Re: Nebula Finalists 1999

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).

Chris