LibGuides: Hugo Awards: Best Novel (1953-)

Title Box

	Hugo Awards
Best Novel (1953-present)

2020-2029

WINNER

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

FINALISTS

Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley
The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow

Gideon the Ninth (Locked tomb trilogy #1) by Muir, Tamsyn
Call Number: FIC MUIR TAM L1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250313195
Publication Date: 2019-09-10
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, she is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die. Of course, some things are better left dead. -- adapted from jacket.

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
Call Number: FIC ANDER CHAJ CI (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780765379962
Publication Date: 2019-02-12
"If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams . . . And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives." The bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky returns with a strange, haunting, and deeply human tale. Sophie serves coffee at an underground cafe. She stays in the shadows and listens to the troubles of the parlor guests, but does not draw attention to herself for one simple reason: Sophie is supposed to be dead. When a nationalistic revolution forces Sophie from her safe haven, she must make a dangerous journey to a new city, one that revels in hedonism and chaos. After joining up with a band of smugglers, she finds herself on a long and treacherous path that will lead her far closer to the truth of her entire world--and to the dangers that lurk even in the light of day.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January [E-Book] by Alix E. Harrow
Call Number: FIC HARRO ALIE T Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780316422000
Publication Date: 2019
In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut. In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place. Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

WINNER: Network Effect by Martha Wells

Network Effect [E-Book] by Martha Wells
Call Number: FIC WELLS MAR M5 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781250229847
Publication Date: 2020-05-05
When Murderbot's human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action. Drastic action it is, then.

NOMINEES

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

Black Sun (Between earth and sky #1) by Roanhorse, Rebecca
Call Number: FIC ROANH REB B1 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781534437678
Publication Date: 2020-10-13
A god will return when the earth and sky converge under the black sun in the holy city of Tova... The winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man's mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Black Sun [large print] by Rebecca Roanhorse
Call Number: FIC ROANH REB B1 Large (Large print collection)
ISBN: 9781643588575
Publication Date: 2021-04-01
Black Sun [E-Book] by Rebecca Roanhorse
Call Number: FIC ROANH REB B1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781534437678
Publication Date: 2020-10-13

The City We Became by Jemisin, N. K.
Call Number: Fiction J494c v.1 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780316509848
Publication Date: 2020-03-24
Five New Yorkers must come together in order to save their city from destruction in the first book of a stunning new series by Hugo award-winning and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She's got six. When a young man crosses the bridge into New York City, something changes. He doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can feel the pulse of the city, can see its history, can access its magic. And he's not the only one. All across the boroughs, strange things are happening. Something is threatening to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
The City We Became [E-Book] by N.k. Jemisin
Call Number: FIC JEMIS NK C1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780316509862
Publication Date: 2020-03-24

Harrow the Ninth (Locked tomb #2) by Tamsyn Muir
Call Number: FIC MUIR TAM L2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250313225
Publication Date: 2020-08-04
Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath -- but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.
Harrow the Ninth [E-Book] by Tamsyn Muir
Call Number: FIC MUIR TAM L2 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781250313201
Publication Date: 2020-08-04

Piranesi by Clarke, Susanna
Call Number: FIC CLARK SUS PI (Adult Fiction_
ISBN: 9781635575637
Publication Date: 2020-09-15
Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
Piranesi [E-Book] by Susanna Clarke
Call Number: FIC CLARK SUS PI Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781635575644
Publication Date: 2020

The Relentless Moon (Lady Astronaut #3) by Mary Robinette Kowal
Call Number: FIC KOWAL MARR L3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250236951
Publication Date: 2020-07-14

WINNER

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Winner will be announced September 4, 2022.

FINALISTS:

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

A Master of Djinn [E-Book] by P. Djèlí Clark
Call Number: FIC CLARK PDJE MA Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781250267672
Publication Date: 2021-05-11
Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer. So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 40 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage. Alongside her Ministry colleagues and a familiar person from her past, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city- or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems....

_____

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Call Number: FIC WEIR AND D (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593135204
Publication Date: 2021-05-04
Ryland Grace has been asleep for a very, very long time. He's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. He can't remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. Alone on this tiny ship that's been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it's up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.
Project Hail Mary [E-Book] by Andy Weir
Call Number: FIC WEIR AND D Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780593135211
Publication Date: 2021-05-04

_____

She Who Became the Sun (Radiant Emperor #1) by Shelley Parker-Chan
Call Number: FIC PARKE SHE R1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250621801
Publication Date: 2021-07-20

WINNER

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher
Call Number: FIC KINGF T NE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250244048
Publication Date: 2022-04-26
Marra never wanted to be a hero. As the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter, she escaped the traditional fate of princesses, to be married away for the sake of an uncaring throne. But her sister wasn’t so fortunate—and after years of silence, Marra is done watching her suffer at the hands of a powerful and abusive prince. Seeking help for her rescue mission, Marra is offered the tools she needs, but only if she can complete three seemingly impossible tasks: build a dog of bones; sew a cloak of nettles; capture moonlight in a jar. But, as is the way in tales of princes and witches, doing the impossible is only the beginning. Hero or not—now joined by a disgraced ex-knight, a reluctant fairy godmother, an enigmatic gravewitch and her fowl familiar—Marra might finally have the courage to save her sister, and topple a throne.

NOMINEES:

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Call Number: FIC MOREN SIL DA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780593355336
Publication Date: 2022-07-19
Carlota Moreau: A young woman growing up on a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatýan peninsula. The only daughter of a researcher who is either a genius or a madman. Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers. The hybrids: The fruits of the doctor's labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities. All of them live in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Dr. Moreau's patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction. For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and, in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Call Number: FIC SCALZ JOH KA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780765389121
Publication Date: 2022-03-15
When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls "an animal rights organization." Tom's team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble. It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society whose found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.
Nona the Ninth (Locked tomb #3) by Tamsyn Muir
Call Number: FIC MUIR TAM L3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781250854117
Publication Date: 2022-09-13
Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party. In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back. The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever. And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face.

2010-2019

WINNERS

The City & The City by China Miéville
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The City and the City by China Miéville
Call Number: FIC MIEVI CHI CI (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780345497512
Publication Date: 2009-05-26
Inspector Tyador Borlú must travel to Ul Qoma to search for answers in the murder of a woman found in the city of Beszzel.
The Windup Girl [E-Book] by Paolo Bacigalupi
Call Number: FIC BACIG PAO WI Ebook
ISBN: 9781597802369
Publication Date: 2009-09-01
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...
Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution?

FINALISTS

Boneshaker, Cherie Priest
Wake, Robert J. Sawyer
Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson
Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente

WINNER

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

FINALISTS

Feed, Mira Grant
Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
The Dervish House, Ian McDonald

Cryoburn (A Miles Vorkosigan Adventure, #14) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Call Number: FIC BUJOL LOIM V14 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9781439133941
Publication Date: 2010-10-19
Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove—he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp—an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen patrons into an unknown future—attempts to expand its franchise into the Barrayaran Empire, Emperor Gregor dispatches his top troubleshooter, Miles, to check it out. On Kibou-daini, Miles discovers generational conflict over money and resources is heating up, even as refugees displaced in time skew the meaning of “generation” past repair. Here he finds a young boy with a passion for pets and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped in an icy coffin who burns to rewrite her own tale, and a mysterious crone who is the very embodiment of the warning “Don’t mess with the secretary.” Bribery, corruption, conspiracy, kidnapping—something is rotten on Kibou-daini, and it isn’t due to power outages in the Cryocombs. And Miles is in the middle—of trouble!

WINNER

Among Others by Jo Walton

Among Others [Kindle] by Jo Walton
Call Number: FIC WALTO JO AM Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9781472100443
Publication Date: 2012-09-20
Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, 15-year old Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closests companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead.

FINALISTS

Embassytown, China Miéville
Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey
Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit)
A Dance With Dragons, George R. R. Martin

Embassytown by China Miéville
Call Number: FIC MIEVI CHI EM (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345524492
Publication Date: 2011-05-17
Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist on a distant planet populated by the Ariekei, sentient beings famed for their unique language, returns to Embassytown after many years of deep space exploration to find she has become a living simile in the Ariekei language even though she cannot speak it, and she is torn by competing loyalties when hostilities erupt between humans and aliens.

Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1) by James S. A. Corey
Call Number: FIC COREY JAMS E1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780316129084
Publication Date: 2011-06-15
When Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind the attack, stop a war and find the truth behind a vast conspiracy that threatens the entire human race.
Leviathan Wakes [E-Book] (The expanse #1) by James S. A. Corey
Call Number: FIC COREY JAMS E1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780316175180
Publication Date: 2011-06-15
Leviathan Wakes [Streaming audiobook] (The expanse #1) by James S. A. Corey
Call Number: FIC COREY JAMS E1 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781478998945
Publication Date: 2012

A Dance with Dragons (A Song of ice and fire #5) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S5 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780553801477
Publication Date: 2011-07-12
New threats emerge to endanger the future of the Seven Kingdoms, as Daenerys Targaryen, ruling in the East, fights off a multitude of enemies, while Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, faces his foes both in the Watch and beyond the great Wall of ice and stone.
A Dance with Dragons [CD] (A Song of ice and fire #5) by George R. R. Martin; Roy Dotrice (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction MA S5 (Adult CD Audiobooks)
ISBN: 9780739375976
Publication Date: 2011-07-12
A Dance with Dragons [E-Book] (A Song of ice and fire #5) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S5 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780553905656
Publication Date: 2011
A Dance with Dragons [Streaming Audiobook] (A Song of ice and fire #5) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S5 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781415958339
Publication Date: 2011

WINNER

Redshirts : a Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi

Redshirts : a novel with three codas by John Scalzi
Call Number: FIC SCALZ JOH RE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780765316998
Publication Date: 2012-06-05
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the facts that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces; (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations; and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed. Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.

FINALISTS

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson
Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed
Blackout, Mira Grant

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Miles Vorsokigan #15) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Call Number: FIC BUJOL LOIM V15
ISBN: 9781451638455
Publication Date: 2012-11-06
Captain Ivan Vorpatril is happy with his relatively uneventful bachelor's life of a staff officer to a Barrayaran admiral. Ivan, cousin to Imperial troubleshooter Miles Vorkosigan, is not far down the hereditary list for the emperorship. Thankfully, new heirs have directed that headache elsewhere, leaving Ivan to enjoy his life on Komarr, far from the Byzantine court politics of his home system. But when an old friend in Barrayaran intelligence asks Ivan to protect an attractive young woman who may be on the hit list of a criminal syndicate, Ivan's chivalrous nature takes over. It seems danger and adventures have once more found Captain Vorpatril.
Tej Arqua and her half-sister and servant Rish are fleeing the violent overthrow of their clan on free-for-all planet Jackson's Whole. Now it seems Tej may possess a hidden secret of which even she may not be aware. It's a secret that could corrupt the heart of a highly regarded Barayarran family and provide the final advantage for the thugs who seek to overthrow Tej's homeworld. But none of Tej's formidable adversaries have counted on Ivan Vorpatril. For behind Ivan's façade of wry and self effacing humor lies a true and cunning protector who will never leave a distressed lady in the lurch—up to and including making the ultimate sacrifice to keep her from harm: the treasured and hardwon freedom from his own fate as a scion of Barrayar.

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Call Number: FIC ROBIN KIMS TW (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780316098120
Publication Date: 2012-05-22
The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future. The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen. For Swan Er Hong, it is an event that will change her life. Swan was once a woman who designed worlds. Now she will be led into a plot to destroy them.

WINNER

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

FINALISTS

Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK)
Parasite, Mira Grant (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books / Orbit UK)
Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles, Larry Correia

WINNER

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's past #1) by Cixin Liu; Ken Liu (Translator)
Call Number: FIC LIU CIX R1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781466853447
Publication Date: 2014-11-11
The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

FINALISTS

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie
Skin Game, Jim Butcher
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson

Skin Game (Dresden files #15) by Jim Butcher
Call Number: FIC BUTCH JIM D15 (Adult fiction)
Publication Date: 2014
Private investigator Jim Bean has worked hard to create his new identity in Vegas. He doesn't have a great life, but it's his. When his ex-fiancée Erica Floyd walks into one of his investigations looking for her missing sister, the tragic past he wanted to leave behind comes flooding back. Despite serious reservations, Jim agrees to search for Erica's sister. Clues lead him to a human trafficking ring and one of Vegas's most influential mobsters. Unless Jim can face the ghosts of his past, the anger of his present, and a new enemy out for his blood, four women will suffer a fate worse than death.

WINNER

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season [E-Book] (Broken Earth #1) by N. K. Jemisin
Call Number: FIC JEMIS NK B1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780316324977
Publication Date: 2015
This is the way the world ends...for the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

FINALISTS

Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
Seveneves: A Novel by Neal Stephenson
The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Uprooted by Novik, Naomi
Call Number: Fiction N943u (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780804179058
Publication Date: 2016-03-01
Agnieszka loves her valley home in a quiet village. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep the Wood's dark forces at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his assistance: every ten years, one young woman must be handed over to serve him without question. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka knows--everyone knows--that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn't, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Call Number: FIC STEPH NEA SE (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780062190376
Publication Date: 2015-05-19
A catastrophic event renders the Earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain... Five thousand years later, their progeny -- seven distinct races now three billion strong -- embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown... to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

WINNER

The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

The Obelisk Gate [E-Book] (Broken Earth #2) by N. K. Jemisin
Call Number: FIC JEMIS NK B2 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780316388511
Publication Date: 2016
The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night. Essun -- once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger -- has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever. Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power -- and her choices will break the world.

FINALISTS

All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders
Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee
A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
Death’s End, by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu

WINNER

The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin

The Stone Sky (Broken earth #3) by N. K. Jemisin
Call Number: FIC JEMIS NK B3 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780316402699
Publication Date: 2017
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women. Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe. For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

FINALISTS

The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi
Provenance, by Ann Leckie
Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty
Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee
New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependence #1) by John Scalzi
Call Number: FIC SCALZ JOH I1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780765388889
Publication Date: 2017-03-21
Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible--until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars. Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war--and, for the empire's rulers, a system of control.

Provenance by Ann Leckie
Call Number: FIC LECKI ANN PR (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780316388672
Publication Date: 2017-09-26
A power-driven young woman has just one chance to secure the status she craves and regain priceless lost artifacts prized by her people. She must free their thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned. Ingray and her charge will return to her home world to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating intergalactic conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future, her family, and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Call Number: FIC ROBIN KIMS NE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780316262347
Publication Date: 2017-03-14
The waters rose, submerging New York City. But the residents adapted and it remained the bustling, vibrant metropolis it had always been. Though changed forever. Every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island. Through the eyes of the varied inhabitants of one building Kim Stanley Robinson shows us how one of our great cities will change with the rising tides. And how we too will change

WINNER

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

FINALISTS

Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik
Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers
Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse
Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee
Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Call Number: Fiction N943s (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780399180989
Publication Date: 2018-07-10
Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father's inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty--until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk--grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh--Miryem's fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered. Set an impossible challenge by the nameless king, Miryem unwittingly spins a web that draws in a peasant girl, Wanda, and the unhappy daughter of a local lord who plots to wed his child to the dashing young tsar. But Tsar Mirnatius is not what he seems. And the secret he hides threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike. Torn between deadly choices, Miryem and her two unlikely allies embark on a desperate quest that will take them to the limits of sacrifice, power, and love.
Spinning Silver [E-Book] by Novik, Naomi
Call Number: Fiction N943s Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780399181009
Publication Date: 2018
Spinning Silver [Streaming Audiobook] by Naomi Novik
Call Number: Fiction N943s Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780525531005
Publication Date: 2018

Trail of Lightning (Sixth world #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse
Call Number: YA F ROA-R S1 (Juvenile Fiction)
ISBN: 9781534413498
Publication Date: 2018-06-26
While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters. Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine. Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology. As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.
Trail of Lightning [E-Book] (Sixth world #1) by Rebecca Roanhorse
Call Number: YA F ROA-R S1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781534413511
Publication Date: 2018-06-26

2000-2009

WINNER

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Call Number: FIC VINGE VER DE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780312856830
Publication Date: 1999-02-15
The story of the Spiders, inhabitants of a planet where the sun regularly stops shining for periods of 200 years, during which they are frozen in ice. The novel picks them up emerging from their most recent hibernation in a frenzy of activity and innovation to make up for lost time

FINALISTS

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Call Number: FIC STEPH NEA CR (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780380973460
Publication Date: 1999-05-01
In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces. Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia—a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #4) by J. K. Rowling; Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
Call Number: J-Fiction RO v.3 (Juvenile fiction)
ISBN: 9780439136358
Publication Date: 1999-10-01
During his third year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter must confront the devious and dangerous wizard reponsible for his parents' deaths.

