Old Tea Leaf Reviews 1: 1981 Locus Poll Best First Novel

[james_davis_nicoll]

The Locus Polls Best New Novel catagory is not intended as a predictor of
future performance but I think it's interesting enough to see who was
hot and popular in the past and what happened to them to justify using this
catagory in the Locus Polls for yet another series of posts about old books.



Best First Novel 1981

1 Dragon's Egg                   Robert L. Forward

        Humans discover that a neutron star has intelligent life. Since
the inhabitants live more quickly than humans, the equivilent of thousands
of years pass for the aliens while the humans experience a few weeks or
months.

        This launched a reasonably successful career for Forward, one that
was ended only by death.


2 The Orphan                     Robert Stallman

        This was the first in the Beast trilogy but while I remember
enjoying it a lot, I don't recall the particulars.

        Unfortunately, Stallman died about the time this was published
and the next two books had to be published posthumously.


3 Sundiver                       David Brin

        This is the first Uplift novel (although references to a previous
case led some readers to think that there had been an earlier book). I know
this is generally thought of as a lesser book but in 1980 I thought it
was great.

        It unleashed an unfortunate meme on SF, that lasers can be
used to radiate away heat. The reason that this will not work is too
obvious to mention.
        Brin has had a successful career. I believe that his most
recent novel was 2001's KILN PEOPLE (also released as KIL'N PEOPLE).


4 Beyond Rejection               Justin Leiber

        A murder victim wakes to find that their old body has been stolen
and they are now a memory imprinted on a vacant body. I bear this book no
hostility but neither do I remember it very clearly.

        As I recall, Justin Leiber (son of the more famous Fritz Leiber)
did not have a particularly long career in SF. If I recall correctly
there were three books in this series and two in a fantasy series, all
published before 1988.


5 The Gates of Heaven            Paul Preuss

        The crew of a lost space craft, long thought dead, turn out
to have inadvertently discovered what amounts to a wormhole and are
alive and well on a planet orbiting Tau Ceti. A recue mission is
launched. This is another book I remember being fond of back when
although I liked the sequel more (I also remember the sequel more
clearly).

        With all due respect to the author, it looked to me like
working on Arthur C. Clarke's VENUS PRIME derailed his career. I
have not seen anything by him since 1997's SECRET PASSAGES. Still,
1997 - 1981 is sixteen years and longer than a lot of authors get.


6 Master of the Five Magics      Lyndon Hardy

        I never read this. It's fantasy.

        I believe that this and the two sequels are all that Hardy
has written to date. There was supposed to be something called MAGIC
IN TRIPLICATE but it does not look like he ever began writing it.


7 Hawk of May                    Gillian Bradshaw

        I did not read this.

        Bradshaw is prolific and successful.


8 Still Forms on Foxfield        Joan Slonczewski

        A community of Quakers living on a planet orbiting Tau Ceti is
recontacted by Earth, which to everyone's surprise survived its nuclear
wars. Earth's new culture is not compatable with that of the Quakers or
that of their alien neighbors but it is not practical to try to be a
hermit kingdom. This is one of the few Quaker-oriented SF novels that
I own and I liked it a lot.

        Slonczewski wrote about six novels over the next 20 years
(None of which quite hit the same sweet spot for me as STILL FORMS)
but I think the most recent one was 2000's BRAIN PLAGUE.


9 Yearwood                       Paul Hazel

        I did not read this and I do not know anything about his career.


10 Scavengers                    David J. Skal

        I remember this as unpleasant but skillfully written. I don't
seem to remember anything more than that.

        I don't think Skal produced a lot of SF novels. IIRC there were
only three.


11 Web of Angels                 John M. Ford

        This was a pre-Cyberpunk cyberpunk coming of age novel. This is
where I admit I am horrible person, that I prefered his short stories
and subsequent novels to this one and that I forgot exactly what happens
in this book about five or six years ago.

        Ford was not a particularly prolific author (or at least not
as prolific as I would have liked) but his career continued until his
recent untimely death.


12 White Light                   Rudy Rucker

        I know I read this but I have no memory of it.

        Rucker's career continues to the present day. His most recent SF
novel is POSTSINGULAR, I believe.


13 The Man in the Darksuit       Dennis R. Caro

        All I remember about this was the unlucky guy whose job it was
to go in before the James Bond-style adventurer to set things up so that
the James Bond tactics would actually work. I think the darksuit granted
invisibility to the wearer at the cost of eventual insanity.

14 One on Me                     Tim Huntley

        I am unfamiliar with both this book and this author. I think
he is the same person as Timothy Wade Huntley and that he has had other
works published.

15 A Lost Tale                   Dale Estey

        Once again, I am unfamiliar with both the book and the author.