I have been virtuous today, and ordered, either via Amazon or the library, all of the Hugo nominated novels (and one novella), so that I’m not scrambling later this summer to vote in a well-informed fashion… and so that I don’t have to leave a lot of categories blank.

After that, I’ll start reviewing the Campbell-noms’ bodies of work. Just a little. It’s a good excuse to read Melusine, anyway.

I feel so full of virtue.

***

I’m almost finished with The Forever War. Which, I have to say, I only read because everyone said how Old Man’s War was obviously such an homage to Starship Troopers and The Forever War. “Great,” thought I. “I adore Starship Troopers and I really dug (digged?) Old Man’s War.” Weeeeellll… The Forever War so very clearly comes from a different place than Starship Troopers. It’s also clearly an important book, but it’s so depressing right now I could cry. I have a feeling it doesn’t get any better in that regard… It’s too Vietnam, I think. I mean, I’m sure it’s just the right amount Vietnam, but where Haldeman lost me, just a little, was the going back to Earth and having Earth totally suck. I understand that it underscores the futility of war–you’re fighting for something that doesn’t even exist!–but. A world that bleak is not a world I know how to live in.

At the heart of it, it’s a difference in philosophy. And it’s not a philosophy about warfare… it’s the approach to the “you can’t go home again” scenario. There are three ways to head into “you can’t go home again” territory:

• you can’t go home again because home has changed
• you can’t go home again because you’ve changed
• a combination of the first two

I can accept the latter two. But the first one just doesn’t work for me. I don’t care if it really happens–but if you aren’t changed by going away, then I don’t want to read your story.

Oh, in spite of that, I want to keep reading The Forever War. I think the book has many other points of success… but I would almost probably skip the trip home, were I ever to reread it.

***

One reason I’m reading The Forever War, beyond that I thought it was going to be a Ripping Yarn ™, was that once I read The Dispossessed, I will have read all of the award winners of my genres from the year of my birth. My big plan after that is to read everything from 1953 because it was the first Hugo year; 1954 because it was the year my parents were born; and 1959 and 1960 because I only have to read one book apiece to be done with both years. Oh, yes, my planning is devious.

***

Not so much a plan, but I thought I’d link it anyway: Librarians speak out for Googlebooks.

Maybe I can be blasé about it because I don’t plan to get rich off my books, regardless–but I honestly don’t believe that something like Googlebooks would do anything but improve my bottom line as an author. To me, it looks like super-targeted advertising. What, really, am I missing?