Chaos Horizon predicts the Hugos

With the Hugo Award announcement only 10 days away, the ever-interesting Chaos Horizon has posted predictions. Based on statistical analysis of past trends, here would be the expected results for Best Novel:

Uprooted 27.1%
Ancillary Mercy 20.5%
Seveneves 20.0%
The Fifth Season 17.1%
The Aeronaut’s Windlass 15.3%

However, the Sad/Rabid Puppy movement in the last few years has turned the Hugo voting into, well, chaos. Factors that complicate the results include the Sad and Rabid Puppy voting blocs, the knee-jerk No Award responses, and the fevered efforts of Hugo Award supporters to make sense of all the mess. As a result, Chaos Horizon is predicting the following:

1. Uprooted by Naomi Novik
2. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
3. Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
4. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
5. The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

This is based 1) on the popularity of Novik’s novel and 2) on what’s likely to be left standing after the scuffle at the ballot box. I have to say I think Brandon is right about the ultimate winner, but I’d place the runners-up in a different order.

Anybody else have an opinion?

Review of Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

This is one of the Hugo finalists in the Best Novel category. It was published by Roc.

In this universe, the Spires provide habitats for humanity in a world where mist shrouds the surface. The economy is controlled by aristocratic houses that operate fleets of airships for shipping. Captain Grimm of the airship Predator works for Spire Albion and is engaged in piracy against Spire Aurora. The Predator is damaged, and Grimm negotiates commission of a vital mission in return for expensive repairs. Meanwhile, Gwendolyn Lancaster of Spire Albion has faced down her mother and left home to take service in the Guard. She and two other young Guard trainees are assigned to the mission, along with an intelligent cat and two odd Etherealists. As the mission becomes more complex and dangerous, they find humanity’s ancient enemy has risen from the depths of the mist.

This is a good set up for a steampunk SF adventure, but it turns out the ships run on mysterious crystals, which means it really leans to fantasy. The plot is well thought out and the world building is adequate. The battle between the airships is a great visual. However, the characters come across as stiff and often annoying. The introduction of the intelligent cats is interesting, but soon they’re annoying, too. This story had good potential, but every time something interesting happens, it gets bogged down in Victorian, straight-laced prudery, or something. There’s just no romance or adventure in it. After the lush violence of the Dresden Files series, it ends up feeling sterile. Like some of the other novel finalists this year, this one runs long and slow, coming in at 640 pages.

Three stars.

Review of Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

This is one of the Hugo finalists in the Best Novel category. It was published by William Morrow/Harper-Collins.

The moon breaks apart because of some unknown agency. Everyone watches with awe, but soon astrophysicists produce models that indicate the pieces will continue to break up and fall on the earth, eventually producing rings like Saturn’s. The rain of debris is expected to last about 10,000 years and wipe out life as we know it on Earth. Governments, advised by scientists, move to produce a Cloud Ark of habitats that will float in space, carrying and preserving the legacy of Earth, including genetic, cultural and technical data for the use of future pioneers.

This effort is some of the most thought-provoking of hard SF. Stephenson has set up a scenario and then follows out what happens, projecting ways that humans might cope with a catastrophe that will wipe out mankind. Who will be chosen to populate the Ark? What should they take with them? How will they sustain themselves for 10,000 years? How do they overcome engineering and tech problems along the way? Stephenson establishes a cast of main characters, some on Earth and some on the International Space Station (ISS), and shifts between, following the efforts from different points of view. This is written in a folksy, matter-of-fact style, and the author makes no effort to hurry it up. He gets technical. There’s human interest.

On the negative side, Stephenson uses an episodic structure, and the novel sort of eases along without much in the way of rising action, coming in at an extended 883 pages. The characterization and ending aren’t all they could have been. I also ended up with some major questions. If the Cloud Ark is inside the orbit of the moon, won’t it get nailed by the 10,000-year Hard Rain the same as Earth? Wouldn’t it be safer to just move to Mars? Or maybe underground? Space seems like a tough place to make it for 10,000 years.

Like The Martian, this would make a good film. Four stars.

Review of The Builders by Daniel Polansky

This is a 2016 Hugo Finalist in the Best Novella category. It was published by Tor.com.

The Captain is a mouse with a mission. He searches out members of his old gang, getting them together for one last effort ten years after the War of the Brothers. These characters include Boudica the opossum, Bonsoir the stoat, Cinnabar the salamander, Elf the owl, Gertrude the mole and Barley the badger, all retired desperados. The team cuts a swath of violent mayhem through the Gardens and into the Capitol where the Captain means to take his revenge on the Younger. There they meet his minions in the final battle.

