Slashdot Mirror
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."
Maybe I'm just not, "in the loop", but I don't know of many online awards given. I don't like the concept of afew select people voting on who to give the prize to, I'd rather have open online voting. I'd also like to see more writing contests (again maybe I just missed them). By the way Ian McDonald is amazing.
Remember, popularity != quality. Just because something is popular doesn't prevent it from being, for example, pandering tripe.
And you know how english majors are.
In my opinion, China Melville is overrated as an author. His Perdido Street Station was the "it" book of 2001, but after I finished reading it, I couldn't help but wonder what the big deal was.
Granted, he has an excellent sense of the phantasmagoric and his worldbuilding skills are certainly impressive, but as an author, he just doesn't have the chops. His characters are almost too angst-ridden to move in a forward direction, and his plots read like a bad slasher flicks.
Take away his word processor and give him a job as a conceptual designer. Everyone will be happier in the long run.
From last summer's reading list
Finished:
Perdido Street Station - China Melville
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
The Golden Age - John C. Wright
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Manifold Series - Stephen Baxtor
Currently Reading:
King Rat - Neil Gaiman
Still to Go:
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
Some other Authors I follow
David Bin, Ben Bova, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Frederik Pohl.
I find the quality of my reading much better on average following Slashdot suggestions rather than randomly picking books by title and pretty covers at Barnes & Noble.
Didn't quite care for Pattern Recognition, so just one clunker for me -- maybe I just didn't get it, I wanted more of a well defined plot.
Taking inordinate pride in making through all 1130 pages of Cyrptonomicon, but after you make it past the first 300 pages you'll find yourself screaming through it.
Letter To Iran
Couldn't agree more. US science fiction has degenerated into a set of seemingly endless soap operas. A good idea and some strong characters which are maybe good for three books are recycled again and again, each installment written to the same formula, each incidental character getting their own sub-plot, each story line stretched out endlessly with no conclusion in sight.
I'm not going to name names but, apropos of nothing, I miss the days when Weber was a type of carburettor, not an anti-insomnia treatment.
Compare with the 'Culture' novels; they might all be set in the same universe, but they can stand on their own and are all very different novels.
And how about the politics? If US writers are to be believed the only choice is between high-frontier Libertidiotanism or tree-hugging eco-bleeding-heartedness. Read some Iain Banks or Ken MacLeod and you'll see more political variety than just about all US science fiction put together.
It's a real shame, because US science fiction used to be the best in the world.
Sometimes it's not clear that the Hugos are for sci-fi in all forms, not just the written form. For example take the category Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Nominated are: Heroes Part 1 & 2 - Stargate SG-1 Not Fade Away - Angel Pilot Episode - Lost Smile Time - Angel 33 - Battlestar Galactica And of course, 33 will win, but don't get me started on being off topic.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. -- 0 1 My two bits
Sure, The 'Code is no Dickens, but then again I don't need to read the entire works of Shakespeare to validate my personal literary insecurities, like those cunts who love telling people that they've read War And Peace.
I haven't yet read The Da Vinci Code, but it might interest you that both Dickens and Shakespeare wrote what amounts to pop culture in their time. They're considered classics because they were both great writers and their works have stood the test of time. But at the time that they wrote, they were both firmly a part of popular culture.
Without having read the 'Code, I'd take a wild guess that it's not destined to become a classic. But that doesn't matter if you enjoy it, nor if millions enjoy it. It is what it is, and after reading what you wrote, I'm actually interested in reading it.
BTW, I'm not the sort of cunt who loves telling people that I've read War And Peace. I look down on those cunts. I'm the sort of cunt that loves telling people I've read Gravity's Rainbow. But then there are the cunts who love to tell people they've read Ulysses, and they tend to look down on cunts like me.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.