. Many of the volunteer staff have also stepped down, exacerbating the staffing shortage—which is why the convention relied on ChatGPT in the first place. And apparently over on Bluesky, the scandal is taking on a life of its own, with everyone working themselves up to a massive frenzy over the subject.

My own opinion of the “scandal” is this: it isn’t a freaking scandal! Whatever your opinion on AI-assisted writing, using ChatGPT as an aid to research panelists is totally above-board and a legitimate use of AI. To disagree with that is to say that there is no ethical use-case for generative AI whatsoever, which is hypocritical and absurd—unless, of course, you’re still writing your books on a manual typewriter and submitting them to your publisher via the US postal service. Or using WordStar, if your name is G.R.R. Martin and you’re the last person on earth who “writes” with that defunct software (putting “writes” in quotation marks, since we all know by now that Martin isn’t actually writing anything).

But it isn’t the “scandal” itself that interests me, so much as what the fallout will likely be. Ever since the Sad Puppies debacle in 2015 (and arguably long before that), Worldcon has been dominated by the wokest fringe of SF&F fandom, and it’s been an open secret that the Hugo awards themselves are controlled by the publishers, largely for marketing purposes.

So at this point, the only things really keeping the whole Worldcon/Hugo charade going are 1) woke authors who use the convention to manufacture clout for their failing careers, because they wouldn’t otherwise have a platform, and 2) woke publishers who use the awards to manufacture clout for their poorly-selling books, because they don’t actually know how to market books effectively (at least, not to readers—libraries are a whole other subejct deserving of its own discussion, because there is a genuine scandal there). Once those two things dry up, and all of the ruin has been exhausted from these institutions (ie Worldcon and the Hugos), I really do think they will collapse and go away.

That’s what I find so fascinating about this scandal: it is so utterly toxic and absurd on its face that it’s going to do permanent damage to Worldcon and the Hugos. The writers of the rising generation who will one day dominate the field are all playing around with these AI tools right now, and doing really interesting things with them. Meanwhile, most of the authors who are screaming about AI on Bluesky right now will either be dead or irrelevant (or both) in the next 20 years. And yes, Mike Glyer, you can quote me on that.

Seriously, though: if the Worldcon community is so vociferiously opposed to a legitimate use-case of ChatGPT—namely, to alleviate the already overwhelming burdens being carried by the volunteer staff—AND they continue to be absolutely toxic about it online… who in their right mind would want to be a part of that community? And since the only thing keeping the whole charade going is its ability to manufacture clout, that’s why I think its years are numbered—and likely in the single digits.

On the plus side, if/when the Hugos finally die, I won’t have to read any more crappy woke books to be able to say I’ve read (or DNFed) every Hugo award-winning novel.

How I Would Vote Now: 2008 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

The Nominees

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer

The Last Colony by John Scalzi

Halting State by Charles Stross

The Actual Results

  1. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
  2. The Last Colony by John Scalzi
  3. Halting State by Charles Stross
  4. Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
  5. Brasyl by Ian McDonald

How I Would Vote Now

  1. No Award
  2. Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer

Explanation

Two thousand eight was the year that I took Brandon Sanderson’s writing class and decided to become a professional fiction author. It was also the year that I discovered David Gemmell and Robert Charles Wilson, two of my favorite authors. It was also the year that the world economy collapsed and Obama won the US election, so it was a very eventful year.

Unfortunately, it was not a very good year for science fiction & fantasy—or at least, not for the Hugo Awards. I didn’t read any of these books until just recently, but I have to admit, I didn’t like any of them.

Perhaps, if I were a liberal atheist Jew, I would have enjoyed The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (not a conservative orthodox Jew, mind you—if anything, I probably would have hated it more). It’s not that I have anything personal against Jews or Jewish culture. I quite enjoyed Fiddler on the Roof. But unlike Fiddler on the Roof, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union doesn’t have many points of commonality with the wider culture to make it accessible.

For example, even though the traditions of Anatevka are likely different from the traditions of whatever culture we call our own, most of us understand the concept of tradition as a governing force in our lives, and can therefore sing along with the song “Tradition” and understand how it affects the story. But the plot and worldbuilding points of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union were so quirky and uniquely Yiddish that I just found it difficult to connect with or even follow them all.

