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Hugo Award Winners (science fiction)
Description: The Hugo Award is given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy work of the previous year. Bookshare is pleased to offer the following titles awarded the Hugo Award for best novel. #award
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Stand on Zanzibar
by John BrunnerThere are seven billion-plus humans crowding the surface of 21st century Earth. It is an age of intelligent computers, mass-market psychedelic drugs, politics conducted by assassination, scientists who burn incense to appease volcanoes... all the hysteria of a dangerously overcrowded world, portrayed in a dazzlingly inventive style.
Hugo Award winner.
Stranger in a Strange Land
by Robert A. HeinleinRobert Heinlein's Hugo Award-winning all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a science fiction classic.
Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earth’s inhabitants forever...
The Gods Themselves
by Isaac AsimovOnly a few know the terrifying truth--an outcast Earth scientist, a rebellious alien inhabitant of a dying planet, a lunar-born human intuitionist who senses the imminent annihilation of the Sun. They know the truth--but who will listen? They have foreseen the cost of abundant energy--but who will believe? These few beings, human and alien, hold the key to the Earth's survival.
Redshirts
by John ScalziEnsign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, with the chance to serve on "Away Missions" alongside the starship's famous senior officers. Life couldn't be better...until Andrew begins to realize that 1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces, 2) the ship's senior officers always survive these confrontations, and 3) sadly, at least one low-ranking crew member is invariably killed. Unsurprisingly, the savvier crew members belowdecks avoid Away Missions at all costs. Then Andrew stumbles on information that transforms his and his colleagues' understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is...and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives. Redshirts is the winner of the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Rendezvous with Rama
by Arthur C. ClarkeAstronauts explore an alien spacecraft hurtling toward the sun in this Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novel—&“a stone-cold classic&” of hard sci-fi (The Guardian). An enormous cylindrical object has entered Earth&’s solar system on a collision course with the sun. A team of astronauts are sent to explore the mysterious craft, which the denizens of the solar system name Rama. What they find is astonishing evidence of a civilization far more advanced than ours. They find an interior stretching over fifty kilometers; a forbidding cylindrical sea; mysterious and inaccessible buildings; and strange machine-animal hybrids, or &“biots,&” that inhabit the ship. But what they don&’t find is an alien presence. So who—and where—are the Ramans? Often listed as one of Clarke&’s finest novels, Rendezvous with Rama won numerous awards, including the Hugo, the Nebula, the Jupiter, and the British Science Fiction Awards. A fast-paced and compelling story of an enigmatic encounter with alien technology, Rendezvous with Rama offers both answers and unsolved mysteries that will continue to fascinate readers for generations. &“Mr. Clarke is splendid . . . We experience that chilling touch of the alien, the not-quite-knowable, that distinguishes SF at its most technically imaginative.&” —The New York Times
The Dispossessed
by Ursula K. Le GuinCenturies ago, the moon Anarres was settled by utopian anarchists who left the Earthlike planet Urras in search of a better world, a new beginning. Now a brilliant physicist, Shevek, determines to reunite the two civilizations that have been separated by hatred since long before he was born.
The Dispossessed is a penetrating examination of society and humanity -- and one man's brave undertaking to question the unquestionable and ignite the fires of change.
Winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards.
The Snow Queen
by Joan D. VingeArienrhod. As beautiful as she was ancient, she ruled Tiamat, whose twin suns circled the Star gate that linked her world with the galaxy-spanning Empire. But the Stargate was closing, the offworlders who both enriched and dominated Tiamat would leave soon, the rule of the Winter folk would give way to that of the semi-civilized Summers, and Arienrhod's reign -- and her arcanely prolonged life — would end.
The Snow Queen had planned against this time, secretly cloning an heir to be brought up among the Summer people. Moon Dawntreader grew up ignorant of her heritage, yet was drawn to fulfill her destiny in the ancient city where Arienrhod held court -- contending with the Queen for the body and soul of the man who loved them both.
Hugo Award winner.
