November SFFKIT: Award Winners

Welcome to the November SFFKIT Challenge! This month will be all about award winners; choose a book that has won a science fiction or fantasy award, read a book by an author who has been honored with awards, or read a work from an author for whom an award has been named (the Arthur C. Clarke Award, The Philip K. Dick Award...). Nominees are definitely a valid choice, too. I've included links to some of the more popular awards; feel free to mention other favorites and I'll add them here. I'm excited to see what everyone chooses to read! Oh, and please remember to update the wiki:

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2019_SFFKIT#November:_-_Theme:_Award_Win...

Hugo Awards: http://www.thehugoawards.org/
http://www.sfadb.com/Hugo_Awards_2019

Nebula Awards: https://nebulas.sfwa.org/
http://www.sfadb.com/Nebula_Awards_2019

World Fantasy Awards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Fantasy_Award
http://www.sfadb.com/World_Fantasy_Awards_2019

British Fantasy Awards: https://www.britishfantasysociety.org/british-fantasy-awards/
http://www.sfadb.com/British_Fantasy_Awards_2019

Mythopoeic Awards: http://www.mythsoc.org/awards.htm
http://www.sfadb.com/Mythopoeic_Awards_2019

Locus Awards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_Award
http://www.sfadb.com/Locus_Awards_2019

A list of others can be found here: http://www.sfadb.com/

>1 scaifea: Wasn't there some sort of kerfuffle recently with the Campbell Award being renamed?

My possibilities for this are:

Neutron Star by Larry Niven Hugo for Best Short Story
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu Locus for Best First Novel
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison Locus for Best Fantasy Novel

>2 Robertgreaves: You're right, Robert! I hadn't heard about this, but now the Campbell Award is the Astounding Award, and for good reason, it seems:

https://locusmag.com/2019/08/campbell-award-renamed/

I'll revise the first post accordingly. Thanks for pointing that out!

>3 Robertgreaves: The Goblin Emperor has been on my radar - I'll be interested to see what you think of it if you choose that one.

I am planning on reading The City and The City by China Mieville. In 2010 this was one of two novels awarded the Hugo Best Novel.

>5 DeltaQueen50: That one has been on my list for ages - I can’t wait to see what you think of it!

>6 scaifea: Amber, I have high expectations for this one. I have previously read Perdido Street Station and loved it. I also enjoyed his YA story, Un Lun Dun.

>7 DeltaQueen50: I've only read Perdido, but I really loved it.

Reading as many works that received the Hugo or Nebula challenge is a long term challenge of mine, so I'll definitely try to read some in November!

>3 Robertgreaves: The Grace of Kings is very high on my wishlist currently, I'm considering it (among many others) for my next read.

>5 DeltaQueen50: I really adored The city and the city, I hope you like it as much as I did!

>1 scaifea: I wasn't aware of sfadb.com. It seems very well made!
I wish there was a site allowing to track which of these works (novels or shorter fiction) I've read.

>9 chlorine: I'm working on the Hugo and Nebula challenges, too, and it's definitely a long-term project!

sfadb.com is pretty cool, but I agree that it would be nice to have a tracking ability, too.

>10 scaifea: My project has become even more long term since a few years ago I realised I enjoyed reading short fiction and have added all the short stories, novellettes and novellas to my reading list. :p

>11 chlorine: Whoa, yes, that's a long list, then! I can't think of a better problem to have, though...

>12 scaifea: Indeed a good problem to have! :) Though it's hard to come by many of the short work: they are often available only as part of collections and if I buy a collection I would like to read all the stories in it, and it takes a lot of time... Maybe when I'm retired! :)

Moreover many of the older stories are only available in out of prints collections.
I ordered second hand copies of two volumes of The Hugo winners edited by Isaac Asimov, which contain early Hugo winners. This is not reasonable as I'm already reading two short stories collections on top of a novel and a nonfiction book, but it was too tempting. :)

>13 chlorine: Do you have access to ILL? That's how I find a lot of the out-of-print stuff from my reading lists.

>14 scaifea:: Is ILL inter library loan? I'm French and live in France so I don't have that option for works in English, unfortunately.

