<![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> @Karl_Bryhn: The SF core culture has it's own standard that I don't even pretend to understand. At all. But Stross should have won. There is no way Accelerando couldn't have won. Go figure.

Jeff-Minor

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> @yeschaton: I guess some writers just get sick of some of their characters and want to move on. Charles Stross has said he isn't going to write any more of his Post Singularity Escation (sp?) stories. Which is such a shame.

Jeff-Minor

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> Dissapointing but still just how these things are I guess. Really good books never win the awards they deserve anyway. Altered Carbon was a strong debut but Morgan´s following books have had a steady decline in quality and are really forgettable stuff so naturally he´s ripe for an award;) This doesn´t surprise me anymore. (Although I can´t stop getting provoked by the touchy-feely SPIN winning the 2005 Hugo in front of Accelerando.. That just chaps my ass.)

Karl_Bryhn

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> @quetzilla: The Martian stuff does get elaborated on, in the second Kovacs novel and, to a lesser extent, the third, but the second and third novels are otherwise diminishingly satisfying, which for some reason seems, from his interviews, to give Morgan perverse pleasure.

Rasselas

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> Morgan is the finest sf novelist writing today.

His work is, often, quite beyond the usual sf dreck, and therefore is deemed out of consideration for the usual awards and et ceteras.

There is no one else writing with the same imagination, except, maybe, Jeter.

librariankathleen

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> I guess I'm *not* in the majority, as I found Altered Carbon sort of trite and lacking any real substance. The only thing that genuinely interested me was the bit about the Martians. Does that get expanded upon in the later books? Because I totally dig Martians.

quetzilla

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> Yes, I found 13 a harder read than his other novels, but rewarding for the effort. Morgan writes at great length in order to work through a lot of thoughts about prejudice, racism and of course the consequences of practical genetic modification (I mean as opposed to aesthetic genemods). Didn't anyone else appreciate the manner in which Marsalis and the rest were modified? Stripping away millennia of increasing neoteny to create a military atavism? A sort of mirror image of Zindell's Alaloi...

yeschaton

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> Comment on Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award I thought Broken Angels was a significantly better read that Altered Carbon and I liked Altered Carbon a lot. Woken Furies, was decent, but easily the weakest of the "trilogy". My biggest problem with the Kovacs books was Morgan's increasing use of hardcore porn scenes so that the personas of his body swapping characters can "just /feel/ something, damnit." And I will freely admit that, initially, I found these episodes a bit titilating. Eventually, though, I just skimmed these sections to get back to the major themes and plot. So, with all of that, is "Thirteen" basically a full on porn movie script or has Morgan reigned it back in a bit? I guess I'd like to know that before starting the read... Ghostwheel

ShawCinna

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> I was very sorry to hear that he doesn't intend any more Kovacs novels. I found their stories building towards possibilities I wanted to read about, including: what really happened to the Martians? and will humans be able to sleeve into radically other bodies (or could Martians or others sleeve into human bodies?) If you haven't read Broken Angels or Woken Furies, you're in for a treat.

yeschaton

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> Ok, wait, i really liked the Raw Shark Texts. so there

notworkin

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> I really liked Altered Carbon. I've heard the same sort of "not as good as" reviews of Black Man. I liked the setting in A.C. I liked the obscene wealth and the floating whore house. All good times.

Jeff-Minor

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> @Neil: I've been meaning to read Raw Shark Texts. I really liked Red Men and Carhullan Army, the other two "literary" books that made this year's shortlist. (I link to my reviews of them above.)

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> I think I agree with the majority here in that I really liked "Altered Carbon" and thought that "Thirteen" (or "Black Man") was a decent contribution, but no where near AC. I've got to pick up the rest of the Kovacs series.

MadJackDeacon

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> i enjoyed Thirteen, but i think everything has been downhill somewhat since Altered Carbon, with an uptick for Market Forces.

AC grabbed me by the lapels and made me its bitch*; MF wins by cleverly executed (if somewhat typical) societal satire. (Plus, it featured Saabs and Volvos, which plays well to this Cantabrigian, complete with elbow patches.)

(* not my first choice of metaphor, but "cleaned" up for the family audience)

zerofritz

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> I'm in the middle of reading it now and while it is entertaining, I don't think that it's up to par with the Kovacs stories.

BullfightsOnAcid

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> The Raw Shark Texts is probably one of the worst books I've read in years.
Just had to get that off my chest.


Neil

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> Oops missed that it was published in the US as Thirteen. I was also trying to figure out what Th*r Te*n meant.

Low blood sugar, really.

Castle1914

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> @Castle1914: That's the U.S> cover, where it's called Thirteen. The U.K. cover is super boring.

Charlie Jane Anders

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> Bravo for Morgan (is he a Capt?)

It might be my low blood sugar, but what does the pic have to do with the story?

Castle1914

]]> <![CDATA[Shockingly, Science Fiction Book Wins SF Book Award]]> I found it extremely disappointing, but I suppose I am in the minority, given the award and notwithstanding Morgan's defensiveness about criticisms. I hate our current politics as much as the next man, but the "Jesusland" parts, especially, were just shooting whales in a thimble.

Rasselas

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