Honestly, it would be a bit like if I were to write an alternate history where the Mormons were driven from the continental US after the Utah Wars, and settled in Hawaii and the Polynesian islands, except the main character drinks Coca Cola and has a complicated relationship with his polygamous step-mother (because plural marriage was never renounced in this alternate universe) while his sister, a three-cow woman, dances in the Polynesian cultural center… if you’re a Latter-day Saint, you’re probably chuckling, but you’ve got to be scratching your head if you’re not. And to be fair, it’s not like I’d never write a book like that—after all, I’m still keeping Starship Lachoneus in my back pocket—but I wouldn’t try to market it to a general audience, or expect it to win any mainstream awards.

[SPOILER (highlight to read)]

The real kicker, though, was when I skipped to the end and learned that one of the book’s plot twists was that a side character got a secret abortion. That just pissed me off.

I’ve writte at length why I can’t stand John Scalzi and have DNFed him as an author. His first book, Old Man’s War, was good (though I would probably DNF it if I read it again now). Everything else I’ve ever read of his is just terrible. YMMV.

I’ve also DNFed Charles Stross as an author, mostly for nihilisim. If someone gives me a good reason to try Halting State, I’ll pick it up, otherwise I’m just going to skip it.

As for Brasyl, when I ran it by Orion (the ChatGPT persona I created to screen these books for woke and objectionable content), here is what I got:

Set in three intertwining timelines within Brazil—the past, present, and near future—Brasyl explores themes of identity, quantum mechanics, and cultural complexity. From an ambitious reality TV producer in modern Rio, to a rogue Jesuit priest in the 18th century, to a futuristic tech-savvy entrepreneur, the characters navigate moral dilemmas and existential challenges as their stories intersect in surprising ways. The novel combines speculative science with the vibrant, chaotic energy of Brazil.

Content Warnings:

Explicit Content: The novel contains scenes of violence, some of which are intense, and mature themes including sexual content. The explicitness aligns with the gritty, unflinching tone of the story’s portrayal of both human and cultural dynamics.
“Woke” Elements: McDonald incorporates themes of globalization, colonialism, and social inequality, reflecting a nuanced perspective on Brazil’s history and culture. The narrative celebrates diversity and critiques systemic injustices, which some readers may view as overtly progressive. However, these themes are intricately tied to the world-building and character arcs.
Overall Assessment:
Brasyl is a vivid, ambitious novel that combines speculative science with cultural and historical depth. While its explicit content and progressive themes may not suit all readers, those who enjoy richly layered storytelling with a strong sense of place will find it a rewarding and thought-provoking read.

It’s kind of on the border, but there’s enough in there to convince me that this isn’t the kind of book for me. The world is full of lots of great books out there; why should I spend any time on this one?

Which brings us to Rollback. I wanted to like this book, and indeed got about a hundred pages into it before I decided to DNF it. Partly, it was because I lost interest. Partly, it was because the writing was just too literal and logical—especially the sexy parts, which didn’t offend me (the characters are married) so much as they were just plain awkward. It’s not like I hated the book—indeed, I’d probably finish it if I tried it again as an audiobook—but I couldn’t give it my vote. If it weren’t for the other books on the ballot this year, I would have just abstained, but the others were bad enough for me to rank them under No Award.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

How I Would Vote Now: 1970 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

The Nominees

Macroscope by Piers Anthony

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Up the Line by Robert Silverberg

Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The Actual Results

  1. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  2. Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
  3. Macroscope by Piers Anthony
  4. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  5. Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad

How I Would Vote Now

  1. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  2. No Award
  3. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Explanation

Wow—I’d forgotten just how terrible book covers were in the 70s. I particularly had trouble finding an early edition cover for Bug Jack Barron that didn’t have psychadelic topless women plastered all over the front of it. The 70s was a weird time.

First, the good: Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the best science fiction writers of all time, and her novel The Left Hand of Darkness may be the greatest book she’s ever written. Personally, I was more impressed by The Dispossessed, but they’re both quite excellent. The thing I like most about Le Guin is that she genuinely follows her characters wherever they lead her, even (or especially) if their own beliefs and values contradict her own. This means that all of her books present a fully developed and well-rounded argument, which makes them ring true in a very deep and compelling sense.

