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Hugo Award

Hugo Award The Hugo awards are presented at an evening ceremony during the World Science Fiction Convention. Nominations are as result of ballots cast by the convention members who vote by mail. They are counted using a weighted method whereby ballot entries, listed by preference, are assigned a value and then tallied. Those who fail to meet the cutoff or have the least number are dropped and the counting is redone until such time as a clear winner appears.

Below you'll find an overview of the winners, with cover/title links to the SF Site reviews (where applicable) along with synopses of those titles yet to be reviewed (cover images are linked to larger images).

Hugo Award for Best Novel

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   2012
Among Others Among Others by Jo Walton
reviewed by David Soyka
It's an insider's book not just because of the myriad references to such iconic figures as Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein and, big daddy of them all, but perhaps not nearly as hip as it once was since the Peter Jackson cinematic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. More importantly, it's the evocation of how you felt as a teenager in first discovering authors whose extraterrestrial or otherwise fantastical settings somehow seem to be speaking directly to your awkward, too-smart-for-your-own-good, virginal kid self.

Among Others Among Others by Jo Walton
reviewed by Paul Kincaid
Jo Walton's latest novel is already being touted as one of the books of the year. Paul is not about to dissent from that opinion, except that what most critics have picked out for praise is one of the things that bothers him about the book, and what excites him about it hardly seems to have been noticed by other reviewers.

Among Others Among Others by Jo Walton
reviewed by Rich Horton
Morwenna is a Welsh girl, with an identical twin named Morganna (also called Mor), and with an involved family history, living in the valleys in South Wales. But some months before, there was a terrible accident and Mor's sister dies, while Mor is sufficiently injured that she still uses a cane and walks with pain. Mor blames her mother for what happened, though somewhat indirectly -- it seems her mother, a somewhat dreadful and rackety woman is also a magic user, and had plans to became a Dark Queen.

   2011
Blackout All Clear Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis
reviewed by Christopher DeFilippis
In Blackout/All Clear, we revisit the mid-21st Century Oxford University time travel program featured in The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, where historians make routine forays into the past in order to study it. For those familiar with the earlier Oxford books, there are some familiar faces, most notably Professor James Dunworthy, who heads the time travel program. But a new group of historians takes center stage.

   2010
The City & The City The City & The City by China Miéville
reviewed by Rich Horton
Beszel and Ul Qoma are two cities that occupy the same geographical space. They are intricately interwoven, such that some areas are "total" -- all one city or the other -- but some are "crosshatched," so that one building might be in Beszel and its neighbor in Ul Qoma. The residents have been trained to "see" and "unsee" their surroundings. Tyador Borlú is an Inspector for Beszel's Extreme Crime Squad. His new case is the murder of a young woman who turns out to be an American graduate student in archaeology with an interest in the theory, generally regarded as crackpot, that there is a third, invisible, city occupying the same area as Beszel and Ul Qoma.

The Windup Girl The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
an audiobook review by Sarah Trowbridge
In the city of Bangkok, in the kingdom of Thailand, sometime in the future, a dizzying array of characters serving a most unlovely tangle of masters and agendas seethe and simmer in a stinking, humid cesspool of misery and failure. This seems to be the final, decaying remnant of human history on planet Earth.

The Windup Girl The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
reviewed by Dan Shade
The Windup Girl takes place in Thailand, in and about Bangkok. Huge retaining walls have been built to keep the sea out. Water is pumped back into the sea with coal driven machines. Petroleum is non-existent. People are starving the world over. The population of the world has been greatly reduced by a virus called cibiscosis which continues to mutate and cause more death. Crops suffer from attack by mutant viruses. In the midst of all this, the Thai people seem to be sitting on a seed bank.

