Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Fanzine

• Black Gate edited by John O’Neill
• Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steve Diamond
• Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Alissa McKersie, Colin Harris and Helen Montgomery
• The Revenge of Hump Day edited by Tim Bolgeo
• Tangent SF Online edited by Dave Truesdale

Black Gate declined its nomination after the Hugo Committee of Worldcon had locked the ballot, so they remain on the ballot for Best Fanzine. However, to respect the wishes of John O'Neil at Black Gate, I will leave it off my ballot.

While I don't normally read Elitist Book Reviews, or most other book blogs these days, it is the sort of fanzine I most appreciate. I have long enjoyed a good book blog, one that actually reviews books. There seem to be fewer of them around these days, or at least the old guard (and the older guard) are producing fewer reviews and have ventured off to new things and less bloggy things. Heck, if you've been following along here you'll see a relative lack of reviews, so as older guard as I am - I'm not reviewing much either. Regardless, I've enjoyed what I've read of Elitist Book Reviews.

Journey Planet, on the other hand, is a very traditional fanzine compiled in discrete issues with various writers and artists contributing. The issue in the voter's packet was a Doctor Who themed issue. Overall, a well constructed and well written fanzine. I think I'd enjoy it more in a blog format, but that has more to do how I prefer to consume media than it is about what Journey Planet is. While good, I'm not inspired to go seek out additional issues or follow what the zine does.

Tangent Online is a long running short fiction review website, and if you're looking for coverage of the short fiction market one of the best options you have (that I'm aware of) is Tangent. It's....fine. While I am happy that Tangent exists and that there are occasional sources and reviewers who cover short fiction, the reviewing at Tangent has never grabbed me.

The less said about The Revenge of Hump Day, the better. I don't understand the nomination. It does not get my vote.


My Vote:
1. Elitist Book Reviews
2. Journey Planet
3. Tangent Online
4. No Award


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote. 

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Editor, Long Form

Vox Day (Castalia House)
Sheila Gilbert (DAW Books)
Jim Minz (Baen Books)
Anne Sowards (Ace Books)
Toni Weisskopf (Baen Books)

If I could wave my hands and remake the categories for the Hugo Awards, Best Editor (Long Form) would disappear. Not because the editors are not worthy of recognition, but because it is impossible to evaluate.  At least when we vote for the Short Form Editors, we are really recognizing the overall body of work in putting together a particular magazine and / or their work in compiling an anthology.The short form editor is, ultimately, the face and the vision of a particular 'zine or anthology so when that 'zine or anthology is successful, the editor was successful. We don't know and can't know how much editorial work was involved in helping the author better craft the submitted story, or if a given author submitted a piece of work which barely needed to be touched. We just know if the end result of the editor's "good eye" was something we appreciate.

This is where Long Form is yet more difficult. In most cases, the editor is not the face of a publishing house and does not acquire and edit every book published by a given house. The Long Form Editor Hugo Award is not for Best Publisher, and yet it is impossible to evaluate the work the editor did that year. Presumably the Long Form editor both acquired and helped shape the final product of each book published with his or her name listed as editor, but how much credit goes to the editor in terms of being "best" versus simply having the good taste and fortune to acquire something awesome.

But this is where we are left to evaluate the editors, with a further challenge of how difficult it would be to read everything published by each of these five editors, or even just a solid representation of those works published. I read over 100 books each year and I read widely enough and mostly works published prior to the eligibility year that hitting sufficient works from each editor is nearly impossible.

What am I left with? Looking at the Hugo Voting Packet and evaluating my impression of the works listed from each editor as a measure of quality and "best" for 2014. 

Anne Sowards and Sheila Gilbert both included a list of what they edited last year. Toni Weisskopf did not, but noted to go to baen.com to see her work. Neither Jim Minz nor Vox Day included sample lists of their editorial work, though Vox Day is the editor of Castalia House so presumably everything published there had Day's editorial work.

From that perspective, and without knowing specifically what Weisskopf edits at Baen compared to what Minz has edited, I would recognize Weisskopf's work as editor and publisher at Baen followed by the lists of Sowards and Gilbert. Jim Minz I place lower simply because neither Weisskopf nor Minz included their work and while Baen is very much worthy of recognition, there is no way for me to separate the two - so Weisskopf gets the nod at publisher and Minz is slid down the ballot. I recognize this is likely a disservice to Minz, but if I can't tell which works are his...  Vox Day has fifth slot, above No Award, because while I can't quite tell which novel-length works were published in 2014, I do feel comfortable acknowledging that I am not the intended audience for Castalia House and I am not interested in much if not most of what they publish.

My Vote:
1. Toni Weisskopf
2. Anne Sowards
3. Sheila Gilbert
4. Jim Minz
5. Vox Day


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote.

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Novel

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Lines of Departure by Marko Kloos (47North)
Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Roc Books)
The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
Marko Kloos declined his nomination after the ballot was announced. The Three Body Problem was added.

Even though Kloos declined his nomination I intend to read his debut novel, Terms of Enlistment. A copy of it is sitting at home, next to my laptop.

When I submitted my final Hugo nomination ballot, two novels which eventually received nominations were on it: Ancillary Sword and The Goblin Emperor.  I thought they were two of the best novels of the year and none of the other nominees has been able to scratch that perch.  Of the five nominees, they slot in at #1 and #2.

While I think that in any other year, Jim Butcher would not likely have been nominated, I do have a significantly positive takeaway from this year's Hugo mess: Skin Game was really damn good and I have every intention of starting with Storm Front and reading all of Butcher's Dresden Files.  There's no way to predict that if I had read the previous fourteen books if I would have been quite excited for Skin Game or if I would have decided it was "just another solid entry from Butcher" - because that is a thing which happens in long running series, you can enjoy a book and even love it, but it starts to fade in the overall impression of comparative excellence because it isn't new anymore, it's not shiny. Coming in fresh to a series at book 15, however, is equally dangerous because I have no idea who these characters are, how they relate to each other, or what I might be missing and how that would change my impression of the book. So, straight up, Skin Games works on its own. I just don't know what I don't know. A very solid entry.

