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Book prizes don't work how you think

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Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#51

Post by gnabgib »

autarch wrote: post #50
gnabgib wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murderbot Diaries (the eight books) start in 2017[0], Murderbot series (TV) started in 2025[1]. Where are you getting 2021 from? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murderbot_Diaries [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murderbot_(TV_series)

Murderbot won the Hugo for best novel in 2021. This is the first _novel_ in the series. The previous publications were novellas, and so not in the same category. I suspect that the award may have been in part for the series and not this book specifically. We see this in other years, for example with N.K. Jemisin winning the Nebula for Stone Sky, the third book in a trilogy. Was Stone Sky better than the first two, or…

The Murderbot Diaries, you mean? Won best series

All Systems Red won (Novella) in 2018, Network Effect (book) won in 2021, and The Murderbot Diaries (series) won in 2021. Wells and Hugo have a .. cantankerous relationship

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#52

Post by jancsika »

> In every prize I’ve ever judged or heard firsthand reports of, everything else is up to the judges and their idiosyncrasies.

Sure. But even seemingly broad guidelines deeply influence/constrain the judges' choices.

E.g., the Pulitzer was created when America was still insecure about its artistic output and stature compared to Europe. Judges of the music prize were consequently asked to choose from "music in its larger forms," meaning ambitious, large-scale symphonic or chamber works typically derived from conventional European forms/genres.

The problem is that 20th-century American musical innovation almost definitionally meant straying from those conventions. The most banal example: Conlon Nancarrow's complex tempo canons that required hand-punching rolls for the player piano. There's a hard limit to the thickness of a piano roll that necessarily limits the duration of any given piece.

Composers began making pilgrimages to Nancarrow's apartment in the 1970s just to hear his music. By 1982, he'd won the MacArthur Fellowship for his Player Piano Studies. Funny enough, that same year, octogenarian composer Roger Sessions-- a former teacher of Nancarrow-- won the Pulitzer. His piece? A concerto for orchestra.

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#53

Post by autarch »

gnabgib wrote: post #51
autarch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murderbot won the Hugo for best novel in 2021. This is the first _novel_ in the series. The previous publications were novellas, and so not in the same category. I suspect that the award may have been in part for the series and not this book specifically. We see this in other years, for example with N.K. Jemisin winning the Nebula for Stone Sky, the third book in a trilogy. Was Stone Sky better than the first two, or…

The Murderbot Diaries, you mean? Won best series All Systems Red won (Novella) in 2018, Network Effect (book) won in 2021, and The Murderbot Diaries (series) won in 2021. Wells and Hugo have a .. cantankerous relationship

I was just referring to Network Effect in 2021 and looking at what other novels won in nearby years.

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#54

Post by gnabgib »

autarch wrote: post #53
gnabgib wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Murderbot Diaries, you mean? Won best series All Systems Red won (Novella) in 2018, Network Effect (book) won in 2021, and The Murderbot Diaries (series) won in 2021. Wells and Hugo have a .. cantankerous relationship

I was just referring to Network Effect in 2021 and looking at what other novels won in nearby years.

So.. what I said?

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#55

Post by apparent »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #31
code_duck wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess she probably means USB flash storage devices.

Most certainly. I used to hear people call usb drives zip drives (and thumb drives) a lot ~2 decades ago. Truthfully, I didn't even know zip drives were their own thing until this comment chain. I just though it was an older term for usb drives.

I've heard "gumstick drives" or even just "gumsticks" in addition to USB/thumb. Never really heard zip though, since those are/were actually a thing.

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#56

Post by arjie »

autarch wrote: post #47
arjie wrote: post #41

Haha, very interesting. I hadn't thought about the mechanics of it all but from the title I suspected it might be something like this. There's no objective measure after all of what a good book is. It's not bad for the process. The top few universally seem pretty good. I have noticed that the Hugo Awards appear to have declined somewhat in quality. The Murderbot series is enjoyable, yes, but it's a winner just like D…

Murderbot was 2021. I would defend it as a winner, but take a look at other recent years: * 2020 - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - a science fiction story set in a future Aztec space empire - quite inventive and odd. The sequel won in 2022. * 2024 - Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh - basically a story about growing up as a terrorist in a sci-fi setting, with some wild turns. * 2025 - The Tainted Cup by R…

I haven't yet read the last few ones because I found the Aztec ones underwhelming. The Calculating Stars to A Desolation Called Peace was when I started feeling they were not so strong and decided I'd go read prior years instead. But I suppose the vagaries of 'winner' vs. shortlist probably take this. It is true that all those others you're talking about are much stronger. I do think that The Ninefox Gambit, The Fifth Season, The Three Body Problem are all just as strong as the ones you've mentioned.

Having read Network Effect and compared it to Piranesi, the two seem simply leagues apart. Perhaps the real thing here is that I'm over-indexing on taste instead of some object measure of quality. Piranesi was otherworldly in the way of Strange and Norrell but Network Effect was Yet Another Story in comparison.

