Yet, on the linked web page, he wrote: I read and was impressed by Spin.

So which is it, Mr. Kaufmann? Did it do absolutely nothing for you, or did it impress you?

I think I’ve run circles around you, logically.

Sheesh. You people need some serious fans to ‘splain things to you, don’t you?

Amaterurs. Feh.

Anyhow, Old Man’s War is a far better book than Crows. And I say this knowing that, overall, Martin is a better author than Scalzi. It’s just that Crows was more of a bridge, and Old Man’s War was a brilliant first start.

OTOH, Ghost Brigades blows Old Man’s War out of the water. Scalzi is improving in leaps and bounds.

spoilers follow

As I said, I think that the narrator is subtly unreliable – Tyler doesn’t relate to the universe in the same way that Jason does. It’s pretty clear from Jason’s final conversation that the aliens don’t care about human beings; they don’t understand what human beings are. Instead, they view them and the biological systems that they and other biological races are as something like computer programs which can assimilate each other, destroy each other etc. The worlds which open up at the end aren’t, in this reading, much more than a glorified Petri dish in which various biological cultures will battle it out for dominance. Tyler chooses not to focus on this – and the author doesn’t spell it out, but it’s there as a clear subtext for me at least. I think that the key to this book is Wilson’s previous (and greatly inferior) Bios which is all about a bio-engineered orphan who is screwed up by her lack of roots so that she needs a family and father figure, and who ends up being absorbed into an alien biology that seems to promise some sort of holistic paradise. The point being, if I understand Wilson rightly, that our dreams of holistic paradise have to do with our insecurities and unacknowledged driving forces. I think Wilson is doing a similar trick here, but making the reader work much harder for it.

So if it’s a choice between that and Feast, I’d give it to Martin and we can pretend it’s for the series rather than just the fourth book.

Accelerando was just this weird rambling fugue around the idea that you can quantize a personality and run it in a virtual world. Not an especially original idea (we’ve all seen The Matrix), and not executed in a way that provided me with any new insights.

But Spin was even worse. The idea was so grand, the working out so limited. The novel presented this gloomy (but IMHO realistic) view of human nature till the very end where it all becomes unicorns and daisies. It felt like a Hollywood movie that had had its dark ending replaced with something more upbeat to satisfy the focus groups in Kansas.

Ken MacLeod appears to be something of a thinking man, so I should try him at some point, but I have to admit I’ve been rather disappointed by the SF I’ve seen recommend in blogs.

Not insignificant factor: George has been going to American conventions an awful lot longer than Charlie has.

But, as you note, also a lot of fans don’t like fantasy.

Myself, I think it would be nice for Steve Stiles to win a Hugo, finally, but I’m saying that on the usual “lifetime achievement” basis that a lot of the awards actually go to, and with no idea at all as to who the Best Fan Artist was last year. But, then, I’m also not a member of this year’s Worldcon, and not voting.

Digressing, I note with some slight sadness that my one-time provider-of-quarters, the most venerable Amazing Stories has once again (for about the 1,237th time) ceased existence. Anyone want to buy the title?

Also, Adam Roberts’ has excellent review of all the Clarke finalists up at Infinity Plus. It deserves (another) link.

George’s best advantage, IMHO, is that he is a Worldcon regular. He goes to all of them, and is well known to most of the regular voters. Because of that even some of the SF purists may vote for him.

Patrick – go for it! I’d love to see a ebook of Spin made available.

(Fictionwise often have the novels available as ebooks, but they charge for them.)

Really? I’ve never seen novel nominees (and their publishers) put their books out for free before, I think, but if it happens … woo-hoo? Yeah, I think that merits a, “Woo-hoo.” It’d be a different ballgame, I think. Especially if Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin were to go out there.

Pros for Accelerando:

1) Charles Stross seems to be something of the posterboy for Singularity SF these days, and that’s popular.

2) He got his first Hugo last year, which shows that he’s reached enough Worldcon-attending readers.

3) What I think is going to be telling: Accelerando is available for free (legal) download. People often seem to make an effor to read the nominees they haven’t, and it’s going to be almost impossible for them not to take the free book up. If Accelerando wins (and my gut says it will), I think this is going to be the reason.

Cons for Accelerando:

1) Winning the Hugo for his story last year may make those who value “spreading the love around” stay away.

2) It is, apparently, a fix-up of nine short stories grafted together into a “novel”, and I’ve seen some reviewers comment that this doesn’t work particularly well.

Pros for A Feast for Crows:

1) George has a lot of fans.
1a) A not insignificant-number vote at the Hugos, as witnessed by the near-miss of A Storm of Swords (considered by many the best book of the series, and by some the best epic fantasy since Tolkien (or even ever) in 2001 to the J.K. Rowling juggernaut.

2) It’s the only fantasy novel. Worldcon voters who don’t read much SF are likelier to put A Feast for Crows down than any of the others. Consider the fact that fantasy novels have four of the last five awards.

3) George is a luminary in the field, among the most-nominated and award-winning writers active in the field today, and there’s a lot of good will.

4) There’s going to be some who want to “make it up” to George for the the 2001 thing.

5) And there’s going to be some who’ll see this vote as an award for the series to-date, even if they don’t think AFfC is equal to the previous three others (or to the other four nominees), and will feel that the other nominees just can’t match two brilliant books and two “only” extremely good ones.

Cons for A Feast for Crows:

1) It’s the fourth book in a series. Third book in the series didn’t stop A Storm of Swords, but I think it may be a factor here, because those who pick it up without the other books (or, at least, without A Storm of Swords) may not grasp the more subtle pacing and the stronger focus on certain themes in this novel.

2) And speaking of those themes and pacing, some people just plain hated it. How many will be the sort of people who’ll leave it off their ballot, or at the bottom, when they once put it in at #1 or #2 in 2001 will be an open question.

3) It’s a fantasy. I see signs of an even greater “fantasy backlash” from some corners of SF fandom. There are those who really, really hate the idea that “their” Hugo awards are being given to fantasy rather than the SF it’s “supposed” to honor. I won’t be surprised by concerted efforts to get people to list the four SF novels and then No Award in hopes of stopping it.

So, the odds are in Stross’s favor, I think, but it’ll be close.

I could see Spin managing to sneak in to win, and I think in terms of sheer, individual quality, it’s probably considered the best of the five. I don’t think Scalzi or MacLeod have a chance, but I could be wrong.