For those of you unfamiliar with the competition, the John W. Campbell Memorial
Award is a juried best novel prize
given out each year. There are rankings, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes are
awarded. The jury changes a little each year, it seems and thus things are a
little mixed, in terms of prediction. They definitely seem to consider all of
the major novels each year, and it looks like they try to throw in a few books
that wouldn’t normally be considered as part of the SF mainstream (i.e. weren’t
published by one of the standard SF imprints.
While I don’t always agree with their selections, there is a hint of awarding
books based on merit rather than politics or popularity, which I can only
applaud. I’m not typically one for media spectacle, and sometimes the Hugos and
the Nebulas are irritating in that they seem to be overwhelmed by those factors.
So, a few words about each of the finalists, followed by some predictions. But
first, a retraction: mentioned in the last
post that
I’d talk more about Ian McDonald’s River of Gods in this post, but looking
again, he doesn’t seem to be here, I’m guessing that it was published too late
in the year and will likely make it onto the ballot next year (I also don’t know
whether or not the selection committee is going off of US or UK release dates in
the case that a novel had both, that also might factor in). In any case, he’s
not here, and it’s a book that needs talking about. So, another post on
McDonald, some day soon.
Transcendent, by Stephen Baxter
I haven’t read this one. It isn’t really my policy to read Baxter anymore.
It’s all interesting big ideas stuff, but his writing never really grabbed me
and the level of shared universe navel-gazing got too extreme at some point and
I stopped reading.
The Meq, by Steve Cash
People seem to like this book, as they also seem to like mentioning that Cash
was once part of the The Ozark Mountain Daredevils. The synopses and reviews
that I’ve read lead me to believe that it isn’t something that I’d usually go
for, but I’ll likely pick it up now that the original is in paperback, on the
strength of positive buzz, and because I’m a weak, weak man when it comes to
buying books.
Child Of Earth, By David Gerrold
I hadn’t heard of this one before today, to be honest (and many readers will be
wondering why I bothered commenting on all of these if I haven’t read any of
them. I’ve read most of the second half of the list, I promise). It looks like
a YA SF novel, which is really very strange coming from Gerrold, who I know best
from his unfinished War Against the Chtorr series, which are grim and violent
and sexual to a degree which would make one thing that Gerrold is an unlikely
children’s author. That said, Scott Westerfeld is writing YA now, and all of
his books before Midnighters are grim and violent and sexual, so what do I
know. Evolution’s Darling, one of his earliest, is a wonderfully strange
novel full of post-human fucking and interclade love affairs, from what I
remember. Neat stuff, if often uncomfortable. I saw him speak not too long ago
and he admitted that the reasons for switching to YA are at least partially
financial, which, in my mind, is a sad state of affairs. Not that I don’t like
his YA books, but they’re forced by the tenor of the times to skirt too widely
around too many issues for them to be entirely engaging. But I digress, wildly.
Mind’s Eye, By Paul McAuley
I like Paul McAuley. I haven’t read this, because it isn’t out here and I
haven’t seen it at the store (they carry imports, but can’t really get all of
them. I’ll have to ask). I have no idea if it’s any good, but I would assume
so, based on his history.
Seeker, By Jack McDevitt
I’ve only read one book, Chindi, which I think that this is a follow up to. A
lot of people seem to like McDevitt, but I don’t really see it. Despite the
increasingly furious pace of socio-technical evolution, the people in these
books seem already in the past, other than that they’ve got neato spaceships and
know how to go faster than light. It makes any speculation that they books may
put forth seem strangely stunted. Also the writing is lackluster and the
characters seem stock and the whole thing could have been written 20 years ago.
I’m still talking about Chindi, mind you. I haven’t read this one, and some
trivial research indicates that it’s entirely unrelated and seemingly more up my
alley than that book. So, we’ll see. When it comes out in paperback. Maybe.
Learning The World, By Ken MacLeod
OK. Now we’re back on familiar ground. Ken MacLeod is one of my favorite
authors from the past couple of years, and this is one of his best books.
Rarely, in the newly burgeoning field of singularity related SF, do you see
anything positive. We’re destroyed or irrevocably transformed or fractionated
or herded into easily manageable groups. It’s always a disaster. MacLeod
thinks differently. In his future, we’ve survived, Singularity is a chronic but
tractable infection and mankind has spread to the stars in a big, big way. You
can see human space for light years as the stars go green with life.