WINNER

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter #4) by J. K. Rowling; Mary GrandPré (Illustrator)
Call Number: J-Fiction RO v.4 (Juvenile fiction) or YA F ROW-JK H4 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780439139595
Publication Date: 2000-08-01
Fourteen-year-old Harry Potter joins the Weasleys at the Quidditch World Cup, then enters his fourth year at Hogwarts Academy where he is mysteriously entered in an unusual contest that challenges his wizarding skills, friendships and character, amid signs that an old enemy is growing stronger.

FINALISTS

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
The Sky Road by Ken MacLeod
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

A Storm of Swords (A song of ice and fire #3) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553106633
Publication Date: 2000-10-31
Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King’s Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. But as opposing forces maneuver for the final titanic showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost line of civilization. In their vanguard is a horde of mythical Others—a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords.
A Storm of Swords [CD] (A song of ice and fire #3) by George R. R. Martin; Roy Dotrice (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fictino MA S3a-S3b (Adult CD Audiobooks)
ISBN: 9780449011904
Publication Date: 2012-03-27
A Storm of Swords [E-Book] (A song of ice and fire #3) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S3 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780553897876
Publication Date: 2003
A Storm of Swords [Streaming audiobook] (A song of ice and fire #3) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S3 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780739353479
Publication Date: 2006

Calculating God [CD] by Robert J. Sawyer; Jonathan Davis (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction SA (Adult CD Audiobooks)
ISBN: 9781480527331
Publication Date: 2013-10-01
An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges, who says, in perfect English, 'Take me to a paleontologist.' It seems that Earth, and the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time. ... Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God.

WINNER

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods (American gods #1) by Neil Gaiman
Call Number: FIC GAIMA NEI A1 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780380973651
Publication Date: 2001-06-19
The story of an ex-con who is offered a job as a bodyguard for Mr. Wednesday, a trickster and a rogue. Shadow soon learns that his role in the man's schemes are far more dangerous and dark than he could have ever imagined.
American Gods [E-Book] : the Tenth Anniversary Edition (American gods #1) by Neil Gaiman
Call Number: FIC GAIMA NEI A1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780062109590
Publication Date: 2011-06-21
American Gods [Streaming Audiobook] : the Tenth Anniversary Edition (American gods #1) by George Guidall (Read by); Neil Gaiman
Call Number: FIC GAIMA NEI A1 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780062101914
Publication Date: 2011-06-21

FINALISTS

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
Passage by Connie Willis
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson
Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod

The Curse of Chalion (World of the five gods #1) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Call Number: FIC BUJOL LOIM W1 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780380979011
Publication Date: 2001-07-31
Lord Cazaril has been, in turn, courtier, castle-warder, and captain; now he is but a crippled ex-galley slave seeking nothing more than a menial job in the kitchens of the Dowager Provincara, the noble patroness of his youth. But Cazaril finds himself promoted to the exalted and dangerous position of tutor to Iselle, the beautiful, fiery sister of the heir to Chalion's throne. Amidst the decaying splendor and poisonous intrigue of Chalion's ancient capital, Cazaril is forced to confront not only powerful enemies but also the malignant curse that clings to the royal household, trapping him, flesh and soul, in a maze of demonic paradox, damnation, and death for as long as he dares walk the five-fold pathway of the gods.

Perdido Street Station (New Crobuzon #1) by Miéville, China
Call Number: FIC MIEVI CHI N1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345443021
Publication Date: 2001-02-27
Yes, but what is Perdido Street Station about? To oversimplify: the eccentric scientist Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin is hired to restore the power of flight to a cruelly de-winged birdman. Isaac's secret lover is Lin, an artist of the khepri, a humano-insectoid race; theirs is a forbidden relationship. Lin is hired (rather against her will) by a mysterious crime boss to capture his horrifying likeness in the unique khepri art form. Isaac's quest for flying things to study leads to verification of his controversial unified theory of the strange sciences of his world. It also brings him an odd, unknown grub stolen from a secret government experiment so perilous it is sold to a ruthless drug lord--the same crime boss who hired Lin. The grub emerges from its cocoon, becomes an extraordinarily dangerous monster, and escapes Isaac's lab to ravage New Crobuzon, even as his discovery becomes known to a hidden, powerful, and sinister intelligence. Lin disappears and Isaac finds himself pursued by the monster, the drug lord, the government and armies of New Crobuzon, and other, more bizarre factions, not all confined to his world.

WINNER

Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer

FINALISTS

Kiln People (alt: Kil’n People) by David Brin
Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick
The Scar by China Miéville
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Scar (New Crobuzon #2) by Miéville, China
Call Number: FIC MIEVI CHI N2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345444387
Publication Date: 2002-06-25
En route to the colony of New Crobuzon, a seafaring group of prisoners and slaves is joined by refugees, and when the ship is besieged by pirates, the passengers are brought to a floating city of pirated ships whose leaders harbor a sinister agenda.

The Years of Rice and Salt [Kindle] by Kim Stanley Robinson
Call Number: FIC ROBIN KIMS YE Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780553897609
Publication Date: 2003
It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur—the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. But what if the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been—one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power—and even love—in this bold New World.

WINNER

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

Paladin of Souls (World of the five gods #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Call Number: FIC BUJOL LOIM W2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780380979028
Publication Date: 2003-09-23
Three years have passed since the widowed Dowager Royina Ista found release from the curse of madness that kept her imprisoned in her family's castle of Valenda. Her newfound freedom is costly, bittersweet with memories, regrets, and guilty secrets, for she knows the truth of what brought her land to the brink of destruction. And now the road, the escape beckons. A simple pilgrimage, perhaps. Quite fitting for the Dowager Royina of all Chalion.

FINALISTS

Ilium by Dan Simmons
Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson
Humans by Robert J. Sawyer

Ilium (Ilium #1) by Dan Simmons
Call Number: FIC SIMMO DAN IL Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780060599874
Publication Date: 2003-01-01
The Trojan War rages at the foot of Olympos Mons on Mars -- observed and influenced from on high by Zeus and his immortal family -- and twenty-first-century professor Thomas Hockenberry is there to play a role in the insidious private wars of vengeful gods and goddesses. On Earth, a small band of the few remaining humans pursues a lost past and devastating truth -- as four sentient machines depart from Jovian space to investigate, perhaps terminate, the potentially catastrophic emissions emanating from a mountaintop miles above the terraformed surface of the Red Planet.

WINNER

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Call Number: FIC CLARK SUS JO (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781582344164
Publication Date: 2004-09-08
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, two very different magicians emerge to change England's history. In the year 1806, with the Napoleonic Wars raging on land and sea, most people believe magic to be long dead in England--until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers, and becomes a celebrity overnight. Soon, another practicing magician comes forth: the young, handsome, and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's student, and they join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic, straining his partnership with Norrell, and putting at risk everything else he holds dear.

FINALISTS

River of Gods by Ian McDonald
The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
Iron Council by China Miéville

River of Gods [Kindle] (India 2047, #1) by Ian McDonald
Call Number: FIC MDONA IAN I1 Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9781591028116
Publication Date: 2006
It's 2047, and the centennial of India's nationhood approaches. Amid the turmoil and vigor of a nation teeming with people and clogged with information, the lives of nine individuals, including a policeman, a journalist, a scientist, a politician, and a stand-up comic, intersect in an unanticipated union with the fate of their country at stake.

Iron Council (New Crobuzon #3) by Miéville, China
Call Number: FIC MIEVI CHI N3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345464026
Publication Date: 2004-07-27
It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places. In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope. In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . .

