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Voting is on for the Nebula Awards, with the winner to be announced May 21st. Who do we think should win Best Novel?
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Cum tacent, clamant. When they are silent, they shout. -Cicero
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday March 22 2017, @05:39PM (6 children)
Yeah there's entries in there obviously only because they're non-white non-males and if noms were blind they would never have made it.
You know this because you've read some of these books?
Didn't think so.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:05PM (5 children)
Dude its the Nebulas. None of those books are more than a year old and I don't think most of the voters read them either, there's just too much reading to do. I read a lot, and I read very fast, and there's no way even I can keep up with the Nebulas. A retired dude probably could. Someday that'll be me, just not today.
I read many reviews and blogs about those books because it was fun and I like Sci Fi (and fantasy to a lesser extent), and synthesized the data together which is why its absolutely gonzo journalism brutal as opposed to merely being technically wrong or outright confused. Takes a lot of study to really hit a nerve like I can do.
If you've actually read any of those books, I'd genuinely be interested in reading your effort post review, especially if you disagree.
I am very familiar with the concept of how a book appears not matching how a book actually is, and if for example Borderline might look like dreck but when read its actually pretty awesome, I'd love to know so I can read it. It would be hard to gaslight me because I read a lot of reviews, both the "gamergate style we're paid to love everything" sources and real sources. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, I don't need to dissect it just to make sure its not a liquid metal Terminator 2000 in disguise..
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday March 22 2017, @06:18PM (4 children)
If you've actually read any of those books, I'd genuinely be interested in reading your effort post review, especially if you disagree.
And if I haven't read them, how interested are you in my opinion?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @07:32PM (3 children)
And if I haven't read them, how interested are you in my opinion?
I pounded amazon and several SF and F type blogs, its likely you have different data sources which would be awesome. I would imagine you'd have the same author quotes I had access to, or, maybe more. You could probably read more author blogs than I did.
Can you present your findings as entertainingly as I can ... you may as well give it a try. I'm going to dump effort into selecting a good book to read, might as well make a funny post about it too, some laughs.
I do like this kind of literature but I'm just one dude on a big universe so I must extensively judge, sort, and select, so if you can actually out select me (good luck), I'd be a happy reader. Yeah ... good luck with that. It took me until 2016 to get around to reading Ringo's "maple syrup" series ("hot gate" or something like that) from 2010 or so. There's just so much out there. I still haven't read all the Culture books although I've read most. I haven't even read all the PKD, I got Ubik sitting there waiting for me. I've heard Ubik is weird. I'm looking forward to Ubik.
Then there is always the issue of taste. For better or worse I read CSF and F+SF magazines every issue and greatly enjoy both although I prefer CSF. I think the noms for the nebulas were chosen by people who prefer reading Proudhon-Bakunin-Kroptkin, or the huffpo, or jezebel, it doesn't seem to be selected by SF fans.
I don't like preselected nominees like this. The world is big, the list of nominees is short... Much like someone else's list of "favorite foods" or "favorite games" its probably pretty bad just by the nature of the situation which opens it to comic ridicule. you can't run a voting thing like this without it turning into a comic farce so I may as well get some laughs in.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday March 23 2017, @08:01PM
I still haven't read all the Culture books although I've read most.
What did you think of those? I've read Phlebas, Player of Games, Excession, and like the first third/half of Use of Weapons (had to return it to the library and was rather meh about the book anyway). Liked the other 3.
I was surprised Excession didn't have the obligatory squick scene where the main character eats his own hand or something. Guess with a bunch of ships as the main characters that's a bit harder to do...
Apart from his sci fi stuff Iain Banks's stuff sounds pretty horrible in an oh-god-i-wish-i-could-forget-i-read-that-wikipedia-article sort of way.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by novak on Tuesday March 28 2017, @05:00AM
Ubik is weird. And really good. I've read about 31 of PKD's books and Ubik is in the top... five or so. Definitely recommend.
No opinion on these Nebula books as I've not read them yet, and may never. I read a few dozen books a year but I have quite a backlog, so I don't really focus on new SF, unless it's William Gibson. I've read everything he has written so I try to keep up.
novak
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:46PM
The process for awarding the Nebula award doesn't start with five preselected nominees. There's an earlier stage with a long -- and I suspect very long -- list. I don't know what the process is of boiling the long list down to five, but I suspect it's more sophisticated than one person picking his favorites.
An obscure self-publishing author I know, Rebecca Blain, was surprised to find that one of her books (Dawn of Dae I think it was) was placed on the long list last year. I suspect the long list is long indeed.
By the way, Rebecca's books are quite readable. I've certainly enjoyed them. I prefer her early works for their depth and intricate world-building. She has since switched her writing process to be productive in a modern fantasy genre with a dose of humour, which seems to be much more popular than her earlier high fantasy. She pleases many, but my taste differs from that of her current market.
And no, the books aren't excuses for presenting pornographic interactions with vampires, as so much so-called modern fantasy is.