2017 Winners

I'm in the midst of my annual summer catch-up on books and reviews - and the 2017 Hugos are right around the corner with a strong slate of nominees.

I am not convinced that anyone is still reading, so I think I'm going to switch to writing capsules on Goodreads. If anyone is still out there and interested, my profile is linked below. Follow me and I'll follow you back.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2930637-ryan-fischer

2016 Locus SF: ANCILLARY MERCY bu Ann Leckie

I don't remember ever having such a problem with the structure of a trilogy...especially one that I ended up mostly enjoying. There's a moment about midway through Ancillary Sword ***mild spoilers to follow*** where Breq, the narrator, more-or-less proclaims that she's going to assassinate the Empress of the Galaxy (well, the Radch Empire that dominates human settlement of the galaxy). This was an exciting moment that seemed to promise that a somewhat contained story was going to escalate to a great adventure story. The rest of the book involves a trip to a throneworld that seems to cement that idea...and then the second book turned into a comedy of manners on and around out-of-the-way Athoek Station. I assumed that this was a diversion, a sort of mid-trilogy holding pattern while we wait for the big galaxy-shattering events of book 3...

Well, we're not done with Athoek Station by any stretch of the imagination, or the conflict-via-manners storytelling that came with it. In fact, this volume is so strongly tied to the previous one that they would have fit nicely into one volume. That also makes it hard to describe the plot without spoiling the previous book. Breq continues to navigate the Radch Empire's precarious politics, which are confused by the presence of Artificial Intelligence ships and also distributed/networked human intelligence. There is a bit more detail on the aliens around the Radchai, though they remain mostly mysterious. And, there is an action sequence to give the series something of a climax, though the solution once again depends more on Breq's clever diplomacy. And, if the action is slightly increased, the humor is much moreso. It's not too much of a stretch to say that the series, which started as space opera adventure, ends as a comedy.

Maybe it's not fair to speculate, but I get the impression that after her first novel, Leckie settled into a comfort zone telling this kind of softer, funnier character-based drama. It's worth it, however, because comfort and confidence also mean stronger writing. I don't think there's any question that this is the best written book in the series. The characters have really gelled, the humor works (something of a rare thing in serious science fiction), and the world only gets richer and more compelling even as we stay in such a narrow slice of it.

Though it's the best written of the trilogy, I'm not going to say it's the best. Ancillary Sword still benefits from introducing the ideas, the world, and the characters, and Mercy is hurt a bit by some of the false expectations set up by the first book - if we'd had this tone from the first, this would've been a more enjoyable read. Now that Leckie has found her voice, and it's a strong one, I'm interested to see what she'll do next (and she has the sweet bonus of winning all of the awards in the process of finding her voice).

Grade: B

2016 Hugo Winner - THE FIFTH SEASON by N. K. Jemisin

Last time, I praised Uprooted for the way it doled out its world-building. N. K. Jemisin ups the ante on this front significantly in this year's Hugo winner. The Fifth Season, the first in a trilogy, introduces a rich world full of exciting and original plot hooks that also serve as incredibly relevant allegories to our own world.

The Fifth Season takes place on a large, very geologically active continent called The Stillness. The frequent earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis lead to frequent "fifth seasons," which are basically periods of post-apocalyptic struggle. For millennia, one empire, the Sanzed centered in the city of Yumenes, has managed to ride out the fifth seasons with superior infrastructure and the control of people with special powers called orogenes. Orogenes can control kinetic energy on vast scales, calming the tectonic activity, among other things. Because they are so powerful, the people of the Stillness persecute orogenes violently, and the Sanzed Empire keeps them as slaves, training and indoctrinating them at a special school called the Fulcrum. And that's just the start of the world-building.

Jemisin explains all of this while alternately following an orogene recruit named Damaya, a powerful trained orogene named Syenite (they receive rings as they advance, and Syenite has five of the ten possible), and an orogene hiding as a commoner named Essun, who witnesses the beginning of a new, devastating fifth season. And there are both more details about the world (I haven't even gotten into the caste organization of the empire's communities, or comms) and a few surprises, like the inhuman race called the stone-eaters and the strange obelisks that float around as relics of a "deadciv" - a more advanced civilization destroyed by fifth seasons of the distant past. It's very dense, but I never felt lost. In fact, the book has two fairly lengthy appendices, but I got by fine without them, reading them only at the end to fill out my understanding of the world a little better. Jemisin skillfully fills the reader in, almost always showing rather than telling.

Even more impressive: despite the complexity of this world, this is very much a character-centered story. We get to know and like the central characters very much, and the plight of the orogenes is an interesting metaphor for discrimination and exploitation of ethnic groups in our own world. Jemisin convincingly shows the hatred that the orogenes face, and the slur that people use against them "rogga" takes on an appropriate power here, and their exploitation also shows through clearly (in some rather horrific instances, some of which recall the history of American slavery).

