2008 Hugo Winners Announced

The Hugo winners have been announced, and I’m stunned that 3 out of 4 of my favorites won. Evidently there was a massive attack of good taste. (By which I mean, they agree with me.)
But that’s not why I’m happy.

Brasyl - Take Two

Finally! It took me two weeks, in fits and starts, to read Brasyl, and then another two weeks to digest it. I have to admit, for a while I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. But I couldn’t invoke the 150 page rule because I liked the first 150 pages. In fact, I [...]

2008 Hugo Recap

Here are the Hugo stories ordered very roughly by how much I enjoyed them. Reading them makes me want to read more of Elizabeth Bear and Daniel Abraham, and “Luminous,” by Greg Egan. Now I just need to buy my membership.

Brasyl - Take one

First, a confession: I’m only halfway through Brasyl, by Ian McDonald. It’s a dense, detailed, demanding story that’s impossible to read quickly, but I’m glad to spend the time for this book. After fighting my way through the Old Man’s War series, it’s such a relief to read something that’s consistently well-written.
Though I don’t [...]

The Last Colony

The Last Colony reads like it was written by the same John Scalzi who writes his blog, which is relaxed, humorous, and entertaining. In Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades, the prose tends to be stiff, the humor forced, and the story begins only after chapters and chapters of exposition, and is constantly brought [...]

The Cambist and Lord Iron

Olaf Neddelson is a humble cambist, a money changer, whose life is changed when the notorious Lord Iron comes to his exchange window. Lord Iron demands that he exchange convertible guilders from the Independent Protectorate of Analdi-Wat for pounds sterling. If Olaf fails to do so within 24 hours, his license could be reviewed under [...]

Dark Integers

I was really looking forward to “Dark Integers” by Greg Egan. After all, one character says:
Dark matter, dark energy . . . dark integers. They’re all around us, but we don’t usually see them, because they don’t quite play by the rules.
How cool is that? I really like the parts where it plays with the [...]

Glory

An ingot of metallic hydrogen…
Whoa, wait a second. An ingot. Of metallic hydrogen. Okay, I see what kind of story “Glory,” by Greg Egan is going to be. Old school, hard core, science fiction. That hydrogen gets put through some outrageous changes, which are mind-bending beyond the point of disbelief all the way back out [...]

Finisterra

In the world of Sky, island-sized living zaratanes float through the upper layers of the atmosphere. A zaratán is so big, whole towns live on their backs and go unnoticed. So naturally, people fly to get about, in balloons or anemopters or starships lurking in orbit. It seems like just the place for an [...]

Tideline

As with “The House Beyond Your Sky,” what impresses me most about “Tideline,” by Elizabeth Bear is the sound and imagery of the prose. Here’s the opening:
Chalcedony wasn’t built for crying. She didn’t have it in her, not unless her tears were cold tapered glass droplets annealed by the inferno heat that had crippled her.
Such [...]