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From: Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Nebula Finalists 1999
Date: 10 Sep 2024 20:39:10 GMT
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On 2024-09-09, Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/7/24 8:09 AM, Chris Buckley wrote:
>> On 2024-09-02, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> 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).

Chris