My Hugo Novel Nominees Read Through: 2020
Six Novels. Six Authors – and the winner already declared. Even though I started late I decided to read through all of the novels nominated for the Hugo this year to see what I thought. All of the following are my personal opinions on the six nominees.
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane AndersThe Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. HarrowGideon the Ninth by Tamsyn MuirA Memory Called Empire by Arkady MartineThe Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
[image error][image error][image error][image error][image error][image error]
Fair warning that the following content contains spoilers for all six books. You can’t say that you didn’t know!
This year’s nominees felt like a list of Transformation Tuesdays. From Gideon and Harrow’s odd transmogrification (or was it spiritual melding and transcendence?) in Gideon the Ninth to Rose’s literal physical alterations allowing her to meld more completely with the near hive mind of an alien species in The City in the Middle of the Night, each and every one of these novels honed in on transformation. The Ten Thousand Doors of January had a perhaps more gradual transformation with January going from acting as a semi-normal human girl to a woman from a different world with the power to open portals (quite the character trip there). Middlegame‘s main characters were all crafted and brought into this world with alchemy – the entire plot of the novel revolves around transforming the forces of the universe into flesh. A Memory Called Empire has imagos that merge minds, and last but not least Light Brigade takes its soldiers and literally transforms them into light particles.
Like I said, a book list of six Transformation Tuesdays. (If only those were the transformations showing up on my social media dash instead of Beachbody workouts…)
I read Gideon the Ninth in late 2019 shortly after it came out, and while I enjoyed the characterization and the elements of the world structure the book as a whole fell flat for me. The punk vibe, the character tension, the mystery, possible immortality, and oh, necromancers in space, all hit high points for me, but I just could not fully sink into the story. Parts felt slow and clunky to me and while I enjoyed the narrative perspective I had difficulty rooting for Gideon until the end. While this is a book I can see others greatly enjoying it was merely okay for me. I adore the cover art though and there were enough interesting points that I will be reading the sequel, Harrow the Ninth.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January I ended up reading as part of a book club and I was stoked. I had heard so many rave reviews about the story, the premise sounded fascinating, and the cover art made me squeal. However, while I didn’t dislike The Ten Thousand Doors of January it didn’t live up to the hype for me. The doors between worlds and the power January has at her fingertips have so much promise, but the journey she takes throughout the book did not come off as cohesive. Some of the supporting characters also seem very prop-like to me and gave the world a bit of a washed-out tone. That may or may not have been intentional but it left me with yet another book I considered merely okay.
The City in the Middle of the Night was possibly the oddest book out of the six for me. Reading it felt like experiencing a vivid lucid dream-state that left me feeling chilled and mild disconcerted. Anders undeniably has buckets full of writing talent and I felt her crafting of the storyline was exquisite. That being said, I couldn’t seem to get into either Mouth or Rose’s heads. I felt like an outsider even while reading their narratives. I had similar difficulties with Gideon the Ninth as well – I just could not sink into the story. That being said it was definitely a well-written book and I would recommend it to any hard science fiction fans, or even literary fiction fans interested in taking a sci-fi dive.
The last book I read for this was Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade. This book is raw and pulls no punches. Halfway through I was pretty sure it could be considered a study in helplessness. The main character is a grunt and treated accordingly. The reader has as little clue what is going on as the characters. It makes for a messy read. The language itself is visceral and the descriptions verge into hyper-realistic. The image painted of war here wakes the reader up. With the novel following a grunt of a character though it makes it hard to suss out the plot and the military service of one character is only so interesting to me even with time skips to keep my attention. While a powerful work in its own right, it was another good book that simply wasn’t up my alley.
Now onto the books here that I did personally enjoy. Middlegame almost felt like it was checking off boxes that appealed to me directly. Powerful siblings? Bit of found family? Dark creepy puppet musters? building relationships? multiple timelines? alchemically containing the metaphysical powers of the universe? All checked. The two main characters, Rodger and Dodger, do outshine their supporting cast but their relationship was fascinating enough that I almost didn’t care. A sibling bond that has so much time and work put into it (from both the two siblings and outside powers that be) made for some interesting storytelling. However, the ending of Middlegame knocked it out of the running for first place with me. With the dark themes and disturbing characters, I wasn’t expecting the almost vanilla ‘and they all walked off hopefully into the sunset’ ending for Rodger and Dodger. It felt like an odd-fitting shirt – not necessarily bad just out of place. That being said there is a sequel so I shall keep my fingers crossed!
My favorite of the six, apparently a popular opinion as it won the Hugo award, is Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire. The first third of the book had me on uneven ground as I swung between not sure if I hated or loved it yet. The society here is exceedingly complex and concerned with their version of propriety, but the reader follows an outsider to this Empire. Also, while some parts might be fascinating in an audiobook format I would not want to try to untangle this book while listening to it – it gets complicated in places. Despite the complexities, the characters manage to shine quite brightly as the novel progresses and how the main character relates to the people she interacts with had me hooked. She is sly, intelligent, and highly concerned with her job. How she chose to tackle what was set in front of her made for a breathtaking ride. I am eagerly awaiting the sequel to this one.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this post – and I would love to hear your opinions on these books (Goodreads, Twitter, Instagram – anywhere really!). Different perspectives make for fascinating conversation!
