John Scalzi's Redshirts Wins Hugo Award for Best Novel

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

John Scalzi's Redshirts Wins Hugo Award for Best Novel

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 2, 2013 @03:04AM from the go-forth-and-read dept.

The Hugo awards were presented last night, providing recognition to the best science fiction of the past year. The award for Best Novel was presented to John Scalzi for Redshirts, a comedic work playing on the trope of low-ranking officers frequently getting themselves killed in sci-fi works. Best Novella went to Brandon Sanderson for The Emperor's Soul, and Best Novelette went to The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi by Pat Cadigan. Best Graphic Story was awarded to the creators of Saga. Best Dramatic Presentation (long form) was given for Joss Whedon's The Avengers movie, and (short form) was presented for the "Blackwater" episode of the Game of Thrones TV show. The Best New Writer was Mur Lafferty. Here's a full list of the nominees and winners.

18 of 112 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

I have the book but haven't read it yet. by taxman_10m · 2013-09-02 03:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

The reviews on Amazon made it seem mediocre at best. Really, there was no better science fiction this year?
1. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by washort · 2013-09-02 03:43 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Probably there was. The Hugos seem to be given to a particular set of people as a matter of course.
2. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by OzPeter · 2013-09-02 03:50 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The reviews on Amazon made it seem mediocre at best. Really, there was no better science fiction this year?
  I read the book and really liked it. I suspect that the reviews are not the best because the book changes course in the middle and morphs from purely comedic to something that makes you have to think in order to enjoy it.
  But really?!!?!?! You base your opinion of a book that you actually own, but have not yet read, on Amazon reviews??????
  
  --
  I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
3. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by taxman_10m · 2013-09-02 04:12 · Score: 2
  
  I bought it because I like Scalzi's writing, it was new at the time, and I was going on vacation. I've read all the Old Man War books except for Zoe's Tale and liked them very much. I also read some of his earlier books like Agent to the Stars which I thought was excellent and Android's Dream which was meh.
4. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by stoolpigeon · 2013-09-02 05:52 · Score: 2
  
  I love Scalzi. I'm a self confessed fanboy, read whatever regularly, etc. I did not enjoy Redshirts. It's well executed, I just don't like that kind of story.
  Fortunately The Human Division got things back on track.
  
  --
  It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
5. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by ColdWetDog · 2013-09-02 06:05 · Score: 2
  
  I like Scalzi - Redshirts was, ah, interesting. Actually reading it a second time helped. Hugo level? Well, it's all opinion and we all know how valuable those are.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
6. Re:I have the book but haven't read it yet. by Badge+17 · 2013-09-02 12:44 · Score: 2
  
  I have either read or given up on all of the nominees. I am not convinced that Redshirts was the best novel, but it was probably the intersection of "mainstream / well-known" and "not so bad." Remember, Hugos are determined by a vote of science fiction fans at the convention (or who bought "supporting memberships"), and there's no requirement that they read all of the books.
  The nominees were (in order of placement)
  5. Blackout - the third in Mira Grant's Newsflesh zombie series. These books are entertaining, and the setting is fairly clever - where zombies are just a fact of life, and an ongoing danger - but this wasn't the best of the trilogy, and the previous two were nominated but didn't win.
  4. Throne of the Crescent Moon - an entertaining fantasy novel with a lot of Arabic mythology as an influence. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but it was the author's first novel, and it's not as well-known as the others on the list.
  3. 2312 - Another Kim Stanley Robinson book - a little heavy on geology, and a little meandering for my taste, but interesting in bits. KSR has won Hugos before, and is pretty well-known.
  2. Captain Vorpatil's Alliance - part of the whole Vorkosigan / Miles Saga from Lois McMaster Bujold. I usually like her books, but something about the voice this one was in just bothered the crap out of me, so I didn't finish it. Once again, Bujold has a lot of past Hugos, and this is like book 15 in the series, so it definitely has a constituency.
  1. Redshirts - has Scalzi's usual flaws with fairly bland characters and a little bit of generic plotting. But it was funny, and ended up being at least a little touching and thought-provoking.
  Essentially, the fan vote gives a strong advantage to well-known authors. Of the books that apparently had a chance (the top 3), Redshirts might have been the best. (Full stats at http://www.lonestarcon3.org/)
Sci-Fi? by Chatsubo · 2013-09-02 04:13 · Score: 2

So, I may be living under a rock or something, or maybe it's because I don't really dig Game Of Thrones, or I'm horribly misinformed about the Hugo awards...
But how is Game of Thrones Sci-Fi?

