Back to the Hugos
Sam Jordison works his way through the winners of the Hugo award, science fiction’s most prestigious accolade
Back to the Hugos: Dreamsnake by Vonda N McIntyre
Sam Jordison: Rather than relying on the science fiction staples of fighting and force, this determinedly feminine approach uses healing, respect and skill to make a powerful mark
Back to the Hugos: Gateway by Frederik Pohl
Sam Jordison: Compelling speculation and excellent writing add up to one of the prize's very best winners
Back to the Hugos: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
Sam Jordison: If you can survive the daft material in this post-apocalyptic tale, you'll find Wilhelm's world a fun place to play the survival game
Back to the Hugos: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Sam Jordison: Set in the distant future, but drawing on the author's recent experience of military service, this is a searing response to the Vietnam war
Back to the Hugos: The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin
This tale of neighbouring planets occupied by anarchists and capitalists reminds us that the old left has plenty to teach us, as the new right accrues ever more power
Back to the Hugos: Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C Clarke
Sam Jordison: Clarke's account of a vast alien object hurtling towards our sun is a stone-cold classic
Back to the Hugos: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
Sam Jordison: He may not have been much bothered about his prose style, but this novel repays the attention you'll be hard pressed not to give it
Back to the Hugos: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer
Sam Jordison: If you can forgive the clumsy exposition, overt sexism and attacks on personal enemies, this one is just about worth reading
Back to the Hugos: Ringworld by Larry Niven
Sam Jordison: Larry Niven's 1970 Hugo winner, Ringworld, is a highly influential and splendidly improbable - but not impossible - creation
Back to the Hugos: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
Sam Jordison: Ursula K Le Guin won the Hugo award in 1970 with a thought experiment in sexual politics, The Left Hand of Darkness, but was she guilty of succumbing to 60s sexism herself?
Back to the Hugos: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
Sam Jordison: John Brunner's dystopian vision of 2010 may not be completely accurate – but his grungy world is brilliantly described
Back to the Hugos: Lord of Light by Robert Zelazny
Sam Jordison: A strange tale of Hindu gods that aren't, this novel's progress through the real world was even stranger
Robert Heinlein: still an original Hugo winner, fourth time round
Sam Jordison: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is strikingly different kind of book to his other much-garlanded books
Roger Zelazny's This Immortal: in dire need of hip replacement surgery
Sam Jordison: Time has not been kind to the Hugo-winning post-apocalyptic parable This Immortal - but don't write it off completely
Frank Herbert's Dune: the original spice world
Sam Jordison: Critics dismissed Hugo winner Dune as 'mere fantasy'. Well, I'm with the 12 million readers who fell under Frank Herbert's spell
Why on earth did Fritz Leiber win the Hugo?
Boring characters, sludgy writing, sex scenes with alien cats … Fritz Leiber's The Wanderer is not just bad, it's dire, says Sam Jordison
Clifford D Simak: sci-fi in the countryside
Sam Jordison: The Wisconsin-born writer's now largely forgotten Way Station pioneered 'pastoral sci-fi' - so what happens when aliens land in the woods?
Philip K Dick's alternative memory lane
Sam Jordison: Dick's Hugo award-winning novel, The Man in the High Castle, created one of the most fertile fields of speculative fiction
Robert Heinlein's softer side
The winner of the 1961 Hugo award, Stranger in a Strange Land, finds the author of Starship Troopers in hippy mode
The Hugo award winner that spawned a Pulitzer prize winner
Sam Jordison: Walter M Miller Jr's A Canticle for Leibowitz is a direct ancestor of Cormac McCarthy's The Road
About 23 results for Back to the Hugos 
