“NGC 602 and Beyond.” Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA) – ESA/Hubble Collaboration.
Turn off your lights in 2009 – A new campaign called Dark Skies Awareness encourages you to turn off unnecessary artificial lights in 2009, the Year of Astronomy. Light pollution obscures our view of the universe (There’s more than one star! Who knew?) and can disrupt bird migration patterns.
A collection of Coraline behind the scenes videos – The detail is extraordinary.
12 elegant examples of evolution – When the real is science fictional.
Galactus’ helmet just gets happier – Evidence within.
An interview with Andrew Stanton – The director discusses Wall*E and Finding Nemo in a 70-minute audio interview.
THE BEAT’s Year-End Survey – Cartoonists, writers, and editors all weigh in on 2008 and what’s ahead for 2009.
An illustrative career of Evgeni Tomov – The 3-D work of the production designer for The Tale of Desperaux.
Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell tackle John Carter of Mars – And don’t forget the works in progress here and here.
An excellent year for the novel Hugo, of which I’ve read the same three as you, (reviews: Up the Line, Slaughterhouse Five and The Left Hand of Darkness). Bug Jack Barron is in my bookcase and supposedly Spinrad’s best novel; also one of the few science fiction novels to have had questions asked about it in Parliament, if I remember correctly. Considering everything else Anthony ever wrote, Macroscope is the odd book out and in an ideal world would’ve been replaced by one of your alternative suggestions.
I think the Dramatic Presentation choice is really an award for Best Real-World Event that Closely Resembles Science Fiction.
As for La main gauche de la nuit, it’s obviously a dark swashbucking fantasy involving musketeers and vampires.
This is the earliest year with multiple nominees where I’ve at least attempted to read all the nominees, and it’s a case where I just don’t ‘get’ the winner for whatever reason. I’ve tried to read Left Hand of Darkness a few times, and never made it through it, mainly because I’m just bored, not very far into it. So I certainly wouldn’t have voted for it. I guess one of these days I should just push through it and finish it, but somehow I doubt it’s going to change my opinion of it. Fiction that was written to send a “message” just really isn’t my thing, and Left Hand of Darkness undoubtedly falls into that category. I much prefer fiction written to entertain.
Macroscope I don’t remember well, I was probably in early high school when I read it, I do recall thinking that it wasn’t at all like the rest of the Piers Anthony I’d read.
In high school, I’d probably have voted for the Spinrad, avoiding voting for anything remotely related to something I might have had to read for class, but in retrospect I’d probably vote for the Vonnegut. But I actually enjoyed the not-nominated Lieber more than any of them – it’s in my library in a falling apart paperback edition I’ve reread many times.
Artanian: I absolutely disagree with your comment about tLHoD being written to “send a message”. Goodness knows there are books like that, and Le Guin has even written some, but this isn’t one at all. If you’ve heard of it as a feminist SF classic, I can see being put off, but it’s a lively story of an alien planet, and I’d advise you to push through the first chapter or so that introduces the world and get to where the story starts. I think you’re being put off by the reputation and not giving it a fair chance.
Left Hand of Darkness was not what I would normally pick up but I heard so much about it that I had to read it. I thought it was a remarkable book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it was because it approached the sexuality of the book with some reserve and didn’t just throw it in your face.
None of the other books must have been that great, because I know I read a couple of them but I don’t remember them at all except the Vonneget book and I have never liked any of his stuff.
There was a huge dearth of scifi films at this time, and Marooned was pretty bad, so the NASA thing was a good pick.
All in all, this wasn’t a great year for scifi.
I definitely agree that The Left Hand of Darkness is not a message first type of work. I think its reputation is misleading, there’s so much more there than gender politics speculation, in fact the other things are the main reason I love it so much. The atmosphere, the main characters and the way their relationship develop, the deceptively simple yet so beautiful writing style of Le Guin. In terms of ideas there’s also a lot more than just gender related stuff, for example the contrast between our obssessed with progress society and the stability of the Karhyde ones, which is steeped in tradition.