And it's true what you say. Some of the past winners were also relatively weak. Downbelow Station seemed incomplete though I think Neuromancer was unbelievable.

It's just that when I went back and just picked old winners to read it felt like banger after banger after banger. The one where I only remember Kallikantzaros or Lord of Light or Dune or The Left Hand of Darkness. Ringworld I could see people being put off by, but it had this whole thing with the ringworld and the trifold symmetry thing and all that.

Then again, everything that comes now has to avoid everything that came prior, sort of O(n) problem. You can't be new when much has been written.

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#57

Post by cwnyth »

m463 wrote: post #8

Sorry, I laughed... :) > I’ve judged prizes both pre-2020, when we were sent stacks of books, and post-2020, when everything had switched to zip drives and online databases. Considered medium-to-high-capacity at the time of its release, Zip disks were originally launched with capacities of 100 megabytes (MB), then 250 MB, and finally 750 MB. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive

Pretty sure they mean zip files, not drives.

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#58

Post by autarch »

arjie wrote: post #56
autarch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murderbot was 2021. I would defend it as a winner, but take a look at other recent years: * 2020 - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine - a science fiction story set in a future Aztec space empire - quite inventive and odd. The sequel won in 2022. * 2024 - Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh - basically a story about growing up as a terrorist in a sci-fi setting, with some wild turns. * 2025 - The Tainted Cup by R…

I haven't yet read the last few ones because I found the Aztec ones underwhelming. The Calculating Stars to A Desolation Called Peace was when I started feeling they were not so strong and decided I'd go read prior years instead. But I suppose the vagaries of 'winner' vs. shortlist probably take this. It is true that all those others you're talking about are much stronger. I do think that The Ninefox Gambit, The Fift…

I love both the Murderbot books and Piranesi. I think they're excellent for _very_ different reasons.

With Murderbot, the "corpos control everything" scifi future setting is nothing new. I think the brilliance is in its portrayal of the main character, primarily through its inner voice. Murderbot is a really unique character and it is written very well.

Conversely, in Piranesi, the main character is basically a cipher. He doesn't know who is, and we don't learn a lot about him or his psychology for most of the book. I felt like he was mostly there to let us experience the world, which as you put it was otherworldly and quite unique. The brilliance of the book is the prose and the world, not the character.

But like I said, I think comparing anything to Dune is pretty tough. Dune is a landmark work that still influences modern writers, and that modern audiences still enjoy reading. The recent movies have translated it to the big screen and captured an even larger audience (an amazing feat given how weird the books are).

Very, very few SFF books have had a similar impact. There's Tolkien, who is arguably the most influential SFF writer of all time. What other SFF works from the 60s or earlier are still as widely read and influential as Dune and LotR? Almost none, except Le Guin's Earthsea books, which barely squeaks in with a 1969 release for the first book.

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#59

Post by arjie »

autarch wrote: post #58
arjie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't yet read the last few ones because I found the Aztec ones underwhelming. The Calculating Stars to A Desolation Called Peace was when I started feeling they were not so strong and decided I'd go read prior years instead. But I suppose the vagaries of 'winner' vs. shortlist probably take this. It is true that all those others you're talking about are much stronger. I do think that The Ninefox Gambit, The Fift…

I love both the Murderbot books and Piranesi. I think they're excellent for _very_ different reasons. With Murderbot, the "corpos control everything" scifi future setting is nothing new. I think the brilliance is in its portrayal of the main character, primarily through its inner voice. Murderbot is a really unique character and it is written very well. Conversely, in Piranesi, the main character is basically a ciphe…

Hmm, the inner voice didn't feel particularly novel and had a young-adult feel to me, but ah well. Quibbling now. Apparently just a matter of taste.

Re: Book prizes don't work how you think

#60

Post by arjie »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #46
arjie wrote: post #41

Haha, very interesting. I hadn't thought about the mechanics of it all but from the title I suspected it might be something like this. There's no objective measure after all of what a good book is. It's not bad for the process. The top few universally seem pretty good. I have noticed that the Hugo Awards appear to have declined somewhat in quality. The Murderbot series is enjoyable, yes, but it's a winner just like D…

The Hugo awards have had a lot of weak winners in the past as well. For example: They’d Rather Be Right, The Wanderer, Stand on Zanzibar (some people might disagree), Harry Potter, Hominids, etc And have had many winning books that are enjoyable without “big ideas” as well. In the end it’s just a fan voted award and subject to marketing and politics. Judged awards are perhaps a bit more consistent in reflecting quali…

Haha, Hominids! That was definitely one where I was left thinking "Oh that's it?" haha. Fair point fair point. I do think Harry Potter is like the Murderbot series. And to be clear, I really enjoyed Harry Potter when I was young. Can still recall getting the book at my maternal grandparents' place as a present.
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