I’m huddled in bed with my warmest jacket and extra blankets, and I still can’t shake the chills. Although I feel cold inside, in minutes my pillows too hot. I flip it over and rest my cheek on the comforting coolness. Occasionally, I sandblast my throat with another bout of hacking. I can hear Jana grossed out in the living room. “Take some cough drops!” she yells.
But there is a shiny, silvery lining on this dark germ-laden cloud. I get to lie in bed and read. And I’m too muddled in the head to read translations of apocryphal third-century Jewish Christian texts, so I read things that are *fun.*
One of my many annual projects is to read the Hugo and Nebula Award Nominees for best novel. Here are the Hugo nominees. These will be voted on by ticketholders for members of the World SF Convention in Denver this year [thanks, Michael Walsh, for the clarification!]:
- The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
- Brasyl by Ian McDonald
- Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
- The Last Colony by John Scalzi
- Halting State by Charles Stross
And here are the Nebula nominees for best novel. These are chosen by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Association:
- The Accidental Time by Joe Haldeman
- The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
- Odyssey by Jack McDevitt
- Ragamuffin by Tobias S. Buckell
- The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
No time or energy *cough*cough* to find the links. You can do those. I also have a secret tips for you. That’s right, step a little closer…I don’t bite, unless you asks nicely. *wheeze* As it gets closer to voting time, a lot of the stories, including the novels, start to pop up on the internet for free, as *legitimate* downloads! There’s something academy awardish in the politicking behind the Nebulae and Hugo-ae-ii-s-whatevers. Later, I’ll try to point out some worthy nominees among the shorter forms.
Here’s another hint–I have never been disappointed reading one of the relatively few books that made it to both ballots. This year that’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. When I pick up a genre book, I usually come for the plots and ideas, sometimes I am stay and chat and am changed by the characters; rarely do I savor the words that make up the edifice. Chabon’s hard-boiled detective tale is full of ornate and quirky word carvings and knick knacks, that you want to look over again and again, or borrow and share with your best friends.
The setting is an alternate history U.S., not so different from our own, but where Israel was defeated in 1948 by the Arabs, and the U.S. reluctantly created a temporary settlement for Jews on some mosquito infested islands in the Alaskan panhandle. Savor this description of the main character’s (Landsman’s) sister:
It was from an early boyfriend that she had caught the itch to fly. Landsman never asked her what the attraction was, why she had worked so long and hard to crash the homoidiotic world of male bush pilots…But as Landsman understands it, the wings of an airplane are engaged in a constant battle with the air that envelopes them, denting and baffling and warping it, bending and staving it off. Fighting it in the way a salmon fights against the current of the river in which it’s going to die. Like a salmon–that aquatic Zionist, forever dreaming of its fatal home–Naomi used up her strength and energy in the struggle.
In this paragraph, Chabon has managed to describe Naomi’s masculine character, the world of the bush pilots, Landsman’s own fear of flying and at the same time tied it together with Jewish and Alaskan imagery that forms the context for the entire story. I want to share more–there are hilarious bits, yiddish-colored noir, descriptions of dark beauty, but I’ll save all that for the review. One thing that I do want to emphasize–Chabon transcends genre. Non SF-afficianados might be thrilled by this work.
I’ll finish this in the next day or two, and would love to have a bloggy chat about it–even if it’s in a few weeks from now. Any one interested?
My next book will be Charlie Stross’ Halting State. Let me know if you’re interested in reading the same.