The Three-Body Problem is the first novel here where I have a problem: the science and overall concept of the novel is fun and exciting and something I want to know more about. The characters and the writing feel dated and clunky and almost as if they are a deliberate stereotype. Perhaps some of this is part of Ken Liu's translation, perhaps some is my lack of cultural understanding of Mao era China and how individuals might have spoken in slogans. I don't know. But that aspect of the novel felt more like it was coming from a sixty year old novel and not so much like one originally published in 2007 as this novel was. With all of that said, I kept reading and Cixin Liu held my attention. I wanted to know more and see where he was taking this story. Having completed the novel, I want read The Dark Forest. In the end it came across more as a fascinating yet flawed novel that isn't quite something I would hold up as the best of the year.

The last time I attempted to read a novel from Kevin J. Anderson's which was not part of either the Star Wars or Dune Universes, it was The Edge of the World, the first volume in his Terra Incognita series and it did not inspire me to read any of his other books. The Dark Between the Stars is the first volume of his new Saga of Shadows trilogy (which is a sequel to his 7 volume Saga of Seven Suns) and I am happy to report that it is significantly better than The Edge of the World. It is just not up to the level of the other nominated novels.

My Vote:
1. Ancillary Sword
2. The Goblin Emperor
3. Skin Game
4. The Three-Body Problem
5. The Dark Between the Stars


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote.

2015 World Fantasy Award Nominees

The nominees for the 2015 World Fantasy Awards have been announced. This has long been one of my favorite awards to follow, so I'm looking forward to reading the nominees I have not yet encountered.

Congratulations to all of the nominees.

7/14/2015 edit: Kai Ashante Wilson's story has been moved to Novella, Ursula Vernon's story has been added to Short Story.


Novel
Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor (Tor Books)
Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs (Broadway Books/Jo Fletcher Books)
David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks (Random House/Sceptre UK)
Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Originals)
Jo Walton, My Real Children (Tor Books US/Corsair UK)

Novella
Daryl Gregory, We Are All Completely Fine (Tachyon Publications)
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, "Where the Trains Turn" (Tor.com, Nov. 19, 2014)
Michael Libling, "Hollywood North" (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nov./Dec. 2014)
Mary Rickert, "The Mothers of Voorhisville" (Tor.com, Apr. 30, 2014)
Rachel Swirsky, “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)” (Subterranean Press magazine, Summer 2014)
Kai Ashante Wilson, "The Devil in America" (Tor.com, April 2, 2014)

Short Story
Kelly Link, "I Can See Right Through You" (McSweeney's 48)
Scott Nicolay, Do You Like to Look at Monsters? (Fedogan & Bremer, chapbook)
Ursula Vernon, "The Jackalope Wives" (Apex Magazine, January 2014)
Kaaron Warren, "Death's Door Café" (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014)

Alyssa Wong, "The Fisher Queen," (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2014)

Anthology
Ellen Datlow, ed., Fearful Symmetries (ChiZine Publications)
George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, eds., Rogues (Bantam Books/Titan Books)
Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, eds., Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History (Crossed Genres)
Michael Kelly, ed. Shadows & Tall Trees 2014 (Undertow Publications)
Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, eds., Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales (Candlewick Press)

Collection
Rebecca Lloyd, Mercy and Other Stories (Tartarus Press)
Helen Marshall, Gifts for the One Who Comes After (ChiZine Publications)
Robert Shearman, They Do the Same Things Different There (ChiZine Publications)
Angela Slatter, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (Tartarus Press)
Janeen Webb, Death at the Blue Elephant (Ticonderoga Publications)

Artist
Samuel Araya
Galen Dara
Jeffrey Alan Love
Erik Mohr
John Picacio

Special Award—Professional
John Joseph Adams, for editing anthologies and Lightspeed and Nightmare magazines
Jeanne Cavelos, for Odyssey Writing workshops
Sandra Kasturi and Brett Alexander Savory, for ChiZine Publications
Gordon Van Gelder, for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Jerad Walters, for Centipede Press

Special Award—Non-professional
Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Literary Adventure Fantasy
Matt Cardin, for Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti (Subterranean Press)
Stefan Fergus, for Civilian Reader
Ray B. Russell and Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
Patrick Swenson, for Fairwood Press

Novel:

• The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
• City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway; Jo Fletcher)
• The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Random House; Sceptre)
• Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy, Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• My Real Children, Jo Walton (Tor; Corsair)

Novella:

• We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
• “Where the Trains Turn”, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Tor.com 11/19/14)
• “Hollywood North”, Michael Libling  (F&SF 11-12/14)
• “The Mothers of Voorhisville”, Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
• “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)”, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)

Short Fiction:

• “I Can See Right Through You”, Kelly Link,  (McSweeney’s 48)
• Do You Like to Look at Monsters?, Scott Nicolay (Fedogan & Bremer)
• “Death’s Door Café”, Kaaron Warren (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014)
• “The Devil in America”, Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com, 4/2/14)
• “The Fisher Queen”, Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5-6/14)

Anthology:

• Fearful Symmetries, Ellen Datlow, ed. (ChiZine)
• Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Rose Fox & Daniel José Older, eds. (Crossed Genres)
• Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Michael Kelly, ed. (Undertow)
• Monstrous Affections, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, ed. (Candlewick)
• Rogues, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Bantam; Titan)

Collection:

• Mercy and Other Stories, Rebecca Lloyd (Tartarus)
• Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Helen Marshall (ChiZine)
• They Do the Same Things Different There, Robert Shearman (ChiZine)
• The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, Angela Slatter (Tartarus)
• Death at the Blue Elephant, Janeen Webb (Ticonderoga)

Artist:

• Samuel Araya
• Galen Dara
• Jeffrey Alan Love
• Erik Mohr
• John Picacio

Special Award – Professional:

• John Joseph Adams, for editing anthologies and Nightmare and Fantasy magazines
• Jeanne Cavelos, for Odyssey writing workshops
• Sandra Kasturi & Brett Alexander Savory, for ChiZine Publications
• Gordon Van Gelder, for F&SF
• Jerad Walters, for Centipede Press

