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 August.
1. Soulless, by Gail Carriger
2. Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson
3. The Red: First Light, by Linda Nagata
4. Crystal Singer, by Anne McCaffrey
5. Karen Memory, by Elizabeth Bear
6. Nova, by Margaret Fortune
7. Fool's Assassin, by Robin Hobb
Best Book of the Month: I am giving Seveneves a small bump over Nagata's First Light, but both are excellent and I highly recommend either book. This was my first Stephenson.
Disappointment of the Month: The closest thing I have to a disappointment is Nova, which is less that it is a disappointment and more than most everything else I read this month was simply excellent. Nova was...less so. I had higher anticipation, but given that the novel features a teenager who is essentially a walking bomb - I was waiting for the bomb to go off very early in the book. This may say more about my tastes in fiction than it does about the story Fortune was telling.
Discovery of the Month: Gail Carriger's Soulless was delightful. I am as susceptible to cover art as the next person, and the cover art was selling me a book that was more of a Jane Austen / Victorian era book, presumably of manners. And while I appreciate Mary Robinette Kowal's fiction, I am a difficult sell on books set in that era. I did not want to put Soulless down. Naturally. This is how it works.
Worth Noting: I've begun the new Fitz and the Fool trilogy from Robin Hobb, but in doing so I have skipped over the Rain Wilds Chronicles, the four book series set between The Tawny Man and Fitz & the Fool. This is the first time I've skipped any of Hobb's fiction, which was more done because I recently finished The Tawny Man after years of not reading it for no particular reason given how good it was and how much I like Hobb. I'm still slightly conflicted about the jump because it isn't so much that I'm focused on just reading about Fitz; Hobb's Liveship Traders was gloriously excellent I would highly recommend it. I just felt the need to be caught up with what she's publishing now. I'll eventually make it back to the Rain Wilds Chronicles.
Gender Breakdown: I read fewer books in August than any other month this year, but this time all but one of the books I read were written by a woman. This brings my yearly total to 56 out of 93 books and moves my percentage to 60.21%, which is the first time my percentage has been over 60% since April. I am very much on track to hit my goal of reading more books written by women than those written by men in 2015.
Previous Months:
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
Friday, September 04, 2015
Friday, August 28, 2015
The Good Stuff: Some Book Recommendations Through August 2015
Inspired somewhat by Jason Sanford's recent blog, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the good stuff I've read this year and not about that other mess from this year. This is supposed to be a book blog, after all, even though I don't really blog too much about specific books that I'm reading outside of a monthly wrap up post and a series of "Best of the Year" articles which I put out at the end of the year.
This year has been a touch light on 2015 reading for me. I've only read 13 books published so far this year, but the remainder of the year looks to be a veritable explosion of goodness that I'm quite excited by.
So, thus far, I'd like to highlight three books that were the standout of 2015 publications I've read.
Signal to Noise, by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson
Karen Memory, by Elizabeth Bear
These three novels could not be more different from each other, but are easily the class of the 2015 books I've read so far. With Seveneves we have a novel set, initially, in that not too far future and it opens with the destruction of the moon. Bad things ensue. Bear's Karen Memory, on the other hand, is set back in an alternate 1800's which initially doesn't feel science fictional at all, but those elements come later - and it features one of the best character voices in that of its protagonist, Karen Memery. If I could sign up for two more just like this, I would. Sylvia Moreno-Garcia's Signal to Noise is set in both modern day and 1980's Mexico City and the jacket copy describes the book as "A literary fantasy about love, music and sorcery, set against the background of Mexico City." I would also describe it as musical nostalgic fantasy, but descriptions do not quite service the beautiful and fantastic Signal to Noise well enough. Just go read it.
I'd like to include The Red: First Light by Linda Nagata on this list (or very close to my top 3), but even though Saga Press published it this year, it was previously self published in 2013 and was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2014. So if anything would pull it out of an eligibility year, that would be it.
