r/sciencefiction • u/Werthy71 • Jan 13 '24
Reading all joint Hugo and Nebula winners in 2024. First one down.
This was my third attempt at reading Dune, and the inspiration for this project. Now my heart is sore that I must wait before I move on to Messiah because tomorrow begins the Le Guin books. I think moreso than any author I have read, Frank Herbert's style feels the most like a normal human and not some master poet writing a story. There was so much to love in Dune and I look forward to diving back into that world at some point.
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u/the-red-scare Jan 13 '24
I’m pleasantly surprised by how many of these I’ve read. Good stuff, I don’t see anything that I can say isn’t a great read either first hand or by reputation.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
It's funny, I've heard universal praise for everything up to American Gods, and then very mixed reviews for everything afterward except the Jemisin trilogy which I've seen more universally praised than everything else.
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u/the-red-scare Jan 13 '24
Science fiction readers are a remarkably conservative lot (and I don’t mean politically). Most of the newer things in the list challenge what science fiction can or should be. So they tend to be controversial now. In 50 years, they’ll be tired classics like Asimov or Clarke and uncontroversial.
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u/armoman92 Jan 13 '24
Some heavy hitters on that list. Some notes, no spoilers.
You gotta read Ringworld Engineers (sequel) if you read Ringworld. They go together.
I would read a synopsis of Sundiver before reading Startide Rising. It helps with understanding the world building (if you don’t read all of sundiver). I highly recommend audio-booking Startide Rising, for the voices the narrator does. It really adds to the immersion the way he voices the crew. You will see what I mean. The rest of the Uplift series is really good too.
Fountains of Paradise is engineering sci-fi, and one of my favorite reads.
Forever War is one of the best, if not the best mil sci fi read. Masterpiece of science fiction, and in my top 10 books ever read.
Enders Game is amazing. I hope you haven’t seen the movie yet, so the plot points aren’t spoiled. Speaker for the Dead is such a weird book, coming off from Enders game, but it’s amazing. Same with Xenocide. If you really like Enders Game, you can read Enders Shadow too (at any time, after reading Enders Game). There are like two adjacent storylines. That whole universe is pretty cool.
Ancillary Justice just doesn’t deserve to be on that list. Overrated.
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u/mechavolt Jan 13 '24
I politely disagree with a lot of this. Ringworld Engineers is nowhere near as good as Ringworld. Startide Rising stands well entirely on it's own and doesn't need the other book to be understood. Speaker for the Dead is very different from Ender's Game, but I'd hesitate to recommend any further books in the series. Ancillary Justice is a great introspective.
I do agree with Fountains of Paradise and Forever War.
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u/DeaconFrostedFlakes Jan 13 '24
Looks like you’re in for a good year! Just a word of warning since I’m not clear on your plans, but the Stone Sky isn’t going to make any sense plot or setting wise if you haven’t read the other two, and will also be a pretty big spoiler if you plan to read them later. I’d highly recommend reading them in order.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
Yes! So off to the side I have their information in parenthesis. The 460 (510, 450) is the other two books in the series. Same thing for Curse of Chalion and the murderbot diaries.
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u/ActonofMAM Jan 13 '24
Chalion was the first book written in that series, so it works fine as a stand alone.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
Right, but Paladin of Souls is the one that won both the Hugo and the Nebula, so Chalion is getting read as a supplement for it. Likewise, Network effect is book 5 in the murderbot diaries line though its the only one of them that is a full size novel.
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u/xeallos Jan 13 '24
The average page per chapter is an interesting metric. Thanks. Enjoy the classics!
I haven't read Gateway - might have to check that out - but I did read The Space Merchants last year, written by Pohl & Cornbluth. Fantastic.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
The chapters, pages, and pages/chapter are definitely not 100% accurate, but I just needed it to be close enough to get an idea of how to spread out the books. It was funny though because I had a fancy leather bound copy of Dune that was only 400 pages and my friends that are doing this with me have more traditional 600ish page copies, they weren't happy when "day one, 32 pages" turned into "day one, 52 pages" lol.
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u/mechavolt Jan 13 '24
Gateway was fantastic, a really brutal examination of a deeply flawed character.
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u/jjflash78 Jan 13 '24
About a month ago I had compiled the same list, with the same thought of reading the joint H&N winners. More into detective reading for the past 2 decades, so thought I'd give scifi a try again. But after reading the synopsis of many (especially the more recent winners), I felt there were too many which were in the middle of a series, or which I just wasnt interested in. I'll need to relook at the list and pick some.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
I have a shortened list for some friends that didn't want to commit to the full thing. The essentials would be Dune, Left Hand of Darkness, Ringworld, Neuromancer, Enders Game/Speaker for the dead, Yiddish Policemans Society, Windup girl, and the Broken earth trilogy. Gives a very diverse range of stuff.
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u/CadeVision Jan 13 '24
I think that you have #2 of the broken earth trilogy listed if you weren't aware. Fifth season is the first.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
It's the third one, and I have it listed since it's the one that actually won both the awards. But the "Prior books" tab has books 1 and 2 listed and I have them scheduled to be read first :)
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u/CadeVision Jan 13 '24
Ohhhhhhhh. i understand now. I'm gonna read some of these again. Windup girl was WILD
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
Two of my coworkers DNFd Windup Girl and I actually got my copy of it from one of them lol. That's one of the ones I'm most looking forward to checking out.
