Oops... been neglecting my Hugo updates.

Here's where I'm up to so far...

The Big Time, Fritz Leiber. An oddly unsatisfying whodunnit of sorts. Set against a war that spans across the whole of time and space, Leiber focuses on a small group of the war's cannon fodder as they try and work out who trapped them in their bar-cum-brothel outpost with a nuclear device.

A Case of Conscience, James Blish. A slightly disjointed two-parter that revolves around the reactions to the planet Lithia by the four people sent to survey it. The Lithians seem to have come to an almost perfect society, but without recourse to a God. Blish mainly focuses on the thoughs of the priest/biologist of the survey team as he decides that Lithia must be a creation of Satan, only to commit a heresy in the process (Satan, according to the church, cannot create). Meanwhile, a young Lithian is given to the survey team when they leave and has a profound effect on the Earth's dystopian society.

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. Miller's only book is a three-parter post-apocalyptic tale much more sympathetic to the church than A Case of Conscience. After a nuclear war (known as the Flame Deluge), society turns on the scientists and ultimately the intelligent. The titular Leibowitz, a Jewish engineer in the US, sets up a Catholic order of monks dedicated to saving as much knowledge as possible in the form of memorobilia. The story picks up every 600 years or so as society rebuilds itself to the point where not only has it surpassed the science of today, but another nuclear war is brewing.

Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein. One of the more famous Sci-Fi novels around, and source of the word “grok”. Heinlein has a new-born baby abandoned on Mars, to be raised by the alien Martians and ultimately brought to Earth by the second expedition from there to Mars. As, in theory, the heir to the (human) control of Mars, Michael Valentine Smith is initially sequestered by Earth's controlling Federation until he can be persuaded to hand over his rights (in all probability without knowing what he is doing). Fate intervenes in the form of Gillian Boardman, a nurse at the hospital who, intrigued about the no females rule around Smith, finagles her way into his suite. Accidently performing a “water ceremony” (Mars is, as we all know, lacking in water) with Smith she is then moved to spring him from his captivity and, by way of her soon to be missing boyfriend and journalist Ben, brought to the mansion of Jubal Harshaw, a writer, lawyer, doctor, philosopher and mouthpiece for Heinlein. Harshaw arranges for Smith's freedom and assumption of his inheritances, and sets him on course to challenge society's mores.

In that, Heinlein rather stacks things in Smith's favour. The Martians who raised him have been around much longer than humans and have all manner of powers (including the apparent ability to detect a supernova some 1000+ light years away), some of which they have passed onto Smith, including telepathy and telekinesis. Smith is also a genius - if initially somewhat niave. In addition, he's actually on a mission from God (if unaware of it). As a result, it's a touch sad that the ultimate form of this is a somewhat adolescent fantasy that resolves around everyone being very beautiful and willing to fuck at the drop of a hat (mind you, this was in the very early 60s, so he gets points for forward thinking).

The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick. An alternate history where the Axis powers won the Second World War and Japan and Nazi Germany split a puppet USA between themselves. The Nazis continued their ethnic cleansing and rocket research whilst the Japanese have taken a more lenient path, putting the two superpowers into their own version of a Cold War. Meanwhile, the most popular book of the moment, despite it being banned by both empires, is The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which is an alternate history from the alternate history where the British Empire and the USA won the Second World War, but even more effectively than in real reality, making the Cold War in the alternate, alternate history between the British and the Americans. Grasshopper is written by the titular man in the high castle, meeting whom becomes the goal of a couple of characters in the book. Most of the other characters are only tangentially connected to that plot, which gives the story a somewhat incomplete feel, as if it were part of a larger work.

Update: Apparently, Dick planned it with a sequel in mind, but never finished one: “But then when it came time to close down the novel the I Ching had no more to say. And so there's no real ending on it. I like to regard it as an open ending. It will segue into a sequel sometime”

Way Station, Clifford D. Simak. The story of Enoch Wallace, an American Civil War veteran who seems to have survived a touch longer than he should have. The reason for this is that he's employed by the galactic civilisation the Earth is otherwise unaware of to run a Way Station for intra-galactic travel. However, due to his extended lifespan, the US government has become interested in him and inadvertently caused a incident by digging up the body of an alien buried on his land. Meanwhile, an important artifact that holds the galactic federation together is missing, and needs to be found quickly.

The Wanderer, Fritz Leiber. Possibly the first furry porn ever written. A rogue planet arrives in Earth orbit, destroying the moon and causing massive destructive tsunamis and earthquakes. It's on the run because its inhabitants - who are telepathic and sometimes take the form of sexy cat women (albeit with just two sets of nipples, going by the cover picture) - don't want to conform to the rest of galactic society. As the survivors of the destruction try and band together to survive, some of them are taken up to the rogue planet as it prepares for the arrival of a police planet chasing it.

This Immortal, Roger Zelazny. Another post-apocalyptic novel. Earth is largely depopulated of humans, overrun by mutants and legally owned by the Vegans (that's their name, rather than their diet), who want to rebuild it as a holiday destination. Conrad Nomikos is a mixture of the first two and tasked with taking a member of the third around the sights of Earth as he decides the fate of Earth vis-a-vis tourists. Conrad, who, in his immortal history, has some anti-Vegan activities to his credit, has to decide whether to let the attempts on the Vegan's life succeed or not.

Dune, Frank Herbert. In a future feudal, galaxy-spanning empire, the rather broadly drawn ducal families of the evil Harkonnen and good Atreides face off over the strategically important planet Arrakis (AKA Dune), where the vital spice melange (so vital in fact, you wonder how anyone found it without being able to travel through space). The Atreides have been effectively forced to take over Dune against their will as part of a plot by the Emperor and the Harkonnen, after the former comes to fear the popularity of the Atreides (the Harkonnen, as befits the evil, already hate the Atreides). Shortly after getting settled on Dune, the Atreides are all but wiped out by the joint forces of the Harkonnen and the Emperor, with Paul, the heir to the Atreides throne, and his mother the only survivors. Fortunately, Paul is the future Kwisatz Haderach and sets about resurrecting his family's fortunes.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein. Another of Heinlein's examinations of society, with, as in Stranger, things heavily tilted in his protagonists favour. The Moon has been turned into a prison, a la Australia. With the Warden following a relatively hands-off rule, a libertarian society has formed amongst the prisoners, who largely could not return to earth anyway due to the low gravity's affect on their bodies. “Mannie” Davis, a third generation Loonie (and thus not actually a criminal) discovers that the computer running the lunar city has become self-aware. Naming it Mike, after Mycroft Holmes, he keeps it secret and starts teaching it humour until the day he gets caught up in an illegal meeting and goes on the run with one of the main revolutionaries, Wyoming Knott. In short course, Mike, Wyoming, Mannie and Professor Bernardo de la Paz join forces after learning that the current course the lunar authority is taking will result in starvation for the colony/prison. They plan to declare independence from Earth and start trading for the food they'll need, whilst holding the threat of bombardment from space to prevent Earth fighting them (and, to show how stupid their opponents are, Heinlein has many earthers go and picnic on the announced, otherwise unpopulated, areas where the rocks will land, and then have complaints made afterwards that they died). Mike takes on the role of secret head of the revolution (and, in a bit of pre-computer dissonance, has more difficulty faking visuals than voices of his character) as the four protagonists fool both the Loonies and the Earthers into following their plans.