by Doctor Science
I'm eligible to nominate for the Hugo Awards (closes March 10) and to vote as a subscriber for the Locus Awards (closes April 15). I generally take the Locus Recommended Reading List as my starting point. The LRRL is notable this year for not including The Martian (it would be under "first novel"), which I expect to be on the Hugo ballot and may well win. Yeah, it's not all that well-written, but it hits a primal Science! Fiction! button that doesn't get punched very much these days.
Under the cut are the LRRL for the novel categories. Books that have been read (or attempted) by members of the Science household are grayed out. Of the others, are there any to which you-all would particularly like to direct our attention? We certainly can't read them all before the Hugo Noms are due ...
I'm particularly interested in recommendations for works published as e-books, because Locus frankly admits that they have no idea how to even find the good stuff in the e-book torrent.
Novels -- Science Fiction
Ultima, Stephen Baxter (Gollancz; Roc 2015)War Dogs, Greg Bear (Orbit US; Gollancz)Shipstar, Gregory Benford & Larry Niven (Tor; Titan 2015)Chimpanzee, Darin Bradley (Underland)Cibola Burn, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber (Hogarth; Canongate)The Peripheral, William Gibson (Putnam; Viking UK)Afterparty, Daryl Gregory (Tor; Titan)Work Done for Hire, Joe Haldeman (Ace)Tigerman, Nick Harkaway (Knopf; Heinemann 2015)Europe in Autumn, Dave Hutchinson (Solaris US; Solaris UK)Wolves, Simon Ings (Gollancz)Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)Artemis Awakening, Jane Lindskold (Tor)The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu (Tor)The Causal Angel, Hannu Rajaniemi (Tor; Gollancz)The Memory of Sky, Robert Reed (Prime)Bête, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)Lock In, John Scalzi (Tor; Gollancz)The Blood of Angels, Johanna Sinisalo (Peter Owens)The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Random House; Sceptre)Lagoon, Nnedi Okorafor (Hodder; Saga 2015)All Those Vanished Engines, Paul Park (Tor)Annihilation/Authority/Acceptance, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals; Fourth Estate; HarperCollins Canada)Dark Lightning, John Varley (Ace)My Real Children, Jo Walton (Tor; Corsair)Echopraxia, Peter Watts (Tor; Head of Zeus 2015)World of Trouble, Ben H. Winters (Quirk)
Novels -- fantasy
The Widow's House, Daniel Abraham (Orbit US; Orbit UK)The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)Steles of the Sky, Elizabeth Bear (Tor)City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway; Jo Fletcher)Hawk, Steven Brust (Tor)The Boy Who Drew Monsters, Keith Donohue (Picador USA)Bathing the Lion, Jonathan Carroll (St. Martin's)Full Fathom Five, Max Gladstone (Tor)The Winter Boy, Sally Wiener Grotta (Pixel Hall)The Magician's Land, Lev Grossman (Viking; Arrow 2015)Truth and Fear, Peter Higgins (Orbit; Gollancz)The Mirror Empire, Kameron Hurley (Angry Robot US)Resurrections, Roz Kaveney (Plus One)Revival, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)The Dark Defiles, Richard K. Morgan (Del Rey; Gollancz)The Bees, Laline Paull (Ecco; Fourth Estate 2015)The Godless, Ben Peek (Thomas Dunne; Tor UK)Heirs of Grace, Tim Pratt (47North)Beautiful Blood, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean)A Man Lies Dreaming, Lavie Tidhar (Hodder & Stoughton)The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, Genevieve Valentine (Atria)California Bones, Greg van Eekhout (Tor)
Novels -- Young Adult
Half a King, Joe Abercrombie (Del Rey; Voyager UK)Ruin and Rising, Leigh Bardugo (Holt; Indigo)Girl on a Wire, Gwenda Bond (Skyscape)The Doubt Factory, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)Waistcoats & Weaponry, Gail Carriger (Little, Brown; Atom)Exo, Steven Gould (Tor)Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children's UK; Amulet 2015)The Grasshopper's Child, Gwyneth Jones (Tjoy Books)Memory of Water, Emmi Itäranta (Harper Voyager UK)Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)Empress of the Sun, Ian McDonald (Jo Fletcher; Pyr)Greenglass House, Kate Milford (Clarion)Clariel, Garth Nix (Harper; Hot Key; Allen & Unwin)The Child Eater, Rachel Pollack (Jo Fletcher)Lockstep, Karl Schroeder (Tor)Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press; Scholastic UK)Dreams of Gods & Monsters, Laini Taylor, (Little, Brown; Hodder & Stoughton)Afterworlds, Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)
First Novels
The Race, Nina Allan (NewCon)Elysium, Jennifer Marie Brissett (Aqueduct)The Girl in the Road, Monica Byrne (Crown; Blackfriars)A Darkling Sea, James L. Cambias (Tor)The Clockwork Dagger, Beth Cato (Harper Voyager)Unwrapped Sky, Rjurik Davidson (Tor; Tor UK)Otherbound, Corinne Duyvis (Amulet)The Angel of Losses, Stephanie Feldman (Ecco)The Memory Garden, Mary Rickert (Sourcebooks Landmark)The Emperor's Blades, Brian Staveley (Tor; Tor UK)The Stone Boatmen, Sarah Tolmie (Aqueduct)
Piles of French Novels by Vincent Van Gogh (1887). These books are mostly
cheap Yellow-backs, which English wikipedia says were British, while French wikipedia does not acknowledge their existence. But I'm pretty sure Vincent's were in French, though too déclassé to be acknowledged nowadays.
