Path: ...!news.mixmin.net!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tony Nance Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: Nebula Finalists 1999 Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2024 18:49:50 -0400 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 76 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:49:52 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="448954874538eee148d225c856b06893"; logging-data="4034552"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+lKYZUz4VvvMvXR27nYof6jUHaihPfnsE=" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:/lwT9grgziZcNXcmTrtWnWdjfLg= In-Reply-To: Content-Language: en-US Bytes: 4750 On 9/10/24 4:39 PM, Chris Buckley wrote: > On 2024-09-09, Tony Nance wrote: >> On 9/7/24 8:09 AM, Chris Buckley wrote: >>> On 2024-09-02, James Nicoll wrote: >>>> 1999: The Mars Polar Lander more than succeeds at landing on Mars, >>>> Liberty Bell 7 is retrieved after a slight delay from the Atlantic, >>>> and across the world programmers work hard to prevent a calamity, >>>> efforts that will late prove politically inconvenient to acknowledge. >>>> >>>> Which 1999 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read? >>>> >>>> Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman >>>> How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove >>>> Moonfall by Jack McDevitt >>>> The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells >>>> The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro >>>> To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis >>>> >>>> All but the Asaro. >>> >>> I missed the Turtledove (I don't regret that), and the McDevett >>> (I do regret that). None of the others are Favorites. >>> >>> Asaro remains an enigma to me. She was a hard scientist (PhD in >>> chemical physics from Harvard), nominated numerous times (9?) for >>> Hugo and Nebula awards (won two Nebulas), president of the SFWA >>> for two terms, has written about 40 novels, but she's remarkably unknown. >>> I don't remember the last time she was discussed here (mentioned a couple >>> of times but not discussed). Her works are generally on the lighter >>> space opera side, but that's true of a lot of authors, especially now. >>> >> >> Huh - now that you mention it, I don't think I've read anything by >> Asaro. What would you recommend? > > If you read Asaro, you pretty much have to read her Skolian Empire > series; it comprises over half of her writing and all of her Hugo/Nebula > nominations come from it. It's a big, sprawling saga that I've read less > than half of, so I'm not the best recommender. > > I read Asaro's first dozen or so novels as they came out, enjoying > them all as light reading (well, one romantasy non-Skolian novel > I remember not appreciating as much). But the problem for me was that > her universe sprawled: pairs of novels might be going on at the same > time almost completely unconnected for now, and the novels were not > totally chronological. Since I was light reading once a year as they > came out, I couldn't keep track of all the empire and personal > relationships (heavy on romance) well enough without re-reading. > Ordinary series I'm perfectly fine re-reading the previous novel when > a new one comes but this sprawls so much I was having to re-read all > the novels since I didn't know what it covered! I decided to wait (in > 2004) until she finished it, but I don't believe that has happened > yet. > > To get a good taste of her writing, I would recommend reading > 4 out of her first 6 novels in publication order: > 1 Primary Inversion - her first novel, unsurprisingly weaker but has been > rewritten (I haven't read the rewritten version) > 3 The Last Hawk - nominee Nebula award (this thread) > 4 The Radiant Seas > 6 The Quantum Rose - Winner Nebula award > > (Novel 2: Wikipedia tells me is the chronological end of the Saga. > Novel 5: takes place at the same time as Novel 6 but was published a > few months earlier, with 6 being the stronger novel.) > > All that being said, it may be hard to read them; not all are in print. > I see _The Radiant Seas_ is only available used (or as Audiobook). > Very helpful Chris - thanks for taking the time to pass all that along. If/when I give Asaro a try, I'll post something here. Tony