WINNER

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

FINALISTS

Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Accelerando by Charles Stross

A Feast for Crows (A Song of fire and ice #4) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S4 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553801507
Publication Date: 2005-11-08
It seems too good to be true. After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears. . . . With the death of the monstrous King Joffrey, Cersei is ruling as regent in King’s Landing. Robb Stark’s demise has broken the back of the Northern rebels, and his siblings are scattered throughout the kingdom like seeds on barren soil. Few legitimate claims to the once desperately sought Iron Throne still exist—or they are held in hands too weak or too distant to wield them effectively. The war, which raged out of control for so long, has burned itself out. But as in the aftermath of any climactic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead. Now in the Seven Kingdoms, as the human crows assemble over a banquet of ashes, daring new plots and dangerous new alliances are formed, while surprising faces—some familiar, others only just appearing—are seen emerging from an ominous twilight of past struggles and chaos to take up the challenges ahead.
A Feast for Crows [CD] (Song of fire and ice #4) by George R. R. Martin; Roy Dotrice (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction MA S4 (Adult CD Audiobooks)
ISBN: 9780449011911
Publication Date: 2012-03-27
A Feast for Crows [E-Book] (Song of fire and ice #4) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S4 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780553900323
Publication Date: 2005
A Feast for Crows [Streaming audiobook] (Song of fire and ice #4) by George R. R. Martin
Call Number: FIC MARTI GEOR S4 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780449011898
Publication Date: 2011

WINNER

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

FINALISTS

Glasshouse by Charles Stross
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
Blindsight by Peter Watts

WINNER

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Yiddish Policemen's Union [CD] by Michael Chabon; Peter Riegert (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction CH (Adult Audiobook CD)
ISBN: 9780060823566
Publication Date: 2007-05-01
In a world in which Alaska, rather than Israel, has become the homeland for the Jews following World War II, Detective Meyer Landsman and his half-Tlingit partner Berko investigate the death of a heroin-addled chess prodigy.

FINALISTS

The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Halting State by Charles Stross
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
Brasyl by Ian McDonald

The Last Colony (Old man's war #3) by John Scalzi
Call Number: YA F SCA-J O3 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780765316974
Publication Date: 2007-04-17
Retired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony on distant Huckleberry. With his wife, former Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, he farms several acres, adjudicates local disputes, and enjoys watching his adopted daughter grow up. That is, until his and Jane's past reaches out to bring them back into the game - as leaders of a new human colony, to be peopled by settlers from all the major human worlds, for a deep political purpose that will put Perry and Sagan back in the thick of interstellar politics, betrayal, and war.

WINNER

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman; Dave McKean (Illustrator)
Call Number: J-Fiction GA (Juvenile Fiction)
ISBN: 9780060530921
Publication Date: 2008-09-30
Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.
The Graveyard Book [CD] by Neil Gaiman (Read by); Andrew Scott (Read by); Reece Shearsmith (Read by); Sean Baker (Illustrator); Clare Corbett (Read by); Tim Dannelly (Illustrator); Emilia Fox (Read by); Derek Jacobi (Read by); Robert Madge (Read by); Miriam Margolyes (Read by); Julian Rhind-Tutt (Read by)
Call Number: J-CD Fiction GA (Juvenile Audiobook CD)
ISBN: 9780061551895
Publication Date: 2008-09-30

FINALISTS

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Call Number: YA F DOC-C (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780765319852
Publication Date: 2008-04-29
After interrogation by Homeland Security following a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, 17-year-old Marcus uses his computer hacking skills to set things right.

Zoe's Tale (Old man's war #4) by John Scalzi
Call Number: YA F SCA-J O4 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780765316981
Publication Date: 2008-08-19
How do you tell your part in the biggest tale in history? I ask because it's what I have to do. I'm Zoe Boutin Perry: A colonist stranded on a deadly pioneer world. Holy icon to a race of aliens. A player (and a pawn) in a interstellar chess match to save humanity, or to see it fall. Witness to history. Friend. Daughter. Human. Seventeen years old. Everyone on Earth knows the tale I am part of. But you don't know my tale: How I did what I did — how I did what I had to do — not just to stay alive but to keep you alive, too. All of you. I'm going to tell it to you now, the only way I know how: not straight but true, the whole thing, to try make you feel what I felt: the joy and terror and uncertainty, panic and wonder, despair and hope. Everything that happened, bringing us to Earth, and Earth out of its captivity. All through my eyes. It's a story you know. But you don't know it all.

1990-1999

WINNER

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #1) by Dan Simmons
Call Number: FIC SIMMO HAN HY (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553283686
Publication Date: 1990-02-01
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a 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.

FINALISTS

A Fire in the Sun by George Alec Effinger
Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card
The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper

Grass [Kindle] by Sheri S. Tepper
Call Number: FIC TEPPE SHES GR Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780307573483
Publication Date: 2009
Grass is a science fiction novel in the "ecological" sub-genre: there is something unusual about the ecology of an alien planet, and unless Homo sapiens (or the right group of Homo sapiens) finds out what it is quickly... in this case the human race will be wiped out.

WINNER

The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold

FINALISTS

Earth by David Brin
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The Quiet Pools by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
Queen of Angels by Greg Bear

Earth [Kindle] by David Brin
Call Number: FIC BRIN DAV EA Kindle (Request at circulation desk)
ISBN: 9780553057782
Publication Date: 1990-05-01
A microscopic black hole has accidentally fallen into the Earth's core, threatening to destroy the entire planet within two years. Some scientists are frantically searching for ways to prevent the disaster. But others argue that the way to save the Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to let the evolutionary clock rewind and start over again. Earth is an edge-of-the-seat thriller, a kaleidoscopic novel peopled with extraordinary characters and challenging new visions of an incredibly real future: global computer networks that put limitless information at everyone's fingertips, and environment ravaged by the greenhouse effect, a quiet revolution by the politically powerful elderly.

WINNER

Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

FINALISTS

Bone Dance by Emma Bull
All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick

All the Weyrs of Pern (Dragonriders of Pern #11) by Anne McCaffrey
Call Number: FIC MCAFF ANN P11
ISBN: 9780345368928
Publication Date: 1991-10-08
For generations, the dragonriders had dedicated their lives to fighting Thread, the dreaded spores that periodically rained from the sky to ravage the land. On the backs of their magnificent telepathic dragons they flew to flame the deadly stuff out of the air before it could reach the planet's surface. But the greatest dream of the dragonriders was to find a way to eradicate Thread completely, so that never again would their beloved Pern be threatened with destruction. Now, for the first time, it looks as if that dream can come true. For when the people of Pern, led by Masterharper Robinton and F'lar and Lessa, Weyrleader and Weyrwoman of Bendon Weyr, excavate the ancient remains of the planet's original settlement, they uncover the colonists' voice-activated artificial intelligence system—which still functions. And the computer has incredible news for them: There is a chance—a good chance—that they can, at long last, annihilate Thread once and for all.

The Summer Queen
Call Number: FIC VINGE JOAD S3 (Snow Queen cycle #3)
ISBN: 9780446513975
Publication Date: 1991-11-01
A story that spans millennia, from the ruins of an ancient interstellar empire to the planets of the Hegemony that rules human space, The Summer Queen is the multi-layered story of Tiamat, a world where the dolphin-like mers are harvested for the youth-prolonging serum extracted from their blood. But Tiamat is much more, for beneath Carbuncle, its capital, lies the old empire's greatest secret: an enormous forgotten technology which, though decaying, continues to affect the fates of the fallen empire's remnant cultures via the sybil-network--a data bank that binds the past and the future in its web of knowledge, As the Smith, genius mastermind of the hidden interstellar Brotherhood, tries feverishly to unlock its secrets, BZ Gundhalinu desperately strives to save the Hegemony, while the Summer Queen herself dares to create a new future for her people and her planet. And though each is acting alone, their fates will entwine in an astonishing climax that will change the universe forever.

Xenocide (Ender's Saga #3) by Orson Scott Card
Call Number: YA F CAR-OS E3 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780312850562
Publication Date: 1991-06-01
On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought. Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequininos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, a second xenocide seems inevitable.

WINNERS

A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

A Fire upon the Deep (Zones of thought #1) by Vernor Vinge
Call Number: FIC VINGE VER FI (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780812515282
Publication Date: 1993-02-15
Thousands of years in the future, humanity is no longer alone in a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures, and technology, can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing this galactic threat, Ravna crash lands on a strange world with a ship-hold full of cryogenically frozen children, the only survivors from a destroyed space-lab. They are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle.

Doomsday Book [Kindle] by Connie Willis
Call Number: FIC WILLI CON DO Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780307784445
Publication Date: 1993
A time-traveler is stranded in medieval Europe during the Black Death.