Special Award – Nonprofessional:

• Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Matt Cardin, for Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti (Subterranean)
• Stefan Fergus, for Civilian Reader (civilianreader.wordpress.com)
• Ray B. Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
• Patrick Swenson, for Fairwood Press

- See more at: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2015/07/2015-world-fantasy-awards-ballot/#sthash.QNfCxq5G.dpuf

Novel:

• The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
• City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway; Jo Fletcher)
• The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Random House; Sceptre)
• Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy, Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• My Real Children, Jo Walton (Tor; Corsair)

Novella:

• We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
• “Where the Trains Turn”, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Tor.com 11/19/14)
• “Hollywood North”, Michael Libling  (F&SF 11-12/14)
• “The Mothers of Voorhisville”, Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
• “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)”, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)

Short Fiction:

• “I Can See Right Through You”, Kelly Link,  (McSweeney’s 48)
• Do You Like to Look at Monsters?, Scott Nicolay (Fedogan & Bremer)
• “Death’s Door Café”, Kaaron Warren (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014)
• “The Devil in America”, Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com, 4/2/14)
• “The Fisher Queen”, Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5-6/14)

Anthology:

• Fearful Symmetries, Ellen Datlow, ed. (ChiZine)
• Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Rose Fox & Daniel José Older, eds. (Crossed Genres)
• Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Michael Kelly, ed. (Undertow)
• Monstrous Affections, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, ed. (Candlewick)
• Rogues, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Bantam; Titan)

Collection:

• Mercy and Other Stories, Rebecca Lloyd (Tartarus)
• Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Helen Marshall (ChiZine)
• They Do the Same Things Different There, Robert Shearman (ChiZine)
• The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, Angela Slatter (Tartarus)
• Death at the Blue Elephant, Janeen Webb (Ticonderoga)

Artist:

• Samuel Araya
• Galen Dara
• Jeffrey Alan Love
• Erik Mohr
• John Picacio

Special Award – Professional:

• John Joseph Adams, for editing anthologies and Nightmare and Fantasy magazines
• Jeanne Cavelos, for Odyssey writing workshops
• Sandra Kasturi & Brett Alexander Savory, for ChiZine Publications
• Gordon Van Gelder, for F&SF
• Jerad Walters, for Centipede Press

Special Award – Nonprofessional:

• Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Matt Cardin, for Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti (Subterranean)
• Stefan Fergus, for Civilian Reader (civilianreader.wordpress.com)
• Ray B. Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
• Patrick Swenson, for Fairwood Press

- See more at: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2015/07/2015-world-fantasy-awards-ballot/#sthash.QNfCxq5G.dpuf

Novel:

• The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
• City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway; Jo Fletcher)
• The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Random House; Sceptre)
• Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy, Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• My Real Children, Jo Walton (Tor; Corsair)

Novella:

• We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
• “Where the Trains Turn”, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Tor.com 11/19/14)
• “Hollywood North”, Michael Libling  (F&SF 11-12/14)
• “The Mothers of Voorhisville”, Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
• “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)”, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)

Short Fiction:

• “I Can See Right Through You”, Kelly Link,  (McSweeney’s 48)
• Do You Like to Look at Monsters?, Scott Nicolay (Fedogan & Bremer)
• “Death’s Door Café”, Kaaron Warren (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014)
• “The Devil in America”, Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com, 4/2/14)
• “The Fisher Queen”, Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5-6/14)

Anthology:

• Fearful Symmetries, Ellen Datlow, ed. (ChiZine)
• Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Rose Fox & Daniel José Older, eds. (Crossed Genres)
• Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Michael Kelly, ed. (Undertow)
• Monstrous Affections, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, ed. (Candlewick)
• Rogues, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Bantam; Titan)

Collection:

• Mercy and Other Stories, Rebecca Lloyd (Tartarus)
• Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Helen Marshall (ChiZine)
• They Do the Same Things Different There, Robert Shearman (ChiZine)
• The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, Angela Slatter (Tartarus)
• Death at the Blue Elephant, Janeen Webb (Ticonderoga)

Artist:

• Samuel Araya
• Galen Dara
• Jeffrey Alan Love
• Erik Mohr
• John Picacio

Special Award – Professional:

• John Joseph Adams, for editing anthologies and Nightmare and Fantasy magazines
• Jeanne Cavelos, for Odyssey writing workshops
• Sandra Kasturi & Brett Alexander Savory, for ChiZine Publications
• Gordon Van Gelder, for F&SF
• Jerad Walters, for Centipede Press

Special Award – Nonprofessional:

• Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Matt Cardin, for Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti (Subterranean)
• Stefan Fergus, for Civilian Reader (civilianreader.wordpress.com)
• Ray B. Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
• Patrick Swenson, for Fairwood Press

- See more at: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2015/07/2015-world-fantasy-awards-ballot/#sthash.QNfCxq5G.dpuf

Novel:

• The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
• City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway; Jo Fletcher)
• The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell (Random House; Sceptre)
• Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy, Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• My Real Children, Jo Walton (Tor; Corsair)

Novella:

• We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
• “Where the Trains Turn”, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Tor.com 11/19/14)
• “Hollywood North”, Michael Libling  (F&SF 11-12/14)
• “The Mothers of Voorhisville”, Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
• “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)”, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)

Short Fiction:

• “I Can See Right Through You”, Kelly Link,  (McSweeney’s 48)
• Do You Like to Look at Monsters?, Scott Nicolay (Fedogan & Bremer)
• “Death’s Door Café”, Kaaron Warren (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014)
• “The Devil in America”, Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com, 4/2/14)
• “The Fisher Queen”, Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5-6/14)

Anthology:

• Fearful Symmetries, Ellen Datlow, ed. (ChiZine)
• Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, Rose Fox & Daniel José Older, eds. (Crossed Genres)
• Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Michael Kelly, ed. (Undertow)
• Monstrous Affections, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, ed. (Candlewick)
• Rogues, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Bantam; Titan)

Collection:

