The 2012 Hugo Awards: Best Novel shortlist

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (Orbit)
Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Bantam Spectra)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan / Del Rey)
Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)

Starting from worst to best, here are my rankings:

I won’t be reading Deadline by Mira Grant. I read the first book in the series, Feed, which was on the Hugo Award Best Novel shortlist last year and I had a strongly negative reaction to it. It will be a long time before I am likely to give the author another chance.  The main problem with Feed for me, as someone who worked in journalism for many years, is that since the main character is a journalist, the author needs to convince me that he or she knows something about journalism. Unfortunately, Feed demonstrated some basic misunderstandings about what journalists do and how they do it. As a result I lost confidence in the author. I did finish reading Feed. It read as an early draft of the novel that was intended. It’s about zombies, which scores negative points for lack of originality. (For more about Feed follow here.)

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey (a pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) reads like two novels mashed together. Story one: a hard-bitten detective pursues a missing person’s case across the asteroid belt. Story two: an idealistic space-ship captain and his faithful crew have a series of adventures across the solar system. Unfortunately, neither story is particularly interesting. The world building and the plot points are built from over-used parts. The prose feels rushed and hobbled with clichés. The characters are thin. The fascination with weapons and violence suggests that the novel is intended for 13-year-old boys. It features zombies, which scores negative points for lack of originality.

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin is a category error. The Hugo Awards don’t have a category (thank goodness) for a middle volume of an unfinished and apparently endless series. This book doesn’t belong in the best novel category. It’s certainly not self-contained. It reads like a very long set of middle chapters excerpted from an incredibly long novel, which is exactly what it is. I enjoyed it, even though it is overlong and could use some editing. It comes from the more-is-better school of series fiction, so any complaint I have that it is too long is only a recommendation to those who like this sort of thing. It features zombies, which scores negative points for lack of originality.

Among Others by Jo Walton is a cleverly constructed character portrait of a teenage girl dealing with issues of arriving at a new boarding school, relationships with boys, a dysfunctional family, and grief over the unnatural death of her twin sister. It is also a fantasy novel that confounds reader expectations by being set entirely after the climactic battle between opposing magical forces. Along the way the reader encounters remarkably alien faerie creatures and a vivid and original magical system. Our main character spends much of her time in the school library and discovers a variety of science fiction and fantasy novels from the 1960s and ‘70s and offers her impressions of each reading experience. What could be seen as calculated fan-service instead provides a surprising depth of insight into the thoughts and maturation of our young viewpoint character. Among Others is an excellent novel with layers that reward close attention.

Embassytown by China Miéville is an ambitious, difficult, and brilliant novel. There are problems with the structure and pacing of the novel, none of which matter when rereading the book. I can imagine that many readers new to Miéville will give up in the first hundred pages or so. I’ve read other Miéville novels; he has earned my trust. I knew that if I stayed the course I would be rewarded.  It’s a novel about language. The central metaphor is to literalize certain aspects of language: that language limits our experience of the world, that language circumscribes identity, that language is an intoxicant. It’s set on a far flung alien planet with an intelligent species whose language is confoundingly different from our own. Communication breaks down in a dramatic fashion, causing a revolution among the aliens, and conceptual breakthroughs are required to reestablish communication. This is a fascinating novel, with thoughtful ideas about language incorporated into a compelling story.  Judging from the four Miéville novels that I’ve read, this is his best yet. (For more about Embassytown follow here.)

SF Strangelove’s ranking of the Hugo Awards Best Novel shortlist:
1. Embassytown by China Miéville
2. Among Others by Jo Walton
3. A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
4. No award
5. Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey

Anything after “no award” doesn’t matter in the voting. A Dance With Dragons only barely makes it above “no award” in my estimation.

It’s a relief to be able to say that two of the five best novel nominees are actually worthy of a best novel award. That makes it an above-average year for the Hugo Awards Best Novel shortlist.

Here are novels I’ve read that deserved a spot on the best novel shortlist:

The best science fiction novels published in 2011:
This Shared Dream by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Embassytown by China Miéville
The Islanders by Christopher Priest
Home Fires by Gene Wolfe

The best fantasy novels published in 2011:
The Uncertain Places by Lisa Goldstein
Among Others by Jo Walton

I’m sure I missed a few. Still, that’s more than enough to fill my ideal Hugo shorlist. Simply put, the Hugo Awards nominators missed several superior novels.

