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Grex > Scifi > #110: 1999 Hugo Awards -- Nominations | |
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| 25 new of 41 responses total. |
robh
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response 1 of 41:
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Apr 23 19:54 UTC 1999 |
I've read _Darwinia_ (excellent book) and have just started _To
Say Nothing of the Dog_ (the first 32 pages are good >8).
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mcnally
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response 2 of 41:
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Apr 23 20:49 UTC 1999 |
Boy, not only have I not read any of the nominees, I've never read
anything written by any of the nominated authors until you get down
to the "Related Work" category..
I sure don't read as much science fiction as I used to..
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chimera
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response 3 of 41:
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Apr 23 22:16 UTC 1999 |
You've never read Asimov? Well, not that I can go around saying stuff like
that, I haven't read anything on the list either... It's not my fault, I've
been reading classics. All the newer novels and stories seem so overwhelming,
and my favorite sf book is Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card). I think I've been
spending too much time writing my own stories. Actually, I'm working on a
novel!
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mcnally
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response 4 of 41:
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Apr 24 03:54 UTC 1999 |
I see plenty of stuff there from Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, but
nothing by Asimov (which would be quite a trick, anyway..) Am I missing
something?
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tpryan
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response 5 of 41:
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Apr 24 13:31 UTC 1999 |
Way to go, Howard DeVore; local first fandomer.
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chimera
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response 6 of 41:
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Apr 24 15:06 UTC 1999 |
Well, I always considered Asimov more or less of a pioneer in the scifi
field... True, I'm not an obsessed fan, but he *invented* the word "robot".
As one of my friends would say, the man was a god (he's dead, Jim).
Also, Asimov wrote some non-fiction. It was darned good, too. He knew his
science, and that's probably what made him such a great writer.
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jep
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response 7 of 41:
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Apr 24 15:54 UTC 1999 |
Uh, Capek invented the word "robot" in his novel "R. U. R.", according
to Asimov, writing in a lot of his books. The concept of robots
as we know them was invented by Eando Binder (Edgar(?) and Otto
Binder, a pair of brothers who wrote about Adam Link).
Asimov invented the 3 Laws of Robotics, and his robots were a lot more
realistic than the Frankenstein-like robots other authors had in their
stories. He probably wrote the best robot stories in science fiction,
but he didn't invent the concept or the word.
He was, as you said, he was very knowledgeable about science, a god
among science fiction writers, and a pioneer of science fiction.
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krj
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response 8 of 41:
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Apr 24 17:41 UTC 1999 |
I really should make a stab at reading DARWINIA, as Robert Charles Wilson
is an old acquaintance from SF fandom going back 20+ years.
Dave Langford, who has his customary two nominations for Best Fan Writer
and Best Fanzine -- he's won a reasonable-sized shelf of them --
is the brother of Jon Langford, of the Mekons and the Waco Brothers.
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chimera
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response 9 of 41:
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Apr 24 22:45 UTC 1999 |
Really? I though Asimov invented the word. Learn something everyday :)
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aruba
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response 10 of 41:
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Apr 25 22:25 UTC 1999 |
I haven't read any of the nominated prose either, but I did see all of the
dramatic presentations.
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chimera
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response 11 of 41:
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Apr 28 19:22 UTC 1999 |
I should get out more... (it wouldn't very hard to get out "more", though,
in my case)
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anderyn
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response 12 of 41:
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Apr 28 20:53 UTC 1999 |
Let's see. I've read "To Say Nothing of the Dog" and "Children of God", in
the novel category. I've read all of the novellas, novelettes, and short
stories that have appeared in Asimov's, F&SF, or Analog, since I read those
cover-to-cover every month... Have seen the Bab 5, Dark City, and ST:
Insurrection, my GAWD, that's three dramatic presentations! (I usually might
get one.) Read Locus and SF Chronicle and Ansible, have read lots of Langford
and Evelyn Leeper, don't know the fan artists by name, and have read books
by Kage Baker, Julie Czierdna, Susan R. Matthews (though not all of their
work, but at least one each...) And I thought I was cutting back on my sf
reading.... guess not. Comparatively speaking, of course.
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chimera
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response 13 of 41:
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Apr 29 23:55 UTC 1999 |
Oh, Insurrection was up there? I didn't see that. That's one point for
Chimera, then. I have see Babylon 5, if they're talking about the movie.
