2005 Hugo Nominations

COBOLgrrl writes " The 2005 Hugo Nominations have been announced. Books up for Best Novel include The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks, Iron Council by China Miéville , Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, and River of Gods by Ian McDonald."

Comments

Hugo Lowdown.

[sanityspeech]

The Hugo Award® is the leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. The Hugos are awarded each year by the World Science Fiction Society, at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). All members are entitled to make nominations and to vote on who receives the Awards, which are presented in a public ceremony which is always one of the highlights of the Worldcon.

Re:At last, Iain M Banks gets a bit of recognition

[drxray]

Banks is my favourite author, but I don't think his treatment of the super-intelligent AI characters is that impressive. To me they often come across somewhat like teenagers (they're always plotting and acting fairly immaturely) with minds that operate much faster rather than any smarter or wiser.

I don't think this is Bank's fault... for quite a few reasons actually. Firstly, writing someone significantly smarter than you is close to impossible.

He also postulates in one of his books that all intelligence past a certain level is equivalent with only differences in speed and capacity (a kind of Turing principle for sentience), which doesn't seem unreasonable. But his AIs should be at that level, whereas I often felt that they didn't have the situational mastery that you might expect - they sometimes completely understand a situation before it's even begun, but they can also act on crazy impulses and be singleminded. I would expect they would always be on perfect form.

Finally, he says that AIs are coloured by the people who create them... and the people of the Culture are pretty immature. Perhaps he's saying something about them.

Anyway, I understand that The Algebraist isn't a Culture novel, so perhaps Banks will get his Hugo since he doesn't have to write in the minefield that is super-intelligences.