Science fiction award winners - get them here!

The Hugo Award is arguably the most prestigious accolade in the science fiction world. Winners of this coveted prize were announced by the Science Fiction Writers of America this weekend.

To the surprise of few, Connie Willis's masterful two-volume novel, Blackout /All Clear, won for best science fiction novel. It is the tale of a group of Oxford history students from the future, who are sent back in time to study England in World War II. They gradually become horrifyingly convinced that their presence has changed history, altering the course of the war. and preventing them from going home. Willis is a great favorite of mine. I wrote about Blackout here, and I also recommend her earlier, even more amazing work, The Doomsday Book.

Several other novels were also nominated, so if you like science fiction, you should check them out. Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold is a highly-enjoyable space-opera, the latest in her long-running Miles Vorkosigan series. If you haven't been introduced to these rip-roaring pleasure reads yet, I recommend that you start with The Warrior's Apprentice. I find them irresistible.

I haven't yet read the other three nominees, but they certainly look interesting. The Dervish House by Ian McDonald tells of the consequences of a terrorist bomb strike in a rich and strange near-future Istanbul. Feed by Mira Grant is a postapocalyptic zombiefest in which bloggers wield surprising political power. And The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin is fantasy on an epic scale, in which the vicious power struggles of an enormous empire play out in a world where gods are real.

The Best Novella Hugo went to The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang, about a zookeeper who is hired as a trainer for digients, artificial-intelligence creatures that are neither children nor pets.

The Newport Library congratulates all the winners and nominees. If you like science fiction, check them out - or come in and talk to us about our favorites. Quite a few staff at the Newport Library are science fiction fans; we'd be happy to share our favorites.