   2009
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

   2008
The Yiddish Policemen's Union The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
an audiobook review by Nicki Gerlach
Meyer Landsman is about as hard-boiled as detectives get. He lives in a cheap flop-house of a hotel, and smokes too much, drinks way too much, and works obsessively -- besides abstractly thinking about suicide, drinking and working are what gets him through his days. He's divorced and estranged from his ex-wife Bina, who is now his superior officer, and he's plagued by family ghosts -- his chess-obsessed suicide of a father, his sister Naomi, a pilot who crashed her Piper Cub into a mountain, the tiny voice of his aborted baby. He's long on bitterness and short on hope, unable to see anything but the bleakest future for himself or his people. Because, unlike your run-of-the-mill depressed and hard-bitten police detective, Landsman is also facing Reversion.

   2007
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

   2006
Spin Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
Since recorded history, human beings have looked to the skies for wonders and inspiration. We have found everything from myths and legends to confirmation of scientific theories in the observations made of space and what it contains. Imagine the implications, for both human understanding and human psychology if one night the sky was taken away.

Spin Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
One summer night the stars abruptly blink out. Three young people are lying on the grass behind the splendid house belonging to the parents of the twins, Jason and Diane Lawton. With them is Tyler Dupree, a year younger, son of the housekeeper to the Lawtons. They react, like the rest of the country, with a variety of emotions, and everyone wonders if the sun will come up.

   2005
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
reviewed by Margo MacDonald
Mr Norrell emerges out of decades of seclusion in his isolated library to prove that English magic has not completely been lost and that he is the sole remaining practical (rather than theoretical) magician. He sets about, in his own pedantic way, to restore English magic and make himself useful to the government in the wars against the French, and so on. It soon becomes evident, however, that he is not the only magician in England. There is another: Jonathan Strange. Norrell takes on Strange as his pupil but refuses, in his paranoid way, to teach him even half of what he knows. Nevertheless, Strange is obviously more naturally talented than Norrell.

   2004
Paladin of Souls Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
reviewed by Sherwood Smith
The Royina Ista, a middle-aged widow, decides to go on pilgrimage through the land of Chalion, which feels a lot like a Renaissance alternate-Spain, one that is overseen from the other-worldly realm by five gods, so there are five religious traditions going on here. On the way, she and the divine leading her entourage discover that demons have been appearing in the world with disturbing frequency, having escaped from the fifth god's hell. The pilgrimage is then waylaid by a lost contingent of Roknari warriors from the neighboring kingdom; she is rescued by a swashbuckling horseman who attacks a troop single-handedly.

   2003
Hominids Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Hard science fiction is easy. Rising above the facts, figures, phenomena, and fancy gadgets to create a story that is so much more is where the true artistry lies. That rarefied air is where you will find this author's novels. Near the top of that even more select list, you will find this one, his latest novel. It's a blend of physics, anthropology, and sociology that snatches up the reader with a sharp hook of a first sentence and just keeps gaining speed.

   2002
American Gods American Gods by Neil Gaiman
reviewed by Lisa DuMond
Where do they go, the monsters of our childhood? After we conjured these boogeymen and solid shadows and beasties under the bed, did we really think they would fade away with our childish fears? Did we expect them to go quietly when we didn't need them anymore? Come to think of it, whoever said we had grown up?

   2001
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Donna is surprised that outraged adults aren't pounding on J.K. Rowling's door. By her fourth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, she has broken most of the unwritten rules of current children's literature. Bad things happen to good people. Adults lie to children and make bad decisions. Life isn't fair or safe. And here's the kicker. People die in Harry Potter books. Even children. Even good, heroic children. Wow.

   2000
A Deepness in the Sky A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
reviewed by Greg L. Johnson
Several thousand years from now, expeditions from two human cultures meet near an astronomical oddity known as the OnOff star. The Qeng Ho are interested in trade, the Emergement in more direct forms of exploitation. Neither group is there just for a chance to study a unique star system.

   1999
To Say Nothing of the Dog To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
reviewed by Thomas Myer
As the plot chases down the streets of Victorian Oxford and down the Thames, our hero collects a gaggle of hilarious characters, trying to set things straight, bungling about as many things as he gets right. In the background of the narrative, the entire time-space continuum is at risk, threatening the end of everything as we know it.

