SF NOVEL: Ilium, Dan Simmons – I liked this; I think it will also win the Hugo.
FANTASY NOVEL: Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold – liked it a lot.
FIRST NOVEL: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow – liked it a lot too.
YOUNG ADULT NOVEL: The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett – will wait for paperback.
NOVELLA: “The Cookie Monster”, Vernor Vinge – not so impressed but will probably win the Hugo.
NOVELETTE: “A Study in Emerald”, Neil Gaiman – much more impressed and it too will probably win the Hugo.
SHORT STORY “Closing Time”, Neil Gaiman – must look out for it.
COLLECTION: Changing Planes, Ursula K. Le Guin – liked this a lot.
ANTHOLOGY: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. – liked this too.
NONFICTION/ART: The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman, et al. – saw some less than overwhelmed reviews but maybe I’ll get it after all.
From the Heart of Europe
Books, politics, languages and life
I always read the thesis as you can do anything you like with YOUR resources — including rescuing people, helping those in need, and so on — but that this does not place an onus on you to continue to do so, and should not be read by anyone as giving them license to expect or demand that you do so ever again, especially if those people give you nothing in return.
In other words, Hank Rearden supporting his family and giving them what he can because he wishes to is not the problem. The problem is that they not merely EXPECT him to, but DEMAND that he do this in a manner that shows they neither respect him nor even seem to harbor much affection towards him. He gives, they return little or nothing.
I do often see Rand’s thesis stated in the more extreme fashion, and even she on occasion stated it that way, yet her actions — and those of her exemplars — point, at least for me, in the direction of the less extreme version. Naturally her novel, being a reaction to what she saw as a child in Russia, states the case with bombast and extremity, as do most single-author visions and polemics. Realistic approaches to socialism aren’t actually going to follow the extreme statement of the philosophy, either.
That said, Rand’s approach is exactly the sort to be misinterpreted, overexaggerated, and THEN taken to heart by teenage isolates, where it becomes a parody of itself.