• Mercy and Other Stories, Rebecca Lloyd (Tartarus)
• Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Helen Marshall (ChiZine)
• They Do the Same Things Different There, Robert Shearman (ChiZine)
• The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, Angela Slatter (Tartarus)
• Death at the Blue Elephant, Janeen Webb (Ticonderoga)

Artist:

• Samuel Araya
• Galen Dara
• Jeffrey Alan Love
• Erik Mohr
• John Picacio

Special Award – Professional:

• John Joseph Adams, for editing anthologies and Nightmare and Fantasy magazines
• Jeanne Cavelos, for Odyssey writing workshops
• Sandra Kasturi & Brett Alexander Savory, for ChiZine Publications
• Gordon Van Gelder, for F&SF
• Jerad Walters, for Centipede Press

Special Award – Nonprofessional:

• Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Matt Cardin, for Born to Fear: Interviews with Thomas Ligotti (Subterranean)
• Stefan Fergus, for Civilian Reader (civilianreader.wordpress.com)
• Ray B. Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
• Patrick Swenson, for Fairwood Press

- See more at: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2015/07/2015-world-fantasy-awards-ballot/#sthash.QNfCxq5G.dpuf

Books Read: June 2015

The beginning of a new month brings with it the opportunity to look back at the month gone by and to give one last glance at what I most recently read. The below listed books are what I read during the month of June.

1. The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
2. Control Point, by Myke Cole
3. Deryni Rising, by Katherine Kurtz
4. Finders Keepers, by Stephen King
5. How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back, by Diana Rowland
6. The Burning Stone, by Kate Elliott
7. Skin Deep, by Brandon Sanderson
8. Skin Game, by Jim Butcher
9. Heaven's Queen, by Rachel Bach
10. Phil Cross: Gypsy Joker to Hell's Angel, by Phil Cross
11. The Pride of Chanur, by C. J. Cherryh
12. Deryni Checkmate, by Katherine Kurtz
13. Infidel, by Kameron Hurley


Best Book of the Month: I'm somewhere between Girl on the Train, Deryni Checkmate, and Skin Game. There was a lot of very good reading this month. 

Disappointment of the Month: I've previously read a couple of books about motorcycle clubs. Like many people, watching Sons of Anarchy peaked my interest. Phil Cross's autobiography seemed like it would be a good one to load up on my Nook for a trip out of town. Sadly, it was light on the details of running the club and appears to have glossed over many of the events that frequently landed Cross in legal trouble. I'm sure there is plenty he can't talk about for club reasons or to not incriminate himself, but with that being the case, the book felt flat.  

Discovery of the Month: I had never read Jim Butcher before his Hugo nomination, and I jumped into Book 15 with Skin Game. It was plenty accessible for a new reader, though I expect I missed all sorts of detail and relationships that long time readers would be intimately familiar with. I expect to go back and read all of the Harry Dresden novels to catch up, though it may take me a while.

Worth Noting: If you've never read Katherine Kurtz's Deryni saga, you're really missing out. I came to the series from a different entry point (Camber of Culdi, which is the start of the next trilogy set 200 years in the past), but everyone should read these books. Deryni Rising is excellent and I think Deryni Checkmate is better. Read Deryni.

Gender Breakdown: After a dip last month when I read fewer female authored books than those by males, I pulled in another solid month with eight out of the thirteen books I read being written by women. This brings my yearly total up to 40 out of 68 and slides my percentage up from 58.19% to 58.82%. I am still on track to hit my goal for my first year where I've read more books written by women. It can happen.



Previous Months:
January
February
March 
April 
May

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Novella

Big Boys Don’t Cry by Tom Kratman (Castalia House)
“Flow” by Arlan Andrews, Sr. (Analog, Nov 2014)
One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright (Castalia House)
“Pale Realms of Shade” by John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
“The Plural of Helen of Troy” by John C. Wright (City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis, Castalia House)

Sometime after I finish reading all of the nominees and after I do my last category write-up, I have a mind to write an article talking about what I think of this whole Hugo mess. I wrote several articles very early on, but since it has been an ongoing thing, I have different thoughts. But, those thoughts are not quite as germane to any individual category or any individual work and do not apply to taking the Hugo ballot seriously as it currently stands.  So here we are.

"Pale Realms of Shade" went in a very different direction than I had initially expected, what with the ghost of a murdered detective coming back to haunt and all. But, that is one of the more interesting aspects of reading stories because they were nominated for an award and not with the context of their original publication. Most stories don't necessarily require additional context, but "Pale Realms of Shade" was published in Wright's The Book of Feasts & Seasons, which is a story collection built around the religious calendar of the Catholic faith (if I have this correct). Knowing that context, readers who purchase the collection won't be surprised when the story takes a hard turn towards Heaven and Hell and a spiritual battle for a man's soul. 

But, where Wright's nominated short story "The Parliament of Beasts and Birds" (also from this same collection) felt extraordinarily heavy handed, with "Pale Realms of Shade" he did a beautiful job with the religious aspects of the story (which, ultimately, is the story and it is quite well told).

The big surprise in this category, at least for me, was Tom Kratman's Big Boys Don't Cry. I had expected a very aggressive narrative designed to offend those of a more liberal persuasion, but what I got was a surprisingly graceful story of a dying sentient tank. That may sound weird, but given advancement in artificial intelligence and this being a science fiction story, it works. It works remarkably well, especially the deeper Kratman brings the story into Magnolia's history.  Yes, there are also some clumsier jabs at how military tactics have been handled by those not committed to the mission or by those who don't fully understand what it takes to win, and politicians get the sharp end of the stick in that regard (rightly so, in some cases).

If all of Arlan Andrews' "Flow" was as successful as the second half of the story, I might have been able to move it up another space on my ballot, but unfortunately the beginning of the story was something of a chore to push through. The primitive ice world (a partially frozen post apocalyptic Earth) was tough to take, less because of the writing and more because of what I was wanted / was getting from the story. I'll willingly take the hit that part of this is on me, but I often bounce off of fiction dealing with significantly more primitive Earth cultures unless the writing / storytelling can just grab a hold of me and make me care about the characters and / or the setting. "Flow" didn't...until it did, midway through as Rist began to discover more of the world and realized that what his people taught may not be the way things actually work. I'm now curious to find "Thaw", a previous story in this setting, and move on to "Fall", the next in the setting.  I'd like to see where Andrews is taking this. 

