Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

It's been a quiet summer here, so I thought I'd try to generate a little discussion and maybe find some interesting titles to read. So list here your top 5 books read in the last few years (I'm using 2020, the pandemic year, as my starting point), any genre.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
A very intense book relating the circumstances of The Troubles in Ireland in the early 70's and a murder that took place in the thick of it. Best thing I've read in decades, and the audio is outstanding.

The Scar by China Miéville
We read the New Crobuzon trilogy as a group & I was captivated by Perdido Street Station, and this book surpassed even that for me. Mieville's Embassytown was also amazing, but I chose to only put one of the three on this list.

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
This was my introduction to Bujold & it just blew me away. It not only opened up the rest of this trilogy to me, but also the Vorkosigan Saga. I would also have listed Memory as the best of the Saga, but I kept it to one per author on this list.

We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore
As a military brat whose father was a veteran of three wars, I've read so many books about battle, it's ridiculous. This was the first one I'd read in a long time, and it was an excellent relating of the horror and confusion of jungle battles in Vietnam. Coincidentally, I had a friend who in his youth was in the battalion that fought this battle, but was not there because he was in the hospital from a previous shoulder wound.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Despite the high level of appreciation from this group, I held off on reading this for a long time & I truly wish I hadn't. It turned out to be an outstanding hard SF experience. Still haven't finished the trilogy though...one of these days.

An interesting topic, I'll go thru my 5* reads and report

I love and hate this sort of exercise. I love it because it’s a great opportunity to revisit wonderful reading experiences. I hate it because I find it so difficult to reduce my favorites to a list of 5. There are several other books that could easily make this list, but I’ve narrowed it down to these five, read from 2020 until now, in the order in which I read them:

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by the late, great John le Carré. I’d heard about this very popular author’s work for years, and I’d always been curious to dip my toes into his extensive oeuvre. I expected to be entertained, which I was. But I didn’t expect to find a novel that is suffused with a powerful, deep moral outrage, and whose plot is meticulously and perfectly crafted. It’s a work of conscience and pain and exquisitely honed tension, and the fact that Le Carré achieves so much impact in a relatively short book feels like a kind of miracle.

Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh. Unlike the above book, this is a sprawling, epic, wildly ambitious example of the very best of SF literature. Cherryh never backs down from throwing her flawed, complex characters into the deep end of human experience, and her vision of a society that attempts to engineer and subjugate some of its subjects rings frighteningly true. I devoured its bulk, continually surprised and moved and captivated by her muscular prose and her richly captured cast of characters.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. Much has been made of the challenges inherent when authors attempt to write about the lived experiences of communities that they themselves are not a part of. But somehow, Makkai finds a way to bring the lives of gay men living and dying in the thick of the AIDS crisis to vivid, authentic life. This was one of the most emotionally rewarding books I’ve ever read.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Another epic, sprawling narrative that just kept getting better and better the more I read it. I felt utterly expanded and changed by the time I spent reading Kingsolver’s intimately captured distillation of the terrible impact of American colonialism on the Congo.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. I had to include a fantasy novel in my list, and this rose to the top. It’s utterly original, beautifully composed, brutally imagined, and an object lesson in how fantasy literature can use ideas involving magic and myths and gods and monsters to illuminate the deepest corners of the human heart.

I will say in closing that limiting the timeframe of this list left off the works of three others of my favorite authors, whose best work I’d read in 2018 & 2019. I won’s explicate which works they were, but I have to mention NK Jemisin, Robin Hobb, and above all others, Ursula K. Le Guin.

I’ll also start in 2020. These are books that stood out in a quick review of my reading.

I read several of Tolkien’s books, as assembled and edited by his son Christopher Tolkien, in the last few years. I’m going to arbitrarily count these as one. (Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth, Beren and Lúthien, The Fall of Gondolin).

The Ministry for the Future
Not the top KSR for pure enjoyment, and I’m skeptical of some of the ideas, but boy, he sure steps up to the big contemporary problem and gives it the distinguished sf novelist treatment. I always like his work. I intend to read it all.

Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover by Ruth Marcus
Excellent journalism.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
Great short stories with commentary by Saunders that I found very interesting.

Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant
Just published this year. Gripping account of the Fort McMurray wildfire of a few years ago, along with discussion of climate change and fire.

Stephen wrote: "Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant. Just published this year. Gripping account of the Fort McMurray wildfire of a few years ago, along with discussion of climate change and fire...."

Finished this last week - really great - the story of the fire itself is intense, but the description of how it's related to climate change will give you nightmares!

Exhalation & Stories of your life by Ted Chiang- I read these back to back and I NEED MORE Ted Chiang like yesterday.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Honestly the stories of the priest and father are so gripping that they are permanently seared into my mind

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - this book is so incredible I just can't emphasize it enough.

Station Eleven by Emily St.John Mandel- ESJM is my new auto buy author. Her stories are so gripping and also so cool

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke- just finished this yesterday and am in awe of how fantasticly written it is.

