Tor is running a free sweepstakes to win Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy

[conuly]

Comment here.

Comments

[pauamma]

"Void outside the United States and Canada and where prohibited by law." :-(

[conuly]

:(

[thewayne]

Oh, man! Just last night I finished the second book in that series. Wow. He's quite the writer. The first book blew me away, perhaps the freshest take on space opera that I've read in ages (IMHO).

[conuly]

That's high praise!

[thewayne]

Last year was the first year that I bought a supporting WorldCon membership to vote for the Hugos, and I did again this year.  Part of the reason was to learn about authors new to me, and last year two novels blew me away, and in lovely fashion I'd never heard of either.  Yoon Ha Lee's first book of the series, Ninefox Gambit, and Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning.  The funny thing was that the book that won the Hugo, I did not like it at all.  Just goes to show you the 'to each their own'.  Palmer's was a very interesting sociology work cast in science fiction, I should have gotten the sequel in the last year and ought to put it on my 'acquire' list: basically, what do you do with a mass murderer-type in a society where the entire world has outlawed murder?  Obviously much more complicated than that.  I particularly loved the self-identification of 'you' through your clothing.

And Novel was the only category where my number 1 pick did not win.

I talked about Ninefox Gambit and Lightning almost exactly a year ago:https://thewayne.dreamwidth.org/1020157.html Another excellent book from last year was Becky Chamber's followup to A Long Way to a Small and Angry Planet.  I loved it, wonderful book and a treasure, not in the same league as the other two.  Small Angry Planet was a very fun read as was A Closed and Common Orbit, and they feel like Douglas Adams with less manic and madcap.  Very interesting world building.

This year the Hugo award novel nominees have Scalzi's first book in a new series distinct from Old Man's War, there's also Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes (very good book - murder mystery on a clone ship in space!), and Ann Leckie's new book in the Ancillary Justice universe but not in the direct series, in addition to the second Yoo Ha Lee book and Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140.  I THINK I'm ahead of my reading curve, not 100% certain.