Locus has announced the finalists for this year’s Locus Awards, which will be presented in June in Seattle. Without revealing too many prejudices, I think it’s as good a batch of award finalists as you’re going to see all year. I’m really happy, for example, to see Stan Robinson’s Fifty Degrees Below on an awards ballot. I’ve got definite prejudices in every category, and will be interested to see the final results. And, no, I don’t know. I can find out
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Fifty Degrees Below has been on every best-of list and award ballot I’ve filled out all year. Forty Kinds of Rain was terrific, but Fifty Degrees Below is truly great. Are you and I the only people reading these books?
I’m beginning to think so. It seems like readers aren’t reacting well to rigorously realised, well considered, wonderfully well written near future SF that focusses on the major issues of our time. I’m not saying that it’s the only stuff people should be reading, but Fifty Degrees Below is a fantastic book, but no-one I know is reading it. Maybe it’s a January 2nd kind of book.
Well, I know you don’t know me, but I’m reading them. Fifty Degrees Below was on the “best 10″ list I sent to SFSite, and it was in the top 5 of my Locus poll vote. I agree that it was much stronger than Forty Signs of Rain, which I thought was good but not great. I recommend the series to everyone I know who reads science fiction. Not many of them register interest. I think that the near future is pretty terrifying to many North Americans right now, and many would just as soon ignore the possibilities. That attitude frightens me considerably more than abrupt climate change.