Honorable Mention: the broken earth trilogy by NK Jemisin just because of the stone people

Ok, I've looked at my 5-star reads (and was surprised how many there are), so to select a few:
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer I guess one of the best overviews about cancer and how treatments against it were developed (with errors, not only successes)
Revelation Space - I've heard rave reviews, but I'm usually wary of them. This is THE space opera I discovered this year and it is just great!

I think I read Revelation Space a year or two earlier. For this exercise I considered Chasm City, a standalone novel set in the same universe. I want to read at least Redemption Ark and possibly other sequels to Revelation Space as well.

Oleksandr wrote: "Ok, I've looked at my 5-star reads (and was surprised how many there are), so to select a few:
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer I guess one of the best overviews ab..."

Good ones! I discovered The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer browsing through my library. I haven't fit it in yet, but it definitely looks like one of those comprehensive & frightening treatises that focus on all the aspects of a subject, much like Fire Weather did about wildfire & climate change.

Based on your recommendation, I started Revelation Space but then got pulled off onto something else. I mean to finish it before the year is out.

Good question, Allan. I've been in a terrible reading slump for some time now so it was nice to re-visit the last 3.5 years and reminisce a bit in the times when I was awed. I can not pick 5 tops, so I will go like this:

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - I only read it because it is on every have-to-read list, yet I was not prepared how absolutely fantastic this masterpiece was written. The place among the best of the best is very well deserved.

The Overstory - a brilliant mosaic story about ecology and trees. Touched me deeply.

Little, Big - my favourite John Crowley book. Veeeery slow going and certainly not everybody's taste, but for me mesmerizing and utterly enchanting.

The Spear Cuts Through Water - most probably the best genre book I have ever read. When I finished the last sentence I instantly started again reading.

The same goes for the following three, from which I can't choose the one that should get into my top 5. All of them belong to the top of tops I've ever read and all of them I read two and three times in the last 3 years:
Rhythm of War
City of Last Chances
Cage of Souls

To continue my list.
The Drowning Girl - based on blurb, I'd assume it isn't a book for me, but it ended up great, I plan to re-read it. I rarely do horrors, but it isn't a horror in my understanding, but a great view from inside of non-'normal' mind
Leviathan Wakes a solid start of a great series

From the above: Hyperion and The Scar are both great! But I read them longer ago than 5 years.

Looking over my ratings, I see I've given few 5-star ratings recently. Nonetheless, some of my tops are....

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler and the other two books in the series. The aliens and the premise were quite weird. But what really shines here is the description of the way the people behave. Many people in the story are completely incapable of working together, trusting each other, or believing the truth. Their intense desire for "freedom" leads them down dark roads.

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. Don't know why I ignored this book for so long. It is great. (I also recently read New Bodies for Old, a 1908 French novel inspired by it, and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, a more recent take. Both good, but the original is best. New Bodies for Old really ramps up the horror, since the main character might be operated on himself. The most modern translation reverts to the original title "Dr. Lerne", but I read the old one.)

Amatka by Karin Tidbeck. Weird, in all the good ways.

Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century by Patrik Ouředník. Really hard to categorize this short work. The publisher labels it a novel, but it is not fiction. It covers the whole 20th century of Europe without ever mentioning any of the big names you expect. It is like human history written by an extra-terrestrial.

The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente. The version I read also includes the earlier story "The Future is Blue", and that is actually the story I liked more. But they go good together. Valente is a shape-shifter, but rarely disappoints.

And though I read it very recently, I'll also add Hi Honey, I'm Homo!: Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture by Matt Baume. This nonfiction really hits me because I grew up watching many of these shows with my parents. I never realized how hard people like Norman Lear and Susan Harris fought to get these stories told.

I recently reread Amatka, having read it the first time a number of years ago. I think I enjoyed it more on the reread. Weird but engaging and interesting.

Oh this is fun indeed, but challenging. I also only started reading again during COVID, so for me this just covers the last 3 years.

1. The Fifth Season and 2. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, easily some of the best books and series I've read in recent memory.

Becky Chambers Wayfarers Series, especially 3. A Closed and Common Orbit, just lovely and introduced me to a whole new world of scifi.

During the early days of COVID, I tore through the 4. Twelve Kings in Sharakhai series, a sweeping desert fantasy with multiple POVs and fantastic action and intrigue.

And finally, the Vorkosigan books, most notably the short story collection in 5. Borders of Infinity.

Gabi wrote: "The Spear Cuts Through Water - most probably the best genre book I have ever read. When I finished the last sentence I instantly started again reading."

Couldn't agree more Gabi, this book was spectacular.

Right now I will just say Piranesi. I have not read that many lately that I have put on my favorites. So I think I may have to read a few mentioned in this thread . . .

I'm going to join the thread and keep it going awhile longer. It's hard for me to separate books that really need to go together and constitute one story, so I'm substituting series in the place of books. I don't think my 2023 reads have necessarily sunk in enough to fairly contend for "Top 5 of the last 5" with the exception of:

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold - Curse of Chalion was excellent but for some reason this one in particular just blew me away and I'm not surprised it took home both the H and the N. The depth of humanity in all of Bujold's character writing is off the charts but something about Ista's journey landed in a special way for me. Honourable mention to Vorkosigan Saga, which would be far too difficult to narrow down to just one book for.