FINALISTS

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh
Steel Beach by John Varley

Red Mars (Mars trilogy #1) by Kim Stanley Robinson
Call Number: FIC ROBIN KIMS RE Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9781441689191
Publication Date: 2011
For centuries, the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet has beckoned to humankind. Now a group of one hundred colonists begins a mission whose ultimate goal is to transform Mars into a more Earthlike planet. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light onto its surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels drilled into the mantle will create stupendous vents of hot gases. But despite these ambitious goals, there are some who would fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

WINNER

Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Green Mars (Mars trilogy #2) by Kim Stanley Robinson
Call Number: FIC ROBIN KIMS M2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553096408
Publication Date: 1994-03-01
Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed on Mars, and its transformation to an Earthlike planet is under way. But not everyone wants to see the process through. The methods are opposed by those determined to preserve their home planet’s hostile, barren beauty. Led by the first generation of children born on Mars, these rebels are soon joined by a handful of the original settlers. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, partnerships, and rivalries explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself.

FINALISTS

Moving Mars by Greg Bear
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Glory Season by David Brin
Virtual Light by William Gibson

WINNER

Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster

FINALISTS

Mother of Storms by John Barnes
Beggars and Choosers by Nancy Kress
Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop
Towing Jehovah by James Morrow

WINNER

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Call Number: FIC STEPH NEA DI (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553096095
Publication Date: 1995-01-01
Decades 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 neo-Victorians. 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.

FINALISTS

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Brightness Reef by David Brin
The Terminal Experiment (alt: Hobson’s Choice) by Robert J. Sawyer
Remake by Connie Willis

Brightness Reef [Kindle] (Uplift saga #4) by David Brin
Call Number: FIC BRIN DAV U4 Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9781441621023
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Persecuted refugees from six separate alien races have migrated to the idyllic planet Jijo. And despite their incredible diversity, the inhabitants live together in blissful harmony. However, settlement on Jijo is illegal--and it's only a matter of time before the residents of this forbidden paradise are discovered by the galactic powers-that-be.

WINNER

Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Blue Mars (Mars trilogy #3) by Kim Stanley Robinson
Call Number: FIC ROBIN KIMS M3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553573350
Publication Date: 1997-06-02
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.

FINALISTS

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
Starplex by Robert J. Sawyer
Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling

WINNER

Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Forever Peace (Forever War #2) by Joe Haldeman
Call Number: FIC HALDE JOEW F2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780441005666
Publication Date: 1998-10-01
2043 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...

FINALISTS

City on Fire by Walter Jon Williams
The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons
Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer
Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick

The Rise of Endymion [Kindle] (Hyperion Cantos #4) by Dan Simmons; Victor Bevine (Read by)
Call Number: FIC SIMMO DAN H4 Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk
ISBN: 9781423381716
Publication Date: 2009-09-08
The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, onetime shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples. But first they must embark on a final spectacular mission to discover the underlying meaning of the universe itself.

WINNER

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

To Say Nothing of the Dog, or, how we found the Bishop's bird stump at last by Connie Willis
Call Number: Fiction W734t (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780553099959
Publication Date: 1997-12-01
Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He’s been shuttling between the 21st century and the 1940s searching for a Victorian atrocity called the bishop's bird stump. It’s part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years earlier. But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump back to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right—not only to save the project but to prevent altering history itself.

FINALISTS

Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer

1980-1989

WINNER

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

FINALISTS

Titan by John Varley
Jem by Frederik Pohl
Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip
On Wings of Song by Thomas M. Disch

Titan (Gaia #1) by John Varley
Call Number: FIC VARLE JOH G1 (Adult fiction)
Publication Date: 1979
When Cirrocco Jones, captain of the spaceship Ringmaster, and his crew are captured by Gaea, a planet-sized creature that orbits around Saturn, they find themselves inside a bizarre world inhabited by centaurs, harpies, and constantly shifting environments

WINNER

The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

The Snow Queen by Amy Ehrlich; Hans Andersen; Susan Jeffers
Call Number: Easy JE (Easy Fiction)
ISBN: 0525476946
Publication Date: 2006-09-14
The strength of a little girl's love enables her to overcome many obstacles and free a boy from the Snow Queen's spell.

FINALISTS

Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg
The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl
Wizard by John Varley

Wizard (Gaia #2) by John Varley
Call Number: FIC VARLE JOH G2 (Adult fiction)
Publication Date: 1980
One of the greatest science fiction epics ever written, John Varley's Titan, Wizard, and Demon comprise a groundbreaking trilogy that will live forever. Human explorers have entered the sprawling mind of Gaea. Now they must fight her will. For she is much too powerful...and definitely insane.

WINNER

Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh

FINALISTS

The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe
The Many-Colored Land by Julian May
Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak
Little, Big by John Crowley

WINNER

Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov

Foundation's Edge (Foundation Series #4) by Isaac Asimov
Call Number: YA F ASI-I F5 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780385177252
Publication Date: 1982-10-01
The fourth novel in the Foundation series. The First Foundation on Terminus and the Second Foundation on Trantor suspect each other of manipulating the restoration of Galactic to its own advantage.
Foundation's edge (Foundation series #4) by Isaac Asimov
Call Number: YA F ASI-I F6 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780553900934
Publication Date: 2010

FINALISTS

The Pride of Chanur by C. J. Cherryh
2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke
Friday by Robert A. Heinlein
Courtship Rite by Donald Kingsbury
The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe

2010: Odyssey Two (Space odyssey #2) by Arthur C. Clarke
Call Number: FIC CLARK ARTC T2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345413970
Publication Date: 1997-02-25
Sequel to: 2001, a space odyssey. Dr. Heywood Floyd travels to Jupiter to find out what happened to the astronauts of the ship Discovery and its computer HAL 9000.

Friday by Robert A. Heinlein
Call Number: YA F HEI-RA (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780030615160
Publication Date: 1982-06-01
A beautiful interplanetary agent, a glorious product of genetic engineering, operates from and over a near-future Earth.

WINNER

Startide Rising by David Brin

FINALISTS

Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy
Millennium by John Varley
Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
Call Number: FIC MCAFF ANN P7 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345298737
Publication Date: 1984-09-12
An air of pleasant anticipation hung so thickly over the Halls, Holds and Weyrs of Pern that it had affected even the businesslike ways of Moreta, the Weyrwoman of Fort Weyr, where her dragon, Queen Orlith, would soon clutch. Then without warning, a runnerbeast fell ill. Soon myriads of holders, craftsmen, and dragonriders were dying; and the mysterious ailment had spread to all but the most inaccessible holds. Pern was in mortal danger. For, if dragonriders did not rise to char Thread, the parasite would devour any and all organic life it encountered. The future of the planet rested in the hands of Moreta and the other deicated, lelfless Pernese leaders. But of all their problems, the most difficult to overcome was time.

The Robots of Dawn (Robot #4) by Isaac Asimov
Call Number: YA F ASI-I R4 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780385184007
Publication Date: 1983-10-01
A puzzling case of "roboticide" takes interplanetary detective Elijah Baley from Earth to the planet Aurora where humans are never far from a host of robot companions and servants.

WINNER

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Neuromancer (Sprawl trilogy #1) by William Gibson
Call Number: FIC GIBSO WIL NE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780441000685
Publication Date: 1994-07-01
Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction. Neuromancer was the first fully-realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.

FINALISTS

Emergence by David R. Palmer
The Peace War by Vernor Vinge
Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein
The Integral Trees by Larry Niven

Job, a Comedy of Justice by Arthur C. Clarke
Call Number: FIC HEINL ROBA JO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345313577
Publication Date: 1984-02-01
After he firewalked in Polynesia, the world wasn't the same for Alexander Hergensheimer, now called Alec Graham. As natural accidents occurred without cease, Alex knew Armageddon and the Day of Judgement were near. Somehow he had to bring his beloved heathen, Margrethe, to a state of grace, and, while he was at it, save the rest of the world

WINNER

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Call Number: Fiction C266e (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780312932084
Publication Date: 1991-08-15
The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Enter Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, the result of decades of genetic experimentation. Is Ender who the general Earth so desperately needs? The only way to find out is to throw him into ever-harsher training at Battle School, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when his training begins. He will grow up fast. But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. His two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Among the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Ender's Game [CD] by Orson Scott Card; Stefan Rudnicki (Read by); Harlan Ellison (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction CA E1 (Adult Audiobook CD)
ISBN: 9781593974749
Publication Date: 2004-11-06

FINALISTS

Cuckoo’s Egg by C. J. Cherryh
The Postman by David Brin
Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Blood Music by Greg Bear

The Postman by David Brin
Call Number: YA F BRI-D (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553051070
Publication Date: 1985-10-01
After a limited but devastating war the handful of Americans who remain struggle to survive. One such man borrows the jacket of a dead postal worker to keep warm. He finds the old worn uniform still has power as a symbol of hope of an age now gone.

