Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

and you could take all the books of only ONE author, what ONE author's books would you select? (You can magically have ALL of them.)

I am torn between Robert A. Heinlein and Lois McMaster Bujold.

I guess I have to choose Bujold.

Anyone? Anyone?

(For the purposes of this game, assume you don't need books by some survival expert!)

Isaac Asimov, who wrote or edited over 500 books!

A very hard choice indeed! Asimov because here wrote a ton of non-fic that helps to survive (even if it is hardly the case with his say Roman Republic)

I would to have to throw a dice to decide between Connie Willis, Theodore Sturgeon, Jo Walton, Terry Pratchett, Emma Newman and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Or I would just go with Brandon Sanderson :D.

Gabi wrote: "Or I would just go with Brandon Sanderson :D."

Given the size of his books, this will occupy some time :)

@Oleksandr, indeed:D

Hmm, my first thought was Iain Banks, both with and without the "M.". His Culture novels are my all-time favorites, and when you add his other fiction, both SF and not, there's quite a lot to occupy your days.

But then I thought of Ursula Le Guin, whose work has such depth and humanity. She also wrote essays and poems, so there'd be variation.

But what about Alan Moore? His comics are superb, both entertaining and thought-provoking - and there's A LOT of them.

Hmm, this is harder than I thought...

Stan Lee/Jack Kirby! Then you’d have the best comic collection anywhere!

Oh man, Octavia Butler or N. K. Jemisin. Probably jemisin because she is still writing and I would have new books magically appear on the island from time to time haha.

Gene Wolfe...
Because every time I read them, it's like starting over anew!

Ursula, hands down.

Antti wrote: "Hmm, my first thought was Iain Banks, both with and without the "M.". His Culture novels are my all-time favorites."

You know, the sad thing about being so hyper-focused on H&N winners/nominees in my reading is that I never seem to find the time to read the Culture novels, and I really do want to. Why did he get so overlooked by the awards community?

Ursula K. Le Guin’s poetic, clarifying, grounded wisdom and bold, incisive ideas would see me through.

Kalin wrote: "Why did he get so overlooked by the awards community?"

Being British? Even while they are present in awards, I guess for them it is harder

My husband says John Irving

He also wanted Kurt Vonnegut. but he liked the idea that, if an author is still alive and writing, then books can magically appear on the island later.

Not sf, but Stephen King would be good to have too, if you don’t mind scary/creepy.

Allan wrote: "Not sf, but Stephen King would be good to have too, if you don’t mind scary/creepy."

That was my initial thought because his stuff is really spot on the majority of these time and reread value is pretty high.

I started this, and I say, it does not have to be SF or F.

That being said, a high candidate for me would be John Sandford. I love his police procedural/mystery stuff. Though some are better than others. I'm worried because he usually puts out two books a year, and I don't see any more coming up. He's getting up there in age. Born 1944.

And if you picked Nora Roberts, you'd get all the JD Robb futuristic/cop/romance books, also. And she's still putting out 3 or 4 books a year, it seems. So a steady stream

Still, for me, Bujold.

Hmm....I think I'd have to go for Asimov on volume... Orson Scott Card would be a close 2nd.

choosing Stan Lee is a pretty sweet idea, too, though for Comics I think I'd have to choose either Roy Thomas (so much variety!) or Kurt Busiek.

Or you could go with Peter David.. then you'd get comics, Star Trek, B5, lots of stuff.

Wow, Roy Thomas, that’s a good one. I have a collection of about 1200 comics, virtually all Marvel and probably 2/3 Silver & Bronze Age. That includes Avengers 15-300, and Thomas’s run from 35-104 is the heart of that title. My 57 (The Vision) is one of my trues prizes. His Spider-Man and Thor runs, What If #1, and the first six Star Wars issues in my collection are all Thomas.

I think I'd have to go with volume over quality. Even though I love Zelazny and can reread his stuff at least 5-10 times, there's just too little content.

Allan wrote: "Wow, Roy Thomas, that’s a good one. I have a collection of about 1200 comics, virtually all Marvel and probably 2/3 Silver & Bronze Age. That includes Avengers 15-300, and Thomas’s run from 35-104 ..."

Yes, but just think what would happen to all those collectors' item comics on a desert isle!!

Art wrote: "I think I'd have to go with volume over quality. Even though I love Zelazny and can reread his stuff at least 5-10 times, there's just too little content."

Yes, that's why I am having a little trouble sticking with Bujold. She's written quite a few things, but not nearly as many as some. I have not read any of the Penric & Desdemoina books, though, so I will have that to look forward to. While I drink coconut milk and pray for sunscreen!

Kateblue wrote: "Allan wrote: "Wow, Roy Thomas, that’s a good one. I have a collection of about 1200 comics, virtually all Marvel and probably 2/3 Silver & Bronze Age. That includes Avengers 15-300, and Thomas’s ru..."

