Special Collections
Hugo Award Winners (science fiction)
Description: The Hugo Award is given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy work of the previous year. Bookshare is pleased to offer the following titles awarded the Hugo Award for best novel. #award
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A Deepness in the Sky
by Vernor VingeAfter thousands of years searching, humans stand on the verge of first contact with an alien race. Two human groups: the Qeng Ho, a culture of free traders, and the Emergents, a ruthless society based on the technological enslavement of minds.The group that opens trade with the aliens will reap unimaginable riches. But first, both groups must wait at the aliens' very doorstep for their strange star to relight and for their planet to reawaken, as it does every two hundred and fifty years....Then, following terrible treachery, the Qeng Ho must fight for their freedom and for the lives of the unsuspecting innocents on the planet below, while the aliens themselves play a role unsuspected by the Qeng Ho and Emergents alike.More than just a great science fiction adventure, A Deepness in the Sky is a universal drama of courage, self-discovery, and the redemptive power of love.
A Deepness in the Sky is a 1999 Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel and the winner of the 2000 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis&“Willis effortlessly juggles comedy of manners, chaos theory and a wide range of literary allusions [with a] near flawlessness of plot, character and prose.&”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel.Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He&’s been shuttling between the twenty-first century and the 1940s in search of a hideous Victorian vase called &“the bishop&’s bird stump&” as part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid.But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but also to prevent altering history itself.
Forever Peace
by Joe Haldeman2043 A.D.: The Ngumi War rages. A burned-out soldier and his scientist lover discover a secret that could put the universe back to square one. And it is not terrifying. It is tempting...
Hugo and Nebula Award winner.
Blue Mars
by Kim Stanley RobinsonWinner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel • Soon to be a series on Spike TV One of the most enthralling science fiction sagas ever written, Kim Stanley Robinson’s epic trilogy concludes with Blue Mars—a triumph of prodigious research and visionary storytelling. The red planet is no more. Now green and verdant, Mars has been dramatically altered from a desolate world into one where humans can flourish. The First Hundred settlers are being pulled into a fierce new struggle between the Reds, a group devoted to preserving Mars in its desert state, and the Green “terraformers.” Meanwhile, Earth is in peril. A great flood threatens an already overcrowded and polluted planet. With Mars the last hope for the human race, the inhabitants of the red planet are heading toward a population explosion—or interplanetary war. Praise for Blue Mars “A breakthrough even from [Robinson’s] own consistently high levels of achievement.”—The New York Times Book Review “Exhilarating . . . a complex and deeply engaging dramatization of humanity’s future.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “[Blue Mars] brings the epic to a rousing conclusion.”—San Francisco ChronicleFrom the Paperback edition.
The Diamond Age
by Neal StephensonDecades into our future, a stone's throw from the ancient city of Shanghai, a brilliant nanotechnologist named John Percival Hackworth has just broken the rigorous moral code of his tribe, the powerful neoVictorians. He's made an illicit copy of a state-of-the-art interactive device called A Young Ladys Illustrated Primer Commissioned by an eccentric duke for his grandchild, stolen for Hackworth's own daughter, the Primer's purpose is to educate and raise a girl capable of thinking for herself. It performs its function superbly. Unfortunately for Hackworth, his smuggled copy has fallen into the wrong hands.
Young Nell and her brother Harv are thetes — members of the poor, tribeless class. Neglected by their mother, Harv looks after Nell. When he and his gang waylay a certain neo-Victorian — John Percival Hackworth — in the seamy streets of their neighborhood, Harv brings Nell something special: the Primer.
Following the discovery of his crime, Hackworth begins an odyssey of his own. Expelled from the neo-Victorian paradise, squeezed by agents of Protocol Enforcement on one side and a Mandarin underworld crime lord on the other, he searches for an elusive figure known as the Alchemist. His quest and Nell's will ultimately lead them to another seeker whose fate is bound up with the Primer — a woman who holds the key to a vast, subversive information network that is destined to decode and reprogram the future of humanity.
Vividly imagined, stunningly prophetic, and epic in scope, The Diamond Age is a major novel from one of the most visionary writers of our time.
Hugo Award winner.
Mirror Dance
by Lois Mcmaster BujoldIt's not easy dying. Coming back to life is even harder. Miles, Mark, and the Dendarii get tangled up in Jackson's Hole politics, with disastrous results.
The exciting follow-up to Brothers in Arms. Miles Vorkosigan is in trouble. His brother, a cloned stranger formed from tissue stolen from Miles when he was a child, wants to murder and replace him. Unfortunately, Mark has learned that without Miles, he is... nothing.
Hugo Award winner.
Green Mars
by Kim Stanley RobinsonIn the Nebula Award winning Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson began his critically acclaimed epic saga of the colonization of Mars, Now the Hugo Award winning Green Mars continues the thrilling and timeless tale of humanity's struggle to survive at its farthest frontier.
Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earthlike planet has just begun The plan is opposed by those determined to preserve the planets hostile, barren beauty. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars. They will be joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself.From the Paperback edition.
Doomsday Book
by Connie WillisConnie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.&“A tour de force.&”—The New York Times Book ReviewFor Kivrin, preparing to travel back in time to study one of the deadliest eras in humanity&’s history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history&’s darkest hours.
A Fire Upon the Deep
by Vernor VingeThousands of years hence, many races inhabit the far reaches of space, from the Transcend where dwell superintelligent entities to the Unthinking Depths where only simple creatures and technologies can function. These "regions of thought" are a mystery, but when scientists in the Straumli Realm discover and release an ancient Transcendent artifact, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence.
Only a single ship escapes, aboard it a family of scientists with their two children. When they land on a planet in the Slowness the parents are killed and the children taken captive by the Tines: aliens of a medieval society locked in a bitter power struggle. The fate of races, worlds -- interstellar civilization -- depends on a rescue mounted by a crew of humans and aliens that is racing toward Tinesworld -- and a Countermeasure that, if they can trigger in time, may stop the Blight that will otherwise bring a new dark age to the galaxy.
Hugo Award winner.
Barrayar
by Lois Mcmaster BujoldSequel to Shards of Honor, chronicling the events leading up to Miles Naismith Vorkosigan's birth.
Cordelia Vorkosigan's plans for a peaceful married life (after all the bloodshed and trials recounted in SHARDS OF HONOR) are shattered when a poison gas attack, intended for her husband Aral, leaves her ill and her unborn child damaged. Resisting enormous pressure to abort her son, Cordelia struggles to keep her unborn child--transferred to a uterine replicator--alive while thwarting plans by a ruthless opponent to murder the young emperor and assume absolute power over all of Barrayar. Once again Cordelia displays her courage and her remarkable combat and leadership skills.
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
The Vor Game
by Lois Mcmaster BujoldMiles Naismith Vorkosigan was not a mutant, though he was often mistaken for one. His home, Barrayar, was a militant world shaped by a bitter history and political strife. Years earlier, an assassin had chosen poison gas for an attack on Aral Vorkosigan, former Regent of the Barrayaran Empire -- now Prime Minister -- and the pregnant Lady Cordelia.
They survived; unborn Miles was the terrorist's only real victim. Cursed with brittle bones that neither grew nor healed properly, a dwarf-like body and a face prematurely lined with the agony of too many corrective surgeries--and too many people who could not accept his difference -- Miles refused to hide behind his Vor rank. With a brilliant mind, courage honed by a desire for adventure, and an ever-ready sense of the absurd, he carved out his own place in the galactic scheme...
It was just after his hard-won graduation from the Imperial Academy and before he began active duty that Miles met the hill woman. Distraught, she claimed her husband had murdered their baby daughter, who'd been born (continued on back flap) (continued from front flap) defective -- an old back-country practice for culling mutants, now illegal but impossible to stamp out. The woman demanded Lord Vorkosigan's justice, and she was no less surprised than Miles himself when he was appointed his father's Voice in the matter. But he did indeed exact justice -- for the sake of a child whose needless death would haunt him all his days...
Hugo Award winner.
Hyperion
by Dan SimmonsOn the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.
Cyteen
by C. J. CherryhFor fifty years, Dr. Ariane Emory has dominated politics on Cyteen Station because she controls Reseune. Then she is assassinated. Ariane Emory is dead. But not for long.
Hugo Award winner.
The Uplift War
by David BrinDavid Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War--a New York Times bestseller--together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?
As galactic armadas clash in quest of the ancient fleet of the Progenitors, a brutal alien race seizes the dying planet of Garth. The various uplifted inhabitants of Garth must battle their overlords or face ultimate extinction. At stake is the existence of Terran society and Earth, and the fate of the entire Five Galaxies. Sweeping, brilliantly crafted, inventive and dramatic, The Uplift War is an unforgettable story of adventure and wonder from one of today's science fiction greats.
Hugo Award winner.
Speaker for the Dead
by Orson Scott CardIn the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.
Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.
Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Ender's World
by Orson Scott Card and Neal Shusterman and Mary Robinette Kowal and Janis Ian and Aaron Johnston and Eric James StoneExperience the thrill of reading Ender's Game all over againGo deeper into the complexities of Orson Scott Card's classic novel with science fiction and fantasy writers, YA authors, military strategists, including:
Ender prequel series coauthor Aaron Johnston on Ender and the evolution of the child hero. Burn Notice creator Matt Nix on Ender's Game as a guide to life. Hugo award-winning writer Mary Robinette Kowal on how Ender's Game gets away with breaking all the (literary) rules. Retired US Air Force Colonel Tom Ruby on what the military could learn from Ender about leadership. Bestselling YA author Neal Shusterman on the ambivalence toward survival that lies at the heart of Ender's story.