Well, this is different. I’m not generally one for anthropomorphic characters, but this tale is so over-the-top that it just adds brilliance. If they weren’t animals, this would pass for a Sam Peckinpah Western. Minions are slaughtered right and left, though most of them seem to be rats. There are elements of humor and satire. It’s fun to read.

Four stars.

Review of Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson

This is a Hugo finalist for Best Novella. It’s published by Dragonsteel Entertainment, which is Sanderson’s own small press.

Kairominas is God-Emperor of Alornia. He is also a brain in a box under a system administered by the Wode, where there are liveborn folk and machineborn folk, a.k.a. simulated entities. Since Kai has achieved the pinnacle of power in his particular state, the Wode have been after him to reproduce. Grudgingly he accepts the need to move into another reality to meet a liveborn woman. He chooses one from the bottom of the recommended list and sets off. He meets Sophie at a restaurant and finds she’s a subversive with the idea the liveborn are coddled by the Wode and actually achieve very little. He counters that heroism is real, regardless of the simulated realities. They start to have sex, but the simulation is hacked by Melhi, Kai’s liveborn nemesis. Kai defeats him, but then finds things with Sophie aren’t what he thought they were.

This is an entertaining thought-piece where Sanderson has set up a situation and looks at the philosophical issues. Great imagery, characterization and plot. On the negative side, the fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek fantasy style detracts a little from his message. This also crashes down to reality a bit suddenly.

Four and a half stars.

Diversity and the Puppies’ lists

I’m seeing a lot of comments again this year that the goal of the Sad/Rabid Puppies is to end diversity in the Hugo awards. I’m well into reading the material and writing reviews, and I have to say I don’t see this happening in the results of their recommendations.

I’ve had a look at the list of Puppy recommendations below. When you combine the two lists, the Sad Puppies (SP) and Rabid Puppies (RP) recommended all the 2016 Hugo finalists except The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison. Of course, going from appearances is always chancy (especially in the case of parodies), but it appears to me like there’s reasonable diversity in these lists. It looks like two Hispanic names, four Jewish names, an African name and four Asian names in the list of fiction authors. There are 12 women as authors and a variety of characters represented, including gays, women, Africans and Asians. Even if you just look at the Rabid Puppy list, there’s diversity. See below. The titles in bold went on to become finalists, giving us three women and two men in the novel category, two women and three men in the novella category, two women and three men in the novelette category and one woman and four men (assuming Harris is male) in the short story category (Oops, low diversity there, but we’ve got Chuck Tingle!).

This isn’t an all-female sweep like the Nebulas, but given that the Puppies are supposed to be shutting out minorities and advancing mainly the cause of white men, the result is sort of a head-scratcher. Maybe we should just accept that they want a different type of fiction? No question about what it is. After wading through some of this, I’m feeling a little glutted on mil fic.

BEST NOVEL
Seveneves: A Novel, Neal Stephenson (SP/RP)
The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Jim Butcher (SP/RP)
Uprooted, Naomi Novik (SP)
Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie (SP)
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison (Not recommended by any Puppies)
Golden Son, Pierce Brown (RP)
Agent of the Imperium, Marc Miller (RP)
Somewhither, John C. Wright (SP/RP)
Honor At Stake, Declan Finn (SP)
A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson (SP)
Son of the Black Sword, Larry Correia (SP)
Strands of Sorrow, John Ringo (SP)
Nethereal, Brian Niemeier (SP)

BEST NOVELLA
Penric’s Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold (SP/RP)
Perfect State, Brandon Sanderson (SP/RP)
The Builders, Daniel Polansky (SP/RP)
Slow Bullets, Alastair Reynolds (SP/RP)
Binti, Nnedi Okorafor (SP)
The End of All Things 1: The Life of the Mind, John Scalzi (SP)
Speak Easy, Catherynne M Valente (SP)

BEST NOVELETTE
Flashpoint: Titan, Cheah Kai Wai (RP)
Folding Beijing, Hao Jingfang (SP/RP)
What Price Humanity?, David VanDyke (RP)
Obits, Stephen King (SP/RP)
And You Shall Know Her by The Trail Of Dead, Brooke Bolander (SP)
Hyperspace Demons, Jonathan Moeller (RP)
Pure Attentions, T R Dillon (SP)
If I Had No Head and My Eyes Were Floating Way Up In the Air, Clifford D Simak (SP)
Our Lady of the Open Road, Sarah Pinsker (SP)

BEST SHORT STORY
Asymmetrical Warfare, S. R. Algernon (SP/RP)
Seven Kill Tiger, Charles Shao (RP)
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer (SP)
If You Were an Award, My Love, Juan Tabo and S. Harris (RP)
Space Raptor Butt Invasion, Chuck Tingle (RP)
The Commuter, Thomas Mays (RP) (Withdrawn)
Tuesdays With Molakesh The Destroyer, Megan Grey (SP)
Today I am Paul, Martin L Shoemaker (SP)
… And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes, Scott Alexander (SP)
Damage, David Levine (SP)
A Flat Effect, Eric Flint (SP)
Daedelus, Niall Burke (SP)
Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers, Alyssa Wong (SP)
I am Graalnak of the Vroon Empire, Destroyer of Galaxies, Supreme Overlord of the Planet Earth. Ask Me Anything, Laura Pearlman (SP)

Review of “Flashpoint: Titan” by Cheah Kai Wai

This is a Hugo finalist in the Best Novelette category. It was published in There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House.

