I looked at the 2025 Hugo Award finalists and noticed that I was
unfamiliar with just about all of them. So I downloaded the some of the packet, category by category.
First on the list was novels. The first novel I read was _The Tainted
Cup_ by Robert Jackson Bennett because it was a mystery and I like
mysteries. The file I downloaded had sixteen blurbs or quotes from
reviews, five of which mention Sherlock Holmes. The two blurbs that
refer to either Nero Wolfe or his creator, Rex Stout, were more
appropriate. After all, the investigator, Anagosa Dolabra, doesnıt
examine crime scenes (being a recluse). Instead, she sends her
assistant, Dinios Kol, to the scene of the crime and he reports on what
he observes (aided by a magically enhanced memory). True, like Sherlock,
Ana has an interest in ³recreational chemicals². However, like Nero
Wolfe, Ana has many books.
The book starts with Dinios examining the scene of a murder; when he
reports all of this to Ana, she immediately identifies the method (using knowledge not available to the reader). However, this is merely the
first murder in the book and this outr method is repeated. The story is
set in an empire that was created to prevent large sea monsters (perhaps
even Godzilla size) from trampling the landscape and has devoted vast resources to do this. Those resources provide much opportunity for
corruption, but the fact that these monsters show up every monsoon
season has kept the various bureaucracies on track for centuries. This
is the first book of a series and the second one was published in April
2025. I have not yet decided if I will purchase it.
The second novel I read was _The Ministry of Time_ by Kaliane Bradley
because I decided (from reviews and the like) that it was the most
likely title to win (James Nicollıs review can be found at
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/full-time-help). This book is
another example of why people who possess time machines should read
every SF title with time machines that they can find, especially the
ones where clever plans go wrong (which are numerous, including this
one). The ministry of time has yanked five people from the past who were doomed to die; the most prominent (e.g., there is a Wikipedia article
for him) was Commander Graham Gore from the Franklin Expedition. The
unnamed principal narrator (while many conversations are given verbatim,
the ones where her name is mentioned are merely summarized) is hired to
be the ³bridge² for Graham Gore to the modern world. Personally, I am
annoyed by the authorıs decision to not name her narrator. All I will
add to James Nicollıs review is that there are 10 (all very short)
chapters with Commander Graham Gore as the viewpoint, starting when he
was part of the Franklin Expedition, with last few set after he was
yanked into the 21st century, ending with his introduction to his
³bridge².
The third novel I read was _Alien Clay_ by Adrian Tchaikovsky (James
Nicollıs review can be found at
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/always-burning - BTW, the packet had
the UK edition). It starts with ex-Professor Anton Daghdev being dumped
onto a labor colony (i.e., Gulag) on an extrasolar planet with exuberant
life. He had run afoul with Earthıs Governmental Mandate, a totalitarian
state that thinks it has all the answers. There a number of procedures
in the setup that are presented as the cheap way of doing things. I have doubts that several actually were cheaper. If I read James Nicollıs
review correctly, he has similar doubts.
The fourth novel I read was _Service Model_ by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A
robot leaves his comfortable position and goes out in the world, which
had gone to hell. I suspect insufficient beta testing of several robot operating systems. I had problems reading this, because that robot was
the only viewpoint (I am reluctant to call him a protagonist) and I
wanted to shout at him about every other page.
I did not read _Someone You can Build a Nest in_ by John Wiswell,
because a description that I read of it convinced me that it was horror
and I try to avoid horror. I had already read _A Sorceress Comes to
Call_ by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon). BTW, this was the only one of
the 24 fiction nominees that I had already read.
--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_. -----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward
robertaw@drizzle.com
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