Earlier, I said I was reading all the 2010 Hugo Novels. Well I'm done now so here's my thoughts.
Boneshaker I mentioned above. Didn't finish it, didn't work for me.
The Windup Girl is probably my pick of the most inventive of the bunch. Now, that may be because of the "exotic" location and culture (Thailand). Despite that it's a densely peopled and plotted book with interesting characters shifting through a nation state with a fragile independence. I really enjoyed this one.
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America was also enjoyable. Essentially it's 19th-Century America set in the 22nd-Century with the beginnings of the rise of democracy over a controlling, powerful church-state. The MC is Adam Hazzard, a charmingly naive backwoods boy who is the friend of Julian Comstock, nephew of the powerful and capricious President of the USA. The story charts Adam and Julian's journey from backwoods to Army to major city to Presidency. It's a good read. I felt the 19th-22nd-Century thing was a leetle bit strange in that a few catastrophic events have turned back the clock so that Victorian technology can be used. I've seen it called a steampunk novel but that's an extremely tenuous statement; I would not call it even close to steampunk.
Wake is interesting. In summary: the Internet gains sentience. (Oh, oops: spoilers). The science -- or, should I say scientific speculation -- in this one is very interesting. One of the characters is a blind teenager, Caitlin, who develops a sort of sight through some innovative Japanese technology. Those bits were fascinating. The characters feel a little thin, though, in a way similar to Arthur C Clarke. Clarke always came up with awesome ideas and his characters sometimes feel like props to support them rather than real people. Wake felt a little like that to me. I haven't read the other books in the WWW series; not sure I will.
The City and The City was, frankly, a disappointment. That's the second China Mieville book I've read and I wasn't hugely impressed by either. It's not that they're badly written, far from it. It's just, there's a lot of hype about the man and I don't think the books lived up. With TCATC, my feeling was the central idea is cool but apart from that it's a pretty standard thriller/conspiracy/whodunnit. Again, well-written but nothing special. I'm not sure why it won.
Huh. Just realised I haven't read Palimpsest. Oh well, one more to read -- ace!