Three more books worth noting are:
Persona, by Genevieve Valentine
The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu
The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu
Actually, since Rebirths of Tao is the concluding volume of Wesley Chu's trilogy, I highly recommend seeking out The Lives of Tao. The Tao series is absolutely fantastic.
I'm limiting this to books published this year, though I've read a number of excellent novels published in previous years.
Some stuff I am very much looking forward to the rest of the year:
Loosed Upon the World, by John Joseph Adams
The End Has Come, by John Joseph Adams
Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho
The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard
The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
The Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott
Court of Fives, by Kate Elliott
The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins
Fool's Quest, by Robin Hobb
Empire Ascendant, by Kameron Hurley
Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
The Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu
The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin
Luna: New Moon, by Ian McDonald
An Apprentice to Elves, by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
The Trials, by Linda Nagata
Going Dark, by Linda Nagata
Shadows of Self, by Brandon Sanderson
White Trash Zombie Gone Wild, by Diana Rowland
The End of All Things, by John Scalzi
Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente
Kitty Saves the World, by Carrie Vaughn
I expect there are a number of books I also want to read this year and I question what I will actually get to and what I'll miss until they show up on some else's Best Of list and I have to try to power through it early next year - but this is a fairly solid year for books I want to read.
What are you looking forward to?
This year has been a touch light on 2015 reading for me. I've only read 13 books published so far this year, but the remainder of the year looks to be a veritable explosion of goodness that I'm quite excited by.
So, thus far, I'd like to highlight three books that were the standout of 2015 publications I've read.
Signal to Noise, by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia
Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson
Karen Memory, by Elizabeth Bear
These three novels could not be more different from each other, but are easily the class of the 2015 books I've read so far. With Seveneves we have a novel set, initially, in that not too far future and it opens with the destruction of the moon. Bad things ensue. Bear's Karen Memory, on the other hand, is set back in an alternate 1800's which initially doesn't feel science fictional at all, but those elements come later - and it features one of the best character voices in that of its protagonist, Karen Memery. If I could sign up for two more just like this, I would. Sylvia Moreno-Garcia's Signal to Noise is set in both modern day and 1980's Mexico City and the jacket copy describes the book as "A literary fantasy about love, music and sorcery, set against the background of Mexico City." I would also describe it as musical nostalgic fantasy, but descriptions do not quite service the beautiful and fantastic Signal to Noise well enough. Just go read it.
I'd like to include The Red: First Light by Linda Nagata on this list (or very close to my top 3), but even though Saga Press published it this year, it was previously self published in 2013 and was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2014. So if anything would pull it out of an eligibility year, that would be it.
Three more books worth noting are:
Persona, by Genevieve Valentine
The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu
The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu
Actually, since Rebirths of Tao is the concluding volume of Wesley Chu's trilogy, I highly recommend seeking out The Lives of Tao. The Tao series is absolutely fantastic.
I'm limiting this to books published this year, though I've read a number of excellent novels published in previous years.
Some stuff I am very much looking forward to the rest of the year:
Loosed Upon the World, by John Joseph Adams
The End Has Come, by John Joseph Adams
Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho
The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard
The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
The Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott
Court of Fives, by Kate Elliott
The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins
Fool's Quest, by Robin Hobb
Empire Ascendant, by Kameron Hurley
Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
The Dark Forest, by Cixin Liu
The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin
Luna: New Moon, by Ian McDonald
An Apprentice to Elves, by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear
The Trials, by Linda Nagata
Going Dark, by Linda Nagata
Shadows of Self, by Brandon Sanderson
White Trash Zombie Gone Wild, by Diana Rowland
The End of All Things, by John Scalzi
Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente
Kitty Saves the World, by Carrie Vaughn
I expect there are a number of books I also want to read this year and I question what I will actually get to and what I'll miss until they show up on some else's Best Of list and I have to try to power through it early next year - but this is a fairly solid year for books I want to read.