>15 chlorine: Ha! Well, I'm a dummy. I should have checked your profile first! Yes, Inter Library Loan here is fabulous, but it isn't available in all areas of the states, I think.

>16 scaifea: I don't think my profile indicates where I live so there's no way you could have known! :) And your suggestion will probably be useful to others.

>17 chlorine: That's very kind of you to say!

I wouldn't get very far in all of my various lists without the likes of ILL and other such services - here in Ohio we have SearchOhio and OhioLink as well, and between those and our more local request system, I've been able to find every book I need. It's a wonderful system and I feel very lucky to have access to it.

I'm starting this month's challenge with The Hugo Winners 1963-1967 edited by Isaac Asimov. I'm afraid the stories didn't age well but the completist in me wants to read them. We'll see...

>19 chlorine: I'll be interested to see what you think of it - I hope there are at least a few gems in there!

This worked out well - Amber, for the month you are hosting, I plan to read The Amber Spyglass, winner of the 2001 Whitbread Award!

>21 LisaMorr: Perfect! And such a good book, too - I hope you love it!

I am hoping to finally get to The Calculating Stars - it has been on my pile for ages!

>23 JayneCM: That one's been on my list for a long while, too!

>21 LisaMorr: I enjoyed this series so much!

>23 JayneCM: This one is really interesting! Looking forwards to read your thoughts about it.

>25 chlorine: Have you read the Book of Dust series? It's going to be a trilogy, I think, and the first two are out. I've read the first one and it was amazing.

>27 scaifea: No I wasn't even really aware of it. It looks very interesting and on top of that it would be a perfect Christmas gift for a friend of mine!

>28 chlorine: Oh, yay!

I may finally read The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It won several awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1998.

>30 christina_reads: Oh, that's one of my all-time favorites. I hope you love it!

I read The Langoliers by Steven King for the Horror Kit and discovered that it fits here. It is a work about the supernatural and time travel and it, along with others in the Four Past Midnight won Bram Stoker Award Nominee (Superior Achievement in Long Fiction, 1990) and Bram Stoker Award Nominee (Best Novellette, 1991).

>32 Kristelh: Oooh, I haven't read that one in years. Did you enjoy it? I've always thought that his short stories were his best work.

>33 scaifea:, I did enjoy it and I will go on to read the other 3 at some time. I like a quick read to fill in holes in time and challenges. They are available at my library so works out well.

>34 Kristelh: Short stories are good for that!

I started off with a reread that I actually had planned on for last month - Redshirts by John Scalzi. In 2013 it took both the Hugo Award and the Locus Award for best novel.

Like several others have mentioned, I'm trying to read more shorter SF&F, so I followed up with two short stories, Cat Pictures, Please, and The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djeli Clark.

Cat Pictures, Please by Naomi Kritzer was nominated for a Nebula and won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 2016. You can read the story for free HERE .

The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djeli Clark was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the Hugo Award and won the Nebula and the Locus Awards in 2019. It can be read for free HERE .

Back to longer fiction, I read Empire of Sand, the first novel by Tasha Suri. Empire of Sand didn't win the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel (for which it had been nominated), but Suri did pick up the Best Newcomer Award. I didn't this novel, but it was solid and showed great promise. The next novel in the series, Realm of Ash, came out today.

I added the novels to the wiki, but it felt strange to add the short stories.

>36 Dejah_Thoris: I keep meaning to read Redshirts. I should try to get to it soon.

I say add the short stories with maybe a note that that's what they are?

I've read Autonomous by Annalee Newitz which won a Lambda Literary Award in the LGBTQ SF/F/Horror category for 2017.

>38 AHS-Wolfy: I'd not heard of that one, but it looks good - what did you think of it?

>36 Dejah_Thoris: >37 scaifea: On the StopYoureKillingMe web site, they add SS after short stories/collections. Maybe we could do the same?

>40 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Sounds good to me!

>39 scaifea: I really enjoyed the story. It's fast-paced, has good characters and touches on some interesting topics. Definitely has some warnings for a possible future. Not totally sold on the ending though. Will still be looking out for future titles by the author even so.