Alas, when I was young and single, I used to read a couple SF books a week, and could easily be informed on the Hugo candidates. Now I'm married with a 6 year old, and have an eye disease, and I'm lucky if I get to finish a book every couple of weeks.
The six year old can read faster than I can!
I'm actually thinking of donating my treasured SF collection to the local library, so SOMEBODY can read it, since it seems likely that, by the time I retire, whiling away my days enjoying old favorites will be off the table.
But I still do get to read a book now and then, for now; Are any of the candidates "SF with rivets", as we used to say? (Meaning, SF that doesn't violate known laws of physics.) That's always been my favorite.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | February 12, 2015 at 05:30 AM
Don't read as much as I used to and seldom anything *serious* but Steven Brust and Gail Carriger are always don't-miss-this-one fun. I got Hawk for Christmas but didn't know the new Carriger was even out, so thanks.
Also Greenglass House was very atmospheric and appealing. Setting more than plot.
I get my e-books from the library, either Overdrive or 3M both of which are horrible in different ways. Carriger has always been available as e via B&N, ditto Brust.
Posted by: vjs | February 12, 2015 at 08:11 AM
all i've read from the un-grayed on that list is The Bone Clocks, which was decent. it's got a lot more fantasy in it than Cloud Atlas. i really liked the first segment, thought the rest wasn't quite as good.
i liked the VanderMeer trilogy. but he's one of my favorites and pretty much gets a lifetime pass for City Of Saints And Madmen. so, i'm biased.
Posted by: cleek | February 12, 2015 at 09:06 AM
Brett:
"The Martian" is *all* about the rivets, you'll love it. "A Darkling Sea" (1st novel) may do, it reminded me & Mister Doctor of "Mission of Gravity".
Posted by: Doctor Science | February 12, 2015 at 09:26 AM
cleek:
I just started the VanderMeer, and am probably going to bail, I'm finding it very hard to get through. I was never really a Philip K. Dick fan ...
Posted by: Doctor Science | February 12, 2015 at 09:28 AM
That's a strong recomendation for this Hal Clement fan. I'll make a point of getting them.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | February 12, 2015 at 09:38 AM
The Martian is indeed fun.
Posted by: cleek | February 12, 2015 at 09:48 AM
The VanderMeer's are a mixed bag. The first one starts slowly but then does finally pick up toward the end. The second one is just boring throughout. The third one (kindle informs me that I am 23% through) is a marked improvement so far, but switching to 2nd person for one of the characters comes off as an unnecessary gimmick.
The problem is VanderMeer's prose just isn't good enough to tell the story as he wants to tell it. It's flat and lifeless, and given that the plot moves like a sloth it needs to be a lot more punchy.
I get the feeling this is going to be one of those situations where the movie is much better than the books.
Posted by: john not mccain | February 12, 2015 at 10:30 AM
I agree with not McCain about VanderMeer. The first one in the series really drew me in and then the second one killed my interest. I didn't even finish the third,or rather, I got disgusted and just skipped to the end--it was better than the second, but I had soured on the whole series by then. I think the problem was that he built up expectations and dread in the first one that he really couldn't fulfill. To some extent Battlestar Galactica had that problem in its final year and I gather the same was true of the TV series "Lost", though I never got into that one enough to care.
"Echopraxia" wasn't as good as I was hoping.
On the fantasy front, I liked "City of Stairs", but didn't care for the Lev Grossman universe and didn't bother finishing the trilogy. Harry Potter plus Narnia plus grownup problems with relationships just didn't interest me that much, though oddly enough Tolkien did a story about an unhappy marriage in Numenor that drew me in (though I was more sympathetic to the woman than I think I was supposed to be).
Posted by: Donald Johnson | February 12, 2015 at 02:38 PM
"Shipstar" was meh. I read it, kept my interest, but it shouldn't win any awards.
Posted by: Donald Johnson | February 12, 2015 at 02:40 PM
Really enjoyed "The Three Body Problem". SciFi from China, mixes history (the impact of the Cultural Revolution on scientists) and theoretical physics with thoughts and insights on human/intelligent species nature. Not so upbeat, but good read and unanticipated ending.
Posted by: Ellen R | February 13, 2015 at 03:06 PM
The Three Body Problem does look promising.
Thanks for the recommendation - I've ordered it.
Its translator, Ken Liu, has a book The Grace of Kings on the way which also seems worth a look...
Posted by: Nigel | February 13, 2015 at 06:30 PM
My wife enjoyed Afterworlds, but also mentioned that she preferred the "real life" chapters to the book-in-book chapters.
I enjoyed Otherbound; it has good characterization, and engages with powerlessness and agency.
Rachel Swirsky’s Recommendations for 2014 Young Adult & Middle Grade SciFi/Fantasy Novels might help you narrow your list, since she's already read widely.
Posted by: Mooseking | February 18, 2015 at 12:14 PM