--
> no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
1. Re:Sci-Fi? by wonkey_monkey · 2013-09-02 04:30 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  The Hugos are for science fiction and fantasy.
  
  --
  systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
2. Re:Sci-Fi? by blackraven14250 · 2013-09-02 04:40 · Score: 2
  
  The Hugos aren't just SciFi. They're also for fantasy works.
3. Re:Sci-Fi? by greg1104 · 2013-09-02 05:23 · Score: 2
  
  well Ive written another book to an existing complition of books about an old man who lives on a a cloud and sends winged being to watch over Americans.
  You wrote a sequel to the Bible?
4. Re:Sci-Fi? by Boronx · 2013-09-02 06:24 · Score: 2
  
  It's G.R.R. Martin, so in the end they'll find a spaceship.
  
  --
  Play Command HQ online
5. Re:Sci-Fi? by swillden · 2013-09-02 07:06 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Another interesting side to the "tech as magic" notion is the work of authors who define rigorous frameworks for their fictional magic. Then magic becomes technology, just technology that's based on different (and fictional) physical principles. Much of golden age sci-fi was about exploring the impact of logical extensions of technology on social structures. Today there's a lot of fantasy that postulates interesting magic and explores its impact on social structures.
  Of course, at the end of the day all good stories are about people. I love good stories that use really innovative and mind-twisting technology/magic as a backdrop, but while great ideas add spice great storytelling is about emotional reaction, and that means people.
  
  --
  Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Re:Why so few enlisted men in Star Trek? by c0d3g33k · 2013-09-02 04:26 · Score: 2

Chief O'Brien and Yeoman Rand are the only two I can think of.
Yeoman (Janice) Rand wasn't a man.
Re:There's no money. by santosh.k83 · 2013-09-02 06:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Money is necessary when there's competition in society. When society transitions to cooperation (and not what passes under that name today), only organisation would be necessary, not money.
Pat Cadigan by Fnord666 · 2013-09-02 08:16 · Score: 2

If you are interested in Pat Cadigan's novella, the preview / kindle sample of "edge of Infinity" includes the complete story. It can be found here.

--
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Re:A comedic work? by Hardhead_7 · 2013-09-02 09:59 · Score: 2

Scalzi actually does fairly hard sci-fi mostly. Check his Old Man's War novels. They're good.
Re:I hate to sound like *that* commercial by Xtifr · 2013-09-02 12:34 · Score: 2

No, there really isn't once you take Clarke's Third Law into account: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Middle Earth could have existed in The Matrix. Just ferinstance.
Granted, for the vast majority of works, the distinction is usually clear, but SF writers have also been deliberately blurring the borders between the two genres since at least the 1950s.
Is Star Wars fantasy or SF? There's strong arguments on both sides. What about FTL travel? Isn't that fantasy? Psychic powers? Time Travel? (Larry Niven's only time travel stories had the hero constantly stumbling across unicorns and other fantasy creatures in the past, because Niven was convinced that time travel was pure fantasy.)
SF writers don't like boxes. Make a couple of nice, neat boxes labeled "science fiction" and "fantasy", and they'll start writing stories that don't fit neatly into either box, but clearly belong in at least one, just for the fun of it. Look at Roger Zelazny (esp. Lord of Light and Creatures of Light and Darkness) or Gene Wolfe (The Shadow of the Torturer won the World Fantasy Award, but then the sequel revealed that the series was actually SF) or countless others.