The Hugos

I've been reading more lately than I usually do.  There are two main reasons, as far as I can tell.  First of all, I found myself carpooling 45 minutes every morning, with nothing much to do on the drive other than listen to NPR News.  Not a bad way to start the morning, but not my favorite way, either. The second reason, which has been going on for much longer, is that my job often finds me in waiting rooms at hospitals, property management companies, Social Security, dentists, my own office (oddly enough) and a handful of other places. When the commuting started, I picked up the Dresden Files series where I'd left off, and finished it before too long.  I wasn't really sure what to read next. 

Enter goodreads.com.  My wife, V, signed up for it, and it seemed like fun, so before too long I found myself trying to remember every book I've ever read, and what I thought of them at the time (or what I thought of them now, which is a very different thing).  I've read a lot of science fictions books in my life, and in high school, especially, I was drawn to early science fiction, to The Golden Age of Science Fiction, specifically. Scouring my memory, I rated books by Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and so forth, and was rewarded with recommendations for other early science fiction writers. The one they pushed the most, though, was The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester.

I hadn't ever heard of Bester before; I didn't know if I'd like him or even what to expect of him. But I decided to pick up the book from the local library, and use it as a test for how effective goodreads is at picking out books I'll actually like. A few chapters in, I started to think about the heading on the front cover: "Winner of the First Hugo Award." From my experience, Hugo Award winning novels are generally enjoyable. I hadn't read many (though I'd read more than I thought, and just not noticed), and decided that I should read more. I decided that I should read all of them. In order.

Reading them in order didn't last beyond the first winner.  From there I went to the third, the fifth, the second, and I'm now reading the thirteenth winner.  (Sixty novels have won the honor so far, if you're wondering.) I'll get to why later.  For now, let's just look at The Demolished Man.