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catsittingstillMy least favorite so far is _Warbound_. It is reasonably competently done Big Guns with Supers, and sloppily done Alternate History. It is the third book in a series, (after _Hard Magic_ and _Spellbound_) and Baen, being troupers, included all three books in the Hugo packet so _Warbound_ could show to best advantage; kudos to Baen for that. And since Correia's tendency to lead with contempt annoys the living hell out of me (perhaps not the most productive mood for him to work so hard to induce in the Hugo voters), I figured I should make every effort to be fair, and give the first two books at least a try before trying _Warbound_. So some of this will be about the first two books. Also I have been living in contempt-for-liberals-land for a week now so forgive me if I'm a bit cranky.
First off, the alternate history is weirdly sloppy. Lots of things going on that made me think wait, *what* year is this again? (1933 according to the text, so I guess the Okies are on the move a bit early and Prohibition is lingering a bit late.) Or sometimes even what *century* is this again? as a Chinese person contrasts paper money with "real money" (China started using paper money in the eleventh century, and in the early 1900s was using a combination of paper money and coins,) or when Pershing (the general) thinks to himself, so soon after the Great War when Europe took horrific casualties, that "all the tough jobs had been assigned to his people and the Americans had paid for it in blood. As usual." Little dollops of modern talking points and resentments keep popping up, looking really out of place in a decade where the preoccupations and anxieties were different.
Second off there are some pretty basic science misunderstandings that keep cropping up in the text. What matters to your inertia (how hard you hit a wall you're thrown at) is not your *weight* but your *mass.* Theoretically the main character can affect both, but the description of what he is doing uses the wrong word more than once. I would chalk it up to an unreliable narrator, except that it's a big deal that he's not dumb and has been studying every book he can get hold of about gravity and physics for a long time.
But that wouldn't be a big problem if the books were a bit more entertaining. It's a bad sign when you find yourself thinking in the middle of a fight scene "boy, this is a really long fight scene. I hope it is over soon." Or when a Big Gun pops up, and you sigh, because you didn't actually want to hear the details of Another Big Gun and you know you're about to. There is also rather a lot of telling--if you want me to know that the villain can make blood squirt out someone's ears with his mind alone, show me the scene; don't waste it on an "as you know Bob" infodump.
Now part of this is that Big Gun Stories are not my thing. If they *are* your thing you may enjoy this stuff a lot more than I did, and that's fine. But this is my report and I'm calling it as I see it. And this is my least favorite novel so far.
I have not got to The Wheel of Time yet. Based on what I remember of it I would probably put it in about fourth place, but I never finished it. I will try to get to it if the rest of my Hugo reading leaves me time to do that, but it's 14 books.
My third-favorite was _Parasite_. The weird thing about it is that quite a bit of it is based on things parasites actually *do*, though the behavior effects have not been reliably observed in humans. I thought that science base was very cool. But I don't really like horror. Let me rephrase that; I really don't like horror. I will read Mira Grant when I won't generally read horror because she is Just That Good but it's still horror.
I also felt like the heroine turned oddly passive in some spots where doing the obvious logical thing would have been inconvenient to the plot, and plots that hinge on someone being artificially prevented from realizing something have a tendency to get on my nerves.
So this is my third favorite.
My second-favorite was Neptune's Brood. The foundation of the story is the question of how to loan money over interstellar distances, and the corresponding time required to travel them, in order to fund colonies that need an influx of materiel and talent to get started--and what sorts of scams result. The main character is a traveling accountant, but it's much more dangerous than it sounds. There are humans who have transformed themselves into mermaids and live in laminar nations in the ocean, so termed because their natural borders are not mountains or rivers but changes in water pressure that are impossible to cross without medical modification. There are humans who have transformed themselves into stranger things to harvest natural resources beyond the reach of the mermaids. There are technological developments that are about to set the galaxy on its ear. And in the middle of it all a mild mannered accountant with a serious ace up her sleeve.
_Neptune's Brood_ gave me a sense of wonder about *finance* and that is going to be tough to beat.
My favorite was Ancillary Justice, hands down. You'll probably have heard of this book, sweeping space opera told from the point of view of an entity that begins in multiple bodies. The native language of the main character does not have gendered pronouns or terms of address, and at some point in the Radsch-English transition someone somewhere (the main character? It's not clear) flipped a coin and came up "she" in such a way that a statement like "I knew she was male" makes perfect sense. The effect is of a universe where women are normal and expected, and there are some men, and that's okay too, of course, but you won't be told they're men unless it actually matters to the meaning of a scene or a relationship, which almost never happens. There are lovers--maybe straight, maybe gay, don't know; doesn't matter to the relationship. There are rivals--maybe male, maybe female, don't know; doesn't matter to the relationship. There was precisely one character whose gender I was sure of, and it wasn't the point of view character, and that was okay; I still felt like I knew these people. And in the meantime that massive space opera with an interstellar empire sweeping out in waves of conquering is going on, breeding loyalty, betrayal and a struggle, not just of sister against sister but of self against self.
_Ancillary Justice_ gave me a sense of wonder about the inside of my own head. And here we have a winner.
TL;DR:
_Warbound_ is in last place so far: features long fight scenes, big guns (about which you will hear the details), sloppily done alternate history with modern resentments and insecurities poking out.
_Wheel of Time_ haven't read yet; based on what I remember I'm guessing it will come in fourth.