Megastructures of truly astonishing scale are mooted. Travel tubes between
solar systems? Why not? Immortality? Old hat. In my opinion this is one of
the best visions I’ve seen of a humanity truly triumphant over dumb matter, not
huddling in tiny colonies on hostile world, fighting grim, useless battles with
incomprehensibly alien stand-ins for earthly foes. Not here. Space is too big
and too rich to fight over. Planets are pleasant places to evolve and grow up,
but a mature civilization has too much on the move to be bothered with such
limitations. Throw in an interesting first contact story cum detective tale and
you’ve got one hell of a novel.
The Summer Isles, By Ian R. MacLeod
Our second MacLeod, Ian, is a gifted writer. He lacks some of the speculative
brio of many other prominent SF writers, but he has a true gift for evoking
atmosphere, and that’s usually enough. He’s much like Gene Wolfe in that
respect, which is high praise. I’m actually not sure whether I’ve read this or
not. I’ve read the story of the same name in one of his other collections, but
it looks like this has been extended out to the length of a short novel, so it’s
quite likely that I’ve only read part of it. In any case, it’s very
interesting, a story of an England that lost WWI and went fascist immediately
(rather than waiting for Thatcher), and there are many parallels with early Nazi
Germany, as is standard. The story left me wanting to know more, so I’ll have
to pick up the novel if indeed it’s been extended. Although it looks like it’s
going to be an expensive book to come by.
Counting Heads, By David Marusek
Counting Heads, at first, looks like it’s going to be as packed with wonderful
and bizarre speculation as Stross’s Accelerando, but there are long gaps in
the pace of innovation and there are pacing issues where Marusek seems to just
settle down to actually tell the story that’s going on here, and doesn’t quite
achieve the balance that he’s looking for. I liked it, don’t get me wrong, but
it seems a story unfinished and one that never quite pays off fully. David
Marusek is a fucking crackerjack short story writer, and I’m looking forward to
the followup, as hopefully he’ll get more comfortable with the form and start
cranking out some incredible novels.
Mindscan, By Robert J. Sawyer
Didn’t read this one. Never been a huge fan of Sawyer’s, and the book didn’t
really seem all that interesting to me, as it seems to me that a lot of the
issues therein have been richly addressed in the past.
Accelerando, By Charles Stross
Hard to say anything about this one that hasn’t already been said, but that
never stopped me before. A string of novellas fix-uped into a novel with, as
far as I could tell, very little alteration. Explosively inventive to the point
that it’s hard to follow occasionally, as people change and mutate and are
manipulated by a weakly godlike feline AI. Even if all of the stories aren’t
great and it doesn’t really hang together all that well as a cohesive novel,
this should be required reading if you really want to know what’s possible and
what’s going on in SF today.
The World Before, By Karen Traviss
I’ve not gotten to this one yet. I thought that City of Pearl, the first book
in the trilogy of which The World Before is the third novel, was pretty good,
and very interesting as a first novel. Traviss isn’t pushing a ton of
boundaries, but she’s a good writer and draws interesting and sympathetic
characters.
Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson
I avoided Robert Charles Wilson for years because I confused him with Robert
Anton Wilson, author of the Illuminatus! books. Oh lordy was I wrong. Once
I realized that, I read everything of his that I could get my hands on. Wilson
is a fine, fine writer of prose, and never fails to tackle Big Ideas. Sometimes
he fails, but that’s a good thing. His forte seems to be tracking in great
and telling detail the reactions of humans to events quite beyond their ken. A
truly enjoyable read and one that only lets you down a little when the ending
doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the start, but you don’t really care
because the writing is too wonderful to regret.
Evan’s Hopeful Predicitons:
Learning the World
Spin
Accelerando
Evan’s Cynical Predictions:
Mindscan
Spin
Seeker
Also, I note that I’ve been linked to by Jeremy, which means that there might be
more than just two or three of you out there now (gotta love RSS readers). Just
as a note, I close comments because I don’t have time to deal the the comment
spam, nor do I have the time to learn the ins and outs of wordpress’s spam
reductions mechanisms. However, I always enjoy getting feedback and hearing
what other people have to say about the issues that I’m addressing. There’s an
email contact link at the bottom of the page (obfuscated a tad for spammers, but
simple enough), and I’d love to hear from you.
