Los Premios Hugo 1973-1975

The Hugo Winners #3B

by Isaac Asimov

Quinto volumen de una biblioteca indispensable para los amantes del género o para todo aquel que quiera trabar conocimiento del mismo: la génesis del premio más importante que se concede anualmente por votación entre los aficionados. Aquí se reúnen los diez relatos ganadores entre los años 1973 y 1975, presentados individualmente por Isaac Asimov.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Speculative Fiction, Anthologies, Fiction

337 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1977

About the author

Works of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.

Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.

Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).

People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.

Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.

Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...

Reviews

[Eloi Puig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ressenya en català:

http://www.elkraken.com/R-Premios%20H...

Reseña en castellano:

http://www.elkraken.com/Esp/R-Premios...

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Word for World is Forest' - reminds me of Midworld but the forest is less fantastical (no mile-high trees), and more obviously is like Avatar, and probably many more forest planets with natives fending off human invaders stories. I've read a few other Le Guin novellas and short stories with NAFAL and ansibles that I think are in the same setting- I should try more the novels.

'The Girl Who Was Plugged In' - some early cyberpunk elements here. In a world where overt advertisements are against the law the main character has the job of promoting products by appearing to use them naturally on television.

'The Deathbird' is too un-grounded to get much out of, though it's better than 'Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans'.

'A Song for Lya' - more readable than those two Harlan Ellison stories but I didn't like it much, maybe if it had been more horror? The 'what if drinking the suicide cult kool-aid actually did get you into heaven' premise is interesting, but the explanation of heaven falls flat.

'Hole Man' - definitely have read this before. Would be improved by replacing the 'no court will convict me' part at the end with something about a stalled investigation.

[Timothy]

(8/10 read)

***** The Word for World Is Forest (1972) • Ursula K. Le Guin
**** Goat Song (1972) • Poul Anderson
* The Meeting (1972) • C. M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl
***** Eurema's Dam (1972) • R. A. Lafferty
***** The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1973) • James Tiptree, Jr.
* The Deathbird (1973) • Harlan Ellison
***** The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973) • Ursula K. Le Guin
A Song for Lya (1974) • George R. R. Martin
Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W (1974) • Harlan Ellison
** The Hole Man (1974) • Larry Niven

[Mmonchi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una recopilación interesante, con algunos relatos experimentales que han envejecido mal y otros que conservan toda su vigencia. A destacar El nombre del mundo es Bosque y Una canción para Lya.

[Peter Voutov · Rating 4 out of 5]

My two favorites were The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin and A song for Lya by George R.R. Martin. I was pleasantly surprised that George "Rail Road" was one of the authors after picking this book at a thrift store, I only wish he would finish his other book series :)

This collection of short stories is worth reading even just for the intros by Isaac Asimov, which are very amusing.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat uneven collection of short story winners, for some reason the stories didn't resonate with me as well as the previous collections.

Still, there were a few great stories, "A Song for Lya" by George R.R. Martin, and "The Word for the World is Forrest" by Ursula Le Guin are the two that stand with me several days later.

[Hollis Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit: I found this a bit disappointing. The stories were interesting but not really Hugo material (in my view): they didn't grab my attention the way SF should. Maybe the SF stories of the ''Golden Age'' really weren't that golden: I think the more modern stories are much better.