Plus pieces by Hilari Bel, John Brown, Mette Ivie Harrison, Janis Ian, Alethea Kontis, David Lubar and Alison S. Myers, John F. Schmitt, Ken Scholes, and Eric James Stone.
Also includes never-before-seen content from Orson Scott Card on the writing and evolution of the events in Ender's Game, from the design of Battle School to the mindset of the pilots who sacrificed themselves in humanity's fight against the formics. Hugo and Nebula Awards winner.
Neuromancer
by William GibsonTwenty years ago, it was as if someone turned on a light. The future blazed into existence with each deliberate word that William Gibson laid down. The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer didn't just explode onto the science fiction scene--it permeated into the collective consciousness, culture, science, and technology.Today, there is only one science fiction masterpiece to thank for the term "cyberpunk," for easing the way into the information age and Internet society. Neuromancer's virtual reality has become real. And yet, William Gibson's gritty, sophisticated vision still manages to inspire the minds that lead mankind ever further into the future.
Startide Rising
by David BrinDavid Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War--a New York Times bestseller--together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being "uplifted" by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind? The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret--the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars. From the Paperback edition.
Foundation's Edge
by Isaac AsimovNow, 498 years after its founding, the Foundation seemed to be following the Seldon Plan perfectly. Too perfectly. Now an impossible planet -- with impossible powers -- threatens to upset the Seldon Plan for good unless two men, sworn enemies, can work together to save it!
Hugo Award winner.
Downbelow Station
by C. J. CherryhThe Hugo Award-winning classic, now available in a trade edition for the first time. Pell?s Station, orbiting the alien world simply called Downbelow, had always managed to remain neutral in the ever escalating conflict between ?The Company,? whose fleets from Earth had colonized space, and its increasingly independent and rebellious colony worlds. But Pell?s location?on the outer edge of Earth?s defensive perimeter? makes her the focal point in the titanic battle of colony worlds fighting for independence?
The Snow Queen
by Joan D. VingeArienrhod. As beautiful as she was ancient, she ruled Tiamat, whose twin suns circled the Star gate that linked her world with the galaxy-spanning Empire. But the Stargate was closing, the offworlders who both enriched and dominated Tiamat would leave soon, the rule of the Winter folk would give way to that of the semi-civilized Summers, and Arienrhod's reign -- and her arcanely prolonged life — would end.
The Snow Queen had planned against this time, secretly cloning an heir to be brought up among the Summer people. Moon Dawntreader grew up ignorant of her heritage, yet was drawn to fulfill her destiny in the ancient city where Arienrhod held court -- contending with the Queen for the body and soul of the man who loved them both.
Hugo Award winner.
The Fountains of Paradise
by Arthur C. ClarkeA Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novel from the legendary &“colossus of science fiction&” and creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey (The New Yorker). Renowned structural engineer Dr. Vannevar Morgan seeks to link Earth to the stars by constructing a space elevator that will connect to an orbiting satellite 22,300 miles from the planet&’s surface. The elevator would lift interstellar spaceships into orbit without the need of rockets to blast through the Earth&’s atmosphere—making space travel easier and more cost-effective. Unfortunately, the only appropriate surface base for the elevator is located at the top of a mountain already occupied by an ancient order of Buddhist monks who strongly oppose the project. Morgan must face down their opposition—as well as enormous technical, political, and economic challenges—if he is to create his beanstalk to the heavens. An epic novel of daring dreams spanning twenty decades, this award-winning drama combines believable science with heart-stopping suspense. &“A beautifully mounted story about the human need to reach—literally—for the stars, and the fine line between genius and megalomania.&” —SFReviews.net
Dreamsnake
by Vonda N. McintyreThis is the haunting story of an extraordinary woman and her dangerous quest to reclaim her healing powers. Revered healer Snake must undertake a journey in search of the dreamsnake, whose bite eases the fear and pain of death.
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
Gateway
by Frederik PohlGateway opened on all the wealth of the Universe...and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Bob Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Robinette Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he is...in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!
Nebula Award winner.
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
by Kate WilhelmThe story of an isolated post-holocaust community determined to preserve itself, through a perilous experiment in cloning.
The Sumner family can read the signs: the droughts and floods, the blighted crops, the shortages, the rampant diseases and plagues, and, above all, the increasing sterility all point to one thing. Their isolated farm in the Appalachian Mountains gives them the ideal place to survive the coming breakdown, and their wealth and know-how gives them the means. Men and women must clone themselves for humanity to survive. But what then?
Hugo Award winner.