The Hugo Awards should never have been changed to include fantasy. Fantasy should have its own awards and deserves to also. The Nebula Awards are even worse than the Hugos now, unlike back in 20th century.
Agreed, but unfortunately that was only part of the problem. Fantasy have had the WFA since the 1970s, but to be honest, they're in just a bad a state nowadays as the Hugo and Nebula! If you ask me there has been a common factor in all of their demise.
Get the five ppl in this thread to agree on a delineation and I'll agree with you lol. Examples to fight over: book of the new sun, inversions, viriconium, star wars
The Hugo Awards seem to have discredited themselves in recent years to the extent that they have become anti-recommendations. I've been surprised that the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, although unconventional, has been completely off the radar for some sort of nomination for some award. It's impressive universe building.
Because it is considered LitRPG which is not taken seriously by the major awards. Similar to the way SciFi/Fantasy is not taken seriously by those that vote on the Oscars.
I’ve been reading SF since my first book “Space Cat” circa 1953. I think you have an excellent take on what should be winning. I find I have read all your choices and have passed on all the winners. This tells me I am no longer using the Hugo as a guide for what my next book should be.
Another great video, with the bonus of mentioning a few books I haven't read and feel I should. I don't think John Scalzi's Old man's War books deserve a Hugo; too light weight and Heinleinesque. However the The Collapsing Empire trilogy is stupendous. His writing has matured and the world building and plot superb. And now the elephant in the room. Iain M Banks never won a Hugo. I think Player of Games, Matter and the Hydrogen sonata all deserve them. And as for Use of Weapons, it's just blasphemous that this magnum opus didn't get the Hugo.
@@Clonetropper005 Sci-Fi Odyssey thought Old Man’s War should have won over Spin, but I love Spin and think it deserved its Hugo Award. But otherwise I agreed with all of his picks.
Agree - Illium. Without a doubt. I've read the Hyperion Cantos and Illium/Olympus both a couple of times, and I like Illium more. Agree - Seveneves. Easily the best book I read last year (not the Hugo year, but the year I read it). Qualified Disagree - Blindsight. I know it's a darling on BookTube and intellectually I can see it. But I found it impenetrable and unenjoyable. Disagree - Project Hail Mary. I DNF'd it. I found our hero insufferably cheeky. Basically the character from The Martian in a different setting. Which is fine, I enjoyed him in The Martian. But tired of him quickly in PHM. Did any of the Expanse novels ever win? Since the Hugo is awarded by industry folk AND readers, and since it was such a great series for all the reasons you list, I don't understand it not being awarded.
I think it's been over 20 years since I've read them, but I think Ilium and Olympos are even better than the Hyperion cantos, mainly because it was a lot tighter both story and prose wise and I also have a weak spot for the Greek myths. Although thinking back now I do seem to remember a lot more cool stuff from Hyperion than from Ilium 😄
I liked them a lot more, but that probably had more to do with my love of all the ancient Greek literature, plays and mythology I could get my hands on since childhood, than it did any objective analysis of the two series.
starting about ten years ago the Hugo’s started mainly ignoring male writers, for political reasons. Count the male nominees every year … its a tiny vanishing list. Race and sexual preference also play a HUGE role. why did NK Jemisin always win? Women and writers who are not white of course should be honored when they deserve it and both are more represented in sci fi than before 2000z. that’s all good. but its obvious the voting has been politically motivated. The Hugos are another institution taken over by an organized political ideological movement. What a shame.
Yes, they actually perform a disservice to authors of the identities they claim to champion by conditioning a lot of genre fans to doubt the merit of those same identities' writing abilities.
In 1983, I would have gone with Donald Kingsbury’s “Courtship Rite” over “Foundation’s Edge”. It has one of the most “alien” civilizations I’ve seen written - only in inhabited by humans and a central mystery of how did this world come into being. So well done.
10. Children of Dune 9. Ilium 8. Old Man's War 7. Blindsight 6. Anathem 5. Leviathan Wakes 4. Seveneves 3. Death's End 2. The Collapsing Empire 1. Project Hail Mary
Totally agree about Blindsight and Death's End. I DNF'd Jemisin's The Fifth Season with extreme disappointment. As with any award, personal judgement need not agree with the determining body's vote. We do well to remember that the Academy Awards are a systematic marketing ploy for the film industry in general. Likewise the Hugos for sf.
Great list, and almost completely agree! Only thought was around Project Hail Mary. Absolutely loved it, but the roadblocks that kept being thrown at our hero(s) seem so contrived that it felt as if the author just sat down and made a list of what could go wrong and jammed everything possible in a really sloppy and predictable fashion. Of course you need stuff to go wrong to have challenges driving the story, but these just seemed too simple and sequential - like trying to hit a number of chapters needed as the main driver then reverse engineering in a set number of hurdles hoping the reader just goes with it. Towards the end, I kept thinking 'I bet this happens next', and sure enough, it does. That was the only one I thought from your list was not truly Hugo worthy. Great list!!!!!
Like a lot of other things around the same time, it became extremely overly politicized, and rushed decades of long-built prestige, recognition and profit right over the proverbial cliff.