They'd all be bagged or slabbed but can I have a sealed, refrigerated steel container too?

Allan wrote: "They'd all be bagged or slabbed but can I have a sealed, refrigerated steel container too?"

Sure, why not!

After having read 3 rather different books by him in the last weeks I now safely can say that I would die happily if I only had Adrian Tchaikovsky to read for the rest of my life.

Gabi wrote: "After having read 3 rather different books by him in the last weeks I now safely can say that I would die happily if I only had Adrian Tchaikovsky to read for the rest of my life."

Which are they? I guess one is audio of Cage of Souls, another is his newest The Doors of Eden (isn't it out just today, Aug 20th?) and the third?

and we do have to push him at least to Hugo nominees!

I listened to Cage of Souls and Guns of the Dawn back to back and am a third through The Doors of Eden :D.

(and I found that "Children of Time" is on storytel as German audionarration, so my boys have no chance, our next read aloud (well listen aloud in this case) will be Tchaikovsky)


Oleksandr wrote: "and we do have to push him at least to Hugo nominees!"

Oh yes, he so deserves it! "The Doors of Eden" is published by Tor, so perhaps this has a chance?

Gabi wrote: "Oh yes, he so deserves it! "The Doors of Eden" is published by Tor, so perhaps this has a chance?"

I hope so. After all he managed to be in longlist (11th with 79 votes) with Children of Ruin in Hugo. he needed just 21 more votes to get in the list of nominees. This year several group members said they plan to get a membership...
So far this year he has The Doors of Eden for best novel and Firewalkers for best novella.

Oleksandr wrote: "This year several group members said they plan to get a membership......"

I'm one of them.

Gabi wrote: "I'm one of them."

That's great!

Hard to say. Maybe Honoré de Balzac. He just wrote so many books!

I was surprised you picked him, Ed. So I went to look and I'm not sure he's written that many books. He was only 51 when he died--a decent age for back then, sure. And of course, I would need English translations, being and ignorant American.

Here's a list:

Novels
Physiology of Marriage (1829)
The Wild Ass's Skin (1831)
The Country Parson (1833)
Eugenie Grandet (1833)
Illustrious Gaudissart (1833)
The Quest of the Absolute (1834)
Seraphita (1834)
Melmoth Reconciled (1835)
Pere Goriot (1835) aka Old Goriot
The Lily of the Valley (1835)
The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau (1837)
La Rabouilleuse (1840)
The Celibates (1842)
The Black Sheep (1842)
A Woman of Thirty (1842)
Illusions perdues (1843)
Lost Illusions (1843)
The Philosopher's Stone (1844)
Cousin Bette (1846)
La Cousine Bette (1846)
Le Cousin Pons (1847)

Collections
History of the 13 (1833)
The Atheist's Mass And Other Stories (1836)
The Old Maid and Cabinet of Antiquities (1836)
Ten Droll Tales (1837)
Droll Stories (2018)

But note! There are only two short stories listed where I got this info, so unsure how many there really are https://www.fantasticfiction.com/d/ho...

Novellas
An Episode Under the Terror
El Verdugo (1829)
Domestic Peace (1830)
The Elixir of Life (1830)
The Red Inn (1831)
The Unknown Masterpiece (1831)
Colonel Chabert (1832)
Journey from Paris to Java (1832)
La Grande Breteche (1931)

If you REALLY want volume, I can come up with several others. Maybe look at Andre Norton . . . https://www.fantasticfiction.com/n/an...

Who else has written so much it would keep you busy for life on a desert island? Besides Andre Norton, I mean.

I looked at Mark Twain, but I was surprised at how few books there were. The complete works took up a lot of room on my mother's shelves.

Kateblue wrote: "I was surprised you picked him, Ed. So I went to look and I'm not sure he's written that many books. ..."

Wikipedia lists 47 novels, 12 novellas, 7 plays, and other stuff. Those novels aren't short. Should be enough to last me until I die of scurvy or whatever I'd catch on the island.

Maybe I could do the complete works of P.K. Dick instead.

Anyway, I'm not planning on going to a deserted island.

Why can't I be stranded on a space ship? With a replicator?

If you want volume, Barbara Cortland once wrote 23 novels in a single year. But I'm not going to read them.

Come to think of it, Tim O'Shei's How to Survive on a Deserted Island and other 50 of his books could come in handy!

Ed wrote: "Hard to say. Maybe Honoré de Balzac. He just wrote so many books!"

If we go French I'd prefer Alexandre Dumas, esp. bearing in mind that he had a stable of ghost-writers, so this will be a large list of quite diverse works

Oleksandr wrote: "If we go French I'd prefer Alexandre Dumas, esp. bearing in mind that he had a stable of ghost-writers, so this will be a large list of quite diverse works"

It's very strange that this is a fact not lot of people know about (at least not in Belgium and the Netherlands).