>42 AHS-Wolfy: It sounds good! I think I'll add it to my list...

I read The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley which is a book from the NPR top 100 SF and Fantasy. It won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (1984).

>44 Kristelh: That's one that has been on my list for *years*! I really need to get round to it soon. Did you enjoy it?

>45 scaifea: I have mixed feelings about it and from reviews that I looked at, it is received with mixed ratings. I will write my review soon which will help me process; it's a feminist novel that promotes women but also uses a lot of sex. It also a study of pagans and Celtic mythology. A lot of religion and thoughts of all gods are the same, etc.

>46 Kristelh: That actually sounds pretty amazing to me. I'll bump it farther up the list.

I read (reread) a favorite, Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey. She was the SFWA Grand Master winner in 2005.

>48 fuzzi: Aha! One that I *have* read! It's so good to revisit favorites, isn't it?

>49 scaifea: sometimes I just want a comfort reread, and the Harper Hall books are perfect.

The December SFFFKit thread is now up at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/313136#

>48 fuzzi: >49 scaifea: >50 fuzzi: I agree that the Harper Hall books are wonderful comfort reads. I feel that way about many of Anne McCaffrey's books.

I've never been a big fan of Seanan McGuire's, but I keep trying. I read her novella Every Heart a Doorway, the first in her Wayward Children series, which, in 2017, won a Hugo, a Nebula, and a Locus Award, was nominated for both World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards, and made the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award Honor List. I didn't love it, but found it intriguing. So when TOR offered Down Among the Sticks and Bones (the second novella in the series) as it's free ebook for November, I decided it was fated that I should read it. It was nominated for a Hugo and came in third place for the Locus. I think I liked it even better than Every Heart a Doorway.

I've also read two more short stories available free online. The first was John Scalzi's After the Coup, set in his Old Man's War Universe. It's a bit of a stretch for it to qualify for this month, as second place in the Locus Award voting back in 2009 was as close as it came to an award, but that's akin to being nominated, right? It was fun, but probably only for readers of the series. It can be read for free HERE .

On the other hand, I was blown away by The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere by John Chu. It won the Hugo Award in 2014 and is well worth the time to read, as long as you are open to SF&F that has more to do with people than science. You can read it HERE .

>52 Dejah_Thoris: I'm sad to say that I haven't read *any* of those! But, my list just became a little longer (especially the Chu)...

>52 Dejah_Thoris: Interesting about Seanan McGuire. I've tried hard to get into her writing (both as McGuire and as Mira Grant) owing to her popularity but for some reason she just doesn't do it for me. I've pretty much given up on her but maybe I'll try Every Heart a Doorwayif it crosses my desk :-)

I read and thoroughly enjoyed The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. This was a rare 5* read for me. I also listened to the short story The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu, beautifully read by LeVar Burton on his podcast, LeVar Burton Reads (which I highly recommend if you enjoy short stories). This was another 5* listen which won best short story for the Nebula, 2011; World Fantasy, 2012 & Hugo, 2012.

>55 staci426: I keep meaning to check out Burton's podcast! I'll bump it up the list more.

>54 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Keep in mind that I didn't love Every Heart a Doorway, but I did find it intriguing enough to read the next when it dropped into my lap, so to speak. I'll probably try the third, Beneath the Sugar Sky, but I may wait a bit.

>55 staci426: I loved The Calculating Stars too, so I thought I'd look up The Paper Menagerie on your recommendation. I found where it could be read online for free (HERE) - and it almost broke my heart. It's beautiful. Thanks for suggesting it.

>55 staci426: >57 Dejah_Thoris:
I loved The paper menagerie. I read the whole collection with the same name and found it terrific.
I'm really excited that another collection by Ken Liu will come out in a bit more than three months!

>57 Dejah_Thoris: >58 chlorine: Glad to see others have enjoyed The Paper Menagerie as well. I think this was the first time I was brought to tears by a short story. I will definitely be looking to read more of his stories.

My exploration of older books and short stories which received the Hugo awards is not very satisfying.