Terrific video! I had exactly 30 minutes in a bookstore for the first time in four years. Ah, buy some science fiction. Asked the staff who won some Hugos? Otherwise relied on blurbs, since they didn't have new books by favourite authors. Ended up with the Fifth Season, which I enjoyed, but it wasn't prize winning. By mail order I bought the Three Body Problem, which I felt even more negative about (the games). So I will take your advice, as I will soon be visiting an English speaking city for the first time in two years. As for Dune, I really enjoyed it back in the day, but just assumed Herbert was cashing in with sequels, so ignored them for the Silverberg and Aldiss books then.
What a great idea for a show. Sometimes we need to kill the sacred cows. I just had a look at my library and apart from Ilium by Dan Simmons which has been on my TBR pile for far too long, I agree with all but one of your choices. I don't think Old Man's War is better than Spin. I really like John Scalzi's work and 100% agree with your rating of The Collapsing Empire. A great series and contained one of the funniest, foul mouthed characters I have ever read. Apart from that one book and Ilium (I'm so ashamed I haven't got around to it as I loved the Hyperion Cantos so much) you were spot on with the 8 other books. However, not one Iain M. Banks book winning a Hugo is a damning indictment of the entire Award in my opinion! You have got me thinking of some of the other books on the Hugo list that I thought were a waste of time and there must be better books they could have picked: Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre in 1979 immediately came to mind. To say nothing of the Dog by Commie Willis in 1999 was not great and not a patch on the 1993 Doomsday Book or Blackout in 2011. Don't get me started on the 2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which should have gone to Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds 2023 Nettle and Bone - what the hell! You have really got me thinking. Great channel and keep up the good work.
Well done. Can’t argue with any of your alternative choices. I’ve read every one you mention, and share a lot of the excitement you express at their myriad virtues.
For better or worse the Hugo’s have gone through a self-correction in the 21st century to ensure they include minority voices. I think this have played a big part in the selection of books (and many awards) in the awards areas. This is not a criticism, it is an observation. Of the books on your list that I have read, I agree they are wonderful books. Ilium was a fantastical book that I truly enjoyed. I have added a couple that were not on my radar, so thanks for the recommendations.
The problem with that self-correction, though, imo, is that in came in the age of social media, specifically an earlier age of social media in which it's users were less savvy of it's tendencies to polarize and isolate, and the obvious ways that could exacerbate things into a Good Intentions Paving Company takeover situation.
Love Blindsight. Hard read but if you can hang in until the ending it will stay with you. Also, Echopraxia is a good sequel but the ideas seemed more inchoate compared to Blindsight.
I can get on board with most of these choices but I thought Project Hail Mary was pretty bad. Sophomoric humor, weak attempts try and make the reader think the outlandish story is hard sci-fi, and an absolutely beyond Hollywood ending that had me rolling my eyes. I haven't read an ending that corny since The Girl With All The Gifts (it's basically the same ending). I guess it was meant to be "fun"?
I'm not sure why I didn't know Simmons' Ilium and Olympos were sci-fi, but I'm now going to read them as soon as I finish Banks' Inversions. The Hyperion Cantos is still one of my favorites and I probably read that over twenty years ago.
Thanks for the list! I look forward to reading a few that I've missed. Though I'm a fan of Neal Stephenson, I find him uneven. I love Anathem, which as you said appeals at many levels. But I think Seveneves is one of his weaker works. I find the conflicts contrived and unsatisfying. One of my favorites is Termination Shock, which didn't even garner a Hugo nomination. While not as ambitious as Anathem, it's a great story with complex interlocking arcs, peopled with vividly, lovingly drawn characters.
I agree with your take on Neal Stephenson. I think Anathem is one of the best books I have ever read in any genre, while thought Seveneves was simply tedious and boring.
I read both Spin and OMW and have no problem with either books winning. Both were more than worthy but Spin stayed with me more than OMW did these many years later. I'm 69, if that makes any difference.
Jack Vance, all Magnus Ridolph stories. And I guess technically (some of) the Stainless Steel Rat stories by Harry Harrison could also be called a detective.
I liked Reamde as well, His other more recent books, well, I can't finish them. I did finish Termination Shock, but it wasn't all that captivating to me. YMMV
I take no notice of award winners for the reasons you expressed in your video. The majority of my favorite SF reads have come from books that have not won any major awards - & it does seem strange to include fantasy in the Hugo awards..... It is also strange that there is an apparent reluctance to consider high-concept, visionary (or awe-inspiring) SF for these awards - isn't that the reason we all started to read SF in the first place? & yet the too easy allegorical stories - that have a very low SF feel to them - seem to dominate. I'm a fan of Simmons, but I haven't read Illium, or Olympos, as yet. I haven't read Neal Stephenson, Joe Scalzi, or the Blindsight book as yet either - looks like I've got some ground to make up. & after reading a sample of M.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, I won't be proceeding with her The Broken Earth trilogy - despite the fact that every volume in the series won a Hugo - it doesn't give me what I'm looking for in SF.