My Vote
1. "Pale Realms of Shade"
2. Big Boys Don't Cry
3. "Flow"
4. "The Plural of Helen of Troy"
5. No Award
6. One Bright Star to Guide Them

Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote.

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Novelette

“Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium” by Gray Rinehart (Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, May 2014) 
“Championship B’tok” by Edward M Lerner (Analog, Sept 2014)
“The Journeyman: In the Stone House” by Michael F. Flynn (Analog, June 2014)
“The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale” by Rajnar Vajra (Analog, Jul/Aug 2014)
“Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
"The Day the World Turned Upside Down", by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014)

The John C Wright novelette was found to be ineligible after the ballot was announced, and was replaced by the Heuvelt story.


Unrelated to the actual work, this is one of the few categories on the Hugo ballot which I would like to eliminate. What the heck is a novelette, anyway?  It is for works of fiction between 7500 words and 17,500 words and fits in between "Short Story" and "Novella". If I were revamping the awards, I would increase the upper limit of short story to nearly where the novella is now, lower the bottom limit of novella just a touch and live with two short fiction categories.

But enough of my avoidance of the nominees, let's very briefly look at how I voted. 

Astute readers will note that while I have used No Award for previous categories and left nominees off of the ballot I did not wish to even consider for the Hugo Award, I have never used No Award and still ranked a nominee below it. Until now.  "The Journeyman" was the least interesting, least compelling Novelette nominee and one which I do not feel is strong enough to win the award. However, I do think the craft and writing was good enough that leaving it off of the ballot felt unfair. As such, I am using No Award in the sense that if No Award does not win, The Journeyman might as well win.  In the other instances, I am actively stating that I do not wish a nominee to win at all. It's all about how you use it.

Comparing to previous years, "The Day the World Turned Upside Down" was the better Heuvelt story I've read (this is his third nomination), but I'm just not a fan of his fiction - though I will say that the concept of Earth flipping its gravity was a fascinating one, but he didn't do enough with it, the story was really about a man who simply cannot deal with the fact that he was dumped by his girlfriend and whines about it. I'm simplifying, of course, but while it was better than "The Ink Readers of Doi Saket" I wouldn't say that is a ringing endorsement.

The best of the bunch here is Rajnar Vajra's "The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale", though I'm really not sure what the "Golden Age" part of it is all about. Is it a suggestion that the story harkens back to the golden age of science fiction or is it part of a larger Golden Age milieu that Vajra is working in. If the second, I can't find any other Golden Age tales. Regardless, "The Triple Sun" is a story with some space exploration, adventure, sass, and all in all good fun. 


My Vote
1. The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale
2. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium
3. Championship B'Tok
4. The Day the World Turned Upside Down
5. No Award
6. The Journeyman: In the Stone House


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote. 

Deryni Rising, by Katherine Kurtz

Deryni Rising
Katherine Kurtz
Ballantine Books: 1970

I first discovered the Deryni series in 1993 following the publication of King Javan's Year. I would have been fourteen that summer and in my quest to find and read as much science fiction and fantasy, preferably fantasy, from my small town library I picked up King Javan's Year. It was brutal. It was wonderful. I didn't know what this was, but I wanted more.

My librarian offered me three books from her person collection to read and eventually to buy: Camber of Culdi, Saint Camber, and Camber the Heretic. While King Javan's Year was my starting point, it was the Camber trilogy that hooked me and hooked me hard.  I would read and re-read most of those novels multiple times until I graduated high school, but only seldom dipping into Kurtz's original Deryni novels beginning with Deryni Rising.

It wasn't that I didn't like the Kelson trilogy, it was that there was such a separation in the chronology from the Camber era novels and the characters I really cared about were several hundred years in Kelson's past. Many of the details that I cared about, the mysteries and the magic and the rituals, were lost by Kelson's time. So I returned once again to Camber and ignored Kelson.

But time passes and a handful of people in 2015 get into a conversation on twitter and one person mentions Katherine Kurtz, another yells out "Deryni!" and without quite realizing how, at least five people are doing a re-read of a forty five year old fantasy novel.  I should note that it is a forty five year old fantasy novel that far more people should be talking about and recommending and putting on lists.

One thing that struck me re-reading Deryni Rising is just how short of a time period the novel takes place in. While technically it is over two weeks, much of that is between the prologue and the opening chapter. Once Alaric Morgan arrives in Rhemuth, the time frame of Deryni Rising is a matter of days.  So much happens in such a short period of time and a LOT of information is conveyed.

I have to wonder what my impressions of Deryni Rising would have been if I had read this book first (as it was the first published), rather than after reading at least five earlier novels in the chronology.  Would those hints of Camber and the Deryni persecutions rang as clearly if I didn't spend much of my teenage years nose deep in the events of that era?  Probably not, but you can only read a book for the first time once.

This time I have had a much longer break since the last time I had read those Camber era novels and I have only read the more recent Childe Morgan trilogy one time as it was published over the last decade (the Childe Morgan trilogy serves as a bit of prologue to Deryni Rising as it focuses on a young Alaric Morgan rather than the grown man we first meet in Deryni Rising). That break served to put my focus almost solely on Kelson and the story being told here and not so much on the Camber era.

Since it has been so long since I've read Deryni Rising, I was impressed by just how good it was and how well it held up as a forty five year old novel. Because of changing tastes, writing styles, pacing, and having read thousands of books in the intervening years, it is not uncommon for an older book to not quite hold up as well as I might have hoped. Deryni Rising remains an excellent and important piece of fantasy fiction. 

Deryni Rising is the story of a prince having to take the throne far younger than he would like, barely into his legal majority, and having to fight the racial prejudice against his closest friend / adviser and battle a foreign challenger to his throne. On its surface, Deryni Rising is not all that remarkable. Plenty of novels deal with the topics Deryni Rising does. Except, they didn't. Not forty five years ago when Deryni Rising was first published. How Katherine Kurtz handled the historical political dramas in a fantasy world was groundbreaking and remarkable and set the stage for many novels to come. Katherine Kurtz deserves to be recognized for the master of fantasy fiction that she is, and her novels should continue to be read for many years to come.

