Comments on: Hugo’s sad puppies.

By: Anthony J. Langford

Anthony J. Langford — Fri, 01 May 2015 09:35:18 +0000

I must confess to being completely ignorant of all of these books. Alas I don't read much sci fi these days. In fact, if it weren't for your recommendations, I wouldn't have read any over the past few years. Actually I don't get much time to read anything at all, something that I'm sure will change when family/work demands are not as big.

As usual though, your posts are very well researched and laid out.

By: Graham Clements

Graham Clements — Fri, 01 May 2015 06:45:34 +0000

The novel I mentioned I had read in the post, Ancillary Justice, would probably be classified as military sci-fi, but unlike the usual military science fiction of being just a battle of good versus evil Ancillary Justice has much more. For starters the main character is an AI, who used to be linked to thousands of other AI's but has been cut loose. The AI lacks all emotions except a sense of justice which it feels compelled to follow through on. Also the entity that controlled all the AI's has split into many cloned versions who are secretly at war with each other. The added ingredient is that the AI, although in a female body, is sexless and because the sex of humans had never mattered to it, it finds it hard to distinguish between male and female humans and it finds to hard to assume the identity of a female human so it can pursue its mission of justice. That last part is what the Sad Puppies probably have an issue with. And the fact that the author is female. But the novel is full of ideas and has an original central character.

By: Graham Clements

Graham Clements — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 23:43:40 +0000

I haven't been reading much either. Something I am trying to remedy – see next post. Of all the books listed and nominated, I will probably, as stated in the post, only read one of them, Ancillary Sword, the sequel to Ancillary Justice. I might end up reading The First 15 Lives Of Harry August, and one that is not mentioned in the post, but topped the Goodreads award by a huge margin, The Martian, by Andy Weir.

By: Commander Zaius

Commander Zaius — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 03:47:37 +0000

I've got to admit on occasion I enjoy a well-written military sci-fi book as long as it doesn't start declaring a political position, which I mean right-wing, proto-fascist crap.

Because of that I rarely consider anything from Baen anymore.