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krj
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response 14 of 41:
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May 3 16:21 UTC 1999 |
In resp:2 , Mike McNally said that he had read nothing by any of the
authors nominated for the Big 4 fiction awards. I assume this includes
Connie Willis. What a lot of people haven't realized is that Connie
Willis has developed into one of the most honored writers in the
SF field in the last dozen or so years. Here's a little clip
that Evelyn Leeper wrote on Usenet, counting Hugo nominations
and awards.
> Current interesting statistics for fiction categories:
>
> Silverberg has the most nominations, 23. Ellison and Willis have 18
> each; LeGuin has 17. Niven has 14 solo nominations, 4 shared with
> Pournelle, and 1 shared with Steve Barnes.
>
> Bishop and Swanwick have each been nominated 9 times (solo) without a win.
> Swanwick also has a joint nomination with Gibson. Wolfe has 8.
> (Waldrop has six nominations, no wins.)
>
> Anderson has the most Hugos, 7. Ellison, Leiber, Willis, and zelazny
> each have 6. (Ellison also has a share in the DP Hugo for "City on the
> Edge of Forever.")
I'll see if I can grub around for the Nebula statistics.
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robh
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response 15 of 41:
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May 3 17:13 UTC 1999 |
Yep, her short story collection "Fire Watch" blew me away when I
read it a few years ago. I think she's one of the best SF writers
of this era, and it's a damn shame that so few people have read her
works.
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krj
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response 16 of 41:
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May 3 17:47 UTC 1999 |
According to a number of Web pages, Connie Willis has six Nebula
awards to go with her six Hugos. One page claims her total of 12
awards is exceeded only by Harlan Ellison with 14.
I was glad to see that the FIRE WATCH collection came back into print.
A reprint of a short fiction collection by a single author is not too
common these days.
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janc
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response 17 of 41:
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May 29 04:50 UTC 1999 |
I've read "Factoring Humanity" and "To Say Nothing of the Dog".
Robert Sawyer, is an author to watch. I think one of his previous
novels, "The Terminal Experiment" was nominated or won a Hugo or Nebula.
His first three novels (Fossil Hunter, Far-Seer, and Foreigner) were a
trilogy set on a dinosaur planet. They looked so hokey that I initially
passed them by. After "The Terminal Experiment" won some kind of award,
I picked it up and found that it was a very solid and thought provoking
piece of hard science fiction. Since then I've been reading all his
books, which come out frequently - it seems like he is cranking out
three or four novels a year. They all have very solid scientific
foundations, and lots of very interesting ideas. The one nominated
here, "Factoring Humanity," starts out sounding a bit too much like the
movie "Contact" (female scientist decodes mysterious alien transmissions
by non-planar thinking and finds instructions for building a device that
takes her on a weird metaphysical journey), except that the weird
metaphysical journey is actually weirder, more original, and more has
much more profound implications than the one in Contact. I don't think
it's a great book - not all that well built; some subplots that don't
really tie in well - but it is definately worth reading. I'm kind of
worried that at the breakneck pace this guy is turning out books, that
he is going to burn out fast. So many writers seem only to have a few
good books in them. He still seems to be doing OK. Maybe he's been
saving up books for years. He claims to be "Canada's only full-time
science fiction writer". Big deal.
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nishi
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response 18 of 41:
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Jun 17 03:31 UTC 1999 |
about the library with the best SCI here? -Nishi
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krj
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response 19 of 41:
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Sep 7 15:28 UTC 1999 |
Hot off the press from the World Science Fiction Convention in Australia:
the Hugo Award winners! The nominees are listed in resp:0.
From: Gary Farber <gfarber@panix.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.tv
Subject: Hugos
Date: 4 Sep 1999 18:55:33 GMT
Organization: fwa pp
No one seems to have posted them here yet. Tsk.
* Best Novel of 1998
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
* Best Novella of 1998
"Oceanic" by Greg Egan
* Best Novelette of 1998
"Taklamakan" by Bruce Sterling
* Best Short Story of 1998
"The Very Pulse of the Machine" by Michael Swanwick
* Best Related Book of 1998
The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of by Thomas M. Disch
* Best Dramatic Presentation of 1998
The Truman Show (Paramount)
* Best Professional Editor of 1998
Gardner Dozois (Asimov's)
* Best Professional Artist of 1998
Bob Eggleton
* Best Semiprozine of 1998
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown
* Best Fanzine of 1998
Ansible edited By Dave Langford
* Best Fan Writer of 1998
Dave Langford
* Best Fan Artist of 1998
Ian Gunn
* John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of 1997 or 1998
(Sponsored by Dell Magazines)
Nalo Hopkinson
[. . . .]
