Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

July nominations are up, use this thread to nominate titles from our Hard Sci-Fi bookshelf.

Some of the titles may be mislabeled, if you see one that is blatantly out of place, let us know and we'll get rid of it!

Here's the link to the other July thread

Can't decide between Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys (been hearing his name a lot lately) and Blood Music by Greg Bear (wanted to give him another chance after last year's fiasco)

Glory Season is on both bookshelves! How can that be?

This category includes so many I've been wanting to read...Seveneves has been hanging around my house waiting to be read since it was published.
Earth calls to me, but I'm always wary of Brin's penchant for using unnecessarily obscure vocabulary words.
The Time Ships is tempting because Stephen Baxter is pretty easy to read and I've read so many tough ones lately.

Halting State by Charles Stross

@Cynthia, they are all great books, but with one nomination per member, please choose which one is your nominee

OK... I'll nominate Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson.

Synners by Pat Cadigan

Thanks, Allan. Synners was also on my short list. It looks like I will be enjoying July no matter which book wins!

I've had Synners in my sights for awhile, just haven't been able to get to it.

Rogue Moon is pretty short. If we went that way, we'd probably want to add another shortie.

05/04 Nominations so far:

Halting State by Charles Stross
Synners by Pat Cadigan
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

I remain undecided, especially since I am also interested in Synners myself.

I agree with Rogue Moon, but I would like to nominate the Wanderer. It does not seem to be sorted as Hard SF, though.

Kateblue wrote: "I agree with Rogue Moon, but I would like to nominate the Wanderer. It does not seem to be sorted as Hard SF, though."

I just don't see Leiber pulling off a Hard SF, he has too many unconventional ideas to stay on point, science wise. Is Wanderer really such?

I thought it was when I read it years ago, but maybe I was then (and maybe still not now) someone who can classify hard SF

When I think of hard SF, personally, the name Niven springs to mind. He has eight books on our list and we have yet to read one. I'd like to nominate his earliest: Ringworld. Engineers love this one.

Dan wrote: "When I think of hard SF, personally, the name Niven springs to mind. He has eight books on our list and we have yet to read one. "

we actually read his collaboration work - The Mote in God's Eye, but Ringworld was great when I first read it!

I love all of these except I am dreading Seveneyes. So I will just let others nominate in this category . . .

I already have Ringworld checked off my copy of the spreadsheet. But I read it long ago and was recently thinking it would be good to reread it. So many times I see a good book in an entirely different light when I reread it now that I am older, and (I hope) wiser. As I said a few comments back, it looks like I'll enjoy July no matter which book wins!

I loved Ringworld when I first read it. But it has been years

I had Ringworld on my shelf for decades and never read it till last year. I just saw a blurb in an article that said the subsequent sequels ruined the wonder and mystery by explaining too much.

I did read one of the sequels and didn;t like it nearly as much. Quit them after that

Is Ringworld hard sci-fi? It actually has a good plot and most hard sci-fi I've read is overburdened by descriptions of technology.

I would say it is hard sci-fi, but maybe I am not the best person to define that.

Is Rendezvous With Rama hard sf? I'd put this with it, more adventure and discovery. But sub-genres are tough; many books have elements of different ones.

Hello Kirsten and welcome.

I suppose we don't have to worry whether a certain work is of certain genre if there are at least few outside references that confirm it as such.

Once we've read it, as a group we can assign all the right tags, for posterity.

Oleksandr wrote:"we actually read his collaboration work - [book:The Mote in God's Eye."

I probably missed that by searching through the default 30 instead of all 44 group read books. By the way, the official group list of nearly 600 books incorrectly credits Mote only to Niven alone.

Dan wrote: "By the way, the official group list of nearly 600 books incorrectly credits Mote only to Niven alone.."

Goodreads does the same thing, in the context of title appearing in a list (e.g. My Books, Read, Add Book/Author, etc). The Mote in God's Eye is listed as written by Larry Niven, same as The Difference Engine comes up as William Gibson's work. In add book/author they don't even show the collaborator's name.

My definition of hard SF is that it is:
- based on actual scientific date/hypothesis
- not a lot of hand-waving

Well, that'll teach them collaborators!

05/09

Halting State by Charles Stross
Synners by Pat Cadigan
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Ringworld by Larry Niven Total pages: 595
Ringworld - 288pg HWBN NWBN
The Ringworld Engineers - 307pg HNBN