{"id":22995,"date":"2026-04-25T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=22995"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:34:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:34:28","slug":"how-i-would-vote-now-2013-hugo-awards-best-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-2013-hugo-awards-best-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Would Vote Now: 2013 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Nominees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Throne of the Crescent Moon<\/em> by Saladin Ahmed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance<\/em> by Lois McMaster Bujold<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Blackout<\/em> by Mira Grant<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

2312<\/em> by Kim Stanley Robinson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Redshirts<\/em> by John Scalzi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Actual Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Redshirts<\/em> by John Scalzi<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance<\/em> by Lois McMaster Bujold<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. 2312<\/em> by Kim Stanley Robinson<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Throne of the Crescent Moon<\/em> by Saladin Ahmed<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Blackout<\/em> by Mira Grant<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    How I Would Have Voted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. Throne of the Crescent Moon<\/em> by Saladin Ahmed<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Explanation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      None of the books this year were super woke or objectionable to me, so I wouldn’t put any of them below No Award. But the only one that I actually finished was Throne of the Crescent Moon,<\/em> which I found to be an enjoyable debut fantasy novel. It’s got some flaws, but it makes up for that with heart, just like many good debut novels. It’s also got a real Islamic \/ Middle Eastern flair to it, which made it fun and unique. And while these days, there’s an association between Islamism and the Left (the “red-green alliance”), Throne of the Crescent Moon<\/em> isn’t woke at all\u2014which I suspect was one of the reasons it didn’t win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I hope Saladin Ahmed writes a sequel to this book. The world is interesting, the characters are good people, and the first book is clearly setting things up for other books. But I’ve heard rumors that the reason Saladin hasn’t written the next book yet is because the whole Hugo Awards process was such an emotional rollercoaster that it burned him out and killed his desire to go through all that again. Plus, when you experience a surprising degree of success too early in your career, there’s a danger that the pressure to perform will kill your subsequent efforts. Which is too bad, because I definitely want to read the next book!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      As for the other books this year, none of them were all that great. I DNFed Mira Grant’s Newsflesh series with the first book, so I didn’t bother reading Blackout.<\/em> Redshirts<\/em> is basically a space opera retelling of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead<\/em>, which I thoroughly hated (not to mention, I haven’t liked anything Scalzi has written since Old Man’s War<\/em>, for reasons I’ve explained previously). And 2312<\/em> was more of a hard SF slice-of-life novel about all the wonderful things Kim Stanley Robinson would like us to build as we expand humanity’s presence across the Solar System\u2014all with the correct neoliberal politics, of course. A little too heavy on the vision, and a little too weak on the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I wanted to like Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance,<\/em> and I’ve enjoyed most (if not all) of the other Vorkosigan novels by Bujold\u2026 but after the first few chapters, I just started to feel as if the series has run too long for me. One of the biggest obstacles to reading the Vorkosigan Saga has been figuring out a proper reading order, since the chronologically first few books have virtually none of the important recurring characters, and every other book seems to refer to the events of half a dozen other previous books, sometimes including books that haven’t been written yet. And trying to read them in publication order doesn’t help either, since Bujold tends to jump all over the place in her own timeline. But in general, I think all the best books are the ones she wrote earlier, because the later-written books are mostly just about the feelings and relationships of the side characters in the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      When I was a younger writer, I thought it would be wonderful to have a career like Bujolds, with a popular long-running, open-ended series that I could add new books to as the muse tended to strike me. But now, I tend to think that every good series has a definitive arc, with a beginning and an end. I might end up eating these words, of course, especially if one of my series becomes popular enough that that’s all my readers want to read more of. But I would rather have multiple popular series, each with a distinct arc, than one never-ending series where the later books just don’t quite measure up to the first ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
      How I Would Vote Now: All Years<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Nominees Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold Blackout by Mira Grant 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson Redshirts by John Scalzi The Actual Results How I Would Have Voted Explanation None of the books this year were super woke or objectionable to me, so I wouldn’t… Continue reading How I Would Vote Now: 2013 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[567,328,400,434,1755,2560],"class_list":["post-22995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hugo-awards","tag-john-scalzi","tag-kim-stanley-robinson","tag-lois-mcmaster-bujold","tag-mira-grant","tag-saladin-ahmed","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-5YT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22995"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23099,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22995\/revisions\/23099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}