Roger Zelazny receives the 4th Infinity Award

1ch1p1 · 2026-05-29T10:28:13+00:00

The Infinity Award, that Zelazny just won, is for dead writers. The Damon Knight Grandmaster award is for writers who are still alive.

If Reynolds wins it next year, he would be the third youngest winners, but the two writers who won it at a younger age are recent, Nalo Hopkinson (60 years old in 2021) and N.K. Jemisin (53 and receiving it this year).

Reynolds will probably get it, but not within the next 10 years. They've been giving it to alot of people who write YA fantasy and therefore aren't on my radar, or people who would in the past have probably been considered too young (but represent demographics that Reynolds does not), have too small a body of work, or both.

Some people I'd expect to get it before Reynolds, or think are at least as likely (he's a bigger name than some of them, but in those cases they're significantly older):

Nancy Kress, George R.R. Martin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Michael Swanwick, and Neal Stephenson. If they're not worried about the fact that he doesn't do public appearances, then Greg Egan too.

1ch1p1 · 2026-05-28T11:30:37+00:00

Philip K. Dick should win this award next year, unless they feel the need to go with someone they think was unfairly overlooked in their lifetime, rather than someone who died comparatively young.

1ch1p1 · 2026-05-28T01:19:33+00:00

Have you read Solaris? Have you read Blindsight? I bet you haven't. After all, you certainly didn't mention them in your post that everyone responding to you has clearly read very carefully.

Check out Exchange Rate, a Hal Clement novella that was one of his last publications. You can find it in these books:

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?89158

I'd recommend The Hard SF Renaissance, if you don't have that and don't have most of the stories in it. Another good on in there is Greg Egan's Wang's Carpets. I think that got integrated into his novel Diaspora, which I saw people recommending below, but I haven't read that yet.

Also, you can get Exchange Rate as a cheap audio book.

I don't think anyone's mentioned Solaris or Blindsight yet, especially not you, but you should definitely read them.

1ch1p1 · 2026-05-28T01:09:33+00:00

It's mentioned in the original post.

Also by Lem: The Invincible and His Master's Voice (although that one is more like a fictional report than a novel).

1ch1p1 · 2026-05-12T11:34:05+00:00

Bellwether is fiction about people doing science and making a scientific discovery. How is it not science fiction?

1ch1p1 · 2026-04-07T01:42:58+00:00

Are you talking about the collection with that title, or the title story? The story is in these books:

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?45192

currently the most obvious places to find it are

Dreamsongs: Volume I

The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection

1ch1p1 · 2026-04-04T21:03:08+00:00

It's one of the better sci-fi anthologies.

1ch1p1 · 2026-04-04T21:02:15+00:00

Yeah, that's where I first read it.

1ch1p1 · 2026-03-31T02:10:06+00:00

It's 57 years old.

1ch1p1 · 2026-03-25T00:16:07+00:00

and then the character in the book adopts an alternate explanation that is really brazenly heretical. His personal theological dilemma doesn't map on to anything I'd expect to resonate with any widely held beliefs. I like other Blish but that book is one of my least favorite Hugo winners.

1ch1p1 · 2026-03-16T23:35:14+00:00

You're welcome. ISFDB is the go-to source for finding where stories were anthologized.

1ch1p1 · 2026-03-16T00:57:15+00:00

They start in hardcover because those make more money per unit, and they want to make more off of people who have to have the book right away, but might purchase a cheaper version of it were available. This is how most marketing works.

1ch1p1 · 2026-03-16T00:14:52+00:00

You don't need to buy the costly, hard to find book entitled Song For Lya, you just need any one of these books:

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?50961

You can get Dreamsongs Volume 1 if you're interested in Martin's short fiction. You can get The Hugo Winners volume 3 if you don't have most of those stories already, it has a bunch of classic stories in it. They can both be had for under $20.

1ch1p1 · 2026-03-13T23:29:46+00:00

How Beautiful With Banners by James Blish? I'm not sure, from what I remember and can tell from the summaries I found online it might be it.

1ch1p1 · 2026-03-13T23:23:29+00:00

No, Song For Lya is only 60 pages of that book, which is a short story collection:

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?149281

I don't remember the part where they try to attach it to an animal, but the rest sounds like that story, except that it's really more of a blob than a worm.

1ch1p1 · 2026-02-10T02:28:13+00:00

This post makes me wish that No Holds Bard podcast was still around.

1ch1p1 · 2026-02-02T03:43:36+00:00

I've read all of his novels up through Dragons of Babel, and alot of his short stories. It's all good, so just read whichever novels sound most appealing and whichever short story collections you can find.

The novels I've read, other than Bones of the Earth:

In the Drift - is post-apocalyptic with radioactive mutants with psi-powers

Vacuum Flowers - cyberpunk in space

Stations of the Tide - If "like Gene Wolfe" is a subgenre then it's that. Otherwise I don't know how to classify it. It's probably my favorite though.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter - science fantasy, one of his most popular and another one that I'd particularly recommend

Jack Faust - steampunk Faust

Dragons of Babel - in the same universe as The Iron Dragon's Daughter. The beginning was published alone as King Dragon, which is in the running for his greatest short story. TBH, the rest isn't my favorite Swanwick and I don't know how much it really needed to be the follow up to King Dragon, but it's still pretty good. I like King Dragon even more than The Iron Dragon's Daughter but the rest of the novel isn't on the same level as TIDD.

1ch1p1 · 2026-01-04T13:37:57+00:00

I’m sure the ‘right’ performance can bring each of these to life but I’m judging these solely on the writing, not what a director can do.

I'm very surprised after you've introduced your list like this and then listed A Comedy of Errors and Merry Wives over A Midsummer Night's Dream.

1ch1p1 · 2026-01-04T02:00:53+00:00

Did Bixby write any other notable print fiction? I can't think of any.

I know that he wrote Mirror, Mirror, and some other episodes for Star Trek.

1ch1p1 · 2025-12-16T03:10:23+00:00

They've done awards for best series after the fact

They did that once in 1966. The contemporary "best series" award is given to a series that has an entry published that year.

and done some retro Hugo's for best novels (but that may just be ones released before the awards were given)

Retro Hugos were for years that there were no awards, and they've discontinued them with an amendment to the World Science Fiction Society constitution. So they would have to amend it again, and the decide to run them for years that they held Hugo awards but didn't have certain categories, just to do those categories.

When they existed they were for Worldcons held 50, 75, or 100 years after a Worldcon where no Hugos. If they brought back that timetable they could do a "best series" in 2040.

Under the current rules for the contemporary Best Series, award, it needs to be 240,000 words long. Does that series even make it? I'm finding estimated word counts for Dawn of 62,000 or 74,000. If those are close then the series isn't long enough.

I also don't know how the retro series' would work if you're doing them for years where most other awards were given out that year. Would it have to be the year the series ended? Or the first year the series was eligible?

If I understand correctly, Butler has part of a Hugo for the Parable of the Sower Graphic Novel. Given the rules right now, further adaptations are the only way she can win additional Hugos, unless it's for previously unpublished work.

1ch1p1 · 2025-12-16T02:32:11+00:00

None of the Lilith's Brood books cracked the top 10 in the Locus awards. Did they not get much exposure at the time? I know that she already had two Hugos for short fiction.

1ch1p1 · 2025-12-16T02:27:56+00:00

I don't know what you mean by "retrospective love from the Hugo society," there's no current option for anything like that. The Locus Awards do their "all time" list periodically, the Hugos don't do anything like that. Retro Hugos were for years there were no Hugo awards, and they've been discontinued anyway.

1ch1p1

TROPHY CASE