I have to agree with you Daryl The Hugo winners (and nominations) also the Nebula Awards were always the go to for top quality SF through the 60's, 70's, 80's but recently with pure fantasy books winning they have lost a lot of integrity and credibility. The fantasy books themselves are all great books but they are not Science Fiction, I really struggle to understand the position of the SFWOA for doing this. In fact I am really saddened. One factor of course is that the writers and readership has altered dramatically in the last 20years. Science Fiction in the 60's was the domain of Male scientists (with notable exceptions like Ursula K Le Guin) and male teenagers and now the award winners are dominated by female writers, in fact the last 6 years all the winners of best Novel were female! All science fiction though and very good books apart from one fantasy novel. HUGO's 2019 - 2024 SCIENCE FICTION: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (2024) F FANTASY: Nettle & Bone by Ursula Vernon (2023) F SCIENCE FICTION: A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine (2022) F SCIENCE FICTION: Network Effect, Martha Wells (2021) F SCIENC E FICTION: A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (2020) F SCIENCE FICTION: The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (2019) F
Wonderful video! I agree, especially on Death's End. I told my ophthalmologist,who loves Dune (had to show me a pic of his Dune bookshelf) that he need to try the Three-Body Problem trilogy because I think he would enjoy the hard science in it (I love these books and Dune). I also agree with your pick of John Scalzi - Old Man's War was a great surprise to me when I read it, and also Seveneves (unique).
I want to say lots of sources expected Seveneves to win against The Fifth Season. Yeah, it's a heady scifi epic. The Fifth Season has it's own narrative tricks to portray it's own weird scifi (yes, scifi, not fantasy) complexities. Plenty of things on the list I don't agree with, several that I do. Keep up the fine content.
I like your channel, and think this is a great topic which solidifies your taste for me. That said, I disagree with all of your choices and criteria except for Anathem, even on the award-winners we agree upon not being our favorite choice. Keep voting!
I don't find the big idea in blindsight particularly impressive. It's basically describing AI, like the computer in Star Trek. That's intelligent but not conscious or sentient. Because the idea is with biological lifeforms instead of machines it somehow becomes fascinating? Not really in my view
I was not impressed with it either. I technically DNF'd but went the read up on its ending and was like "Given who I see loving this book, I guess they'd find that amazing but I really do not" I know I sound like an asshole but the novel starts off with lumping psychopaths in with "high-functioning" autistics (a label that was in vogue when the novel was written and now is not used for good reasons, but even then we autistics said it was a bad and incorrect label) and tries to make that BS into a genetic science, which is just not hard SF in my book at all and that told me everything I needed to know about Watts. The book just got progressively more annoying from there until it was just not worth it for me.
I disagree with you wholeheartedly about Stephenson's Seveneves. N. K. Jemisin's Fifth Season is absolutely the better book and it is science fiction in the guise of fantasy. Seveneves was poorly paced overwritten mess, with many interesting ideas to be sure, but quite boring and with no real characters to speak of.
The Hugo is often awarded between an entertaining novel and an imaginative one that is a more difficult read but much more rewarding to the reader. Seveneves, while very entertaining, does not match the imagination of 'The Fifth Season'. As a side note, N.K. Jemisin's imagination is so powerful and interesting. 'The City We Became' is an interesting mix of sci-fi, fantasy and everything else I think of to this day. The same with 'Project Hail Mary' and 'A Desolation Called Peace' - both excellent novels but while '...Mary' is both excellent and entertaining 'A Desolation....' simply shines with its storytelling and, again, imagination. A common theme for the 'popular' sci-fi novels that lost the Hugo is that their prose is lacking.
@@toms5996 Good point about "A Desolation Called Peace" - I greatly enjoyed both books but "The Project Hail Mary" didn't really do anything particularly new that haven't been done before (just off the top of my head Weir's own "The Martian" or Clark's "Rendezvous with Rama"). And while Weir's book has perfectly serviceable prose and a good strong protagonist voice, it's nothing particularly special either.
@@arsenikritchever501 Agree completely. Weir's books are serviceable but don't offer anything new. Entertaining is the word again. Which is why Weir lost to Arkady Martine.
Totally agree. It's like the hugo awards were sacrificed for the sake of wokeness (I would say) in these specific cases you described, from my understanding.
@@kablamo9999 I didn't say he said it. That's my understanding (opinion) from reading the aforementioned hugo winning books. I just agree that the other books deserved it more.
I've heard so much about the Cixin Lui "Three Body Problem" trilogy but the protagonist is, I believe, a teenage girl. I cannot abide "Young Adult" or Teen" oriented SF at all so I am loath to spend money on it (3 Body). Can anyone here give me an honest review?
Many of the instances you mention are replacing books written by women by male authors, and you also seem to have a bias towards witty space opera. It could just be coincidental (I haven't read many of these books to say for sure based on writing quality), but it raised my eyebrows, and could be a case of unconscious bias. One book I have read was Project Hail Mary (or rather, listened to the fantastic audiobook), but while it's a rollicking story, I'm not sure it's particularly groundbreaking in any way or a literary masterpiece. I always assumed the Hugo awards were reserved for literary merit, and not necessarily cultural impact. I would have liked to have heard more about why the winners didn't deserve to win.
i have read both desolation called peace and hail mary and hail mary is just more interesting as a book and exploring scifi concepts including communication with aliens. Desolation called peace main thing it's exploring doesn't really get explored that much. In the first half it set up a lot but in the end it didn't do much with it.
Thank you for bringing this up. This video was in my recommendations and it sounded interesting so I watched it. However, as I watched it I couldn’t help but notice how many on his list were women nominees beating male nominees. He didn’t have a single example of the reverse. I know he has no control over the content of the comments here, but there are several complaining about “identity politics” and “wokeness”. I really hope it wasn’t his intent so a clarification would be helpful.
