Annal:1986 Hugo Award for Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Hugo Award in the year 1986. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Ender's Game: Book 1 of the Ender Quartet
- 1986 Hugo-Novel winner
- 1985 Nebula winner
- Score: 20.36
Intense is the word for Ender’s Game. Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses—and then training them in the arts of war… The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of ‘games’… Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games… He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?
- 1986 Campbell 3rd
- 1986 Hugo-Novel nominee
- 1985 Nebula nominee
- Score: 18.36
Vergil Ulam’s breakthrough in genetic engineering is considered too dangerous for further research. Rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just quite how his actions will change the world.
Bear’s treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us and changing our world irrevocably.
- 1986 Hugo-Novel nominee
- Score: 6.36
They named him Thorn. They told him he was of their people, although he was so different. He was ugly in their eyes, strange, sleek-skinned instead of furred, clawless, different. Yet he was of their power class: judge-warriors, the elite, the fighters, the defenders.
Thorn knew that his difference was somehow very important—but not important enough to prevent murderous conspiracies against him, against his protector, against his castle, and perhaps against the peace of the world. But when the crunch came, when Thorn finally learned what his true role in life…
The Postman: A Novel
- 1986 Campbell 1st
- 1986 Hugo-Novel nominee
- 1985 Nebula nominee
- Score: 22.36
This is the story of a lie that became the most powerful kind of truth. A timeless novel as urgently compelling as War Day or Alas, Babylon, David Brin’s The Postman is the dramatically moving saga of a man who rekindled the spirit of America through the power of a dream, from a modern master of science fiction.
He was a survivor—a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. Fate touches him one chill winter’s day when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker to protect…
- 1986 Hugo-Novel nominee
- Score: 6.36
They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star.
The world’s frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods.
Now the conquerors are descending on the American heartland, demanding servile surrender—or death for all humans.
