I’m attending the 2014 Worldcon, and that means I get to nominate for the Hugo Awards. And, because I’m the kind of shy retiring flower who hesitates to share her opinions, I’m going to tell you all about my nominations!
But I’ll do it in more than one blogpost, because the Hugo Awards have a lot of categories. And one may nominate up to five items in each category.
First post here. Second post here.
Now, let’s talk about the final category: Best Novel.
The sheer size of the field means it’s impossible for any single person to read every novel published in it, much less every novel and a good proportion of the short work, and the related work, and grasp at least some of the art – rather like Jonathan McCalmont and Martin Lewis and Ian Sales, I’m pretty convinced the Hugo Award has too many categories. (But we run with the award we have, not the one we wish we had.)
So when it comes to the novels I read that were published in 2013, let’s not pretend it isn’t a more limited field than the field as a whole. And while I’m going to be picking the best of that, let’s not pretend that technically-best isn’t going to be playing up against favourite-things-best.
So, caveats aside, what novels did I find best of 2013?
Ann Leckie’s ANCILLARY JUSTICE tops the list. A debut novel, it is polished, powerful, doing interesting things with space opera, and kicked me in all the narrative squids.
Elizabeth Bear’s SHATTERED PILLARS comes second. It is an incredibly well-written book, and I really think its predecessor, Range of Ghosts, should have made more award lists last year.
Marie Brennan’s A NATURAL HISTORY OF DRAGONS is also on the list. I really like the world, the voice, and the narrative conceit of it, even if the pacing can be up-and-down.
Nicola Griffith’s HILD. I don’t care if it is fantasy, magical realism, or “merely” straight historical fiction. It is ON THIS LIST, because it belongs here.
I am torn over fifth place on the list. Nalo Hopkinson’s SISTER MINE? Roz Kaveney’s REFLECTIONS? Something else I haven’t got to read yet? Feel free to convince me in comments.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 
You’ve got the two books that kinda loom over everything else in terms of sheer quality I think – HILD and ANCILLARY JUSTICE. If I were nominating, I’d maybe add LOVE MINUS EIGHTY by Will McIntosh, and WOLFHOUND CENTURY by Peter Higgins (if mostly for the first 2/3s of it). And YOU by Austin Grossman, although that has the same problem as HILD – not really spec-fic.
Most of my “best books of 2013” were short story collections (Cat Valente, Yoon Ha Lee, Julius Shepard, Rachel Swirsky, Mercurio D. Rivera), but those never make it to the Hugos and don’t even have their own category so… *grumps*
Stefan –
I’m tempted with Wolfhound Century, but it’s very much an incomplete story. Pretty – even stunning – but it doesn’t finish out its narrative arc into anything like satisfaction and I pretty much require that for a Bestness. *g*
Best related work for the short collections?
True. I keep forgetting people are using Best Related Work for different things than I remember nowadays. And what you say about Wolfhound Century is very true.