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The 2004 Hugo Awards winners have been announced at Noreascon Four. Lois McMaster Bujold won the Best Novel Hugo for Paladin of Souls, the sequel to The Curse of Chalion Of the six nominees, half are sequels (a distressing trend), and Stross's Singularity Sky covers ground well-tilled by Vernor Vinge.

This is Bujold's fourth Best Novel Hugo, and that puts her in heady company. Only Robert Heinlein, with five, has won more. Don't get me wrong, Bujold is one of my favorite authors. But I think that WSFS members may be selling themselves short.

Or perhaps it's that I just don't read the dreck I used to. I'm a pretty discerning reader (otherwise known as "boring"). I know what I like, and I like what I know. Probably it's because I don't go to the library much anymore. I did hit the jackpot this summer with Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain, but I picked it up with hesitation. My last experience with KSR was the Mars trilogy, and I found it tedious, plodding, and ultimately unfinishable. Forty Signs was none of these, and either I'm a better reader, or Robinson's a better writer. Given that two-thirds of the Mars trilogy won Hugos, I know where my money is , and I'm looking forward to the next installments of the trilogy.

Oh, and Forty Signs of Rain has Hugo written all over it.

Noreascon also has a list of all the nominees in each category, complete with links (if there are any). All the short fiction is available online (w00t!).

Upcoming book notes:
* King's The Dark Tower (volume 7 of the eponymous series) will be published on September 21.
* Stephenson's The System of the World, Volume 3 of The Baroque Cycle, may have slipped its publication date. Supposedly it will be published in November, but Amazon doesn't list a date (and I think they used to).

* A nit about the Harper Collings site for The Curse of Chalion: There are bullets under the book's description saying "Hugo Winner" and "Nebula Winner". While Ms. Bujold has won multiple Hugos and Nebulas, this is the first non-Vorkosigan-mileau story to win her either. The implication is that the book won both; a sneaky bit of marketing by misdirection.

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