The man in the high castle by Philip K. Dick is a uchronia in which the axis has won WWII and the US are divided into a Japanese part in the west and a German part in the East. The man in the high castle of the title is a writer who wrote a very popular book in which the axis lost the war.
The story is done by following a few characters in a stream of consciousness that is quite interesting. However, the characters talk (or think) in a weird way, withoug making complete sentences, which I found jarring. I also found the story quite weak, with one of the main characters, Juliana, acting in a very weird way that does not make her believable as a character.

I'm also reading The Hugo winners edited by Isaac Asimov. I'm not finished but I read the following stories:
- The Dragon masters by Jack Vance. Meh. This is the kind of story IMO which gave science-fiction a bad rep, it's not well written, I didn't find the story interesting, and the author kept trying to show us that we were reading about people from another planet by insisting on their clothing. Plus it was long for short fiction, and it was a bit of a chore to finish it.
- No truce with Kings by Poul Anderson. More interesting, with a story alternating between two characters, and a rather interesting story.
- Soldier, ask not by Gordon R. Dickson. I found it rather interesting but the ending left me really cold.
- Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison This one aims to be a societal reflection about our relationship with time, and I found some parts well written, but overall it didn't work for me.

I was quite surprised that two of these stories feature a science that makes it possible to predict world events, similar to the the psychohistory of Asimov's Foundation.

>60 chlorine: I'm sorry those didn't work better for you. I actually *loved* The Man in the High Castle, but I understand that it's not really to everyone's tastes.

>60 chlorine: I always have trouble with Philip K. Dick. I love the ideas of his plots but end up being disappointed in the execution. I can't quite put my finger on it but I always have a vague sense of too much "missing." I don't know if that makes any sense or not!

>61 scaifea: I'm glad somebody liked this book! :)

>62 Tanya-dogearedcopy: That totally makes sense to me! I've read several books by Dick over the years. I don't remember all of them but I adored Ubik which I read when in my twenties, and was really impressed by A scanner darkly, which I read a few years later. Admittedly my reading tastes may have evolved since then. I have a feeling I may like Ubik less now than when I first read it, but think I would still like A scanner darkly.

Reminder: we're all over here https://www.librarything.com/topic/313136

Belatedly finished The Man in the High Castle, Hugo winner of 1963. I felt somewhat like >60 chlorine:, the characters' way of talking and thinking is so strange . . .

I did manage to finish The Amber Spyglass yesterday and it was really good; lots of interesting concepts explored through the series that were brought to satisfying conclusions, although the ending was bittersweet. Glad I finally finished the trilogy!

>66 NinieB: PKD is definitely an acquired taste and certainly not for everyone!

>67 LisaMorr: I *love* that series. I'm glad you enjoyed the trilogy!

I'm currently reading Jade City by Fonda Lee, which won both the World Fantasy Award and the Aurora Award (for Canadian SFF) in 2018. I'm enjoying it very much so far.

>69 mathgirl40: I haven't read that one yet, but it sounds good - I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I've finished reading The Hugo Winners (1963 -1967) edited by Asimov.
My comments about the beginning of the book are in post >60 chlorine:

- The last castle by Jack Vance is more interesting that his first novella in the collection, The Dragon masters, with a more interesting plot, but remains IMO poorly written and the characters were not believable to me
- Neutron Star by Larry Niven was maybe the most interesting one, with a main character I could relate to, an interesting develpment and a satisfying ending.

Isaac Asimov wrote an intro for each story, speaking about the author and not the work. These intro were written in a humorous way, depicting Asimov as a selfish person, thinking highly of himself, jealous of all these authors who received Hugo Awards,
Though they were witty they did not quite work for me. It did not help that I read the Intro he wrote for Anne McCaffrey in the next book of the series, that I have yet to read. He manages to mention her breasts and their size three times in hardly more than a page. :/

>71 chlorine: He manages to mention her breasts and their size three times in hardly more than a page. Oh, ugh.

>72 scaifea: I know, right?! I find the state of the world concerning gender equality to be far from perfect, but at least I believe we have made progress, as I don't think this could happen anymore in this kind of book, edited by one of the field's big names.

>73 chlorine: Well, I would hope not, but I feel like we're regressing a bit on that front just now, to be honest. *sigh*