Nerd Culture Podcast

WELCOME TO THE FIRST ANNUAL DUST JACKET HUGO AWARDS MONTH!

Beginning Wednesday, and for the next 5 weeks, your dedicated reviewers at Dust Jacket will be casting their eye over the 2011 Hugo Award nominees. 5 novels in 5 weeks, all leading up to the announcement of this year’s winner at Worldcon 2011 on August 20^th.

WHY REVIEW THE HUGO AWARD NOMINEES

Named after Science Fiction pioneer and Amazing Stories editor Hugo Gernsback, the Hugo Awards are the world’s preeminent literary SF awards. Established in 1953 and held annually since 1955, the Hugos are awarded for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. In essence, the Hugo Awards are the Oscars of science fiction and fantasy literature.

The list of past winners of the Hugo Awards reads like a who’s who of SF literature – Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Orson Scott Card, Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Larry Niven.

Many of the genuine classics of the genre have won the award: Dune, The Demolished Man, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, Lord of Light, Ringworld, Ender’s Game. So far, we’ve reviewed 3 of the award winners both on the website and in our podcasts – The Dispossessed, RendezvousWith Rama and The Forever War. The Foundation Series, which we reviewed in our inaugural podcast, was also awarded a special Hugo for Best All-Time Series.

The Hugos are the most prestigious awards in science fiction literature, the best the genre has to offer. If we’re to compile the list of greatest SF novels of all time, it’s important not just to look at the classics, but search for modern masterpieces as well.

The Hugo Awards represent the best of the best. Let’s see how 2011 stacks up.

THE NOMINEES

Five novels have been nominated as the best Science Fiction of 2010-11. The nominees are:

Blackout/All Clearby Connie Willis

Feed by Mira Grant

The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

THE REVIEWS

Our Hugo Award reviews will follow the same basic structure of all Dust Jacket reviews, with one additional feature thrown in for good measure; not only will we be reviewing the novels themselves, but we’ll look at what chance we think each novel has of taking home the big prize.

Once the winner is announced, we’ll follow up with a review of last year’s winning novels: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and The City and the City by China Mieville. How will 2011 stack up against the previous year’s Hugo winners?

BEHOLD…THE FUTURE

So join us on Wednesday as we launch into Hugo Awards Month with our review of Lois Bujold McMaster’s Cryoburn.

Welcome to the fifth installment of Dust Jacket, our regular revue of the best that Sci-Fi literature has to offer. This week, we’re stepping onto the battlefield with Joe Haldeman’s 1974 classic The Forever War.

As always, I’m joined by Luke, the world’s harshest critic, but also the man who recommended I read this novel in the first place. So thanks to Luke and let’s get on with the review.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

William Mandela is a university student conscripted into an elite military force to fight a war against an alien race known as the Taurans. After a grueling training regime, he and his fellow soldiers are sent to do battle on harsh alien worlds against their alien enemies. They travel via ‘collapsars’, a wormhole-like experience that allows ships to travel at near-light speed, covering thousands of light years in seconds. This form of travel creates massive relativistic effects; while only a year or two passes for Mandela and his fellow soldiers, decades pass on Earth.

Mandela forms a bond with Marygay Potter, a fellow soldier who becomes his companion and lover. Attempting to return to civilian life after their tour of duty, Mandela and Marygay find a world drastically changed from the one they left. Overpopulation, food wars, embracing of homosexuality as a means of reducing population growth; all these things leave the soldiers feeling as outsiders. They re-enlist in the military to escape society, accepting the soulless comfort of military life over a society that no longer has a place for them.

Slowly, the reluctant Mandela begins to see the futility of war, and the dramatic effects it has on his life. Each return to Earth heightens his alienation and isolation, and losing contact with Marygay enhances those feelings further.

Eventually, humanity develops cloning techniques, which results in the creation of a new species – Man. Man develops the means of communicating with the Taurans, only to discover that the war was a misunderstanding caused by a random series of events and a total lack of communication.

This new race of Man establishes colonies for the disillusioned soldiers, who no longer fit into society. With the war over, Mandela is reunited with Marygay on one of the colonies. The story ends on a hopeful note, with the announcement of the birth of William and Marygay’s first child. The year is 3143.

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Welcome to the fourth instalment of Dust Jacket, our regular foray into the world of Sci-Fi literature. As always, I’m joined by Luke, self-confessed sci-fi junkie and world’s harshest critic.

This week, we’re turning our attention to The Player of Games, the second of Ian M. Banks 8-novel Culture series.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

The Player of Games is the second of Iain M. Banks Culture series. The Culture is a vast transhuman society populated by both humans and sentient robotic drones that provides for all the basic needs of its citizens, allowing them to explore all the worldly pleasures lie has to offer, and to pursue their interests freely.

Jernau Morat Gurgeh’s interests, bordering on obsession, lie in the playing of strategy-based games, for which he has few equals. His status as a gamer affords him great prestige and celebrity within the Culture. This prestige, however, is not enough; he wants to go down as the greatest gamer of all time.

Playing a complex game against fellow gamer Olz Halp, Gurgeh is tempted into cheating by Mawrhin-Skel, a particularly devious and manipulative drone. In doing so, he leaves himself open to blackmail by Skel.

Fearing the repercussions of his actions, Gurgeh is forced to accept an offer from the Culture’s Special Circumstances branch – the espionage division of the Culture. He is to travel to the Empire of Azad, an Empire that may pose a potential long-term threat to the Culture. There, he will compete in their grand tournament, the defining cultural event for the denizens of Azad. So great is the status of the game that the victor is appointed Emperor.

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