2014 Nebula Award Winners

Via Tor.com, here are the winners of the 2014 Nebula Awards. Congratulations to all the winners.

Novel
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Tor)
Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor)
Coming Home, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
***Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)

Novella 
We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
***Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Regular,” Ken Liu (Upgraded)
“The Mothers of Voorhisville,” Mary Rickert (Tor.com 4/30/14)
Calendrical Regression, Lawrence Schoen (NobleFusion)
 “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap),” Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’14)

 Novelette
“Sleep Walking Now and Then,” Richard Bowes (Tor.com 7/9/14)
“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)
***“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i,” Alaya Dawn Johnson (F&SF 7-8/14)
“The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado (Granta #129)
“We Are the Cloud,” Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed 9/14)
“The Devil in America,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 4/2/14)

Short Story 
“The Breath of War,” Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 3/6/14)
“When It Ends, He Catches Her,” Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction 9/26/14)
“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)
“The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family,” Usman T. Malik (Qualia Nous)
 “A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide,” Sarah Pinsker (F&SF 3-4/14)
***“Jackalope Wives,” Ursula Vernon (Apex 1/7/14)
“The Fisher Queen,” Alyssa Wong (F&SF 5/14)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation 
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Edge of Tomorrow
***Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
The Lego Movie

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy 
Unmade, Sarah Rees Brennan (Random House)
Salvage, Alexandra Duncan (Greenwillow)
***Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, A.S. King (Little, Brown)
Dirty Wings, Sarah McCarry (St. Martin’s Griffin)
Greenglass House, Kate Milford (Clarion)
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Leslye Walton (Candlewick)

Books Read: May 2015

The beginning of a new month brings with it the opportunity to look back at the month gone bye and to give one last glance at what I most recently read. The below listed books are what I read during the month of May, I have reviewed nothing.

1. Scale-Bright, by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
2. Signal to Noise, by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
3. All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
4. Heritage of Cyador, by L. E. Modesitt, Jr
5. Wastelands 2, by John Joseph Adams (editor)
6. The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu
7. The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu
8. Foreign Affairs, by Alison Lurie (unfinished)
9. The Dark Between the Stars, by Kevin J. Anderson (unfinished)
10. Early Warning, by Jane Smiley
11. Ring of Fire, by Eric Flint

Best Book of the Month: Can we have another novel from Sylvia Moreno-Garcia soon, please?  Her debut, Signal to Noise was simply excellent and it's on my slowly building  Hugo longlist right now. 

Disappointment of the Month: After all the praise of Sriduangkaew's prose, and specifically of Scale-Bright, I was surprised that with each page, I more and more did not want to read the book. Happily, it was short. I'm not sure why I bounced off of Scale-Bright, but it fell very much into the category of "I'm glad you liked it, but it's not for me", which is where I also put Sofia Samatar's A Strange in Olondria.  I do still have Sriduangkaew's The Archer Who Shot Down Suns on my Nook, but I'm not inspired to push it up my reading queue anytime soon.

Discovery of the Month: Signal to Noise. Go check it out.

Worth Noting: Modesitt's Recluce novels are still solid reads, even after all of these years. I maintain that one should not read more than a couple of the books in short order because the writing and narrative style is so similar that some of the joy of reading can leak away, but if you space them out a touch - this is good, solid fantasy. Modesitt slowly fills in some of the gaps in the chronology of his long running series (Heritage of Cyador is volume 18). I've rather enjoyed Lerial's story and I feel there is enough room for one more book told from his perspective, though I don't know if that is Modesitt's plan or not. There are still a handful of stories / points in the timeline I would love to see him touch upon. 

Gender Breakdown: My library requests hit very weirdly and all at once where I expected some of them to be spaced out a bit better. This messed up my attempt at gender balancing the month.  Like April, there were two books I did not finish, though I gave solid effort to each. May marks the first month this year I did not read more books written by women than those written by men. Only four out of the eleven were female authored.  This brings me to 32 out of 55, which drops my percentage from 63.64% to 58.19% of my reading.  Still a good year, still holding firm with just a small slide.  I would say that I am still on track for hitting my goal of my first year where I've read more books written by women.


Previous Months:
January
February
March 
April

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Graphic Story

Ms. Marvel Vol 1: No Normal written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt, (Marvel Comics)
Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery written by Kurtis J. Weibe, art by Roc Upchurch (Image Comics)
Zombie Nation Book #2: Reduce Reuse Reanimate by Carter Reid (The Zombie Nation)
Saga, Volume 3 written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick written by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)
Time will bear this out, or not, but I think I will have had a much more difficult time ranking the nominees for Graphic Story than I will for any other Hugo category this year. There is just so much excellence here and the comics are all great in very different ways.  I will, however, hold to this ranking and this vote and live with it. But ask me tomorrow and I could reorder the whole thing and be equally comfortable with that order. I choose to draw the line today.

Sex Criminals: Sometimes I read a comic at home and my wife looks over at me with a slightly confused and bemused shake of her head. Add in the title of the book and she asked me, curious, what exactly I was reading. I told her I was reading a friggin awesome and exciting and completely batshit insane comic where two characters figured out that they have the ability to stop time when they orgasm. There's a chance she'd like the book. At the very least, she'd demonstrably see that comics are far more than just super heroes wearing costumes (which will also be addressed when I talk about Ms Marvel). But, besides the massive "what the hell am I reading" level of shock and admiration, Sex Criminals is, thus far, a fascinating and excellent comic telling what initially feels like a heist tale with an interesting quirk. That itself, with the quality level of the writing and the art, is enough to move Sex Criminals to the top of my ballot.  I'm very curious where Fraction is going to take this story and if he can keep it together long enough to tell a complete story, but we'll see. This first collection was exciting.

