Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Each December, we choose three books of less than 300 pages for our monthly reading. It's a good way to quickly knock some titles off the list. More than 1/3 of the H/N list is books shorter than 300 pages. They're organized into the shelves below that you can make your nominations from. You can nominate up to three books.

Extremely Short (less than 200 pages)
https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Very Short (200-249 pages)
https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Short (250-299 pages)
https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

Remember the rules:
1) The book must come from the Hugo/Nebula nominee list; in this case from the shelves above
2) It may not be a nominee from the last five years (2019-2024)
3) Only the first book of a new series may be nominated

I'm going to do what I did last year and nominate three books that are contained in Gary K. Wolfe's recent anthology American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969 (LOA #322). There are four novels in the anthology, three of which are on our list. They are:

Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Past Master by R.A. Lafferty

The Pride of Chanur by C. J. Cherryh
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I'll stick with Picnic on Paradise as one of the choices, but I'll also nominate:

Cirque by Terry Carr - Nebula 1978
Strangers by Gardner Dozois - Nebula 1979

I’ll add

Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber

and

The Steel Crocodile by D.G. Compton

to the interesting group already nominated.

I'll nominate
Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh
( also available as first book of trilogy, The Faded Sun Trilogy: Kesrith, Shon'jir, and Kutath by C. J. Cherryh

and

Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys

Wow, I didn’t expect to be up to ten so fast! Last year, we voted on ten choices, but I’ll let it go for a day or two.

Ya know, there's enough nominees. I abstain

I'm going to close nominations here. Although that was really quick for nominations, we have some excellent selections and it would be be tough to vote on more. I'll put up the poll later today or tomorrow.

Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Past Master by R.A. Lafferty
The Pride of Chanur by C.J. Cherryh
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Cirque by Terry Carr
Strangers by Gardner Dozois
Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber
The Steel Crocodile by D.G. Compton
Kesrith by C.J. Cherryh
Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys

Note that because we have three nominations, we'll have three identical polls so that you can vote for three. I'll combine vote totals to get the top three.

Thanks for doing this all the time, Allan

Yes, thanks, Allen. You are appreciated.

Polls are up!

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/4...

I finally finished sending out invitations yesterday & consequently saw a jump in votes cast. I'll watch over the next several days to see how much it changes & close off voting when appropriate.

Looks like Slaughterhouse-Five is a lock, with Nova running a solid but distant second. It's a close competition for the third book.

I've read both of those, but I'd do a re-read on Slaughterhouse-Five, it's been many years.

Looking forward to re-reading Slaughterhouse-Five myself. I have lots of respect for Vonnegut.

Unless something changes, looks like the Dec books are Slaughterhouse Five, Nova, and Picnic on Paradise, with Rogue Moon just missing out.

Just a few new votes in the last day. I’ll call it tomorrow morning.

Too bad I have read Slaughterhouse Five, Nova, and Picnic on Paradise. I guess I didn't have to worry about 3 books in December being too many. ;-)

I shut down the polls this morning. A few votes were trickling in, but the results are clear:

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Nova by Samuel R. Delany

Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ

I've read the first two, but it's been many years on Slaughterhouse-Five, so I'll plan a re-read there. Picnic on Paradise is one of the shortest books on the list at 152 pages.

I read Nova in my teen years, and although it made quite an impression on me, I'm sure I missed a lot, too. Hopefully I have time to re-read and see how I find it now that I'm somewhat longer in the tooth.

I also read Nova when I was young, and re-read it in 2021. I thought it was great. I’ll be reading the other two.

Given all the rave reviews, I might join

Slaughterhouse-Five just came off library hold. It’s short, so I’ll hold off until December & probably get thru it in a day or two.

I just checked and I'll have to wait for a library copy of Slaughterhouse-Five myself. I was a little surprised it's still in demand after all these years. I read it way back when but I would like to reread it.

That’s where I am. Last time I read it was probably the late 80s. Time to re-read a classic.