Science Fiction has two major awards. The older of the two, the Hugo, was invented here in Philadelphia and is usually given out Labor Day weekend. The only voters are those who paid for membership at the World Science Fiction Convention. The other award is the Nebula Award presented by the Science Fiction Writers of America. As you might guess politics has a lot to do with the books that are nominated.
Alex Lamb uses a standard trope of a
future Earth gone theocratic, trying to conquer and convert its
former colonies. Galatea, a world still being terraformed, is
vastly outnumbered. It has mods for people to make them stronger,
faster, smarter and to connect to the robots around them. Even for
a Roboteeer (paper from Gollancz) Will Kuno-Mone is unusual
enjoying interacting not only with the robots under his control,
but also the rest of the crew of the stealth ship Ariel. Earth has
developed a sun-tap weapon, and the Ariel follows its commander to
an amazing discovery, a world built by aliens. The new weapon is
from alien technology, and as the crew of the Ariel discovers,
created by transcended alien species. Species willing to self-edit
are allowed to grow. The sun-taps marks the stars of those species
unable to progress and allows the transcended to wipe them out. So
will, also being modified by the transcended and the rest of his
crew have to somehow stop a powerful Earth and return it to
sanity. Getting there is very exciting with near-miss excitement
as our heroes are captured and escape only to be captured again.
Lots of fun with a solid ending. 
Michael Kan imagines a future galaxy
under attack from Endervars, who wipe out all sapiens in space and
then englobe their worlds with an energy barrier. Julian Nverson,
a former starfighter is working as a pilot when they attack the
mining world. Rescued he is reinstated back into the Alliance
fleet, and in his first foray finds an Endervar ship that doesn’t
disintegrate,. Inside is an android claiming to be from Earth,
Earth that was englobed a millenia earlier. People are still alive
there, and they might also be on Julian’s home planet Haven.
The Ouryan, a collection of uploaded minds and one of the most
powerful groups in the Allience have developed bombs to destroy
solar systems They don’t want the android to return to Earth
Julian keeps getting in the middle of a complex of groups striving
to survive the Endervar Helping him is an ancient, genetically
modified New Human with her own ship, and even members of
the Ouryan opposing their own leadership. Remember the
Starfighter (ebook from Amazon which I bought ) is a
fascinating culture future from a first novelist. 
Michael Swanwick latest tale of two con
people Chasing the Phoenix (hard from Tor) will probably
end up being nominated for an award, because the author is
frequently nominated and the short tale that began the series “The
Dog Said Bow-Wow,” already won the Hugo. Surplus is a genetically
modified dog who walks erect and speaks perfectly. His partner,
Aubrey Darger was killed in the previous book and needs revival by
the Perfect Physician in China. After the revival the pair come to
the Hidden King who has dreams of reuniting China, still in pieces
after the fall of the utopian civilization. With the help of war
machines dug up by the archeologist, White Squall, and the head of
the hidden king’s armies Powerful Locomotive, Darger and Surplus
soon find themselves far more successful as they con kings into
joining them or standing by while the Hidden Emperor’s troops
conquer other kingdoms. Dealing with the love interests of the
inner circle of advisors is a little harder. The major problem is
that the Hidden Emperor has dreams of being blown up by the nuke
that White Squall found, convinced it will turn them all to gods.
The tale is appropriately silly and sometimes laugh-out-loud
funny. 
The Masquerade Empire uses economics
and deceit rather than armies to grow. Their only belief is in the
purity of heterosexuality and will use chemicals and torture to
destroy its opposite. In it Seth Dickinson tells the
tale of The Traitor Baru Cormorant (hard from Tor). Baru
was born into a family of two fathers and a mother on an island
paradise , When it is conquered, she is safe in an Imperial school
while one of her fathers is murdered and plague wracks her home.
Her test scores are very good. She is appointed Accountant to the
conquered Provence of Aurdwynn, which gives her control of the
money supply. The previous two Accountants were murdered, which
allows her Imperial mentor to put her in such a high position.
Aurdwynn is a land of squalling dukes and constant rebellion. Baru
stops a rebellion in her first year by creating massive inflation.
But three years later she decides that it is time to revolt
against the Empire that destroyed her home. This is a neat tale of
a very smart woman who plays politics with ease. I suspect it will
be nominated for an award. 
The late Donald Moffit has one more
tale of the far future. Six billion years from now is the age of
the Children of the Comet (paper from Open Road
Media ). The sun is a red star and enlarged past Earth’s orbit.