Blood Music [E-Book] by Greg Bear
Call Number: FIC BEAR GRE BL Ebook
ISBN: 9781497607446
Publication Date: 2014-04-01
A genetic engineering breakthrough may portend the destruction of humanity in this cyberpunk novel by the author of The Forge of God. This Hugo and Nebula Award finalist follows present-day events in which the fears concerning the nuclear annihilation of the world subsided after the Cold War and the fear of chemical warfare spilled over into the empty void it left behind. An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just how his actions will change the world. Author Greg Bear's treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is both suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us, irrevocably changing our world.

WINNER

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Speaker for the Dead (Ender quintet #2) by Orson Scott Card
Call Number: YA F CAR-OS E2 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780808586876
Publication Date: 1994-08-15
In 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 [CD] by David Birney (Read by); Orson Scott Card; Stefan Rudnicki (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction CA E2 (Adult Audiobook CDs)
ISBN: 9781593974763
Publication Date: 2005-09-01

FINALISTS

The Ragged Astronauts by Bob Shaw
Count Zero by William Gibson
Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge
Black Genesis by L. Ron Hubbard

WINNER

The Uplift War by David Brin

FINALISTS

When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
The Forge of God by Greg Bear
The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe

The Forge of God [Kindle] (Forge of God #1) by Greg Bear
Call Number: FIC BEAR GRE FG1 Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 0765301075
Publication Date: 2001-08-11
On July 26, Arthur Gordon learns that Europa, the sixth moon of Jupiter, has disappeared. Not hiding, not turned black, but gone. On September 28th, Edward Shaw finds an error in the geological records of Death Valley. A cinder cone was left off the map. Could it be new? Or, stranger yet, could it be artificial? The answer may be lying beside it—a dying Guest who brings devastating news for Edward and for Planet Earth. As more unexplained phenomena spring up around the globe—a granite mountain appearing in Australia, sounds emanating from the earth’s core, flashes of light among the asteroids—it becomes clear to some that the end is approaching, and there is nothing we can do. In The Forge of God, award-winning author Greg Bear describes the final days of the world on both a massive, scientific scale and in the everyday, emotional context of individual human lives. Facing the destruction of all they know, some people turn to God, others to their families, and a few turn to saviors promising escape from a planet being torn apart. Will they make it in time? And who gets left behind to experience the last moments of beauty and chaos on earth?

WINNER

Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh

FINALISTS

Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling
Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

1970-1979

WINNER

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin; Charlie Jane Anders (Afterword by); David Mitchell (Foreword by)
Call Number: Fiction L433Le (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780441478125
Publication Date: 1987-03-15
A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...

FINALISTS

Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
Macroscope by Piers Anthony
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad

Slaughterhouse-Five : or, The Children's Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Call Number: Fiction V947sL (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780440580294
Publication Date: 1969
Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade [CD] by Kurt Vonnegut; Ethan Hawke (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction VO (Adult Audiobook CD)
ISBN: 9780060573775
Publication Date: 2003-11-04
Slaughterhouse-Five [E-Book] by Kurt Vonnegut
Call Number: FIC VONNE KUR SL Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780440339069
Publication Date: 2009

WINNER

Ringworld by Larry Niven

Ringworld by Larry Niven
Call Number: FIC NIVEN LAR R1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345333926
Publication Date: 1985-09-12
Louis Wu, accompanied by a young woman with genes for luck, and a captured kzin – a warlike species resembling 8-foot-tall cats -- are taken on a space ship run by a brilliant 2-headed alien called Nessus. Their destination is the Ringworld, an artificially constructed ring with high walls that hold 3 million times the area of Earth. Its origins are shrouded in mystery.

FINALISTS

Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg
The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker
Star Light by Hal Clement

WINNER

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer

FINALISTS

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey
Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny
A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Call Number: YA F LEG-UK (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780837604640
Publication Date: 1982-08-01
In the year 2002, a man discovers his dreams are out of control. Whatever he dreams becomes reality.

Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey; BookSource Staff (Compiled by)
Call Number: Fiction M4697p v.2 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780808521204
Publication Date: 1986-10-13
Since Lessa and Ramoth, her golden queen dragon, traveled into the past to bring forward a small army of dragons and riders to save their world from deadly alien spores, fear and desperation have spread across the land. But while the dragonriders struggle with threats both otherworldly and human, a young rider named F’nor and his brown dragon, Canth, hatch a bold plan to destroy the alien scourge at its source—the baleful red star that fills the heavens and promises doom to all.

WINNER

The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

FINALISTS

When Harlie Was One by David Gerrold
There Will Be Time by Poul Anderson
The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg
Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
A Choice of Gods by Clifford D. Simak

WINNER

Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Call Number: FIC CLARK ARTC RE (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780151768356
Publication Date: 1973-09-01
As a team of scientists make their way aboard a dead space capsule headed toward Earth, it suddenly comes alive with a biological life.

FINALISTS

Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
Protector by Larry Niven
The People of the Wind by Poul Anderson
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold

WINNER

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Call Number: YA F LEG-UK (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780060125639
Publication Date: 1974-06-01
Shevek, a brilliant physicist, attempts to reunite two planets cut off from each other by centuries of distrust.

FINALISTS

Fire Time by Poul Anderson
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Inverted World by Christopher Priest

The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven; Jerry Pournelle
Call Number: FIC NIVEN LAR MO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780671218331
Publication Date: 1974-10-01
In the distant future, when man has conquered space and colonized the planets, a space ship arrives from an alien world that threatens the future of man.

WINNER

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

The Forever War by Robert Graham
Call Number: FIC HALDE JOEW F1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780380708215
Publication Date: 1991-05-01
Conscripted into service for the United Nations Exploratory Force, a highly trained unit built for revenge, physics student William Mandella fights for his planet light years away against the alien force known as the Taurans. “Mandella’s attempt to survive and remain human in the face of an absurd, almost endless war is harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and true,” says Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Junot Díaz—and because of the relative passage of time when one travels at incredibly high speed, the Earth Mandella returns to after his two-year experience has progressed decades and is foreign to him in disturbing ways.
The Forever War [E-Book] by Joe Haldeman; John Scalzi (Introduction by)
Call Number: FIC HALDE JOEW F1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781497692350
Publication Date: 2014-12-02

FINALISTS

Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny
Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The Computer Connection (alt: The Indian Giver) by Alfred Bester
The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg

WINNER

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang [Kindle] by Kate Wilhelm
Call Number: FIC WILHE KAT WH Kindle (Request at the Circulation Desk)
Publication Date: 2006
Before becoming one of today's most intriguing and innovative mystery writers, Kate Wilhelm was a leading writer of science fiction, acclaimed for classics like The infinity box and The Clewiston test. Now one of her most famous novels returns to print, the spellbinding story of an isolated post-holocaust community determined to preserve itself, through a perilous experiment in cloning. Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity, and rigorous in its science, Where late the sweet birds sang is widely regarded as a high point of both humanistic and hard science fiction. It won science fiction's Hugo Award and Locus Award on its first publication and is as compelling today as it was then.

FINALISTS

Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman
Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
Man Plus by Frederik Pohl
Shadrach in the Furnace by Robert Silverberg

Children of Dune by Herbert Franke
Call Number: FIC HERBE FRA D3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780399116971
Publication Date: 1976-04-21
The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad’Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities—making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides. Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia’s rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins’ prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty. But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions—and their destinies.
Children of Dune [E-Book] (Dune series #3) by Frank Herbert
Call Number: FIC HERBE FRA D3 Ebook
ISBN: 9781440630514
Publication Date: 2008

Man Plus [Kindle] by Frederik Pohl
Call Number: FIC POHL FRE MA Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780765321787
Publication Date: 2011-04-26
In the not-too-distant future, a desperate war for natural resources threatens to bring civilization to a crashing halt. Nuclear warships from around the globe begin positioning themselves as the American government works feverishly to complete a massive project to colonize Mars. Former astronaut Roger Torraway has agreed to be transformed by the latest advances in biological and cybernetic science into something new, a being that can survive the rigors of Mars before it is terraformed. Becoming Man Plus will allow him to be the linchpin in opening the new Martian frontier…but not without challenging his humanity as no man has ever been challenged before.