Ive got a few disagreements to be honest. I think Jemisin really deserved those 3 wins. Those SciFantasy books are fucking incredible and so imaginative, new and refreshing. Also, I disagree about Blindsight. Its great, however the sequel/companion novel Echopraxia is better if you ask me. Seveneves is incredible! Anathem, not so much. I want to like it so badly but I just cannot get into it. Ive tried like 6 times lol. However, many of my fav books have taken me multiple attempts to get into, so maybe Ill finish Anathem one day. But speaking of books taking multiple attempts, that brings me to a book thats criminally underrated and deserves a Hugo imo: Gnomom by Nick Harkaway. Took me 5 tries over multiple years to get into it. I kept giving up in the first Konstantin chapter cause I just didnt get it at all. But once i finally got into it, I binged it and it quickly became an all time fav. Its extremely PoMo. Near future Panopticon UK is run by an all seeing AI called The Witness. People have traded their privacy for safety and convenience. A political dissident named Diana Hunter is taken in for interrogation where her mind is hooked up to this extremely safe, and totally unbeatable machine that reads neural activity and lets interrogators view your thoughts. Despite being super safe and unbeatable, Diana promptly beats the machine and dies. An Inspector for the Witness named Neith is tasked with investigating the death, and to do so she downloads Dianas memories of the interrogation into her own mind. She investigates by day, and then relives Diana's memories by night in her sleep. Except Diana's memories aren't of Diana's life. Instead, Diana remembers being an ancient Carthaginian alchemist trying to bring Scipio back from the dead, she remembers being a greek banker who notices strange patterns in the stock market and has a religious experience with a shark, she remembers being an Ethiopian artist tasked with designing a revolutionary new video game, and she remembers being an eldritch entity from the end of time itself. Its wild. But as the story progresses you see how all these stories combine together in the CRAZIEST WAY IMAGINABLE and the conclusion of the book is really mindblowing. But you really gotta get through that first greek banker chapter lmao. It was what tripped me up every time. Cause I was intrigued by the Diana and Neith stuff, but then didnt care about Konstantin, and didnt yet realize his role or how he was in any way connected to the story. The book is likely not gonna be for everyone. But if you like it, you'll probably love it. Worth giving a try.
Never understood the love for the Cixin Liu books. Somewhat idiotic ideas and at some point it's more plothole than story. Maybe it's more about the experience/atmosphere than the story in which case it definitely just failed to do it for me.
Absolutely Disagree that Herbert should have won the Hugo. Anatham was excellent but complicated; Was it better than Gaiman's Graveyard? maybe. A Desolation Called Peace absolutely deserved the Hugo.
Graveyard wasn't even scifi tbh. If that's how we're defining it now, Stephen King should have multiple Hugos by now. Anathem on the other hand is an actual landmark of science fiction - the sheer ambition and his success in actually pulling it off demanded recognition.
Do you take requests? Would love you to cover a little known pulp cyberpunk book called Farewell Horizontal by K W Jeter. It kinda inspired the game Beneath a Steel Sky. Takes place in a world where people live on the side of a giant tower. Never got an audiobook release. Could use some love and critique
![The 15 Best Sci-Fi Books I've Ever Read [Updated Again]](/img/n.gif)
Thanks to @subraxas for inspiring the topic for this video. I love getting content suggestions from you guys.
@subraxas. Thanks a great idea.
I'm still baffled how The Use of Weapons wasn't even nominated. To me it's both a genre and a literary masterpiece.
Yeah, it's a shame Banks didn't get more recognition. Use of Weapons was excellent.
The Hugo Awards should never have been changed to include fantasy. Fantasy should have its own awards and deserves to also. The Nebula Awards are even worse than the Hugos now, unlike back in 20th century.
Well, there should be clearer limits, i.e. Science fantasy, yes, pure fantasy no.
Totally agree!
Agreed. They are two quite different things when it comes to my personal tastes.
Agreed, but unfortunately that was only part of the problem. Fantasy have had the WFA since the 1970s, but to be honest, they're in just a bad a state nowadays as the Hugo and Nebula! If you ask me there has been a common factor in all of their demise.
Get the five ppl in this thread to agree on a delineation and I'll agree with you lol. Examples to fight over: book of the new sun, inversions, viriconium, star wars
The Hugo Awards seem to have discredited themselves in recent years to the extent that they have become anti-recommendations.
I've been surprised that the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, although unconventional, has been completely off the radar for some sort of nomination for some award. It's impressive universe building.
Because it is considered LitRPG which is not taken seriously by the major awards. Similar to the way SciFi/Fantasy is not taken seriously by those that vote on the Oscars.
Illium definitely deserved that spot in the Hugo Awards. As did Olympos.
I’ve been reading SF since my first book “Space Cat” circa 1953. I think you have an excellent take on what should be winning. I find I have read all your choices and have passed on all the winners. This tells me I am no longer using the Hugo as a guide for what my next book should be.