Humans are living on giant trees growing on comets in the
Oort cloud. As part of the ritual to become adult, Torris has to
climb kilometers to the top of the tree and have a dream Half way
up, he meets a woman, Ning who made her way from another tree and
they fight off danger, including one of Toris’s age mates. A
starship from our near future, traveling at near light speed has
left human colonies on a quasar that burst into a new galaxy. That
ship returns at the same time that Torris is expelled out into the
deep. It’s a classic case of the future meeting
primitive past. The starship crew have only lived decades because
of relativity and remember Earth the way it was. Torris’s people
make their spacesuits from animal pelts. They get their
oxygen from the tree and water from the ice comet. The
civilization that had genetically engineered the trees was long
lost. Neat and a solid sense of wonder.
Fran Wilde has a wonderful tale of a
people living in towers high above the clouds. They have
artificial wings to fly using the down flow and Updraft
(hard from Tor) winds to travel between towers. The Singers in the
center spire keep the city whole and protect them from skymouth
monsters, but have become controlling over the years. Kirit
Densira is training to pass her wingtest so she can become a
trader like her mother when a skymouth comes near her tower and
she somehow chases it away with her screams. This rare talent is
something the Singers want, and they block her getting her
wingmark. Eventually she ends up joining the Singers, but
discovers awful secrets that drive her to face the leadership in a
fight to the death. This is an interesting society and I really
liked the tale. 
Jim Butcher starts a fun series of
people living in spires to avoid a dangerous Earth who get power
including the power to lift their flying ships from crystals.
Adding to the fun are talking cats who are just as willful as you
might imagine. The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut's Windlass
(hard from Roc) is a fun tale of two spires on the edge of war.
Spire Aurora send five hundred marines into Spire Albion. To stop
them the Spirearch of Albion has only a few loyal agents
There’s Ex-nave Privateer Captain Grimm of the wounded air ship
Predator and his crew who knows his duty even if the Navy doesn’t
realize it. . Gwendolyn Lancaster is the only heir of the wealthy
crystal making family serving the Spirearch’s Guard for one year
requiredAnd who is absolutely fearless with her crystal weapons. .
Gwen’s cousin Benedict who stayed in the Guard for an additional
year. Bridget whose noble family has been reduced to the
ownership of one vattery. She is strong from lifting meat and
resents her one year service. Finally There’s Rowl, a cat who
adopted Bridget and will follow her everywhere. Add in etherist
Efferus Ferus and his apprentice Folly who can work the ether and,
like all etherists are quite mad. Opposing them are Madame
Cavindish, an etherist bent on getting information and will stop
at nothing to hurt Albion in the process. Veery exciting and a set
up for a longer series. 
R. S, Belcher mixes a very real occult
wizardry with a present day noir adventure set in a Nightwise
(hard from Tor) today. Laytham Ballard is a powerful
wizard who is asked by his dying partner to avenge the death of
his wife, killed in during Bosnian civil war by a genocidal
Serbian wizard. Unfortunately the wizard has disappeared.
The only clue is a place called the Greenway and U. S. Treasure
plates. Beset by other wizards, demons, crooked cops, and
gangsters and helped by a few friends and with wishes from the
Devil, Laytham makes his way to the Greenway and a sorcerous
battle. This has a potential for a long series and is lots of fun.
Imagine how the early years of the
Revolution would have changed if conjurers had been Present.
D. B. Jackson (David B. Coe)’s fourth tale of Ethan Kaille,
thief-taker and conjuror takes place in 1770 Boston. His
archenemy, Nate Ramsey supposedly died in a fire the previous
book. But a Dead Man’s Reach(hard from Tor) draws on
Ethan’s powers to create discord, even to causing the Boston
Massacre. There’s an exciting magical duel at the end and a happy
surprise for readers of this fun series. The detailed background
uses known historical figures to create a sense of time and place
that fees real. I am really looking forward to Ethan’s
participation in the War in future books.
David B. Coe has a second tale about
Justis Fearsson, ex-cop and private detective who uses his magical
weremyste powers to help solve crimes. Some one is torturing his
father through His father’s Eyes (hard from Baen) and the
trail leads to weremystes who use blood to enhance their spells.
Helped by an immortal, ancient witch. Helped by Nasmid, the rune
myste training him, Justis must work with a drug lord and his
ex–partner Cop to confront the evil mystes who are killing the
homeless in order to make slaves of various were’s in the area
Very exciting and fun. I like the revolutionary Boston tales
better. 