WINNER

Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Gateway by Frederick Pohl
Call Number: FIC POHL FRE GA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345346902
Publication Date: 1987-02-12
Seeded among the stars are troves of valuable artifacts left behind by the enigmatic, long-vanished alien race called the Heechee. For the right price, anyone can climb aboard one of the abandoned Heechee spaceships, castoff on an autopilot voyage to parts unknown, and take a chance on finding wealth . . . or facing death. Robinette Broadhead took that chance and walked away a winner. But at what cost? Despite living a millionaire’s life of material luxury, he’s haunted by crippling despair—and the dark secrets buried deep in his psyche. With the help of his computerized psychiatrist, the truth about what happened “out there” could set Broadhead free. But only after a personal journey more terrifying and, ultimately, more devastating than his last fateful trip into space.

FINALISTS

The Forbidden Tower by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson
Dying of the Light by George R. R. Martin

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven; Jerry Pournelle
Call Number: FIC NIVEN LAR LU (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780872234871
Publication Date: 1977-01-01
A massive comet breaks apart and bombards the Earth, with catastrophic results: worldwide earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, thousand-foot tidal waves and seemingly endless rain… With civilization in ruins, individuals band together to survive and to build a new society.

WINNER

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
Call Number: FIC MINTY VONN DR (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553296594
Publication Date: 1994-09-01
On an Earth scarred by nuclear war, Snake harnesses the power of venom to cure illnesses and vaccinate against disease. The healer can even ease patients into death with the power of her dreamsnake. But she is not respected and trusted by all, and when she tries to help a sick nomad child, the frightened clan kills her dreamsnake. Ashamed of being misjudged and grieving the loss of her dreamsnake, Snake has one choice to maintain her livelihood: she must travel to the city, which jealously guards its knowledge. And before she faces the prejudices and arrogance of the people there, Snake must make her way across a barren desert, surviving storms and radiation poisoning, helping those she can—all while a madman stalks her every move.

FINALISTS

The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C. J. Cherryh
Blind Voices by Tom Reamy

The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
Call Number: Fiction M4697p v.5 (Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9780808521426
Publication Date: 1986-11-12
Never in the history of Pern has there been a dragon like Ruth. Mocked by other dragons for his small size and pure white color, Ruth is smart, brave, and loyal—qualities that he shares with his rider, the young Lord Jaxom. Unfortunately, Jaxom is also looked down upon by his fellow lords, and by other riders as well. His dreams of joining the dragonriders in defending Pern are dismissed. What else can Jaxom and Ruth do but strike out on their own, pursuing in secret all they are denied? But in doing so, the two friends will find themselves facing a desperate choice—one that will push their bond to the breaking point . . . and threaten the future of Pern itself.

1960-1969

WINNER

Starship Troopers (alt: Starship Soldier) by Robert A. Heinlein

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Call Number: FIC HEINL ROBA ST (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780441783588
Publication Date: 1987-05-15
Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job...

FINALISTS

Dorsai! (alt: The Genetic General) by Gordon R. Dickson
The Pirates of Ersatz (alt: The Pirates of Zan) by Murray Leinster
That Sweet Little Old Lady (alt: Brain Twister) by Mark Phillips
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Sirens of Titan [Kindle] by Kurt Vonnegut
Call Number: FIC VONNE KUR SI Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780795303029
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
The Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there’ s a catch to the invitation–and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell.
The Sirens of Titan [E-Book] by Kurt Vonnegut
Call Number: FIC VONNE KUR SI Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780307423375
Publication Date: 2007

WINNER

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
Call Number: FIC MILLE WALM CA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553130065
Publication Date: 1959
In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infant rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From here the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes.

FINALISTS

The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
Deathworld by Harry Harrison
Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon

WINNER

A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Call Number: FIC HEINL ROBA STR (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780399135866
Publication Date: 1991-01-03
Valentine Michael Smith, an earthling born and educated on Mars, arrives on Earth with superhuman powers and a total ignorance of the mores of man. On his new planet, Smith is destined to become a freak, a media commodity, a scam artist, a searcher, a sexual pioneer, a neon evangelist, a martyr, and, finally, a messiah.
Stranger in a Strange Land [Kindle] by Robert A. Heinlein
Call Number: FIC HEINL ROBA STR (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780399135866
Publication Date: 1991-01-03

FINALISTS

Dark Universe by Daniel F. Galoye
Sense of Obligation (alt: Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison
The Fisherman (alt: Time is the Simplest Thing) by Clifford D. Simak
Second Ending by James White

WINNER

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

The Man in the High Castle by Philip Dick
Call Number: FIC DICK PHIK MA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780544916081
Publication Date: 2016-10-18
It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war -- and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

FINALISTS

Sword of Aldones by Marion Zimmer Bradley
A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke
Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper
Sylva by Vercors, translated by Rita Barisse

WINNER

Here Gather the Stars (alt: Way Station) by Clifford D. Simak

FINALISTS

Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein
Witch World by Andre Norton
Dune World by Frank Herbert
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Call Number: FIC VONNE KUR CA (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780385281263
Publication Date: 1963-12-15
A satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers.

WINNER

The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber

FINALISTS

The Whole Man (alt: The Telepathist) by John Brunner
Davy by Edgar Pangborn
The Planet Buyer (alt: The Boy Who Bought Old Earth) by Cordwainer Smith

WINNERS

Dune by Frank Herbert
...And Call Me Conrad (alt: This Immortal) by Roger Zelazny

Dune by Frank Herbert
Call Number: FIC HERBE FRA D1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780441005901
Publication Date: 1999-10-01
The story of a young prince, Paul Artreides, scion of a star-crossed dynasty, and of his journey from boy to warrior to ruler of a dying planet destined to become a paradise regained.
Dune [CD Audiobook] by Frank Herbert; Scott Brick (Read by); Orlagh Cassidy (Read by); Euan Morton (Read by); Simon Vance (Read by); Ilyana Kadushin (Read by)
Call Number: CD Fiction HE D1 (Adult CD Audiobooks)
ISBN: 9781427201430
Publication Date: 2007-05-29
Dune [E-Book] by Frank Herbert
Call Number: FIC HERBE FRA D1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781101658055
Publication Date: 2003
Dune [Streaming Audiobook] by Frank Herbert
Call Number: FIC HERBE FRA D1 Audiobk (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9781427218360
Publication Date: 2015

FINALISTS

The Square of the City by John Brunner
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Skylark DuQuesne by Edward E. Smith

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Call Number: FIC HEINL ROBA MO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780441536993
Publication Date: 1987-04-15
Widely acknowledged as one of Robert A. Heinlein's greatest works, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rose from the golden age of science fiction to become an undisputed classic—and a touchstone for the philosophy of personal responsibility and political freedom. A revolution on a lunar penal colony—aided by a self-aware supercomputer—provides the framework for a story of a diverse group of men and women grappling with the ever-changing definitions of humanity, technology, and free will—themes that resonate just as strongly today as they did when the novel was first published.

WINNER

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
Call Number: FIC HEINL ROBA MO (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780441536993
Publication Date: 1987-04-15
Widely acknowledged as one of Robert A. Heinlein's greatest works, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress rose from the golden age of science fiction to become an undisputed classic—and a touchstone for the philosophy of personal responsibility and political freedom. A revolution on a lunar penal colony—aided by a self-aware supercomputer—provides the framework for a story of a diverse group of men and women grappling with the ever-changing definitions of humanity, technology, and free will—themes that resonate just as strongly today as they did when the novel was first published.

FINALISTS

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
Too Many Magicians by Randall Garrett
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz
Day of the Minotaur by Thomas Burnett Swann

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Call Number: YA F KEY-D (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780151001637
Publication Date: 1995-04-17
After being mentally retarded for all of his thirty-two years, Charlie Gordon undergoes an operation designed to change his life.
Flowers for Algernon [E-Book] by Daniel Keyes
Call Number: FIC KEYS DAN FL Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780547539638
Publication Date: 2007-12-01

WINNER

Lord of Light by Robert Zelazny

FINALISTS

The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany
Chthon by Piers Anthony
The Butterfly Kid by Chester Anderson
Thorns by Robert Silverberg

WINNER

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

Stand on Zanzibar [Kindle] by John Brunner; Bruce Sterling (Foreword by)
Call Number: FIC BRUNN JOH ST Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9780765326782
Publication Date: 2011-08-16
Originally published in 1968, Stand on Zanzibar was a breakthrough in science fiction storytelling technique, and a prophetic look at a dystopian 2010 that remains compelling today. Corporations have usurped democracy, ubiquitous information technology mediates human relationships, mass-marketed psychosomatic drugs keep billions docile, and genetic engineering is routine. Universal in reach, the world-system is out of control, and we are all its victims...and its creator.