Another great video, with the bonus of mentioning a few books I haven't read and feel I should. I don't think John Scalzi's Old man's War books deserve a Hugo; too light weight and Heinleinesque. However the The Collapsing Empire trilogy is stupendous. His writing has matured and the world building and plot superb. And now the elephant in the room. Iain M Banks never won a Hugo. I think Player of Games, Matter and the Hydrogen sonata all deserve them. And as for Use of Weapons, it's just blasphemous that this magnum opus didn't get the Hugo.
There seems to be a bias towards American books. This is especially notable with modern Nebula Awards.
I recently read The Culture series and for me it's nothing special, it's aged terribly in many ways and the books are far from dense.
I agreed with 6 of your picks, haven’t read 3 of them, and disagreed with just 1. I liked Old Man’s War but Spin was awesome!
disagreed with?
@@Clonetropper005 Sci-Fi Odyssey thought Old Man’s War should have won over Spin, but I love Spin and think it deserved its Hugo Award. But otherwise I agreed with all of his picks.
Agree - Illium. Without a doubt. I've read the Hyperion Cantos and Illium/Olympus both a couple of times, and I like Illium more.
Agree - Seveneves. Easily the best book I read last year (not the Hugo year, but the year I read it).
Qualified Disagree - Blindsight. I know it's a darling on BookTube and intellectually I can see it. But I found it impenetrable and unenjoyable.
Disagree - Project Hail Mary. I DNF'd it. I found our hero insufferably cheeky. Basically the character from The Martian in a different setting. Which is fine, I enjoyed him in The Martian. But tired of him quickly in PHM.
Did any of the Expanse novels ever win? Since the Hugo is awarded by industry folk AND readers, and since it was such a great series for all the reasons you list, I don't understand it not being awarded.
The first expanse novel was nominated. The whole series won the Hugo in 2020.
I think it's been over 20 years since I've read them, but I think Ilium and Olympos are even better than the Hyperion cantos, mainly because it was a lot tighter both story and prose wise and I also have a weak spot for the Greek myths. Although thinking back now I do seem to remember a lot more cool stuff from Hyperion than from Ilium 😄
I liked them a lot more, but that probably had more to do with my love of all the ancient Greek literature, plays and mythology I could get my hands on since childhood, than it did any objective analysis of the two series.
Awesome - they are so going on my to read list
starting about ten years ago the Hugo’s started mainly ignoring male writers, for political reasons. Count the male nominees every year … its a tiny vanishing list. Race and sexual preference also play a HUGE role. why did NK Jemisin always win? Women and writers who are not white of course should be honored when they deserve it and both are more represented in sci fi than before 2000z. that’s all good. but its obvious the voting has been politically motivated. The Hugos are another institution taken over by an organized political ideological movement. What a shame.
Yes, they actually perform a disservice to authors of the identities they claim to champion by conditioning a lot of genre fans to doubt the merit of those same identities' writing abilities.
Don't you mean once prestigious? They've been irrelevant and a clique fest, or worse, for more than the last decade at least!
NK only won Hugo's for one reason, and it wasn't for best writing.
Good list. All of the books on your list that I have read were fantastic.
In 1983, I would have gone with Donald Kingsbury’s “Courtship Rite” over “Foundation’s Edge”. It has one of the most “alien” civilizations I’ve seen written - only in inhabited by humans and a central mystery of how did this world come into being. So well done.
Loved both books. Read them twice. Will probably read Courtship Rite again.
10. Children of Dune
9. Ilium
8. Old Man's War
7. Blindsight
6. Anathem
5. Leviathan Wakes
4. Seveneves
3. Death's End
2. The Collapsing Empire
1. Project Hail Mary
Totally agree about Blindsight and Death's End. I DNF'd Jemisin's The Fifth Season with extreme disappointment. As with any award, personal judgement need not agree with the determining body's vote. We do well to remember that the Academy Awards are a systematic marketing ploy for the film industry in general. Likewise the Hugos for sf.
Great list, and almost completely agree! Only thought was around Project Hail Mary. Absolutely loved it, but the roadblocks that kept being thrown at our hero(s) seem so contrived that it felt as if the author just sat down and made a list of what could go wrong and jammed everything possible in a really sloppy and predictable fashion. Of course you need stuff to go wrong to have challenges driving the story, but these just seemed too simple and sequential - like trying to hit a number of chapters needed as the main driver then reverse engineering in a set number of hurdles hoping the reader just goes with it. Towards the end, I kept thinking 'I bet this happens next', and sure enough, it does. That was the only one I thought from your list was not truly Hugo worthy. Great list!!!!!
Could not agree more! Great list!
Sometimes I'm totally puzzled as to why some books got an award in the first place.
Like a lot of other things around the same time, it became extremely overly politicized, and rushed decades of long-built prestige, recognition and profit right over the proverbial cliff.
The Hugo's, that is.
Terrific video! I had exactly 30 minutes in a bookstore for the first time in four years. Ah, buy some science fiction. Asked the staff who won some Hugos? Otherwise relied on blurbs, since they didn't have new books by favourite authors. Ended up with the Fifth Season, which I enjoyed, but it wasn't prize winning. By mail order I bought the Three Body Problem, which I felt even more negative about (the games). So I will take your advice, as I will soon be visiting an English speaking city for the first time in two years. As for Dune, I really enjoyed it back in the day, but just assumed Herbert was cashing in with sequels, so ignored them for the Silverberg and Aldiss books then.
His son is cashing in on sequels but Herbert was not.
What a great idea for a show. Sometimes we need to kill the sacred cows.
I just had a look at my library and apart from Ilium by Dan Simmons which has been on my TBR pile for far too long, I agree with all but one of your choices. I don't think Old Man's War is better than Spin. I really like John Scalzi's work and 100% agree with your rating of The Collapsing Empire. A great series and contained one of the funniest, foul mouthed characters I have ever read. Apart from that one book and Ilium (I'm so ashamed I haven't got around to it as I loved the Hyperion Cantos so much) you were spot on with the 8 other books.
However, not one Iain M. Banks book winning a Hugo is a damning indictment of the entire Award in my opinion!
You have got me thinking of some of the other books on the Hugo list that I thought were a waste of time and there must be better books they could have picked:
Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre in 1979 immediately came to mind.
To say nothing of the Dog by Commie Willis in 1999 was not great and not a patch on the 1993 Doomsday Book or Blackout in 2011.
Don't get me started on the 2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which should have gone to Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
2023 Nettle and Bone - what the hell!
You have really got me thinking. Great channel and keep up the good work.
What a great list and I agree wholeheartedly! Especially Hail Mary - such a great change from the bleak SF has gotten stuck on.
Brilliant list, you are absolutely right on both accounts regarding Neal Stephenson!!!
The Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, one of my all time favorites. Alistair Reynolds Revelation Space series.
Well done. Can’t argue with any of your alternative choices. I’ve read every one you mention, and share a lot of the excitement you express at their myriad virtues.
For better or worse the Hugo’s have gone through a self-correction in the 21st century to ensure they include minority voices. I think this have played a big part in the selection of books (and many awards) in the awards areas. This is not a criticism, it is an observation. Of the books on your list that I have read, I agree they are wonderful books. Ilium was a fantastical book that I truly enjoyed. I have added a couple that were not on my radar, so thanks for the recommendations.
The problem with that self-correction, though, imo, is that in came in the age of social media, specifically an earlier age of social media in which it's users were less savvy of it's tendencies to polarize and isolate, and the obvious ways that could exacerbate things into a Good Intentions Paving Company takeover situation.
Love Blindsight. Hard read but if you can hang in until the ending it will stay with you. Also, Echopraxia is a good sequel but the ideas seemed more inchoate compared to Blindsight.
Thanks Darrel! I usually try to pick my next read based on winners of the Hugo Awards, but I respect your opinion too.
I can get on board with most of these choices but I thought Project Hail Mary was pretty bad. Sophomoric humor, weak attempts try and make the reader think the outlandish story is hard sci-fi, and an absolutely beyond Hollywood ending that had me rolling my eyes. I haven't read an ending that corny since The Girl With All The Gifts (it's basically the same ending). I guess it was meant to be "fun"?
I'm not sure why I didn't know Simmons' Ilium and Olympos were sci-fi, but I'm now going to read them as soon as I finish Banks' Inversions. The Hyperion Cantos is still one of my favorites and I probably read that over twenty years ago.
Weather I agree with your picks or not these seem like great books to put on my Library list to read. Thanks
Thanks for the list! I look forward to reading a few that I've missed. Though I'm a fan of Neal Stephenson, I find him uneven. I love Anathem, which as you said appeals at many levels. But I think Seveneves is one of his weaker works. I find the conflicts contrived and unsatisfying. One of my favorites is Termination Shock, which didn't even garner a Hugo nomination. While not as ambitious as Anathem, it's a great story with complex interlocking arcs, peopled with vividly, lovingly drawn characters.
I agree with your take on Neal Stephenson. I think Anathem is one of the best books I have ever read in any genre, while thought Seveneves was simply tedious and boring.
great topic and video. thank you.
Thanks for that! I agree with your choices, and I feel fortunate to have read almost all the books you suggested should have won.
I read both Spin and OMW and have no problem with either books winning. Both were more than worthy but Spin stayed with me more than OMW did these many years later. I'm 69, if that makes any difference.
its seems the award has been corrupted by insiders.
Damn I loved your list ✍️
Can you make a sci fi detective list? Please 🙏🙏🙏🙏
The Demolished Man, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Prefect Dreyfus. Now can a non-boomer fill in the rest !
Miro Hetzel, Effectuator by Jack Vance, and The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez.
Jack Vance, all Magnus Ridolph stories.
And I guess technically (some of) the Stainless Steel Rat stories by Harry Harrison could also be called a detective.
Ilium and Olympus are some of my favourite sci fi
Anathem is my most favourite read of the last 25 years. Incredible
I liked Reamde as well, His other more recent books, well, I can't finish them. I did finish Termination Shock, but it wasn't all that captivating to me. YMMV
Good list.
I take no notice of award winners for the reasons you expressed in your video. The majority of my favorite SF reads have come from books that have not won any major awards - & it does seem strange to include fantasy in the Hugo awards.....
It is also strange that there is an apparent reluctance to consider high-concept, visionary (or awe-inspiring) SF for these awards - isn't that the reason we all started to read SF in the first place? & yet the too easy allegorical stories - that have a very low SF feel to them - seem to dominate.
I'm a fan of Simmons, but I haven't read Illium, or Olympos, as yet. I haven't read Neal Stephenson, Joe Scalzi, or the Blindsight book as yet either - looks like I've got some ground to make up.
& after reading a sample of M.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, I won't be proceeding with her The Broken Earth trilogy - despite the fact that every volume in the series won a Hugo - it doesn't give me what I'm looking for in SF.
Paladin of Souls won because The Curse of Chalion should have won the year before.
I loved Hail Mary
heartily agree.
I have to agree with you Daryl The Hugo winners (and nominations) also the Nebula Awards were always the go to for top quality SF through the 60's, 70's, 80's but recently with pure fantasy books winning they have lost a lot of integrity and credibility. The fantasy books themselves are all great books but they are not Science Fiction, I really struggle to understand the position of the SFWOA for doing this. In fact I am really saddened. One factor of course is that the writers and readership has altered dramatically in the last 20years. Science Fiction in the 60's was the domain of Male scientists (with notable exceptions like Ursula K Le Guin) and male teenagers and now the award winners are dominated by female writers, in fact the last 6 years all the winners of best Novel were female! All science fiction though and very good books apart from one fantasy novel.
HUGO's 2019 - 2024
SCIENCE FICTION: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (2024) F
FANTASY: Nettle & Bone by Ursula Vernon (2023) F
SCIENCE FICTION: A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine (2022) F
SCIENCE FICTION: Network Effect, Martha Wells (2021) F
SCIENC E FICTION: A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (2020) F
SCIENCE FICTION: The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (2019) F
What's funny is I dont see anyone recommending any of the books you named. It's just a political award.
Whenever I hear "quantum physics" I think - that's what killed sci-fi.
Wonderful video! I agree, especially on Death's End. I told my ophthalmologist,who loves Dune (had to show me a pic of his Dune bookshelf) that he need to try the Three-Body Problem trilogy because I think he would enjoy the hard science in it (I love these books and Dune). I also agree with your pick of John Scalzi - Old Man's War was a great surprise to me when I read it, and also Seveneves (unique).
Hm... i read all of your picks but none of the actual winners. What does that say?
Old mans War was good, but that 4th book killed the series for me.
I want to say lots of sources expected Seveneves to win against The Fifth Season. Yeah, it's a heady scifi epic. The Fifth Season has it's own narrative tricks to portray it's own weird scifi (yes, scifi, not fantasy) complexities. Plenty of things on the list I don't agree with, several that I do. Keep up the fine content.
I like your channel, and think this is a great topic which solidifies your taste for me.
That said, I disagree with all of your choices and criteria except for Anathem, even on the award-winners we agree upon not being our favorite choice.
Keep voting!
The Hugo awards, like everything else, have been infested by identity politics. I ignore them.
Perfect
Blindsight is tiring to read and frankly stupid; Seveneves starts with terrific premise than goes with any sense of plausability off the rails.
I don't find the big idea in blindsight particularly impressive. It's basically describing AI, like the computer in Star Trek. That's intelligent but not conscious or sentient. Because the idea is with biological lifeforms instead of machines it somehow becomes fascinating? Not really in my view
@@John-tc9gp I finally got around to Blindsight this year, and yes, I thought it was overrated also.
I was not impressed with it either. I technically DNF'd but went the read up on its ending and was like "Given who I see loving this book, I guess they'd find that amazing but I really do not" I know I sound like an asshole but the novel starts off with lumping psychopaths in with "high-functioning" autistics (a label that was in vogue when the novel was written and now is not used for good reasons, but even then we autistics said it was a bad and incorrect label) and tries to make that BS into a genetic science, which is just not hard SF in my book at all and that told me everything I needed to know about Watts. The book just got progressively more annoying from there until it was just not worth it for me.
I disagree with you wholeheartedly about Stephenson's Seveneves. N. K. Jemisin's Fifth Season is absolutely the better book and it is science fiction in the guise of fantasy. Seveneves was poorly paced overwritten mess, with many interesting ideas to be sure, but quite boring and with no real characters to speak of.
The Hugo is often awarded between an entertaining novel and an imaginative one that is a more difficult read but much more rewarding to the reader.
Seveneves, while very entertaining, does not match the imagination of 'The Fifth Season'. As a side note, N.K. Jemisin's imagination is so powerful and interesting. 'The City We Became' is an interesting mix of sci-fi, fantasy and everything else I think of to this day.
The same with 'Project Hail Mary' and 'A Desolation Called Peace' - both excellent novels but while '...Mary' is both excellent and entertaining 'A Desolation....' simply shines with its storytelling and, again, imagination.
A common theme for the 'popular' sci-fi novels that lost the Hugo is that their prose is lacking.
@@toms5996 Good point about "A Desolation Called Peace" - I greatly enjoyed both books but "The Project Hail Mary" didn't really do anything particularly new that haven't been done before (just off the top of my head Weir's own "The Martian" or Clark's "Rendezvous with Rama"). And while Weir's book has perfectly serviceable prose and a good strong protagonist voice, it's nothing particularly special either.
@@arsenikritchever501 Agree completely. Weir's books are serviceable but don't offer anything new. Entertaining is the word again. Which is why Weir lost to Arkady Martine.
Strongly disagree with this assessment of Seveneves, but the fact that Anathem didn't win is the bigger injustice imo.
Totally agree. It's like the hugo awards were sacrificed for the sake of wokeness (I would say) in these specific cases you described, from my understanding.