Tom Doyle continues his tale of Spies
and magic in the modern world. Roderick who had been a living head
for a century was liberated inadvertently by the agents and
American Craftsmen (paper). He follows The Left-Handed Way
(hard from Tor) that uses magic to become immortal and as a result
he can move into new bodies. He is very powerful and wants to work
a magic that will open the door to a world of evil and make him a
god. The previous CIA agents, Scherie, her new husband Dale, and
their leader Michael Endicot are joined by Mi13 agent Grace Marlow
are in a chase that takes from London, Tokyo , Istanbul, and
Chernobyl following a trail that leads to Kiev and then back to
the US. There are ghosts abounding to both help and attack, guns
and magic around every corner. Very exciting. 
What happens when a wizard and a man
without memory walk into a bar. Luckily the bar belongs to Bahzell
Bahnakson, who took the Oath of Swords (paper) from the God of War
Tomanak. Soon Wencit of Rum(the wizard), Kenhoden (the man without
memory, and Bahzell are on a quest for The Sword of the South
(hard from Tor) which is guarded by an evil sorceress. David Weber
puts pirates, assassins, demons, and even a dragon in their path
keeping the tale to its point, with lots of banter from the
heroes. It sets up a later tale that promises an epic battle
between good and evil in this fantasy world. Lots of fun. 
Mary Holland tells of a world of magic,
twelve demesnes governed by their Magnes who have
absolute power in their realms. After the four fire demesnes
were destroyed, leaving the scoured lands. Jamie Pel, as
secondary heir to The Dog of Pel (paper from Holland Books)
as sent to the Scour lands to investigate the Portall’s use of the
former inhabitants as collared slaves. Then his Uncle and niece
died suddenly had he finds himself the new Magne in the middle of
a political and magical fight that threatens the destruction of
more demesnes. He has some allies, including a woman from
the scourge lands that he has temporally collared for her
survival, and the heir of another demesne. There’s also the head
of the Portall with the ability to use the void that surrounds
human lands and a lot of deadly secrets lost since the end of the
magician’s war. The world is a bit complicated, but somehow makes
its own sense. Fun. 
Paradise is an artificial world
with little disease, where people can live three of
Paradises’s centuries. Kept on a medieval, it is also a world of
constant warfare and dinosaurs. The best part of Victor
Milán’s fun tale is watching The Dinosaur Lords (hard
from Tor) ride their dinosaurs to joust and fight. Eight people
created this world and they have grey angels to keep it stable.
There are also rare wizards with technology able to regrow body
parts So we have Karyl Bogomirskiy, former noble recruited to help
a village turned pacifist, along with Rob Korrigan minstrel and
dinosaur master. There’s the imperial war commander, Jaume who is
bisexual, a poet whose philosophy lead to the pacificism of the
village. He’s also commander of the Companions a group of nobles
who also share love with each other. The Emperor’s daughter
Melodia is caught in a power struggle despite the fact that she
cannot inherit her father’s elected office. The is the first of
what promises to be a long tale, and at present there are three
tales that really don’t interact. So much is left undiscovered,
that the plot lacks direction. But oh those dinosaurs!
Brett Battles does a nice job with an
old SF trope. Rewinder (paper from 47North) Denny Younger
is born of low caste on an alternate Earth, but his love of
history gets him selected to a group that observes history,
particularly the history of its nobility to determine whether
their ancestors deserved their nobility. Then an error in the
nineteenth century changes his history to our own. Poul Anderson’s
classic Time Patrol tale took an opposite tack, assuming the
modifications had an evil purpose. Mr. Battles takes the
opposite tack, for a fun tale about the morality of time travel.
Greg Van Eekhout concludes his tale of
a magical California where bone magic users rule a separate both
the North and South of the state. On this Dragon Coast (trade
from Tor) Daniel’s clone had built a dragon out of old bones. The
clone of the Hierarch of the South, Sam, somehow got mixed into
the dragon when it was activated and Daniel’s clone killed. Now
Daniel has to impersonate his clone, raised in the North, and
steal a special bone from the Heirarch of the North to somehow
liberate Sam from the dragon, Whew! Add in Daniels friends,
like the water mage of Los Angeles, and his helper to further
complicate this fun tale. You have to read California Bones
(paper) and Pacific Fire (paper) first, but the trilogy is a fun
and exciting way of looking into a very strange California.
