Locus Best First Novel Awards of the 1980's and early 1990's

[jeffreyab]

Stolen and adapted from James Nicoll
I am intrigued because the award started in 1981 and it includes some of my favourite books from a period where I was reading a lot of fiction. It is also the last hurrah of the SF paperback original, by the 90's American tax laws would reduce the paperback to also ran status.

1981

1 Dragon's Egg Robert L. Forward First contact on a neutron star
3 Sundiver David Brin First Uplift story

1982

5 War Games Karl Hansen SF War porn literally
7 The Revolution from Rosinante Alexis Gilliland High tech political commentary

1983

13 A Greater Infinity Michael A. McCollum A beer run goes interstellar

1984

1 Tea with the Black Dragon R. A. MacAvoy Dragon resembles old Chinese man but isn't
5 Starrigger John DeChancie Spacetruckers a great road story and cover

1985 This was a good year for new authors I liked:

2 Neuromancer William Gibson The Ur cyberpunk novel
3 Emergence David R. Palmer Slan like with high body count
5 Them Bones Howard Waldrop Time travel with a Waldrop twist
9 Frontera Lewis Shiner Cyberpunk Mars story
10 Procurator Kirk Mitchell Alternate history where Rome is still around

1986

None

1987

2 Shards of Honor Lois McMaster Bujold Its a clash of cultures and a love story that shows its Star Trek roots, to me any way.
4 Wrack & Roll Bradley Denton alternate history where Patton invades the Soviet Union and Wrack and Roll gets invented early in the process
5 The Cross-Time Engineer Leo Frankowski A time travel story where a Polish engineer goes back in time and introduces technology and techniques that save Poland from the Mongols. Sort of a Polish "Lest Darkness Fall." Shows much of the author's likes and bias.

1988

8 After the Zap Michael Armstrong The world after everyone's brains get fried by a large nuclear magnetic pulse, set in Alaska, lots of weird tech.

1989

None

1990

1 Orbital Decay Allen Steele Great near future, near space story lots of flavour and detail

1991

1 In the Country of the Blind Michael F. Flynn Psychohistory starts with Lincoln's assassination and continues to the present day where a savvy real estate developer discovers it. First book I read with a real estate developer as a main character. Flynn usually has intriguing twists on the normal world.

1992

1 The Cipher Kathe Koja Two down and out artist types find a mysterious black hole in a disused closet in their apartment building. Not your average black hole.

1993

1 China Mountain Zhang Maureen F. McHugh Gay Chinese engineer starts his working life on Baffin Island.

I am going to stop here because I think that the next year marks the decline of the original mass market paperback, correct me if I am wrong. As I remember most of my previous picks were mass market originals and I think you certainly see many more winners who were first published in trade paperback or hardcover.

What really stands out for me is what a big year 1985 was for me and what SF I like to read. I also noticed that many authors I like to read have had first novels that I have not read yet.

Comments

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised War Games made the list. I should still have a copy of that around somewhere. And, yeah, war porn -- both war-porn and porn.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

Made the list and was number 5 out of 15, not that good but an interesting view of the dark side of SF war.