--
Copyright 1999 by Gary Farber; For Hire as: Web Researcher; Nonfiction
Writer, Fiction and Nonfiction Editor; gfarber@panix.com; Northeast US
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robh
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response 20 of 41:
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Sep 8 02:41 UTC 1999 |
I'm glad to see Connie Willis win it. That is an excellent book.
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dbratman
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response 21 of 41:
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Sep 8 22:23 UTC 1999 |
Pleasant, but fluffy. On the other hand, comedy suits her: Willis's
characters are consistently extraordinarily mentally dim. In a comedy,
at least, this is appropriate and amusing; in her more serious works,
it's somewhere between annoying and distressing.
Bruce Sterling's novelette is in his new collection, _A Good
Old-Fashioned Future_, which I just bought: I'm looking forward to
reading it.
Disch's non-fiction book was very thoughtful, but so provocative and
iconoclastic that I'm not sure which surprises me more: that it won a
Hugo, or that the author (presumably) was willing to accept one.
"The Truman Show" was a fine movie (especially for Jim Carrey, who
manages to play a nice guy without being sappy), much better than
"Pleasantville", which had tedious spots and was never really thought
through. I wonder if "Babylon 5" lost because everyone agrees the last
season was a dog, or because the con was held in Australia where
presumably fewer people saw the show?
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janc
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response 22 of 41:
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Sep 10 21:45 UTC 1999 |
Did a little web searching. Connie Willis Awards:
Hugo, 1982 "Fire Watch" (novelette)
Nebula, 1982 "Fire Watch" (novelette)
Hugo, 1983 "A Letter From the Clearys" (short story)
Nebula, 1982 "A Letter from the Clearys" (short story)
Campbell Award, 1988 "Lincoln's Dreams" (novel)
Hugo, 1988 "The Last of the Winnebagos" (novella)
Nebula, 1988 "The Last of the Winnebagos" (novella)
Nebula, 1990 "At the Rialto" (novelette)
Nebula, 1992 "Doomsday Book" (novel)
Hugo, 1993 "Doomsday Book" (novel)
Locus, 1993 "Doomsday Book" (novel)
Nebula, 1992 "Even the Queen" (short story)
Hugo, 1993 "Even the Queen" (short story)
Locus, 1993 "Even the Queen" (short story)
Locus, 1994 "Impossible Things" (collection)
Hugo, 1994 "Death on the Nile" (short story)
Locus, 1994 "Close Encounter" (short story)
Locus, 1996 "Remake" (novella)
Hugo, 1998 "To Say Nothing of the Dog" (novel)
Is this enough awards?
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scott
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response 23 of 41:
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Sep 10 21:50 UTC 1999 |
Hmph. (Scott enters some pointlessly sarcastic remark)
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mcnally
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response 24 of 41:
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Sep 11 21:36 UTC 1999 |
More to the point, does Willis' domination of the prominent science fiction
awards during the 90s mean that she's the greatest writer to hit scifi in
decades or does it point to the scarcity of other fresh writing talent in
the genre? (or at least other talent with general appeal..)
I never finished "To Say Nothing of the Dog" -- I abandoned it after about
fifty pages because I found it particularly boring. I'm willing to try
again if someone wants to assure me that it (or any of her other stories)
is really worth the effort, but I am definitely wondering what all the
hype is about.. (But then the only currently-writing science fiction
authors I've been genuinely enthusiastic about in recent years have been
Neal Stephenson and Tim Powers.. I just don't read science fiction like
I used to..)
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dbratman
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response 25 of 41:
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Sep 14 21:27 UTC 1999 |
Who does? (Read science fiction like they used to, I mean.)
If you like Stephenson and Powers, Mike, then you might just find
Willis too, well, fluffy. Try _Doomsday Book_, which is her grittiest
novel: time-traveling grad student lands in the middle of the 14th
Century Black Plague without realizing it. Or some of her short
stories: "Fire Watch" (middle of the Blitz) or "A Letter from the
Clearys" (her most successful attempt at the kind of gut-wrenching
story that the 1950s sf authors did so well).
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