The 2011 Hugo Awards: Novel shortlist

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Feed by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

I’ve read four of the five novels on the 2011 Hugo Awards shortlist. Cryoburn is the one that I’ve skipped. I decided that to give the book its due I should read the whole Vorkosigan series from the beginning, which I have never done. So far, I’ve read three books in the series and I am enjoying them. It will probably be several months before I’ve caught up with Cryoburn.

Blackout/All Clear was the most frustrating and disappointing of the novel nominees that I have read. There may be a good story about time travelers visiting England during World War II buried within these pages. Unfortunately, this two-volume novel is more than twice the length it should be and contains a multitude of structural issues, “idiot” plotting, and obsessive characters who worry about their concerns repetitively for hundreds of pages. I wrote about this novel in greater detail a few weeks ago. Read the full review.

I would call Feed an energetic puppy of a novel, except Jonathan McCalmont beat me to it, so I suppose I shouldn’t. Set during a U.S. presidential campaign 20-some years after a zombie outbreak, the story is narrated in first person by Georgia Mason, a web blogger who styles herself as a journalist. Georgia attaches herself to the campaign of a promising presidential contender. The zombie threat is ongoing, allowing for life and death situations to develop at any moment. The best parts of the story are the notions about the infectious nature of zombie transmission and the constant blood-testing needed for security. The novel is on less-sure ground when it deals with journalism and politics. Georgia tells us repeatedly that she is dedicated to objectivity and truth, yet when we read her published work it is opinion-filled ranting that has nothing to do with objectivity. She gets special access to her candidate that other media aren’t allowed and instantly she is biased in favor of her candidate. The reader gets little sense of the larger political landscape, either domestic or international. When the story keeps a narrow focus on Georgia and her circle of friends, colleagues, and relatives, with lots of blood and mayhem and zombie fighting, it is entertaining and moves along well. When the novel tries to address larger issues about the media and politics it is frustrating and unsatisfying.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is a first novel and a promising one. It stands on its own even though it’s the first book in a trilogy. Yeine Darr is brought to the capitol of a globe-spanning empire and told that she is one of three possible heirs to the dying ruler, setting up a potentially lethal competition for succession. The empire derives much of its power from a pantheon of gods that have been bound and enslaved. The gods have varied and interesting personalities. The great strength of the novel is the first person narrative voice of Yeine, who is in over her head as the story begins. The author puts Yeine through a series of changes and the narrative voice reflects that. Yeine develops a romantic interest in one of the enslaved gods, which is handled well. There is one bedroom scene that is perhaps inadvertently funny, where sex is described in cosmic terms and results in broken furniture.

The Dervish House, set in Istanbul, is the third of the author’s novels dealing with emerging economies in the near future. Prior novels were River of Gods (2004), set in India, and Brasyl (2007), two of the most remarkable science fiction novels of recent years. There isn’t any overlap between these books, except that they each explore non-Western futures. The Dervish House is, I think, the most controlled and enjoyable of the three novels. A detailed picture of Istanbul in 2027 takes shape through a variety of viewpoint characters over the course of five days. Several of the characters live in or near an old converted Dervish house, which becomes something of a character itself. One plot thread turns into a variation on The Da Vinci Code, as an art dealer chases after an ancient artifact, called a mellified man. Unlike The Da Vinci Code, this thread of the story does not wear out its welcome. I was less interested in the story of the gas commodity trader and his plan to manipulate the market. Still, all the threads weave together into a coherent and satisfying whole.

This group of nominees provokes an extreme range of reactions from your humble correspondent, from the exceedingly weak Blackout/All Clear to the especially strong The Dervish House. Foremost among the books that should have been on the shortlist but weren't, Under Heaven by Guy Gaviel Kay was an exceptional fantasy novel set in Tang Dynasty China.

Rankings for the SF Strangelove Hugo Awards ballot for novel:
1. The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
2. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
3. No award.

The 2011 Hugo Awards will be presented August 20, 2011 at Renovation, the World Science Fiction Convention to be held in Reno, Nevada.

Related links:
2011 Hugo Nominees
Reactions to the 2011 Hugo Nominees
2011 Hugo Nominations: Novella
The 2011 Hugo Awards: Novelette Shortlist
The 2011 Hugo Awards: Short Story Shortlist
Renovation, The 69th World Science Fiction Convention: The Hugo Awards