Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Have fun.

I started it a couple days early, as I had an opening. It was not very sci-fi, but more of a personal/interpersonal study in a futuristic setting. Its part-Asian setting and the fate of his tutor reminded me of The Love We Share Without Knowing but otherwise unique. The characters and their stories were engaging & interesting, and as a result, the book just slid by. Very good, 4 stars for me.

It is strange how different we all are in what we want to read. I really hated it. I read the first three parts and part of the fourth, where we were on Mars, then I skipped to the next where Zhang was having kidney problems, read a bit and skipped again.

It seemed like a bunch of short stories to me, not a novel. I was drawn in by the characters, but it just seemed as if it was getting going, and then it would skip to a wholly different story.

I absolutely agree with Allan that it was a "personal/interpersonal study in a futuristic setting," not sci-fi. And what a dreary future this non-novel describes. In the last part, where I think Zhang maybe found his way, I had to skip through all that business he was lecturing about in his first college professor lecture. Depressing much? Did I say that all ready?

Anyway, I hope you all have a better time reading it than I did, like Allan did

I guess that the problem of this novel is that it is not a SF as we used to: there is an alternate future, but it is written as a contemporary fiction, heroes doesn't care about fantastic elements at all. As such it is a daring experiment, but it turns away part of SF lovers and doesn't entice any contemporary fiction fans, therefore the book is rather obscure

Yes, it's a mainstream novel of the future. But really, it's not a novel at all. It is more a bunch of short stories. So are so loosely connected with each other.

Kateblue wrote: "Yes, it's a mainstream novel of the future. But really, it's not a novel at all. It is more a bunch of short stories. So are so loosely connected with each other."

There are quite a few books made of of a string of stories - The Martian Chronicles, The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton, The Last Wish to name just a few. So, per se the approach is ok, that maybe the quality of stories, which causes dissatisfaction

There was at least a common thread in the Zhang chapters, less like short stories than chapters in someone’s life at different stages. The non-Zhang chapters did seem more like short interludes, barely referring to a connection between them and the Zhang parts.

I enjoyed this. I didn't find it revolutionary, the matter of fact future setting reminded me of the Three Californias, and the progression and interludes, we've seen that before too. It was just good - as Allan said, it *slid by*.

Kateblue wrote: "I absolutely agree with Allan that it was a "personal/interpersonal study in a futuristic setting," not sci-fi."

Yes, I agree that it was first and foremost the kind of character study that's popular in literary fiction. Very under-stated and low energy.

But I think the SF parts are really good as well. McHugh has clearly given a lot of thought to near-future tech and put a lot of effort into the world-building.

So in that respect I think it's more 'Science Fiction' than a lot of books I've read which have a space-ship on the cover but don't give a damn about physics or plausible interplanetary economics.
It's just that McHugh has taken all this clever and exciting new tech, used it as a back drop and her characters hardly ever get to interact with it because of politics, poverty, and bureaucracy, which is probably a very realistic depiction of the future we're likely to get.

I thought it was very good. I do like the occasional miserable nothing-ever-happens literary book, and the SF aspects were well-used to that depressing end.

Nick wrote: "I thought it was very good. I do like the occasional miserable nothing-ever-happens literary book, and the SF aspects were well-used to that depressing end."

Yes, this is definitely a book one should be in the right mood to read

I thought The Scar was a 'miserable nothing ever happens book' (stuff happened but didn't change anything...)

Harmony wrote: "I thought The Scar was a 'miserable nothing ever happens book' (stuff happened but didn't change anything...)"

I disagree - we see the large new part of the world, we get some history, we observe Armada, from its peak powerful point to its fall... yes, there are loose ends and things left in the middle of the story but still...