The Nominees
Macroscope by Piers Anthony
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Actual Results
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
- Macroscope by Piers Anthony
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad
How I Would Vote Now
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- No Award
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Explanation
Wow—I’d forgotten just how terrible book covers were in the 70s. I particularly had trouble finding an early edition cover for Bug Jack Barron that didn’t have psychadelic topless women plastered all over the front of it. The 70s was a weird time.
First, the good: Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the best science fiction writers of all time, and her novel The Left Hand of Darkness may be the greatest book she’s ever written. Personally, I was more impressed by The Dispossessed, but they’re both quite excellent. The thing I like most about Le Guin is that she genuinely follows her characters wherever they lead her, even (or especially) if their own beliefs and values contradict her own. This means that all of her books present a fully developed and well-rounded argument, which makes them ring true in a very deep and compelling sense.
On the surface, there are a lot of reasons for a conservative reader like myself to hate this book. It’s written by a left-wing atheist, it was published in the 70s, and it won the Nebual Award, the Hugo Award, and the Tiptree Award. Digging a little deeper, the core concept of the story is an exploration of gender issues, where biological sex is fluid and the characters may be male one month and female the next. And yet, Ursula K. Le Guin’s unwavering commitment to telling a truthful story keeps it from feeling “woke,” at least to me. Le Guin is one of the most clear-eyed and honest writers I have ever read, which is why none of the surface level stuff bothers me. It’s also what makes her books so timeless.
Now, for the bad—although “bad,” in this case, is more just a matter of personal taste, since I don’t much care for the literary genre (and yes, “literary” is a genre—just because your books aren’t commercial doesn’t make them superior to everything else). Slaughterhouse Five is written with such a heavy-handed style that I just couldn’t get into it. But since that’s more of a personal taste issue, I’d still put it on the ballot under No Award, and if it weren’t for the other three books, I wouldn’t have put No Award for this year.
But now, we come to the ugly, starting with Macroscope. I have to admit, I skipped this one on account of the author. I never grew up reading Piers Anthony, so when I finally got around to picking up his books, it was immediately clear to me that he’s a dirty old man. Which is a shame, because it’s clear that he knows how to write an entertaining story—it’s just that these stories all seem to be peppered with weird sex stuff, often bordering on rape fantasies. I have no idea if that’s true for Macroscope, but I’ve DNFed enough by this author that I don’t really care to find out.
I’ve also DNFed a lot of stuff by Robert Silverberg that was just too explicit for me, so I asked ChatGPT to screen Up the Line for me, and this is what it said:
The narrative features frank depictions of sexual relationships, including a controversial incestuous encounter resulting from a time-travel paradox. Silverberg uses this scenario to examine the moral implications of unrestricted access to history and personal indulgence.
Yeah… Silverberg’s exploration of incest sounds like exactly the kind of book I never want to read. Hard pass.
I also asked ChatGPT to screen Bug Jack Barron for me—though from the fact that so many editions of this book feature outright pornographic cover art, I suppose I didn’t have to go that far to know this would get a hard DNF. This is what ChatGPT said:
Sexual Content: The novel includes graphic depictions of sexual relationships, often tied to the characters’ moral complexities. The narrative explores Jack’s personal relationships with raw detail, including manipulative and transactional dynamics, as well as moments of stark intimacy.
Social Justice Themes: Issues of race, class, and exploitation are central to the narrative. Spinrad tackles these topics with a provocative, satirical approach, which might align with modern “woke” sensibilities despite the book’s 1960s origin.
Yeah, I’m gonna give this one a hard pass too. And given what I already know about 70s science fiction, I suspect that ChatGPT will be invaluable in screening the books from this decade.
