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From: Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Nebula Finalists 1999
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2024 18:49:50 -0400
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On 9/10/24 4:39 PM, Chris Buckley wrote:
> 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).
> 

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