I also think Jemisin's prose has developed really well since the last novel of hers that I read - it's rich and highly readable. This was an excellent novel; the best fantasy novel I've read in a while. I ended up reading four of the five nominees this year (missing only a purely sad puppy nom - review for Seveneves and Ancillary Mercy forthcoming), so I feel pretty confident in saying that the right book won this year. I expect this to become something of a classic, unless Jemisin struggles to finish out the trilogy on the same level at which she started it.

Grade: A

2015 Nebula and 2016 Locus Fantasy: UPROOTED by Naomi Novik

Most of Naomi Novik's published work is an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars with dragons, the Temeraire series. I'm intrigued by the setting, though I was always a little afraid that it would pale in comparison to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Based on this book, a standalone fantasy novel, I'm a little more inclined to give Novik's other work a shot. It's a very well-written and imaginative work that often evoked the works of Hayao Miyazaki, which I consider a big compliment.

Establishing settings is one of the great challenges of science fiction and fantasy; lots of works throw the reader into an unfamiliar world in a way that can be alienating for big portions of a book, while others give you a long, unattractive expository infodump before you can settle in. Novik focuses on characters and then skillfully unveils this fantasy setting in a compelling manner; this was probably my favorite aspect of the book. Uprooted takes place in a psuedo-eastern Europe, late medievalish, and with magic. The main character Agnieszka is a young girl from a small village in the country of Polnya (psuedo-Poland bordered by a psuedo-Russia called Rosya). The village faces danger in the form of The Wood, the diabolical forest that sends out creatures to spread its magical corruption. The village is protected by a powerful wizard that the villagers know as the Dragon, who demands in repayment that a young girl come to serve him for ten year periods. Agnieszka gets taken as the Dragon's servant, but she soon finds that she has her own magical talents, which disrupts the gruff Dragon's typical brusqueness.

It's actually a fairly generic set-up for a romantic story, and, of course, there is one, but there's a lot more going on as well. And the real strength is Novik's prose, which is clean and clear but with a fairy tale flourish. Novik is especially adept at describing magic; she always gives both the spells of our heroes and the dark magics of the forest a tactile component. She makes it easy to imagine the feel of magic. And, as mentioned above, she really evokes Miyazaki's animated film Mononoke Hime (one of the great depictions of magical corruption in film) in The Wood's corruption without it ever feeling ripped off. The first half of the book also manages to capture some of the dreamy Miyazaki pacing that make his films so transporting.

I did have some problems with the book, almost all in the second half. After slowly creating a fascinating world, Novik proceeds to blow it all up. The pace picks up quickly and the book gallops to an apocalyptic conclusion. I neither expected nor wanted all of this world's mysteries and problems solved, but Novik seems intent on doing so. Not only does this strip away some of the sense of wonder, it also pushes aside character development for plot development, and the plot just isn't as interesting as the characters. In a way, though, I mean this as a compliment. I wanted to spend more time in the Dragon's Tower, and more time with Agnieszka.

Anyway, another good choice for the Nebula awards. I'm glad I'm catching up, as I missed some great stuff.

Grade: B+

2015 Clarke: STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel

If you've been reading along, you know I have a soft spot for when writers who are taken more seriously in literary circles try their hand at science fiction. This has become more and more common in the last decade or so, but awards nominators seem uninterested, so I haven't had a lot of opportunity to review many of these books under the purview of this blog (though I do sometimes anyway). The Arthur C. Clarke award, which gave its fist novel trophy to Margaret Atwood, is a little friendlier to the lit crowd than most, and their 2015 award went to this finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. I continue to think that genre and literary writers each bring something to the table.

Mandel's book mostly follows the collapse of civilization due to an extremely virulent epidemic that people call the Georgia Flu (originating in the European nation rather than the American state but quickly spreading through air travel). We get scenes of the immediate aftermath, a "present day" story twenty years after the epidemic that focuses on a traveling symphony/Shakespeare-performing dramatic company where our main character Kirsten Raymonde. We also return continually to the the life of famous actor Arthur Leander, who died onstage the night that the Georgia Flu arrived in Toronto. Kirsten likes to escape into the world of space opera comics about a character named Dr. Eleven, who lives on the titular Station Eleven. These stories of creative expression and survival in the past, present, and future weave in and out of each other throughout the novel, building a case, I think, for the idea that we influence each other in deep, abiding, and sometimes surprising ways that can leave ripples that survive past death and even the end of the world.

Mandel is a great writer, and she creates some really beautiful moments, even if this isn't the most innovative post-apocalyptic scenario or the most compelling plot. Some of the connections (and especially the reunions) here border on contrivance, and my biggest complaint is just how familiar this non-linear structure has become in 21st-century lit fic.

With its evocative prose and rich characters but unoriginal sf plot, this is almost the exact opposite of The Three-Body Problem, but I really enjoyed both books.

Grade: A-

2015 Locus SF and 2014 BSFA Winner: ANCILLARY SWORD by Ann Leckie

If Ancillary Justice plays like a blockbuster science fiction movie that also happens to be very smart and relevant, Ancillary Sword plays like an episode of the Imperial Radch tv show. Said tv show is also pretty smart and relevant, and it does a solid job of extending the themes of Justice, but it doesn't expand on those themes, and it lacks some of the scope of the previous work. I still enjoyed this, but it wasn't Empire Strikes Back to the first book's Star Wars, it was more random "Next Generation" episode to Wrath of Khan.