_Parasite_. I loved the science, disliked the protagonist being artificially prevented from realizing something and this one had an uphill slog anyway because horror.
_Neptune's Brood_ loved the worldbuilding, plus it gave me a sense of wonder aboout *finance* which I wouldn't have thought possible
_Ancillary Justice_ my favorite hands down. Gave me a sense of wonder about the inside of my own head and the structure of my own language.
First off, the alternate history is weirdly sloppy. Lots of things going on that made me think wait, *what* year is this again? (1933 according to the text, so I guess the Okies are on the move a bit early and Prohibition is lingering a bit late.) Or sometimes even what *century* is this again? as a Chinese person contrasts paper money with "real money" (China started using paper money in the eleventh century, and in the early 1900s was using a combination of paper money and coins,) or when Pershing (the general) thinks to himself, so soon after the Great War when Europe took horrific casualties, that "all the tough jobs had been assigned to his people and the Americans had paid for it in blood. As usual." Little dollops of modern talking points and resentments keep popping up, looking really out of place in a decade where the preoccupations and anxieties were different.
Second off there are some pretty basic science misunderstandings that keep cropping up in the text. What matters to your inertia (how hard you hit a wall you're thrown at) is not your *weight* but your *mass.* Theoretically the main character can affect both, but the description of what he is doing uses the wrong word more than once. I would chalk it up to an unreliable narrator, except that it's a big deal that he's not dumb and has been studying every book he can get hold of about gravity and physics for a long time.
But that wouldn't be a big problem if the books were a bit more entertaining. It's a bad sign when you find yourself thinking in the middle of a fight scene "boy, this is a really long fight scene. I hope it is over soon." Or when a Big Gun pops up, and you sigh, because you didn't actually want to hear the details of Another Big Gun and you know you're about to. There is also rather a lot of telling--if you want me to know that the villain can make blood squirt out someone's ears with his mind alone, show me the scene; don't waste it on an "as you know Bob" infodump.
Now part of this is that Big Gun Stories are not my thing. If they *are* your thing you may enjoy this stuff a lot more than I did, and that's fine. But this is my report and I'm calling it as I see it. And this is my least favorite novel so far.
I have not got to The Wheel of Time yet. Based on what I remember of it I would probably put it in about fourth place, but I never finished it. I will try to get to it if the rest of my Hugo reading leaves me time to do that, but it's 14 books.
My third-favorite was _Parasite_. The weird thing about it is that quite a bit of it is based on things parasites actually *do*, though the behavior effects have not been reliably observed in humans. I thought that science base was very cool. But I don't really like horror. Let me rephrase that; I really don't like horror. I will read Mira Grant when I won't generally read horror because she is Just That Good but it's still horror.
I also felt like the heroine turned oddly passive in some spots where doing the obvious logical thing would have been inconvenient to the plot, and plots that hinge on someone being artificially prevented from realizing something have a tendency to get on my nerves.
So this is my third favorite.
My second-favorite was Neptune's Brood. The foundation of the story is the question of how to loan money over interstellar distances, and the corresponding time required to travel them, in order to fund colonies that need an influx of materiel and talent to get started--and what sorts of scams result. The main character is a traveling accountant, but it's much more dangerous than it sounds. There are humans who have transformed themselves into mermaids and live in laminar nations in the ocean, so termed because their natural borders are not mountains or rivers but changes in water pressure that are impossible to cross without medical modification. There are humans who have transformed themselves into stranger things to harvest natural resources beyond the reach of the mermaids. There are technological developments that are about to set the galaxy on its ear. And in the middle of it all a mild mannered accountant with a serious ace up her sleeve.
_Neptune's Brood_ gave me a sense of wonder about *finance* and that is going to be tough to beat.
My favorite was Ancillary Justice, hands down. You'll probably have heard of this book, sweeping space opera told from the point of view of an entity that begins in multiple bodies. The native language of the main character does not have gendered pronouns or terms of address, and at some point in the Radsch-English transition someone somewhere (the main character? It's not clear) flipped a coin and came up "she" in such a way that a statement like "I knew she was male" makes perfect sense. The effect is of a universe where women are normal and expected, and there are some men, and that's okay too, of course, but you won't be told they're men unless it actually matters to the meaning of a scene or a relationship, which almost never happens. There are lovers--maybe straight, maybe gay, don't know; doesn't matter to the relationship. There are rivals--maybe male, maybe female, don't know; doesn't matter to the relationship. There was precisely one character whose gender I was sure of, and it wasn't the point of view character, and that was okay; I still felt like I knew these people. And in the meantime that massive space opera with an interstellar empire sweeping out in waves of conquering is going on, breeding loyalty, betrayal and a struggle, not just of sister against sister but of self against self.
_Ancillary Justice_ gave me a sense of wonder about the inside of my own head. And here we have a winner.
TL;DR:
_Warbound_ is in last place so far: features long fight scenes, big guns (about which you will hear the details), sloppily done alternate history with modern resentments and insecurities poking out.
_Wheel of Time_ haven't read yet; based on what I remember I'm guessing it will come in fourth.
_Parasite_. I loved the science, disliked the protagonist being artificially prevented from realizing something and this one had an uphill slog anyway because horror.
_Neptune's Brood_ loved the worldbuilding, plus it gave me a sense of wonder aboout *finance* which I wouldn't have thought possible
_Ancillary Justice_ my favorite hands down. Gave me a sense of wonder about the inside of my own head and the structure of my own language.