Saga: I'm glad it was the third volume of Saga which was nominated and not the fourth, because as much as I enjoy Saga and think that it is one of the better comics running today, Volume 3 was a significantly stronger collection. I have perhaps less to say about Saga because I read it much longer ago than the rest of the nominees, but Saga sets a very high bar and Volume 3 is the best of the collected editions.

Rat Queens: I am so glad Rat Queens was nominated for a Hugo Award. It had been on my radar for a while, but it was the nomination which pushed me to read it. Holy crap. It is awesome. On a different day I could shuffle my ranking and Rat Queens could be my top pick, the lines between these nominees are so narrow. This is Sword and Sorcery with foul mouthed and ass kicking semi-anti-heroines - a small four woman mercenary company.  I love it. I want more. More!

And, if I might make a very rare digression because I have mostly elected to not talk about any of the controversies surrounding this year's Hugo Awards when I am talking about the nominees: Rat Queens feels like it should be the exact sort of ass kicking heavy on story light on message comic the Sad and / or Rabid Puppies have said they are agitating in support of. It is this exact sort of work. That being the case, I hope this is something many of them who enjoy comics are able to hold up as being truly excellent regardless of who created it. Because it is.

Ms. Marvel: I made a crack in my brief commentary on Sex Criminals about comics being more than superheroes wearing costumes, and despite my love of comics I sometimes fall into that very simply and reductive trap. Hell, as much as I love very non-superhero works such as Queen and Country or Y: The Last Man or DMZ or a much longer list than I want to make right here, I am also a reader of some Batman and a range of more "traditional" Marvel comics as I work my way through various series and the overall Marvel 616 Universe. Some are much better than others. Matt Fraction's run on Invincible Iron Man and Ed Brubaker's Captain America are two standout works.  I have mostly been reading in order, so I wasn't going to get to Ms Marvel for several years most likely.

That would have been a damn shame. Ms Marvel is a fresh new take on the character, with Carol Danvers having taken on the Captain Marvel mantle, Ms Marvel was left vacant. It has now been taken up by Kamala Khan, a 16 year old from Jersey City. Also notable is that she is Pakistani-American, and while I don't think it is necessary to continually talk about Khan's race, her family's religion, or similar issues when discussing Ms Marvel, it is worth pointing out at least once because it is a significant step for Marvel comics to take in having a potentially major character not be white. But that is the window dressing which also serves as the underlying character of Kamala Khan because it is who she is and it is her background. But it allows G Willow Wilson (the writer, and also creator of the excellent series Air) to tell different stories in the Marvel universe as the new Ms Marvel works through her own origin story and eventually interact with the greater Marvel universe. While I am only through the first collection so far, a character taking the Ms Marvel mantle does not stay in Jersey City and only deal with the local issues. Ms Marvel has to become more than that, otherwise why tell the story?

The important thing here is that the story itself of a young woman, a teenager, acquiring power but not knowing how to best use it or how to navigate her family life with the new great power / great responsibility that she has, that story is a well told, well written, and an excellent piece of comics writing and storytelling. Somewhere in there I was redundant, but Ms Marvel demands to be read.

No Award: I could not figure out which particular strip from The Zombie Nation began the Reduce, Reuse, Reanimate collection, and when I asked Carter Reid he didn't seem too sure himself. So, I did what any other absolutely insane person would do: I read them all. I started with the very first comic Reid posted and I continued on through the end of 2014 because I figured that had the collection been published in 2015, it wouldn't have been eligible. I just didn't know where the line was. I put stronger weight on the late 2013 and all of the 2014 work, as that is where the collection would have most likely been pulled from. It's...fine.  The Zombie Nation is mildly amusing, occasionally funny, but ultimately nothing special. Nothing I would hold up and say is one of the best comics of the year. Excuse me, nothing I would hold up as one of the best "graphic stories" of the year.  The Zombie Nation simply does not compare with any of the other nominated comics.

My vote:
1. Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick
2. Saga, Volume 3
3. Rat Queens: Sass and Sorcery
4. Ms Marvel: No Normal
5. No Award


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote. 

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Related Work

“The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF” by Ken Burnside (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
Letters from Gardner by Lou Antonelli (The Merry Blacksmith Press)
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright (Castalia House)
“Why Science is Never Settled” by Tedd Roberts (Baen.com) (Part I & II)
Wisdom from my Internet by Michael Z. Williamson (Patriarchy Press)

This may be the first year I have actually read all of the nominees for Related Work. As a general rule, I am less interested in the nonfiction category.  Further, I often have less time / patience to wade into Related Work than I do the rest of the fiction categories. This year is different. I have the time and I have the inclination. We'll see if that holds for next year.

The Hot Equations: While some of the math / formulas involved here ran right over my head, I appreciated Burnside's look into what combat in space might look like from a scientific perspective of what is actually possible based on technology and physics. If I were a writer of hard science fiction, I would keep Burnside's article in mind. Of course, if I were a writer of anything, it wouldn't be hard science fiction because of the technical depth required to do so. That's a different conversation, though. The main point here is that Burnside's essay is worthwhile, especially to those interested in hard SF.

Why Science is Never Settled: Here Tedd Roberts has a two part essay that, well, discusses exactly what the title of the essay says it does. It deals with scientific consensus, how it can come about, and some of the issues surrounding that. I've seen some commentary online suggesting that what Roberts is doing here is very entry level stuff, nothing deep or award worthy. I may agree about the entry level work, but what it also does by that very nature is make these ideas about science very accessible and understandable and I think that is something to be commended. There are just as many English majors reading science fiction as there are from the sciences. Probably more. I think The Hot Equations is of an overall higher quality and more valuable in this category, but Why Science is Never Settled is the next best here.

Letters from Gardner: Lou Antonelli's collection is an interesting one. It's part memoir, part short story collection, part writing advice, part I have no idea. It shows Antonelli's development as a writer, some of the revision progress, and how influential some of those early rejections from Gardner Dozois were. It's not necessarily my cuppa, but it's not bad.

