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The New Hugo Winners (Vol 4) Edited by Gregory Benford I'm not sure how much work an editor has to do to edit a volume of award winners but there you go. :-) |
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JPOC Rating Five out of ten. A mixed bunch but worth it on the whole |
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My review This book contains the winners of three of the categories of Hugo awards (novella, novelette and short story) from the years 1992, 1993 and 1994.
Most of the stories here were first published in Asimov's science fiction magazine. Thus, regular subscribers to that will find little new in this collection. I felt that the three short stories were not particularly good. The first, "A Walk in the Sun" by Geoffrey Landis is traditional SF involving an astronaut stranded on the Moon. I felt that this could have been written thirty or forty years earlier and, after the first four pages, it was simple to see how the rest of the story would progress. Only one writer, Connie Willis, featured twice and her two short stories were, for me at least, the weakest in the collection. While none of them stands out as being exceptionally good, the longer works do manage to redeem the collection. The first novelette, "Gold" by Asimov is not particularly memorable but the other two, "The Nutcracker Coup" and "Georgia on my Mind" together with the three novellas, "Beggars in Spain", "Barnacle Bill the Spacer" and "Down in the Bottomlands" tip the balance. All five of these were interesting stories in settings ranging from contemporary Earth through space adventure to alien worlds and races. TNC and BiS also had something interesting to say beyond their narrative. In summary then, a readable book which is worth the price of admission but there are better collections around. |
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