On the surface, there are a lot of reasons for a conservative reader like myself to hate this book. It’s written by a left-wing atheist, it was published in the 70s, and it won the Nebual Award, the Hugo Award, and the Tiptree Award. Digging a little deeper, the core concept of the story is an exploration of gender issues, where biological sex is fluid and the characters may be male one month and female the next. And yet, Ursula K. Le Guin’s unwavering commitment to telling a truthful story keeps it from feeling “woke,” at least to me. Le Guin is one of the most clear-eyed and honest writers I have ever read, which is why none of the surface level stuff bothers me. It’s also what makes her books so timeless.

Now, for the bad—although “bad,” in this case, is more just a matter of personal taste, since I don’t much care for the literary genre (and yes, “literary” is a genre—just because your books aren’t commercial doesn’t make them superior to everything else). Slaughterhouse Five is written with such a heavy-handed style that I just couldn’t get into it. But since that’s more of a personal taste issue, I’d still put it on the ballot under No Award, and if it weren’t for the other three books, I wouldn’t have put No Award for this year.

But now, we come to the ugly, starting with Macroscope. I have to admit, I skipped this one on account of the author. I never grew up reading Piers Anthony, so when I finally got around to picking up his books, it was immediately clear to me that he’s a dirty old man. Which is a shame, because it’s clear that he knows how to write an entertaining story—it’s just that these stories all seem to be peppered with weird sex stuff, often bordering on rape fantasies. I have no idea if that’s true for Macroscope, but I’ve DNFed enough by this author that I don’t really care to find out.

I’ve also DNFed a lot of stuff by Robert Silverberg that was just too explicit for me, so I asked ChatGPT to screen Up the Line for me, and this is what it said:

The narrative features frank depictions of sexual relationships, including a controversial incestuous encounter resulting from a time-travel paradox. Silverberg uses this scenario to examine the moral implications of unrestricted access to history and personal indulgence.

Yeah… Silverberg’s exploration of incest sounds like exactly the kind of book I never want to read. Hard pass.

I also asked ChatGPT to screen Bug Jack Barron for me—though from the fact that so many editions of this book feature outright pornographic cover art, I suppose I didn’t have to go that far to know this would get a hard DNF. This is what ChatGPT said:

Sexual Content: The novel includes graphic depictions of sexual relationships, often tied to the characters’ moral complexities. The narrative explores Jack’s personal relationships with raw detail, including manipulative and transactional dynamics, as well as moments of stark intimacy.

Social Justice Themes: Issues of race, class, and exploitation are central to the narrative. Spinrad tackles these topics with a provocative, satirical approach, which might align with modern “woke” sensibilities despite the book’s 1960s origin.

Yeah, I’m gonna give this one a hard pass too. And given what I already know about 70s science fiction, I suspect that ChatGPT will be invaluable in screening the books from this decade.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

How I Would Vote Now: 2005 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

For some reason, I have a handful of these posts that I thought I’d scheduled months ago, but that never went out.

The Nominees

The Algebraist by Ian M. Banks

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke

River of Gods by Ian McDonald

Iron Council by China Mieville

Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross

The Actual Results

  1. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke
  2. River of Gods by Ian McDonald
  3. The Algebraist by Ian M. Banks
  4. Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
  5. Iron Council by China Mieville

How I Would Vote Now

  1. No Award
  2. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke

Explanation

To be frankly honest, the only book from this year that I actually picked up was Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It wasn’t a bad story, but it didn’t hook me enough to want to commit to almost 900 pages of reading. I think I got through about the first 100 pages before I gave up on it. Filling 900 pages is not a difficult thing to do; what’s difficult is filling 900 pages and making all of it compelling reason. Tolstoy, Dumas, and Tolkien all achieved that feat. Susanna Clarke’s debut novel did not achieve it, at least for me.

The reason I didn’t pick up Iron Council by China Mieville is because I DNFed his New Crobuzon series with the first book. I’ve written about this before, but the first book, Perdido Street Station, had a sex scene in one of the first chapters that was explicit enough to make me check out. That might not be an issue for most of you, but it was for me.

I didn’t pick up Iron Sunrise because I’ve read enough of Charles Stross’s other work to know that he doesn’t write the kind of books that I care to read. A lot of that comes down to explicit content as well, though I also detected a heavy strain of nihilism that I just have no interest in bringing into my life. So unless I get a strong recommendation from someone I know and trust, I’m just going to skip all of his books.