To Say Nothing of the Dog To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
reviewed by Margo MacDonald
Interwoven with humour, wit and unfailing romanticism, this book is a pure pleasure which leaves you feeling as relaxed and satisfied as a picnic on a green lawn by a rolling river on a warm summer's day.

To Say Nothing of the Dog To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
reviewed by Steven H Silver
Steven has enjoyed several Connie Willis short stories or novellas. At longer lengths, he subscribes to the minority opinion that her work is vastly overrated. While sure that To Say Nothing of the Dog will sell well and may even garner Willis another Hugo or Nebula, it is another book supporting his opinion that she should stick with short fiction and stay away from time travel.

   1998
Forever Peace Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
reviewed by Donna McMahon
Julian Class is a "mechanic", a virtual soldier in America's war of 2043. 20 days a month Julian is a professor of mathematics in Houston. The other 10, thanks to his draft board, he's part of a Remote Infantry Combat Unit in Central America. Except that Julian doesn't fight with his own body. He and the other 9 members of his platoon are plugged in via remote neural connection to fighting machines. The mechanics themselves never leave base.

Forever Peace Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
reviewed by Robert Francis
For the longest time, Robert tried to figure out how to tell people that this was a very good book. Then it hit him... Forever Peace has already won the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Award. As much as he hates to admit it, his standing on the rooftops proclaiming the merits of this book would be a bit anticlimactic and unnecessary.

Forever Peace Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
reviewed by Steven H Silver
A new SF novel by the author of The Forever War is an excuse to celebrate, and Steven never misses a good party.

   1997
Blue Mars Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
In the 3rd volume, Mars has been terraformed and is now politically independent. There are canals and shallow seas that are subject to sudden storms and rapid freezes. It is also warmer than ever with plants and animals specifically engineered for life on the planet. Many of the First Hundred have died and the few remaining are like walking mythological figures to the majority of Martian youth. But on Earth there are troubled times. With terminal overpopulation, reduced resources, and the bitter nationalism that these problems create, many Terrans see Mars as a potential escape. Thus the safety of the Martian culture depends on the health of Terran cultures on Earth. And so on Mars a campaign is begun which will aid Earth through this difficult time in its history.

   1996

The Diamond Age The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Stephenson took the SF world by storm when Snowcrash was published. One can only compare its presence in retail to that of Dan Simmons' Hyperion. Shortly thereafter, the buzz began. Can he do it again? Will the sophomore jinx kick in? Will he rise like Gibson did or will he see bleak times like Card did? Well, it's hard to tell until this book is in paperback. What he has written is a truly different novel full of intriguing and goofy technology and the people who use it and abuse it. Some of the technology is already passe. The bulk is to come and, if true, it will change humanity forever. Great characters, neo-victorian stuff for fans, a so-so plot and great movie possibilities. It has everything that should have been in The Difference Engine.

   1995
Mirror Dance Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold
"Not everyone would envy young Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, even though he had formed his own mercenary fleet before attending the naval academy, and even though his mother was the beautiful Cordelia, the ship captain who has taught the Lords of Barrayar much about the perils of sexism. Even the fact that Miles is third in line to the throne and personally owns a major chunk of his home planet would not tempt any normal person to change places with him."

   1994
Green Mars Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Winner of the Hugo Award, in this, the 2nd volume of the trilogy, change is evident. However, not for the best. The dream of a new world is under way, but corrupted. Red Mars is gone, ripped apart by the violent and failed revolution of 2061. The First Hundred have scattered or died, and for the moment their dreams with them. The rebels are underground, dreaming of their utopia.

   1993
A Fire Upon the Deep A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
"Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from super-intelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence."

Doomsday Book Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
"For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the 21st century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin -- barely of age herself -- finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours."

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Copyright © 2005 by Rodger Turner

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