Hugo Award 2018 Winners and Finalists.

The winner of the 2018 Hugo Awards has been announced and it's as follows:

Best Novel

THE STONE SKY

by N.K. Jemisin

The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women. Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe. For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed

Best Novella

ALL SYSTEMS RED

	by Martha Wells
	"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure." On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid ― a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

Other Categories

There were plenty of other categories both book and film related like, Best Short Story, Best Series, Best Graphic Story and Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (movie) which you can see on the Hugo Awards Website.

For those new to Science Fiction the Hugo Awards have been termed as "among the highest honors bestowed in science fiction and fantasy writing". They are a set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and were officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards until 1992.

Some Thoughts

The six titles which made the finalists of Best Novel follow below, all but one, I was familiar with. The unfamiliar one being Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty. I've read The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi. The winner, The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin, is book three in The Broken Earth series. I have the first book, The Fifth Season in my To Be Read (TBR) pile, so may have to raise that one to the top of the pile.

All Systems Red, by Martha Wells, the winner of the Best Novella is part of the Murderbot Diaries. It's worth looking into as the robotic protagonist, who has named themselves, Murderbot is used to examine the human condition and it's foibles and reflects them back to us from a different perspective.

Take a look through the list below and see if there are that pique your interest. If so click on the book cover or link to purchase from Amazon. I'd appreciate you using the link as these links are affiliate links and doing so will help me buy more books so it should be a win-win for us both.

The Stone Sky

	by N.K. Jemisin
	The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women. Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe. For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.
Interested? Click here to get a copy.

The Collapsing Empire

	by John Scalzi
	Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible -- until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire. The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it's discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.
Interested? Click here to get a copy.

New York 2140

	by Kim Stanley Robinson
	The waters rose, submerging New York City. But the residents adapted and it remained the bustling, vibrant metropolis it had always been. Though changed forever. Every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island. Through the eyes of the varied inhabitants of one building, Kim Stanley Robinson shows us how one of our great cities will change with the rising tides. And how we too will change.
Interested? Click here to get a copy.

Provenance

	by Ann Leckie
	A power-driven young woman has just one chance to secure the status she craves and regain priceless lost artefacts prized by her people. She must free their thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned. Ingray and her charge will return to their home world to find their planet in political turmoil at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future, her family and her world, before they are lost to her for good.
Interested? Click here to get a copy.

Raven Stratagem

	by Yoon Ha Lee
	War. Heresy. Madness. Shuos Jedao is unleashed. The long-dead general, preserved with exotic technologies as a weapon, has possessed the body of gifted young captain Kel Cheris. Now, General Kel Khiruev’s fleet, racing to the Severed March to stop a fresh enemy incursion, has fallen under Jedao’s sway. Only Khiruev’s aide, Lieutenant Colonel Kel Brezan, is able to shake off the influence of the brilliant but psychotic Jedao. The rogue general seems intent on defending the hexarchate, but can Khiruev—or Brezan—trust him? For that matter, can they trust Kel Command, or will their own rulers wipe out the whole swarm to destroy one man?
Interested? Click here to get a copy.

Six Wakes

	by Mur Lafferty
	Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died. Maria's vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so it can awaken. And Maria isn't the only one to die recently..
Interested? Click here to get a copy.

All Systems Red

	by Martha Wells
	A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence. "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure." In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid ― a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
Interested? Click here to get a copy.

The above links will be affiliate links, so if you going to make a purchase any of these books from Amazon I'd appreciate you using the link. Doing so will help me buy more books so it should be a win-win for us both.

Enjoy reading more and thinking more... with your favourite beverage!

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