The Vor Game
by Lois Mcmaster BujoldMiles Naismith Vorkosigan was not a mutant, though he was often mistaken for one. His home, Barrayar, was a militant world shaped by a bitter history and political strife. Years earlier, an assassin had chosen poison gas for an attack on Aral Vorkosigan, former Regent of the Barrayaran Empire -- now Prime Minister -- and the pregnant Lady Cordelia.
They survived; unborn Miles was the terrorist's only real victim. Cursed with brittle bones that neither grew nor healed properly, a dwarf-like body and a face prematurely lined with the agony of too many corrective surgeries--and too many people who could not accept his difference -- Miles refused to hide behind his Vor rank. With a brilliant mind, courage honed by a desire for adventure, and an ever-ready sense of the absurd, he carved out his own place in the galactic scheme...
It was just after his hard-won graduation from the Imperial Academy and before he began active duty that Miles met the hill woman. Distraught, she claimed her husband had murdered their baby daughter, who'd been born (continued on back flap) (continued from front flap) defective -- an old back-country practice for culling mutants, now illegal but impossible to stamp out. The woman demanded Lord Vorkosigan's justice, and she was no less surprised than Miles himself when he was appointed his father's Voice in the matter. But he did indeed exact justice -- for the sake of a child whose needless death would haunt him all his days...
Hugo Award winner.
Downbelow Station
by C. J. CherryhThe Hugo Award-winning classic, now available in a trade edition for the first time. Pell?s Station, orbiting the alien world simply called Downbelow, had always managed to remain neutral in the ever escalating conflict between ?The Company,? whose fleets from Earth had colonized space, and its increasingly independent and rebellious colony worlds. But Pell?s location?on the outer edge of Earth?s defensive perimeter? makes her the focal point in the titanic battle of colony worlds fighting for independence?
The City & The City
by China MiévilleWhen a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma. But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen.
With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman's secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives.
What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.
To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis&“Willis effortlessly juggles comedy of manners, chaos theory and a wide range of literary allusions [with a] near flawlessness of plot, character and prose.&”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel.Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He&’s been shuttling between the twenty-first century and the 1940s in search of a hideous Victorian vase called &“the bishop&’s bird stump&” as part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid.But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but also to prevent altering history itself.
Way Station
by Clifford D. SimakEnoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age — a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch’s eyes to humanity’s impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race... though the cure could ultimately prove more terrible than the disease.
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Way Station is a magnificent example of the fine art of science fiction as practiced by a revered Grand Master. A cautionary tale that is at once ingenious, evocative, and compassionately human.
Doomsday Book
by Connie WillisConnie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.&“A tour de force.&”—The New York Times Book ReviewFor Kivrin, preparing to travel back in time to study one of the deadliest eras in humanity&’s history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history&’s darkest hours.
Starship Troopers
by Robert A. HeinleinIn one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe -- and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind's most frightening enemy.
Foundation's Edge
by Isaac AsimovNow, 498 years after its founding, the Foundation seemed to be following the Seldon Plan perfectly. Too perfectly. Now an impossible planet -- with impossible powers -- threatens to upset the Seldon Plan for good unless two men, sworn enemies, can work together to save it!
Hugo Award winner.
The Windup Girl
by Paolo BacigalupiAnderson Lake is AgriGen’s Calorie Man, sent to work undercover as a factory manager in Thailand while combing Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories.
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in this chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits and forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly-acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century.
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
A Case of Conscience
by James BlishFather Ruiz-Sanchez is a dedicated man -- a priest who is also a scientist, and a scientist who is also a human being. He has found no insoluble conflicts in his beliefs or his ethics... until he is sent to Lithia. There he comes upon a race of aliens who are admirable in every way except for their total reliance on cold reason; they are incapable of faith or belief.
Confronted with a profound scientific riddle and ethical quandary, Father Ruiz-Sanchez soon finds himself torn between the teachings of his faith, the teachings of his science, and the inner promptings of his humanity. There is only one solution: He must accept an ancient and unforgivable heresy -- and risk the futures of both worlds.
Hugo Award Winner.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
by Susanna ClarkeEnglish magicians were once the wonder of the known world, with fairy servants at their beck and call; they could command winds, mountains, and woods. But by the early 1800s they have long since lost the ability to perform magic. They can only write long, dull papers about it, while fairy servants are nothing but a fading memory.