I don't think I can discuss this plot without mildly spoiling Ancillary Justice, so reader beware.

This book picks up right where the last book left off. Breq has uncovered a deep crisis within the Imperial Radch that threatens to tear the Empire apart, and at the very least could return it to the most vicious form of its colonialism which recent reforms had attempted to moderate. She is able to take command of a ship and proceed to further investigate said crisis. This takes her to Athoek Station, which seems like the jumping off point for a big quest that will delve into the big mysteries of split identities and possible alien infiltration raised by the previous novel...but instead, Sword settles in while Breq meets the locals, tries to do some reforming of corrupt colonial policies and gets involved in some old-fashioned detective work. In other words, it reads a lot like the flashback scenes of the previous work, but it lacks the interspersed bits that contained some more action, nor does it have the big revelations and big galactic-stakes climax of that book.

I'm certainly not saying this is bad, it's just not what I expected. The conflicts and mysteries of Athoek Station are interesting, and Leckie does a good job developing the place and its characters. But the first book introduced three or four really strong concepts that really hooked me in, and this book doesn't add much new to the mix or really advance the overall plot significantly. Breq also began to wear on me a bit - it's interesting that she has a lot of empathy while working on behalf of a largely unempathetic empire, and so she is always fighting for the justice that is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of the Radch. In practice, however, this involves a lot of scenes where she lectures people on why their policies are wrong (I came to refer to this, probably unfairly, as Breqsplaining). I was also bummed that the most interesting character from the last book, Seivarden, is mostly sidelined, as is a promising new character with an interesting hook named Tisarwat, who doesn't get enough to do after the early chapters either. And I'm still not entirely taken by the prose, though again, there is a good excuse for its occasional stiffness.

So, a slight disappointment, but it does set the stage for an exciting third entry, which I will be reading, thanks again to Locus SF voters.

Grade: B-

2015 Hugo Winner: THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM by Liu Cixin

Over sixty awards in, and the Hugos still have some new ground to break. With this work from Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin, 2015 gave us the first translated winner ever. This was, of course, in the midst of "sad puppy" reactionary slate voting. Again, the actual winner has everything you'd want in a classic science fiction novel - mystery, problem-solving, and big ideas - which undermines the only puppy complaints that are anywhere in the neighborhood of valid. This novel's win was part of a strong anti-sad puppy final result that included "no award" winning many categories that the slate had dominated (though the book had some support from puppy voters, which may have skewed the results).

The Three-Body Problem begins during China's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, in which activist students fought viciously over Communist ideology in an effort to renew the principles of China's Revolution. This included widespread persecution of intellectuals, and acts of humiliation and violence against anyone believed to have committed ideological crimes. Not only is this an interesting place to start a novel set in China, it gives Liu a couple of thematic points that will recur in the novel: the sense among some of the characters that humanity is too depraved to continue to exist as it is, and also a belief that empirical science should transcend political ideology.

Ye Wenjie witnesses the brutal beating of her father, a theoretical physicist, during the cultural revolution before being sent off to Red Coast, a Chinese SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life) program, for political rehabilitation. Her story is told in flashback at various points in the book, though once an author introduces a SETI project in a science fiction book, you probably have some hint about the plot. In the present (well, near future), we follow nanomaterials researcher Wang Miao. Wang is contacted by the Chinese police, including the book's most colorful character Investigator Da Shi, along with the CIA. They're investigating the recent deaths of several scientists around the world. After having his own surreal experiences (some of the best parts of the book), Wang ends up exploring a virtual reality video game called The Three-Body Problem. In the game, Wang has to figure out the seasonal cycles on a planet that has irregular periods of intense heat and cold.

My description of the plot may sound rather scattered, but all of this comes together really brilliantly in the last third of the novel, and there are some really fantastic ideas that I haven't even delved into yet. I think I can say this without spoiling anything (because it will sound like nonsense until you get to it) - the building of the sophon is one of the best science fiction sequences I've read in a long time.

I really came to enjoy this book a lot. In fact, it has just about everything I want out of science fiction - big ideas that don't ignore human societies and historical thinking and context. I will say the prose was a little plain. In a translated work, it's hard to say where the blame lies, but I've read a fair number of Ken Liu's stories, and I think he's a fine writer, so I'd wager that Liu Cixin's prose is probably fairly unadorned (though very clear) in the original Mandarin. A bigger problem is with the characters. There is attention paid to their motivations, but beyond that they're all pretty flat. Ye Wenjie is the most well-rounded, detective Da Shi is a fun archetype, the main character is kinda dull, though that maybe helps him as a point-of-view character - he is easy to project onto. Actually, I have to say that adding together the stock characters and unadorned prose alongside the great ideas and logical storytelling, I was reminded a lot of Isaac Asimov (who gets name-checked at one point). Asimov was very influential in my early sf reading, so it was a pleasant association, even though not all of those characteristics would be considered virtues in most novelists.

Grade: A-