I'm not sure he said anything about "wokeness" (lots of people don't even know what it means)
@@kablamo9999 I didn't say he said it. That's my understanding (opinion) from reading the aforementioned hugo winning books. I just agree that the other books deserved it more.
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I've heard so much about the Cixin Lui "Three Body Problem" trilogy but the protagonist is, I believe, a teenage girl. I cannot abide "Young Adult" or Teen" oriented SF at all so I am loath to spend money on it (3 Body). Can anyone here give me an honest review?
It's definitely not Young Adult or Teen oriented. It's dark Hard Sci-fi more than anything else.
Many of the instances you mention are replacing books written by women by male authors, and you also seem to have a bias towards witty space opera. It could just be coincidental (I haven't read many of these books to say for sure based on writing quality), but it raised my eyebrows, and could be a case of unconscious bias.
One book I have read was Project Hail Mary (or rather, listened to the fantastic audiobook), but while it's a rollicking story, I'm not sure it's particularly groundbreaking in any way or a literary masterpiece. I always assumed the Hugo awards were reserved for literary merit, and not necessarily cultural impact.
I would have liked to have heard more about why the winners didn't deserve to win.
i have read both desolation called peace and hail mary and hail mary is just more interesting as a book and exploring scifi concepts including communication with aliens. Desolation called peace main thing it's exploring doesn't really get explored that much. In the first half it set up a lot but in the end it didn't do much with it.
It just that there are less hardcore SF female writers. In the past we had C J Cherryh (who won 2 hugos). Not anymore
Thank you for bringing this up. This video was in my recommendations and it sounded interesting so I watched it. However, as I watched it I couldn’t help but notice how many on his list were women nominees beating male nominees. He didn’t have a single example of the reverse. I know he has no control over the content of the comments here, but there are several complaining about “identity politics” and “wokeness”. I really hope it wasn’t his intent so a clarification would be helpful.
Ive got a few disagreements to be honest. I think Jemisin really deserved those 3 wins. Those SciFantasy books are fucking incredible and so imaginative, new and refreshing.
Also, I disagree about Blindsight. Its great, however the sequel/companion novel Echopraxia is better if you ask me.
Seveneves is incredible! Anathem, not so much. I want to like it so badly but I just cannot get into it. Ive tried like 6 times lol.
However, many of my fav books have taken me multiple attempts to get into, so maybe Ill finish Anathem one day. But speaking of books taking multiple attempts, that brings me to a book thats criminally underrated and deserves a Hugo imo: Gnomom by Nick Harkaway. Took me 5 tries over multiple years to get into it. I kept giving up in the first Konstantin chapter cause I just didnt get it at all. But once i finally got into it, I binged it and it quickly became an all time fav. Its extremely PoMo.
Near future Panopticon UK is run by an all seeing AI called The Witness. People have traded their privacy for safety and convenience.
A political dissident named Diana Hunter is taken in for interrogation where her mind is hooked up to this extremely safe, and totally unbeatable machine that reads neural activity and lets interrogators view your thoughts. Despite being super safe and unbeatable, Diana promptly beats the machine and dies.
An Inspector for the Witness named Neith is tasked with investigating the death, and to do so she downloads Dianas memories of the interrogation into her own mind. She investigates by day, and then relives Diana's memories by night in her sleep.
Except Diana's memories aren't of Diana's life. Instead, Diana remembers being an ancient Carthaginian alchemist trying to bring Scipio back from the dead, she remembers being a greek banker who notices strange patterns in the stock market and has a religious experience with a shark, she remembers being an Ethiopian artist tasked with designing a revolutionary new video game, and she remembers being an eldritch entity from the end of time itself.
Its wild. But as the story progresses you see how all these stories combine together in the CRAZIEST WAY IMAGINABLE and the conclusion of the book is really mindblowing.
But you really gotta get through that first greek banker chapter lmao. It was what tripped me up every time. Cause I was intrigued by the Diana and Neith stuff, but then didnt care about Konstantin, and didnt yet realize his role or how he was in any way connected to the story.
The book is likely not gonna be for everyone. But if you like it, you'll probably love it.
Worth giving a try.
Yes project hail Mary is way better than the other book
Never understood the love for the Cixin Liu books. Somewhat idiotic ideas and at some point it's more plothole than story. Maybe it's more about the experience/atmosphere than the story in which case it definitely just failed to do it for me.
Absolutely Disagree that Herbert should have won the Hugo. Anatham was excellent but complicated; Was it better than Gaiman's Graveyard? maybe. A Desolation Called Peace absolutely deserved the Hugo.
Graveyard wasn't even scifi tbh. If that's how we're defining it now, Stephen King should have multiple Hugos by now. Anathem on the other hand is an actual landmark of science fiction - the sheer ambition and his success in actually pulling it off demanded recognition.
Nope
Children of Dune is fuck awful, you fall at the first hurdle.
I'm severely disappointed that anyone using the Dr Evil profile pic you're using, has no appreciation for the epicness of Lazer Tigers smh
Do you take requests? Would love you to cover a little known pulp cyberpunk book called Farewell Horizontal by K W Jeter. It kinda inspired the game Beneath a Steel Sky. Takes place in a world where people live on the side of a giant tower. Never got an audiobook release. Could use some love and critique