Commander Hoshi Tenzen of the Japanese Space Self Defense Force is in command of the warship Takao when he notices four Chinese “merchant” ships that are acting oddly. He is contacted by Prometheus Control on Titan, which warns him the ships seem overly interested in the colony. It appears the Chinese vessels are actually warships on a bombing run, and the Americans on Titan ask for help. An extended, edge-of-your-seat battle ensues.

This is likely a fest for the space opera crowd, as there’s a lot of detail about the ships, weapons and tactics. There’s heroism and sacrifice. There’s also Japanese language. Cheah Kai Wai apparently speaks Japanese, as those cuss words roll off his pen (er, keyboard) with authenticity. I also suspect he’s got his finger on a few elements of Asian politics, as there’s a little subtext there. On the negative side, there’s too much emphasis on military detail and not enough on the characters. I may not be picking up the memes, but I never did connect with these people or get interested in what they were doing. Three stars.

Review of Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds

The Hugo packet is delayed, apparently for the committee to decide about the legality of providing copies of some of the finalists. Until it’s distributed, I’ll have to make do with what I can find in the library. That means I’ll be skipping around. This work is a finalist in the Best Novella category, published by Tachyon.

Scur is a conscripted soldier in an interstellar war. As the war ends, she is captured by a group of renegades and tortured. She wakes later from sleep storage in a prison ship that has gotten lost in time somehow. It has arrived at its destination, but the passengers find their interstellar civilization has fallen after a visit from unfathomable aliens. This means the crew, war criminals and miscellaneous passengers on the ship are the last of humanity to hold a store of history and technology. However, the ship’s memory is failing. Can they overcome their differences and find a way to lift humanity out of the new dark age?

Reynolds tells a pretty good tale here, with an emotionally satisfying conclusion. It’s about pulling together and overcoming differences, even old grudges, to solve problems and deal with a crisis. However, the plot seems a little simplistic. The work is also low on imagery, description and characterization. I only know what two of the men look like, and ended up with no idea what Scur looks like at all. There’s very little description of the ship, and I can’t figure out how the gravity system is working while it’s parked in orbit. Is it spinning? Hm. Three stars.

Review of “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu

This story is a Hugo finalist in the Best Novelette category. It was published in Uncanny Magazine, Jan-Feb 2015.

Lao Dao lives in a Beijing that folds up every twenty-four hours and emerges on the other side of a plane. It’s divided into spaces called First, Second and Third, with the population of First at 5M, and Second and Third shared by 75M people. Lao Dao lives in Third Space and is a waste worker. He needs to pay for his daughter to attend kindergarten, so he takes on extra work smuggling messages between spaces. He hides in a trash chute while others retire to their cocoon beds to sleep through the Change, and finds many differences in the Spaces, especially in First where the people are very wealthy. Lao Dao runs into trouble with his first delivery, becoming embroiled in a love affair gone wrong.

Like Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, this is another ad for China’s science education program. Not only is the folding city a brilliant image, but Hao Jingfang has supplied social commentary. She runs through an economic analysis of automated industry versus human workers which has led to creation of the Spaces. There’s also a sentimental element, as Lao Dao is doing all this for his baby daughter. Like The Three Body Problem, the translation is a bit stiff—I’m getting the idea that Chinese prose doesn’t translate well into English. Still, some of the imagery comes through, enough to show the quality of Hao’s work. Four stars.

Review of Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe, 1951 to 1986 by Marc Aramini

This is another Hugo finalist for Best Related Work. It’s published by Castalia House.

In the introduction Aramini states his initial purpose was to explore many of Wolfe’s lesser known works. However, the project got completely out of control, as he soon realized he couldn’t ignore the author’s popular work. The book is organized so that he analyzes Wolfe’s short stories and novels in individual essays, making it an excellent reference. Aramini’s analysis is pretty scholarly, looking at the underlying ideas, philosophy and cultural norms that the fiction presents.

Although this kind of depth may not suit the average reader, I predict it could be popular in MFA programs. Four and a half stars.