It’s kind of a shame that Sundance, Silverberg’s best short story of the year (better than Passengers IMO) and maybe best of his career, wasn’t even nominated. IIRC he withdrew it from the Nebula ballot because he thought Passengers was more accessible and had a better chance to win, even though he thought Sundance was better. He and was right, which got him the Nebula. Both stories are really good, but Sundance is just so impressive technically, with the constant switch of PoV techniques, the unreliable narrator and all that and at the same time really powerful emotionally.
Jo, I’ve definitely made it more than one chapter in, but probably not more than 4 or 5 chapters in, and it just doesn’t come close to capturing my interest. But then again, I’ve been pretty much unable to read anything Leguin wrote, not any of Earthsea, nor any of the other books related to Left Hand. The style and dialogue just seem stilted and doesn’t flow well. I just grabbed my copy off the shelf of Left Hand, and here’s an example sentence fairly early in the book, that I think is representative of why I have trouble reading it.
“He sat back so that the firelight lay ruddy on his knees and his fine, strong, small hands and on the silver tankard he held, but left his face in shadow: a dark face always shadowed by the thick
lowgrowing hair, and heavy brows and lashes, and by a somber blandness of expression.”
Ugh. I mean, ugh. And flipping through, it seems like it’s just full of awful sentences like this. Were there no editors then, or was Leguin too big to be edited?
So you’re right, I’m probably assuming that it’s ‘message’ fiction, because of the way it’s described, and otherwise I just don’t get how someone makes it through prose like this. If it’s not, it certainly seems to take itself way too seriously.
Artanian, I have to disagree with you.
Wow. I mean, wow. One sentence and I can totally picture not only what the character looks like, but what impression those seeing him sitting there have. I think it’s just a great sentence.
You forgot to mention Philip K. Dick’s ‘Ubik’
For once, I’ve read all the novel nominees. It’s hard to argue with the winner; it’s a genuine classic and explores some interesting things reasonably well, though it has its occasional missteps, too. Up the Line is fine, serviceable Silverberg, but he’s capable of much better. It isn’t bad, by any stretch of the imagination, it just isn’t his best work. I’m a heretic: I’m rather indifferent to Slaughterhouse-Five. I think Vonnegut has written much better work. Or maybe I’m put off by all the hype. Macroscope blew my mind when I was 13 and set off several weeks of playing sprouts during lunch at middle school. By modern sensibilities, it’s probably a little too hippie, freaky-deaky. Bug Jack Barron is an excellent novel. Oddly, it is both a little dated and, at the same time, tremendously prophetic. Jack Barron’s show could easily be on television today and even some of the politics fit in the modern landscape. I think this is what would get my vote, but mostly because I think Spinrad has never quite gotten the attention and respect he deserves.
Novella: There’s a lot to be said for “A Boy and His Dog” and it did get the Nebula. I’ve been trying to figure out what “Ship of Shadows” is about, since I have a terrible head for titles of shorter works (possibly because I tend to swallow them whole) and I can’t place the story. “Dramatic Mission” is part of the “Ship who…” series, which has never really appealed to me.
Short Story: Given eligibility, the winner is clearly the best. “Not Long Before the End” is the first of Niven’s stories that is set in what would become the Magic Goes Away universe. It’s fun (and I named my first D&D character Belhap), but that’s about all. “Winter’s King” was written before LHoD and fits rather poorly in the continuity of the novel.
Dramatic Presentation: An interesting choice. Was this Cronkite and Heinlein? The Bed-Sitting Room is an absurdist film by Spike Milligan, based on a play by Spike Milligan. It owes a lot to Samuel Becket’s Endgame. I wonder if it would have even made the ballot if the con had been in the US. The Illustrated Man is generally acknowledged to be bad. The Immortal was probably the pilot film for the short-lived TV series. It was very loosely based on the novel by James Gunn. Marooned is hard to judge. I saw it in the theater, but I was only 7 and I was bored to tears (which was not the case with 2001, which I had seen the year before). Unfortunately, the movie was hacked to bits for redistribution (as Space Travelers) and it is very hard to find in it’s original form. It is the only movie ever to win an Oscar (for visual effects) and be lampooned by MST3K.
Other stuff: Eddie Jones makes the first of 2 appearances in the artist category. He did a lot of book covers in the UK. Maybe a reflection of the Eurpean venue. We also get the first appearance for Charles Brown and Locus.