I’ve also decided to skip everything Ian Banks has written, after getting about halfway through Consider Phlebus before ultimately deciding to chuck it. In that book, there’s about a hundred page interlude where the story just comes to a stop so that the author can slip in a thinly-veiled lecture about how atheism is the only religious worldview that isn’t a scam. After getting through those hundred pages, I decided I’d read enough: Ayn Rand is just as preachy, and much more compelling.

(Interestingly enough, I don’t think I have ever read a Christian author who is as preachy or dogmatic in their Christianity as the hardcore atheists like Banks and Rand are dogmatic in their atheism. I’m sure they exist, but I have yet to discover them.)

That leaves River of Gods by Ian McDonald, but before picking up that novel, I decided to run that title by Orion, my AI assistant whom I now use to screen all of these novels for woke and explicit content before I try to read them. I trained Orion to screen these books after I had such a horrible experience reading The Man Who F***ed Himself by David Gerrold (you can read more about that here). When I ran River of Gods by Orion, this is what he said:

Synopsis (Spoiler-Free): Set in mid-21st-century India, River of Gods presents a richly woven tapestry of interconnected stories that explore a future shaped by climate change, political tensions, and technological advancements. From an AI researcher grappling with the ethical implications of her work to a comedian turned politician and a genderless individual navigating societal challenges, the novel offers a kaleidoscopic view of a diverse and fragmented world.

Explicit Content: The book includes some explicit sexual content and mature themes. Violence is present but not gratuitously described, serving to underscore the stakes of the characters’ struggles. Strong language and depictions of societal corruption also feature in the narrative.

“Woke” Elements: McDonald addresses issues like climate change, gender identity, social inequality, and the impacts of globalization, reflecting a progressive outlook. The exploration of gender fluidity and societal norms is particularly prominent, as is the novel’s focus on the intersection of tradition and modernity in India.

Overall Assessment: River of Gods is a bold, sprawling work of speculative fiction that blends science fiction concepts with cultural depth and complexity. Its explicit content and overtly progressive themes may not appeal to all readers, but its ambitious scope and richly detailed world-building make it a standout in the genre. Those who appreciate deeply layered narratives with a strong social and cultural lens will find much to admire.

The “exploration of gender fluidity” and “genderless individual navigating societal challenges” is a dead giveaway to me that this is not the kind of book I want to read. Honestly, the plot sounds a bit like Love Actually set in a near future version of India, where the love is replaced by wokeness. I suppose I could be wrong, but I don’t feel like reading 500+ pages to learn that Orion’s assessment was right. So far, he’s been surprisingly good at the other titles I’ve given him.

So much for 2005. It feels like every year since this one has been a tug-of-war between the kind of science fiction that I like, and the kind of science fiction that I absolutely cannot stand. That’s why I keep having to put No Award on the ballot for these How I Would Vote Now retrospectives. When I’m done, it will be interesting to go back and see which years got No Award and which ones didn’t. The 70s was another era where the award-winning science fiction really turned sour, but the good stuff came back in the 80s and 90s, if only briefly. I wonder if it will ever come back from what it is now.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

How I Would Vote Now: 1964 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

The Nominees

Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein

Dune World by Frank Herbert

Witch World by Andre Norton

Way Station by Clifford D. Simak

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The Actual Results

  1. Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
  2. Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein
  3. Witch World by Andre Norton
  4. Dune World by Frank Herbert
  5. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

How I Would Have Voted

  1. Dune World by Frank Herbert
  2. Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
  3. Witch World by Andre Norton

Explanation

This was a pretty decent year, though I didn’t enjoy all of the novels. Still, I thought they were all good, even if not all of them were to my particular taste.

I really enjoyed Way Station by Clifford Simak. It’s about a civil war soldier who has quietly been living in the back country for the last hundred years, right up to the 60s, when someone in the government begins to notice how weird it is that this guy is still around, and still going daily to his mailbox on the country lane, carrying his old musket. When we learn what’s actually going on with the guy, and how he’s connected with the aliens who are deliberately keeping their existence secret from most of humanity, things get really interesting.