The Locked Tomb (Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, Nona the Ninth) by Tamsyn Muir - I was skeptical about the first book going in, but once I realized I was in love with it, each release has been my most anticipated; I read Harrow and Nona as soon as I could get them, and will do the same for Alecto. They are favourites.

Annals of the Western Shore (Gifts, Voices, Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin) - probably because they are marketed as YA and came late in Le Guin's career and because everyone always talks about her classics TLHoD & Dispossessed, I wasn't expecting as much from this trilogy. But they are fantasy masterpieces suffused with the author's humanity and fervor for justice. They reminded me why she is my favourite and why, along with so many others, I'll continue to draw inspiration from her imagination for the rest of my life.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein - as far as non-fiction goes, I haven't read much of it in the last five years (and have been working to change that in 2023). This is another book I was a little skeptical about because of how quickly the titular coinage "shock doctrine" became part of the broader lexicon; I assumed from my many encounters with the term that I'd already learned what this book had to offer. I was very wrong. The Shock Doctrine is a remarkable overview of recent (capitalist) economic history and explains with more clarifying power than anything else I've read the development of neoliberal capitalism and the collapse of the welfare state (and the many accompanying crises we are now living through). Written almost 20 years ago now, still very much relevant.

Saga, Volume 1 (and the series as a whole) by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples - hands down my most cherished graphic novel. I would go so far as to say that this book, which my partner devoured even more voraciously than I did, gave us the push we needed to finally start our own family. It's beautiful, devastating, and fucking weird in the best way.

Ed wrote: "Amatka by Karin Tidbeck. Weird, in all the good ways."

Yeah, alongside I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories, I think this may be the best book we've read over in the SF in Translation group.

Ed wrote: "The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente.

This one's an honourable mention for me too. To paraphrase you from above: angry in the all the good ways.

Gabi wrote: "The Spear Cuts Through Water - most probably the best genre book I have ever read. When I finished the last sentence I instantly started again reading."

I think this is the only book that made it onto two separate lists on this thread? I'm sold on reading this, I hope I can find a first edition around that I can get to read.

Kateblue wrote: "Right now I will just say Piranesi. . . ."

A terrific book that I also thought of including, and will probably reread sooner or later.

Kalin wrote: "I'm going to join the thread and keep it going awhile longer. It's hard for me to separate books that really need to go together and constitute one story, so I'm substituting series in the place of..."

A great selection, Kalin! I plan to finally go and read Saga, I guess I even have one from Hugo packet. I have a weird relation with comics - I'd love to have them in my teens - I was actively drawing back then but there were no comics in the USSR - I had a few issues of the 70s Polish comics, which I was unable to read so I tried to imagine what's goin' on. Right now the access is easy, but I have a mental bloc - 'books for adults, comics for kids'

Oleksandr wrote: "... I have a mental bloc - 'books for adults, comics for kids' ..."

Get over it! Comics is a "medium", like television, movies, novels, audiobooks, plays, musicals, .... They can be about anything and for anyone.

They can usually be read very quickly, yet they take a lot of effort to produce, so it is a wonder they exist at all.

Saga is great, though personally volume 1 isn't the best of the bunch.

One weird thing I've found recently is that there are audiobook versions of comics! I haven't tried one yet.

Kalin, interesting that it had such a direct effect on you. But not totally surprising. If you read the letters section in individual issues you will see people having very deep connections to it. (Not me. I'm old and have seen it all.)

Ed wrote: "Get over it! Comics is a "medium", like television, movies, novels, audiobooks, plays, musicals, .... They can..."

I know that on a conscious level, but when I am choosing to read a book or a comics, habits drive me to the former

Top 5 reads since March 1, 2020 COVID shutdown.

Starters:

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky

Bench Players:

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

well, RJ, that's good lit-tra-tuer there! Maybe I should try some instead of the stuff I usually read

I guess I’ll also have to try The Spear Cuts Through Water.

From RJ’s list…I’ve always wanted to read Sometimes A Great Notion. I read Cuckoo’s Nest back in the 70’s & I know Notion was made into a movie I never saw. I knew Kesey from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which I attempted to read at about 13 or so.

Kateblue wrote: "well, RJ, that's good lit-tra-tuer there! Maybe I should try some instead of the stuff I usually read"

Aww thanks Kateblue. There are a couple Sci-Fi books in there too, and some crime/mystery and some non-fiction. I like to mix it up.

Allan wrote: "From RJ’s list…I’ve always wanted to read Sometimes A Great Notion. I read Cuckoo’s Nest back in the 70’s & I know Notion was made into a movie I never saw. I knew Kesey from The Electric Kool-Aid ..."

Kesey is one of my favorites. Sometimes a Great Notion is really good, but it takes a while to get into it. It's one of the more challenging books I've read but well worth the effort.