But at Hurtfew Abbey in Yorkshire, the rich, reclusive Mr Norrell has assembled a wonderful library of lost and forgotten books from England's magical past and regained some of the powers of England's magicians. He goes to London and raises a beautiful young woman from the dead. Soon he is lending his help to the government in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, creating ghostly fleets of rain-ships to confuse and alarm the French.
All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative - the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their power is something to be cautiously controlled, while Jonathan Strange will always be attracted to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic. He becomes fascinated by the ancient, shadowy figure of the Raven King, a child taken by fairies who became king of both England and Faerie, and the most legendary magician of all. Eventually Strange's heedless pursuit of long-forgotten magic threatens to destroy not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything that he holds dear.
Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave readers longing for more.
Hugo Award winner.
Rainbows End
by Vernor VingeFour time Hugo Award winner Vernor Vinge has taken readers to the depths of space and into the far future in his bestselling novels A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Now, he has written a science-fiction thriller set in a place and time as exciting and strange as any far-future world: San Diego, California, 2025.
Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. He was a world-renowned poet. Now he is seventy-five years old, though by a medical miracle he looks much younger, and he's starting over, for the first time unsure of his poetic gifts. Living with his son's family, he has no choice but to learn how to cope with a new information age in which the virtual and the real are a seamless continuum, layers of reality built on digital views seen by a single person or millions, depending on your choice. But the consensus reality of the digital world is available only if, like his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri, you know how to wear your wireless access -- through nodes designed into smart clothes -- and to see the digital context -- through smart contact lenses.
With knowledge comes risk. When Robert begins to re-train at Fairmont High, learning with other older people what is second nature to Miri and other teens at school, he unwittingly becomes part of a wide-ranging conspiracy to use technology as a tool for world domination.
In a world where every computer chip has Homeland Security built-in, this conspiracy is something that baffles even the most sophisticated security analysts, including Robert's son and daughter-in law, two top people in the U.S. military. And even Miri, in her attempts to protect her grandfather, may be entangled in the plot.
As Robert becomes more deeply involved in conspiracy, he is shocked to learn of a radical change planned for the UCSD Geisel Library; all the books there, and worldwide, would cease to physically exist. He and his fellow re-trainees feel compelled to join protests against the change. With forces around the world converging on San Diego, both the conspiracy and the protest climax in a spectacular moment as unique and satisfying as it is unexpected. This is science fiction at its very best, by a master storyteller at his peak.
Hugo Award winner.
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
by Philip Jose FarmerAll those who ever lived on Earth have found themselves resurrected--healthy, young, and naked as newborns--on the grassy banks of a mighty river, in a world unknown. Miraculously provided with food, but with no clues to the meaning of their strange new afterlife, billions of people from every period of Earth's history--and prehistory--must start again.
Sir Richard Francis Burton would be the first to glimpse the incredible way-station, a link between worlds. This forbidden sight would spur the renowned 19th-century explorer to uncover the truth. Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial, Burton sets sail on the magnificent river. His mission: to confront humankind's mysterious benefactors, and learn the true purpose--innocent or evil--of the Riverworld.
Hugo Award winner.
Blackout
by Connie WillisOxford in 2060 is a chaotic place, with scores of time-traveling historians being sent into the past. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser into letting her go to VE-Day. Polly Churchill's next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London's Blitz. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments and switching around everyone's schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, and dive-bombing Stukas--to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.
The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le GuinWinner of the Hugo and Nebula AwardsA groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.
The Fifth Season
by N. K. JemisinTHIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS... FOR THE LAST TIME.
A season of endings has begun.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun.
It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter.
It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
Winner of the Hugo Award
Fahrenheit 451
by Ray BradburyRay Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of 20th century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future.
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
Hugo Award winner.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
by Robert A. HeinleinRobert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era. He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last of these Hugo-winning novels, and it is widely considered his finest work.
It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people--a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic--who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the high points of modern science fiction, a novel bursting with politics, humanity, passion, innovative technical speculation, and a firm belief in the pursuit of human freedom.
Winner of the 1967 Hugo Award for Best Novel.