Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

“Robbie” by Isaac Asimov (Super Science Stories, Sept 1940) winner
“Requiem” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science‐Fiction, Jan 1940)
“Martian Quest” by Leigh Brackett (Astounding Science‐Fiction, Feb 1940)
“The Stellar Legion” by Leigh Brackett (Planet Stories, Winter 1940)
“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges (Sur, 1940)

Robbie is the first robot story, I think. Requiem is kinda dismal. It's a great story, but not a happy one. It slots into Heinlein's Future History, but, as with all of the Future History stories, can be read alone. there were even some planned Future History stories in the timeline that Heinlein never wrote, allegedly because they were downers.

Future History list: https://minerva.fandom.com/wiki/Futur.... It's hard to read, though

Hard to see, but I think most, if not all, of them are collected in The Past Through Tomorrow. It includes Methuselah’s Children, which is the prelude to Time Enough for Love. I read them sequentially in the late 70s, and you could tell with the latter that Heinlein was starting to go off the rails.

I agree that by Time Enough for Love he had already been getting out of hand. I think maybe he stopped letting anyone edit him, or maybe the there were too many "yes men" and no one to tell him the truth

Kateblue wrote: "I agree that by Time Enough for Love he had already been getting out of hand. I think maybe he stopped letting anyone edit him, or maybe the there were too many "yes men" and no one to tell him the..."

I think this is a big part of it. Seem to recall that his first wife had a lot of input into his early works. Her absence is probably felt in the latter works. That and the lack of input from John Campbell whose relationship with Heinlein changed over time.

I read “Robbie”. I’m sure I read it before at some point, but I didn’t really remember it. It’s fine. I tend to be lukewarm about many of Asimov’s “robot” stories.

I’ve read Requiem multiple times, most recently in 2021 when i read through The Past Through Tomorrow. Real core Heinlein. I would have expected this story to win the Retro award.

I don’t think I’ve read the Brackett stories. Will try to get to them next.

I've re-read Robbie and it is good, exactly a kind of SF I grew up with

I reread Requiem. Love that story.

Stephen wrote: "I reread Requiem. Love that story."

Agreed. And quite different from The Man Who Sold the Moon about the earlier life of the same character

I plan to re-read Requiem, but so far I've finished the rest of the nominees and it was a turndown for me.

“Martian Quest” and “The Stellar Legion” both are relatively wooden, more like a howtheirdoit stories, and while both solutions are scientific and interesting, the stories aren't.

“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” is an early parallel universes story, it has nice ideas

Hard to compare Borges to the other writers. In the wider world he was much more distinguished, a major figure of 20th century world literature.

In the Retro Hugo context I’d have trouble voting for anything ahead of Requiem.

I see Heinlein stories took the novella (“‘If This Goes on —‘“) and novelette (“The Roads Must Roll”) categories in those Retro Hugos, which were awarded in Kansas City (Heinlein territory) in 2016. Maybe some voters didn’t want Heinlein to sweep the short fiction awards and gave a vote to “Robbie”.

Stephen wrote: "Hard to compare Borges to the other writers. In the wider world he was much more distinguished, a major figure of 20th century world literature.

In the Retro Hugo context I’d have trouble voting f..."

I agree on both Borges and RAH. I've checked voting stats here https://www.thehugoawards.org/content... and Requiem had a real chance to win, they went neck-in-neck

With Borges as well as later say Orwell, I think there is a problem - they haven't considered themselves SF writers

Two more notes from the stats:
In Novelette and Novella RAH competed against himself

Borges had a solid 3rd place (right after Asimov and RAH) but ended up fifth, which means a lot of fandom just hasn't included him in their lists

Acorn infers from the stats that many voters omitted “Tlon, Iqbar, Orbis Tertius” from their ballots altogether. I think I’ll follow their example. Having read the story, I think it’s brilliant, but doesn’t have much to do with the English language genre sf of the day.

My ranking:

1. Requiem
2. Robbie
3. The Stellar Legion
4. Martian Quest

I’m afraid the two Brackett stories didn’t interest me much.

Stephen wrote: "I’ve read Requiem multiple times, most recently in 2021 when i read through The Past Through Tomorrow. Real core Heinlein. I would have expected this story to win the Retro award...."

I discovered that I still have my ancient copy of The Past Through Tomorrow. Reading "Requiem" now, but might take a run through the whole book again sometime soon.

Been running behind, but I finished 1941. Rankings:

Requiem
Robbie
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
The Stellar Legion
Martian Quest

The Brackett stories were very primitive SF, pretty inconsequential.

I've checked the list of that year Retro Hugos here https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?... and was astonished that Asimov's Nightfall (In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted "Nightfall" the best science fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964).

Oleksandr wrote: "I've checked the list of that year Retro Hugos here https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ay.cgi?... and was astonished that Asimov's Nightfall (In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted "N..."

That is interesting. The 3rd ranked Asimov short story.

I'm finally catching up. Actually, I was trying to figure out what to read and then, when I checked my notifications, I realized that I forgot we were doing this. Alzheimer's again, I guess.

I think I liked "Robbie" the best. I got tears in my eyes for "Requiem," just like I always do. It's ranked 2d for me because it's too sad. Then the Brackett ones . . . I really didn't care about either of them, so a tie for third. And that Borges thing . . . I could barely read it. Skipped paragraphs like crazy.

So, here we have a consensus that Robbie and Requiem are the two best stories that year, and (surprise!) Hugo voters agree with us

The best on the Retro Hugo ballot, anyway.

Stephen wrote: "The best on the Retro Hugo ballot, anyway."

Yes, but unlike with current Hugoes, where the number of story sources is huge (tens of magazines plus websites), so that a gem may be missing, the number of stories in 1940 was smaller and more importantly, those who actively read the within the following 80+ years, most likely would have found a hidden gem if there was one. Therefore, it is quite possible that in this specific case, we had the best. Definitely, there is a question of Nightfall but if I choose between two Asimov's stories, I'd prefer Robbie.

BTW, in Analog I guess in 2023 was a non-fic piece that discussed how Nightfall's star system should look like to have an event as described in the book. It is far from easy

Oleksandr wrote: "BTW, in Analog I guess in 2023 was a non-fic piece that discussed how Nightfall's star system should look like to have an event as described in the book. It is far from easy"

I remember this story quite well, and I remember I wondered how the situation could ever happen.

I can't believe I remember this story that well! Usually I forget stuff as soon as I read it

Kateblue wrote: "I can't believe I remember this story that well! Usually I forget stuff as soon as I read it"

There are stories that pass and ones that stay. Just recently I looked for possible nominees for this year's Hugo and there was a list, where among others were stories I 100% read from Analog and Asimov's but by titles alone I wasn't able to recall them. Not so with Nightfall

To me Nightfall is practically beyond criticism, so much of a classic it’s almost like myth. That’s ridiculous I suppose. I probably somehow imbibed a sense that certain stories were great canonical works when I was very young.

I am closing this thread because (if you haven't already heard) we have started a whole new group that is reading short fiction. If you are interested, come join us at ORBIT, (a/k/a Otherworldly Reads, Bold Ideas, and Tales. SF & F Short Stories and Novelettes) here:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...