Earth Flight (hard from
Pyr) concludes Janet Edwards trilogy about Jarra, one of the many
handicapped who cannot portal to the colony worlds because of her
immune reactions to other worlds. Her nw fame has brought both a
clan that wants to adopt her and attacks from those who think the
handicapped less than human. Teenagers have complicated lives, and
Jarra more complicated than most. This is a must for those who
enjoyed the first two. 
Ree Reyes is back after being nearly
killed. Ree who can watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and then have Buffy’s powers for a short time or watch part of one
of the Spiderman movies and then crawl up a wall, stopped Lucretia
from killing her friend Eastwood. At her trial with the local
geekdom, Lucretia request trial-by combat, which, of course, takes
place inside a video game. By Lucretia’s friends, each with the
power of Hexomancy (ebook from Simon and Schuster) and
named for the three fates, attack Eastwood every solstice.
Michael R. Underwood sets the final fight, Tron like, inside the
modern web. Lots of fun and even some romance as usual. 
Penn Roma (really Pennelope) is really
in hiding in the magical circus her father built. After the jelly
fish like aliens grazed Earth’s atmosphere, some families had
daughters with magical powers, and Penn’s sisters each control one
of the four elements. But Penn, as the fifth daughter can Sing
Down the Stars (paper from Skyscape) and the authorities are
rounding up people with power to control the situation. Penn’s
father has kept them safe with his inventions and his negotiations
with those authorities, but when he doesn’t return one day, the
Circus is destroyed and Penn’s sisters captured. Only if Penn can
master her abilities to somehow rescue her sisters in a floating
habitat where bureaucrats oplan to bring back the rain that
brought the powers in the first place. Fun. 
According to Jeff Wheeler, Maia, is The
Banished of Muirwood (paper from 47North) the only daughter
of a King desperate enough for a male heir that he kicks out the
priests who would disallow any divorce. Unfortunately that opens
the door to spiritual attack in a world where priests have real
uses. Maia has her own magic, something the priests also
disapprove and they are on her tail trying to capture her while
she seeks ancient lore that could save her kingdom. Alas her quest
is leading her to a true evil that will eat her soul. I had a lot
of fun with the tale, but was disappointed when the ending set up
the need for a sequel. 
Cecelia Holland has been winning awards
for historical fiction for decades. Her one attempt at Science
Fiction, Floating Worlds (paper) was amazing. But her
entrance to fantasy, Dragon Heart (hard from Tor) misses
the background details that make her historical tales so special.
Castle Ocean is alive, but its king was killed defending his land
from a growing empire. Queen Marioza must marry one of the
Emperor’s brother, but the first one sent was poisoned. The second
one and his two sons arrive and the wedding only awaits the return
of the youngest princess, Tirza, locked in a monastery because
while she can understand words, her own words only come out as
shrieks. Enter the red dragon which sinks the ship carrying Tirza,
and it turns out that the dragon can understand her and wants her
stories. When she escapes and gets back to the castle, the tragic
dance begins, trapping the Count and his sons in its coils. Wild side has a collection of Neal Asher Polity short tale The Engineer Reconditioned ( trade) This is a good way to discover this excellent writer. Baen has another collection about Chicks and Balances (trade and edited by Esther Friesner and John Helfers) which are appropriately silly. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have volume 3 of Constellation (trade from Baen) a collection of shorter tales from the Liaden Universe. Hank Davis has a collection of classic tales about Future Wars ... and other Punchlines (trade from Baen).
Baen has reprinted in paper John Ringo’s final Zombie action tale, Islands of Rage and Hope ; Wen Spenser’s fun tale of genius adolescents who are Woodsprites; two classic James P. Hogan tales in Prisoners of Tomorrow; the first of two tales of war between science and magic coming from parallel Earth, Hell’s Gate (trade) by David Weber and Linda Evans;and Lord of the Janissaries (trade) combines the trilogy by Jerrry Pournelle and Roland J. Green written in the early eighties and still fun;
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (paper from TOR) and translated by Ken Liu has won the most divisive Hugo Awards that I’ve ever seen. I stopped half way through.
The Science Fiction Society will have its next meeting on October 176h 2015 at 8 p.m. at the International House on the University of Pennsylvania Campus. Artist Heidi Hooper who works in dryer Lint and lost her arms to cancer will speak. As usual guests are welcome.
Dr. Henry Lazarus is a local Dentist and the author of A Cycle of Gods (Wolfsinger Publications) and Unnaturally Female (Smashwords). Check out his non-formula unified field theory at henrylazarus.com/utf.html