FINALISTS

Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Past Master by R. A. Lafferty
The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak

1953-1959

WINNER: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

WINNER: They'd Rather Be Right (aka The Forever Machine) by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley

WINNER: Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein

SHORTLIST:

Call Him Dead (aka Three to Conquer) by Eric Frank Russell
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov
Not This August by Cyril M. Kornbluth
The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett

WINNER: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber

WINNER: A Case of Conscience by James Blish

SHORTLIST:

We Have Fed Our Sea (aka The Enemy Stars) by Poul Anderson
Who? by Algis Budrys
Have Space Suit - Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein
Time Killer (aka Immortality, Inc.) by Robert Sheckley

Retro-Hugo Awards 1939, 1941, 1943-1946, 1951, 1954

WINNER

The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White

The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White
Call Number: FIC WHITE TH SW (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780399225024
Publication Date: 1993-09-15
Growing up in a colorful world peopled by knights in armor and fair damsels, foul monsters and evil witches, young Arthur slowly learns the code of the gentleman. Under the wise guidance of Merlin, the all-powerful magician for whom life progresses backward, the king-to-be becomes expert in falconry, jousting, hunting, and swordplay. He is transformed by his remarkable old tutor into various animals so that he may experience life from all points of view. In every conceivable way, he is readied for the day when he, alone among Englishmen, is destined to draw the marvelous sword from the magic stone and become the King of England.

FINALISTS

Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
Galactic Patrol by E. E. Smith
The Legion of Time by Jack Williamson
Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Out of the Silent Planet (Space trilogy #1) by C. S. Lewis
Call Number: FIC LEWIS CS S1 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780025707900
Publication Date: 1980-11-01
Volume one of a space trilogy followed by "Perelandra," and, "That hideous strength." A philologist is kidnapped and taken via space-ship from England to Malacandra where he escapes and goes on the run.

WINNER

Slan by A. E. Van Vogt

Slan [Kindle] (Slan #1) by A. E. Van Vogt
Call Number: FIC VANVO AE S1 Kindle (Request at circulation desk)
ISBN: 9780795304125
Publication Date: 2002
Slan is the story of Jommy Cross, the orphan mutant outcast from a future society prejudiced against mutants, or slans. Throughout the forties and into the fifties, Slan was considered the single most important SF novel, the one great book that everyone had to read. Today it remains a monument to pulp SF adventure, filled with constant action and a cornucopia of ideas.

FINALISTS:

Gray Lansman by E. E. "Doc" Smith
The Ill-Made Knight by T. H. White
The Reign of Wizardry by Jack Williamson
Kallocain by Karin Boye

WINNER

Beyond This Horizon by Anson MacDonald

FINALISTS:

Second State Lensmen by E. E. "Doc" Smith
Darkness and the Light by Olaf Stapedon
Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak
The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle
Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright

WINNER

Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber, Jr.

FINALISTS:

Earth's Last Citadel by C. L. Moore and Kenry Kuttner
Gather, Darkness! by Fritz Leiber, Jr.
Das Glasperlenspiel [The Glass Bead Game] by Hermann Hesse
Perelandra by C. S. Lewis
The Weapon Makers by A. E. Van Vogt

Perelandra (Space trilogy #2) by C. S. Lewis
Call Number: FIC LEWIS CS S2 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780025708402
Publication Date: 1968-09-01
The second of a trilogy, the title of the first being Out of the silent planet and that of the third That hideous strength.

WINNER

Shadow Over Mars (The Nemesis from Terra) by Leigh Brackett

FINALISTS:

The Golden Fleece (Hercules, My Shipmate) by Robert Graves
Sirius : a Fantasy of Love and Discord by Olaf Stapledon
The Winged Man by A. E. Van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull
Land of Terror by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater

WINNER

The Mule by Isaac Asimov

FINALISTS

The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt
That Hideous Strength (Alt: The Tortured Planet) by C. S. Lewis
Destiny Times Three by Fritz Leiber
Red Sun of Danger (Alt: Danger Planet by Brett Sterling

That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis
Call Number: FIC LEWIS CS S3 (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780684833675
Publication Date: 1996-10-01

WINNER

Farmer in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

FINALISTS

Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
First Lensman by Edward E. Smith
The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia #1) by C. S. Lewis
Call Number: Juv F LEW N1 (Juvenile fiction)
ISBN: 9780027581102
Publication Date: 1968-06-01
Four English school children find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe [CD] by C. S. Lewis; Michael York (Read by)
Call Number: J-CD Fiction LE N2 (Juvenile Audiobooks on CD)
ISBN: 9780060826482
Publication Date: 2005-10-25
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe [E-Book] by C. S. Lewis; Pauline Baynes (Illustrator)
Call Number: Juv F LEW N1 Ebook (OverDrive)
ISBN: 9780061974151
Publication Date: 2009-10-06

WINNER

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury, Ray
Call Number: YA F BRA-RD (Young Adult Fiction)
ISBN: 9781451673319
Publication Date: 2012-01-10
In a society in which books are outlawed, Montag, a regimented fireman in charge of burning the forbidden volumes, meets a revolutionary school teacher who dares to read. Suddenly he finds himself a hunted fugitive, forced to choose not only between two women, but between personal safety and intellectual freedom.
Fahrenheit 451 [Kindle] by Ray Bradbury
Call Number: FIC BRADB RAY F Kindle (Request at Circulation Desk)
ISBN: 9781597227162
Publication Date: 2008-03-01
Fahrenheit 451 [CD] by Ray Bradbury
Call Number: CD Fiction BR (Adult audiobook CDs)
ISBN: 9780786176274
Publication Date: 2005

FINALISTS

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Call Number: FIC CLARK ARTC CH (Adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780345284655
Publication Date: 1979-07-12
In the near future, enormous silver spaceships appear without warning over mankind’s largest cities. They belong to the Overlords, an alien race far superior to humanity in technological development. Their purpose is to dominate Earth. Their demands, however, are surprisingly benevolent: end war, poverty, and cruelty. Their presence, rather than signaling the end of humanity, ushers in a golden age . . . or so it seems. Without conflict, human culture and progress stagnate. As the years pass, it becomes clear that the Overlords have a hidden agenda for the evolution of the human race that may not be as benevolent as it seems.

The Caves of Steel (Robot Series #2) by Isaac Asimov
Call Number: YA F ASI-I R2 (Young adult fiction)
ISBN: 9780553293401
Publication Date: 1991-11-01
Like most people left behind on an over-populated Earth, New York City police detective Elijah Baley had little love for either the arrogant Spacers or their robotic companions. But when a prominent Spacer is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Baley is ordered to the Outer Worlds to help track down the killer. The relationship between Life and his Spacer superiors, who distrusted all Earthmen, was strained from the start. Then he learned that they had assigned him a partner: R. Daneel Olivaw. Worst of all was that the “R” stood for robot—and his positronic partner was made in the image and likeness of the murder victim!

Hugo Awards

Title Box

2020-2029

WINNER

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley

The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders

The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow

WINNER: Network Effect by Martha Wells

NOMINEES

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

WINNER

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Winner will be announced September 4, 2022.

FINALISTS:

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

WINNER

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

NOMINEES:

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal

2010-2019

WINNERS

The City & The City by China Miéville

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

FINALISTS

Boneshaker, Cherie Priest

Wake, Robert J. Sawyer

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, Robert Charles Wilson

Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente

WINNER

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

FINALISTS

Feed, Mira Grant

Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin

The Dervish House, Ian McDonald

WINNER

Among Others by Jo Walton

FINALISTS

Embassytown, China Miéville

Leviathan Wakes, James S. A. Corey

Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit)

A Dance With Dragons, George R. R. Martin

WINNER

Redshirts : a Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi

FINALISTS

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold

2312, Kim Stanley Robinson

Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed

Blackout, Mira Grant

WINNER

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

FINALISTS

Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK)

Parasite, Mira Grant (Orbit US/Orbit UK)

The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books / Orbit UK)

Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles, Larry Correia

WINNER

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

FINALISTS

The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie

Skin Game, Jim Butcher

The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson

WINNER

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin