THIS IS THE YEAR! (I hope)
Well a year has passed since I started this blog, and while much has been read, little has been written. Looking back, I can pretty much figure out where things went off the rails. Too much. WAY too much. My first blog post set me up for failure. Although it was a thorough analysis, I think I was daunted by the tone I had set. After all, this is about a review, not about rewriting the books I read.
Additionally, I took on too much to read. With six award categories to cover, there were plenty of books stacked up. Add to that my mildly OCD tendency to read everything UP to the honoured book, I was inundated with book after book in a given series (I'm looking at you, Jim Butcher!)
So what is different this year? Fewer Awards. Hugo, Nebula and Aurora (I am Canadian after all.) IF I have time at the end of the year, I might include the British Science Fiction Awards as well. For now, that is it.As for the series problem, I am still in a bit of a pickle there. Fortunately (so far) the books nominated for the Nebula awards are either stand-alone, or the first book in their respective series, with the exception of Gannon's Raising Caine (Tales of the Terran Republic #3) and Leckie's Ancillary Mercy (Imperial Radch #3). Every book in the two series were nominated for the Nebula as well, so it is really just catching up.
The Nebula Awards
This year's line-up for best Novel is:
Raising Caine (Tales of the Terran Republic #3), (Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
Ancillary Mercy (Imperial Radch #3), Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu (Saga)
Uprooted, Naomi Novik (Del Rey)
Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, Lawrence M. Schoen (Tor)
Updraft, Fran Wilde (Tor)
Since Raising Caine and Ancillary Mercy are actually 3 books each, I've decided to get started with Fran Wilde's first novel, Updraft.