No Award: No Award continues to rear its ugly head. I read half of Wright's Transhuman and Subhuman collection (approximately), and I bounced off of it. His essay on fiction writing directed at a nonfiction writing friend was fairly solid, but I had issues with the rest of what I read - mostly in that I disagree with much of what Wright has to say and his essay writing style does little to encourage me to continue reading even despite my disagreement. I can't get into specifics here because each time I bounced off an essay, I moved onto the next. That said, he's not wrong that Ulysses is a terrible book.

On the other hand, Wisdom from my Internet is truly a terrible book that has no place anywhere near this ballot. I can understand, more or less, why people may have enjoyed / appreciated Wright's collection. I'm not his audience, but many people likely are. Michael Williamson's collection of non-sequiturs and jokes is sort of organized by topic, but most are not at all entertaining and what, exactly it has to do with the field of science fiction and / or fantasy is completely beyond me. But it isn't so much the lack of relation to SFF that gets me, it's how bad the jokes are and how disinteresting the whole thing is. I may not think that Wright's collection is worthy of an Award, but I don't think Williamson's should have been considered for nomination. I may never understand how or why it was.


My vote:
1. "The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF"
2. "Why Science is Never Settled"
3. Letters from Gardner
4. No Award


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote. 

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Professional Artist

Julie Dillon
Kirk DouPonce
Jon Eno
Nick Greenwood
Alan Pollack
Carter Reid

John Eno was found to be ineligible and was replaced on the ballot with Kirk DouPonce.


There is a lot of quality art being produced by the 2015 nominees. Julie Dillon, last year's winner for Professional Artist, continued to produce excellent work. Based on their work included in the Hugo Voter's Packet, Greenwood, Pollack, and DouPonce have also produced good work. As a point of personal preference, Greenwood is my top choice here, but it was very close between Dillon and Greenwood. While referencing the Voter's Packet is a touch unfair because unless you're also a voter, you can't see that work. Unfortunately, except for Dillon, none of the other nominees have work posted at the Hugo Eligible Artists tumblr (a great reference for both fan and pro work, by the way), but you should be able to browse the various websites I've linked above to get a feel for their work.

Sadly, I am using No Award again here in Professional Artist. Carter Reid is the writer and artist behind the Zombie Nation webcomic and while his art style fits the work he is doing with that particular comic quite well, it doesn't stand well next to the other nominees.


My vote:
1. Nick Greenwood
2. Julie Dillon
3. Alan Pollack
4. Kirk DouPonce
5. No Award


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote.

Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Fancast

Adventures in SF Publishing Brent Bower (Executive Producer), Kristi Charish, Timothy C. Ward & Moses Siregar III (Co-Hosts, Interviewers and Producers)
Dungeon Crawlers Radio Daniel Swenson (Producer/Host), Travis Alexander & Scott Tomlin (Hosts), Dale Newton (Host/Tech), Damien Swenson (Audio/Video Tech)
Galactic Suburbia Podcast Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
The Sci Phi Show Jason Rennie
Tea and Jeopardy Emma Newman & Peter Newman

It is quite obvious to me that I am not the intended audience for most podcasts. I tend to only listen to one when the subject or the guest strongly interests me, and even then, I seem to be limited by just how much I can take. I do listen, semi-regularly, to Rocket Talk (one of my Hugo nominees for Related Work), occasionally a sports or wrestling related podcast, and then even yet more rarely, stuff like Star Talk, the Agony Column, or the other one I listen to which completely escapes me. 

So, "fancasts". 

As a general rule, for me, shorter is better. I listened to each of the works included in the Hugo voter's packet and am judging solely on that. If there were better examples of each podcast, that's unfortunate, because while all of them have their merits, none are ones I intend to return to.

But listening to two hours of Dungeon Crawlers talking about building role playing campaigns is just too much for me. It's not my thing. It is reasonably competent, but the podcast seemed to be too busy with too many people trying to speak. 

The Sci Phi show should be commended for simply having a very different and specific topic, which is the melding of science fiction and philosophy. Again, not my thing, but except for the really awful fake laughs that are used as transitions (or markers for jokes), Jason Rennie has a decent thing going with this show.  Added bonus, this was a very short episode, less than 30 minutes.

Adventures in SF Publishing is a bit more up my alley, though it ran a full hour, but was otherwise unremarkable.  Galactic Suburbia was a bit better, but still neither truly could grab my interest. It's not you, folks, it's me. Listening to podcasts are just not my thing, but I don't wish to ignore the category completely and some of the work being done here is rather good - for those who appreciate it.

Tea and Jeopardy appears to be in a class by itself. It is very slickly produced and seems to take place in the midst of a proper tea party. Again, this was one of the shorter episodes included and the limited run time accentuates what is cool and quirky about it while never letting what works run for too long.  It is the most worthy of the nominees, I think.

My vote:
1. Tea and Jeopardy
2. Galactic Suburbia
3. Adventures in SF Publishing
4. The Sci Phi Show
5. Dungeon Crawlers Radio


Standard 2015 Hugo Disclaimer:
In a typical year, I just jump right into whichever category I'm writing about and let my thoughts sort out the whole mess. This is not a typical year, so I'd like to start by talking a little bit about how I'm going to work through the various Hugo Award categories and how I am going to vote. Simply put, I am going to read everything. If I feel the work is strong enough to merit a ranked vote, I will vote for it in whatever order feels most appropriate. If I feel the work is not strong enough to merit ranking it above No Award, I will not do so.  But at no point am I making a blanket statement about Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies or that I've heard Thomas Heuvelt may have been campaigning for a nomination or anything else that I am not aware of.  The ballot is what the ballot is and I will treat it as such.

I am also working with the same methodology as I have in the past, which is to say that there are frequently works and writers on the ballot that I simply and strongly disagree with. In most cases, I have still ranked those works above No Award. I don't believe I have always done this, and I know if I had participated last year, one novel would have been below No Award because I bounced so hard off of the first book in that series that I really can't understand how the second also managed a nomination - and that writer is a Hugo favorite. Most stories compare to works that have previously been on the ballot, so those works that meet my low-bar criteria will secure my vote.

I may re-post this message on each article I write about the nominees, just so that we're clear in such a contentious year.