Hugo Thoughts: Best Novel

Here are my thoughts on this year's novels - most of which I only got excerpts of:

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi. "Parody" wars with Vox Day aside...this is the first Scalzi I've actually read. And sad to say, I was underwhelmed. I like how he plays with gender, but he doesn't do so nearly as deftly as Ann Leckie or JY Yang (I'll talk more about that when I get to novellas). I liked the idea of this book, I liked the plot. I'll just be honest...I don't like Scalzi's voice. It's just an aesthetic preference.

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson. I have a weird relationship with this book - when I had the privilege of reading with Robinson at Balticon 50, he read an excerpt from this work well before it was published. I'm not a huge Robinson fan, but this book is one I like more than most of his and it's a beautiful love letter to New York. I don't think I would have appreciated it as much, though, if I hadn't ever been there.

Provenance by Ann Leckie. Not, in my mind, one of her better offerings. Still very well done, but I like the Ancillary series a lot better.

Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee. The sequel to Ninefox Gambit is, if anything, better. Asian voices are producing some great work of late - give me more. If you like your science fiction nuts and bolts hard, though...this is more science fiction in the vein of Star Wars. Just with math instead of the Force.

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty. I'm going to admit a bias here. Lafferty is an awesome person and I wish she hadn't moved out of the area. That said, I intend to buy this book at some point. I need to know who did it! It's an able mystery, a peculiar variation on the concept of the locked door mystery, with some interesting worldbuilding in the background. How does society handle immortality?

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin. I still can't really deal with the second person segments and probably never will. However, each book in this series is better than the past and if you aren't as tweaked by second person as I am.

My choice: Six Wakes. But I'm biased.

My prediction: The Stone Sky.