The ending could have been stronger, but the novel has a lot of heart, and I really enjoyed reading it. With that said, however, I would still put the serialized early draft of Dune higher, just because Dune is such a well-deserved classic, and the ending to Way Station did feel a little weak. But the ideas in the novel were absolutely fantastic, and very well explored.

I also enjoyed Witch World, though I don’t think I’ll follow up with the rest of the series. It was an interesting portal fantasy / adventure tale, though the fantasy world itself never really held my interest. Maybe it was the weird blend of science fiction with fantasy, or maybe it was Norton’s particular writing style, which almost rose to Shakespearean diction at points. I did like the characters enough to read to the end of the story, but not enough to follow them into the next book.

As for Glory Road and Cat’s Cradle, I DNFed both of them. Cat’s Cradle was just too stylistically dense for me to enjoy—it’s much more of a literary novel, and that’s not really my thing. Glory Road was alright, but it very quickly got explicity with the nudity and sexuality, and I have learned from personal experience that whenever Heinlein goes off about sex, the book is not for me.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years

How I Would Vote Now: 1959 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)

The Nominees

The Enemy Stars by Poul Anderson

A Case of Conscience by James Blish

Who? by Algis Budrys

Have Space Suit Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein

Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley

The Actual Results

  1. A Case of Conscience by James Blish
  • Have Space Suit Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein
  • Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley
  • The Enemy Stars by Poul Anderson
  • Who? by Algis Budrys

How I Would Have Voted

  1. Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley
  2. Have Space Suit Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein

Explanation

Immortality, Inc. is the first book I’ve read by Robert Sheckley, and while it’s definitely dated, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The premise was fun and interesting, and the writing was fast-paced with a healthy dose of suspense. As for the stuff that felt dated, I actually think that added to the book’s charm, making it feel like a throwback to an earlier (if not quite innocent) time. I’ve often felt like if I’d had a choice in the time in which I’d been born, I would have chosen to be born about a hundred years ago, so I do occasionally like a good throwback to golden age sci fi. I’m definitely interested in reading more Robert Sheckley.

While I’ve enjoyed Algis Budrys in the past, I found it difficult to get into Who? though not due to any fault of the book or the author. The basic premise of the book is that a spy has returned from enemy custody, but he’s recieved so many prosthetics (including a prosthetic head and brain) that he’s practically a machine now, to the point where his handlers can’t tell if he’s the actual spy or someone trying to impersonate him. Back in the 1950s, the premise made sense, but that was before we knew about DNA, which renders the whole thing obsolete since a small blood sample and a DNA test would resolve the main conflict right away. I just couldn’t get over that, and the story itself didn’t really hook me, so I gave up midway through. Perhaps I should try it again, though.

The Enemy Stars was another Poul Anderson book that I just couldn’t get into. The characters weren’t quite as flat as in some of his other books, but they all still tended to blend together, and by about page 50 I still couldn’t tell what the main conflict of the story was. I love sprawling space operas just as much as the next sci fi reader, but the book has to have a plot, too. Less worldbuilding and more actual story, please.

Have Space Suit Will Travel was okay, but I didn’t really love it, and if I hadn’t picked up the audiobook, I probably would have DNFed it. It’s a book for young readers that feels like a book for young readers—in other words, a book that seems to talk down to the reader more than was necessary. It did have a lot of golden-age, 50’s era charm, and I enjoyed the world and the characters. Heinlein can definitely write a fun story. But with all that said, I don’t think this is one of his best—in fact, I wouldn’t even say it’s one of his best juveniles.

It’s been a while since I read A Case of Conscience, but I think the main reason I DNFed it had to do with its Malthusian premise and treatment of religion. Basically, it’s about a Catholic priest who is also an interstellar explorer, and how he wrestles with the question of whether a certain race of intelligent alien beings has souls. One of the aliens comes back to Earth and is instrumental in the complete collapse of society, which somehow ties into the philosophical questions, but that part wasn’t very clear to me. The story was very dry and cerebral, and I was never really sold on the central premise. Also, the religious character felt like he was obviously written by someone who isn’t religious (though I suppose I could be wrong about that—after all, I’m not a Catholic). But perhaps that was just me.

In short, while I wouldn’t say this was one of the best years for the Hugo, it had some good books, and none of the ones that made the ballot were particularly objectionable. With that said, though, I don’t think any of them stand the test of time.

How I Would Vote Now: All Years