A few months ago we read La Tulipe noire in an online Dutch groupread and nobody knew that in fact this book was written along with Auguste Maquet, one of his most famous ghostwriters. As I wanted to inform the other members of the bookgroup about it and thus increase the recognition of Maquet, I wrote following article (sadly only in Dutch): https://world-of-tau.blogspot.com/202...

Btw has anyone here seen the movie L'autre Dumas (with Benoît Poelvoorde and Gérard Depardieu) that is based on the collaboration between Maquet and Dumas?
Apparently it's not available anymore and therefore I didn't see it myself, but I'm curious if it's any good.

Kateblue wrote: " If you were stuck on a desert island forever . . . and you could take all the books of only ONE author, what ONE author's books would you select? (You can magically have ALL of them.)"

Torn between Terry Pratchett (because I didn't read all of his books yet, he just wrote so many) and Douglas Adams (because his trilogy in five parts The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the greatest reads I ever had).
Think I would go for Douglas Adams though. Those books I could read and reread without ever getting tired of them. Great sense of humour!

*Tau* wrote: "As I wanted to inform the other members of the bookgroup about it and thus increase the recognition of Maquet, I wrote following article (sadly only in Dutch): https://world-of-tau.blogspot.com/202..."

Google translate allowed me to read it in English. I also quite enjoyed Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Dumas was one of the writers that made me cry aloud as a teen

Oleksandr wrote: "Google translate allowed me to read it in English."

Hopefully I didn't write too much strange things according to Google Translate ;-p
(no seriously, their translations really improved lately)

Oleksandr wrote: "I also quite enjoyed Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Dumas was one of the writers that made me cry aloud as a teen "

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo has been my n°1 book for a long time. Now I'm more inclined to put The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on that spot. Since I discovered (humorous) SFF a new world has opened to me ;-)

Oleksandr wrote: "If we go French I'd prefer Alexandre Dumas, ..."

I considered him. But I expect that his stories are all too similar. I've never read any, though I've seen film versions. I expect they are good, but I would get tired of them quickly.

Balzac wrote about people from all parts of society, so I expect they are more varied. Maybe I could substitute Dickens. Or Conan-Doyle.

I thrive on variety, so it would be really hard for me to limit myself to one author.

That’s why I chose Asimov, as long as I can have books for which he acted as editor.

Allan wrote: "That’s why I chose Asimov, as long as I can have books for which he acted as editor."

cheater!

Dickens and Anthony Trollope were also incredibly prolific writers.

Another great choice in terms of both volume and variety would be Jonathan Strahan (https://www.goodreads.com/author/list...) or Gardner Dozois because they've edited and published so many huge SF and Fantasy anthologies (e.g. Year's Best series). You'd stay up-to-date not just with their own work, but with most current SFF writers.

Peter F. Hamilton writes very long books that'd keep you busy for a long while, as well. Already there are 21 extremely long (and very good, I've heard) novels to read by him.

Or should one pick the most re-readable? Harry Potter and LOTR, perhaps? I've heard Gene Wolfe is also incredibly re-readable and always feels new again.

Hmm... in terms of fiction writers, I'd be torn between Patricia Briggs, Brandon Sanderson and William Shakespeare. Or Strahan or Dozois, for the anthologies. Yes, Jonathan Strahan would probably be the best choice, giving me the most variety that's possible.

But it would still suck so much, I'd feel so limited and constrained. Time to build a boat to get off that island!

Z! I laughed out loud at "cheater" (aimed at Allan) Thx!

I think maybe Eva's choice of anthologies/editors, ditto. :-) But hey, it's a game! Have fun.

I actually thought about Dickens, but need modern F/SF too much.

The only reason I'm thinking maybe not Bujold is I can probably tell myself all the Vorkosigan books without having to read them, I've read them so often.

So, Desert island game. part two Answer this question--Do any of you have writers that you love their books and have reread them numerous times so that
1) You didn't choose them in question number one, or
2) You did choose them but maybe, on second thought, you can keep them in your mind only and instead choose something you know less well to actually physically (magically) have ?

If so, which author 's books are those?
1) Which author's books, if any, can you almost visualize yourself, scene by scene almost, so you don't need them on a desert island, and then
2) what author you would choose that you have read a little of, or have heard people raving about, so you want to read everything, you think.

For me, as I said, I know all the Vorkosigan books almost by heart (and might have to read the God of Five Worlds books over before I get stranded), plus I know many Heinlein books well, so . . .

A prolific author that I don't know as well as these two? Wow! So many. Maybe Asimov, though I thought Foundation was kind of boring. Maybe the Expanse guy. I still have not had time to continue. Maybe some of the non-SF people that I read? Opinions?

I hope this makes sense! I like this discussion, so I am making it bigger, I guess

Kateblue wrote: "Z! I laughed out loud at "cheater" (aimed at Allan) Thx!

Hey, you guys made me an Admin! I understand that to mean that I can make rules up.