Hugo Winner Book Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

Not many pure fantasy novels have won the Hugo award for best novel. One notable winner was The Sword in the Stone in 1939. This book, the fourth in the Harry Potter Series, won the award in 2001. This was the only one of the seven Harry Potter books to win a Hugo.

I was vaguely familiar with the Harry Potter franchise but had never read any of the novels or seen the films. I would say that the book lived up to my expectations and I can see why they were so popular with young people. Highly imaginative, well plotted, and with well developed characters, the books never talk down to the reader. At 636 pages in the hardcover edition, this book was over twice as long as the earlier novels (but exceeded by the subsequent book).

Given the popularity of the series, it is fitting that it won at least one Hugo award.

Hugo Winner Book Review: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Winner of the 1975 Hugo for best novel, this is a fascinating story about an unlikely hero and two planets with widely differing political systems. It fits into Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, like "The Left Hand of Darkness" a Hugo winner I previously reviewed.

Highly original and imaginative, It describes an anarchist utopian society that almost had me convinced that it could work.

Recommended reading, it is a standalone novel that doesn't require having ready any of the other novels in the series.

Hugo Winner Book Review: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

This was the 1977 Hugo award winner for best novel.

It is a near-future apocalyptic tale with some aspects that are disturbingly familiar today (e.g. pollution, climate change, new diseases, genetic engineering).

The writing style is quite different from most of the classic SF authors, with much focus on characters and their emotions. I found it somewhat reminiscent of John Wyndham's work.

An enjoyable novel, unpredictable and disturbing at times, I think it was well deserving of the award

Hugo Winner Book Review: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov wrote the award winning Foundation trilogy, originally as a series of eight short stories published from 1942 through 1950, and then in the form of three novels. One portion, "The Mule", won the Hugo in 1946. The trilogy won a Hugo for "Best All-Time Series" in 1960.

Despite requests from fans, he wrote no more books in the series until 1982 with the publication of Foundation's Edge. The novel, winner of the Hugo award in 1983, continued the series and took place after the events of the first three books.

I believe what got Asimov motivated into writing a sequel was the challenge to tie the Foundation series in to many of the other novels he had written subsequently. He is able to weave into this novel references and themes from his novels The Stars, Like Dust, The Currents of Space, Pebble in the Sky, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The End of Eternity, and his robot stories.

Like the original series, the book is not for everyone. It is heavy on dialog, has many characters, and a plot that has many unexpected twists and turns. Readers looking for space battles, monsters, and aliens will be left wanting.

I read this novel some time ago, but read it again as part of the Hugo award reading challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Asimov subsequently wrote more novels in the series, but he never again won a Hugo for best novel.

Hugo Winner Book Review: The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

I started this journey of reading Hugo award winning novels with books that were written well before I was born. Over 30 novels in, I'm now up to the Hugo award for best novel in 1980, the year that I got married.

Isaac Asimov is my favorite science fiction writer, but when Arthur C. Clarke was writing at his best, I think he was a better writer. This novel is Clarke at the top of his form. Based on the idea of a "space elevator" (one which is theoretically possible and likely to happen some day) it has all the hallmarks of his writing including an exciting and imaginative story with many excellent little details. The characters are also a little more developed than in most of his stories.

A hallmark of his writing seems to be contact with extraterrestrials, often highly advanced. This was not part of this story but he adds a subplot plot on this topic that gets weaved into the main story.

Hugo Winner Book Review: Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Winner of the Hugo award for besr novel of 1979, this is a touching and beautiful story with an original and imaginative plot, well developed characters, and a fascinating science fiction setting. It is science fiction at its best, where the plot and characters are primary. Earlier dominated by men, by 1979 the Hugo awards were being won about half the time by women, and in recent years women have almost entirely dominated the best novel awards. This is highly recommended ready for anyone, whether science fiction fans or not.

Hugo Winner Book Review: Gateway by Frederik Pohl

This novel won the Hugo award for best novel of 1978.

I enjoyed it, finding it an eclectic mix of science fiction themes with interesting characters and a very imaginative premise. It later became part of a series of novels and stories around a similar theme: the mysterious alien Heechee race.

The novel makes use of an interesting device in that many pages contain standalone text for signs, legal documents, classified ads, and even some kind of BASIC-like computer programming.

Pohl was a life-long friend of Isaac Asimov, and even acted as his literary agent for a period of time. The book has some references to a "Dr Asmenion" who was an expert on explaining science and astronomy and likes to tell off-colour jokes and was apparently from somewhere near Smolensk, Russia. This is clearly a little jab at Asimov. Another letter is written by a "Harry Hellison" that sounds suspiciously like science fiction writer Larry Ellison.

Pohl had a long career as a science fiction writer and editor, active right up to the time of his death in 2013 at age 93, but this was his only Hugo award winning novel (he did won some more Hugos in other categories).