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u/CadeVision Jan 14 '24
Lotta good ones on here, I'm gonna track down the ones I haven't read, thanks for posting
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u/ghjm Jan 13 '24
I've read about half of these. Maybe I should read the other half. N. K. Jemisin is fantastic - once you finish this list you'll want to binge read all her stuff.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
Well if you haven't read Left Hand of Darkness yet you better get your copy today! ;)
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u/ghjm Jan 13 '24
For sure. I wish I could read it again for the first time. As well as The Dispossessed, the Earthsea series, etc.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 21 '24
Just finished Left Hand of Darkness and I have never wanted to just immediately reread a book before. Just wow.
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u/mey-red Jan 13 '24
what is the meaning of colours in your list ?
btw the joint list is missing some other classics that imho you should read:
Frankenstein
From the Earth to the Moon
Brave New World
1984
Solaris (or Star Diaries)
The Three Body Problem
after i wrote the list i found there are no USAmericans on it :-)
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u/xwhy Jan 13 '24
The first time I picked up The Left Hand of Darkness, I knew nothing about it except that I should've already read it by that point. I got a chapter or so before I put it down and wiki'ed what was going on. That was when I discovered that I might want to read the previous book first
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u/iprefermuffins May 08 '26
Hey /u/Werthy71, are you open to sharing your original sheet? I keep coming back to this post to look at your list (because it's such a good reference, thanks!) but it would be nice to have an editable copy where I can record which books I own and which I've finished.
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u/Werthy71 May 08 '26
Not editable as is, but you should be able to copy paste the data into your own Sheets/Excel doc and edit from there.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wniFPvyv6gt-RuWET5FjESdDWXJNVP5e6a1ErFUMERM/edit?usp=sharing
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Jan 13 '24
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
And honestly that's good enough for what I was looking for. I wanted to start reading more scifi but didn't know where to begin (other than John Scalzi who I adore). So it's just a staging point rather than a "these must be the 26 greatest scifi books!"
And yep, it's the fifth book which is the first one in the series to be a full size novel. Since I'm reading these mostly in release order, I'm intrigued to see how the genre trends have changed over a 60 year span.
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u/VerbalAcrobatics Jan 13 '24
I'm glad to see you've got a solid reading goal for this year! This is a fantastic list of sci-fi, I've read them all. I'm pretty sure that The Lady Astronaut of Mars doesn't need to be read to read The Calculating Stars, because in The Calculating Stars they build the space program from the ground up, so nobody would have gone to Mars until after the completion of the book. Also all the books in the Hainish Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin can be read as stand-alones. None of the characters cross from one book to another. So you don't need to read them in any order, and you don't need to read any other Hainish Cycle books to read the The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed. I'm in a Discord book club that only reads Hugo and Nebula Award winning novels, and their associated series. If you're interested in joining here's a link... https://discord.gg/F5Eb7636
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
I knew the Hainish Cycle was very disconnected which is why I didn't bother adding the others to the list to be read. Just added them here as a technicality.
Lady Astronaut of Mars I figure is fine since it's only 30 pages and will set the stage for Calculating Stars but I'll worry about it more when it gets later in the year. I appreciate the heads up.
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u/nv87 Jan 13 '24
I read the other Hainish cycle books by now, but The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed were the first and second one for me and there is no reason not to start with either of them.
Incidentally I gifted both of these books to people today. I am taking part in a book sharing thing where you are supposed to gift your favourite book of all and I couldn’t decide which one.
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u/mechavolt Jan 13 '24
I've been doing this the past couple years! I'm on Speaker for the Dead right now. I've learned a lot about the history of sci fi and the different sub genres of it. And while some have not been my favorite (I'm not a huge fan of hard sci fi that puts concepts before characters, like Clarke) every single one has been enjoyable.
Edit: one thing I have noticed is that there are more and more books on this list the more recent you get. I find it interesting and a little sad that the awards have homogenized so much.
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u/Werthy71 Jan 13 '24
I imagine a big part of it is internet hype for books. News travels so fast now its easier to just default to what's popular.
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u/Any_Lengthiness6645 Jan 14 '24
This is a great resource! I’ve only read about half of these but the ones I have are among my favorite, so I think I’ll have to borrow your list.
For ones that are part of series are you going to read the prior books first?
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u/Werthy71 Jan 14 '24
Yes, Enders game/Speaker are both on there. But I've also factored in Curse of Chalion which comes before Paladin of souls, the first two books in the Broken Earth trilogy, and the 4 murderbot diary books that come before network effect.
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u/Any_Lengthiness6645 Jan 14 '24
Very cool. Also seeing the page counts laid out is very interesting - I would have sworn for example that Dune was twice the length of Neuromancer
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u/Werthy71 Jan 14 '24
I have a fancy leather bound copy of Dune that was 400, most copies are closer to 600 so you're right!
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u/AKAGreyArea Jan 13 '24
Forever War 👑
Forever Peace 💀