What are you looking forward to?
Monday, August 24, 2015
What Annoyed Me About the 2015 Hugo Awards: The Most Everything Edition
Twelve Hugo Awards* were given out Saturday night. In five additional categories, No Award won the day. Prior to this year, only five times in the history of the Hugo Awards had No Award been presented for a category (source, paragraph two) with the most recent No Award being 1977's Best Dramatic Presentation. So, that happened.
If you're curious, I didn't vote that way. I voted like this. Of course, my nominations were far more in line with what might have happened if this whole mess with the Sad and Rabid Puppies didn't go down the way that it did.
I'm annoyed by a lot of things right now. They're all related and they are somewhat distinct.
I am annoyed that No Award was used as a mostly nuclear weapon rather than a surgical one. I understand the use of No Award and I think it is a perfectly valid tool to have and to use. Sometimes you would rather have No Award be given out than for a particular work or individual to receive that award. That is completely fair. Sometimes it will happen that you will find no nominee in a particular category were worthy of receiving an award, so again you select No Award.
But the way No Award was used this year was as a weapon of protest. Mostly. When so many nominees lined up with the proposed slates of the Sad and Rabid Puppies and there was so much anger about how the various Puppies went about their business in gaming how Hugo nominating works, No Award was used to protest what the Sad and Rabid Puppies did. Mostly.
Some 5,950 votes were cast in the Hugo Awards and I have only seen the twitter and comment thread responses of a intensely small fraction of those who voted and talked about using No Award as a nuclear option for any Puppy affiliated nomination. Until the nomination and voting numbers were released, there was no way to tell just what the numerical impact of the Puppies were and what the impact of those who stated they would No Award over anything the Puppies touched would be. Chaos Horizon breaks the numbers down in a very preliminary analysis. Apparently the number of people who wanted nothing to do with what the Puppies nominated was significant and they did so regardless of perception of quality.
I can mostly understand the consistency of that stance except that when it came to Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, a category which had three nominees from the puppy slates - including Guardians of the Galaxy, the eventual winner. I believe the argument in favor of voting for the movies but not the rest of the slate is that Hollywood has nothing to do with the Sad or Rabid Puppies and thus should not be "punished" for the transgressions of the Puppies. Or, equally as likely, because those movies are "excellent" and the voters would have nominated Guardians of the Galaxy anyway so why not vote for it? This suggests, of course, that inherently all puppy nominees are crap except for the very few that aren't - which mostly just the Hollywood ones so we're all good, right?
This isn't true, of course. To get back to the previous point, I'd very much prefer that No Award voters would have across the board No Awarded everything the puppies touched, including Dramatic Presentation. Be consistent if you're going to do it. When you're not consistent, it makes the stand you took on Best Editor really, really annoying.
The real reason I'm writing this massively long winded article is that I'm annoyed by how the voting went down for Best Editor Long Form.
George R. R. Martin wrote in his first essay on Handicapping the Hugos, in regards to Best Editor Long Form, that "the Nukes and the Moens will be No Awarding this category, since it is all slate, but I think (hope) there are not enough of them to matter. It would be a tragedy if we threw out four good editors just because the Puppies like them too."
This is exactly what happened to Toni Weisskopf, Anne Sowards, Sheila Gilbert, and Jim Minz. Minz is a more junior editor at Baen, so I suspect the appreciation Baen gets would be more directed towards Weisskopf. But I dare someone to tell me these are not worthy nominees, that they should not be seriously considered for a Hugo Award. I cannot imagine how someone can tell me that these four would be unworthy of a Hugo, but by voting No Award over the full category that is exactly what happened.
Oh, I understand. They were included on the Sad and Rabid Puppies slates, so they cannot be considered. But you can vote for Guardians of the Galaxy. Please, if you're going to do it - be consistent. Because voting for Guardians of the Galaxy but not Toni Weisskopf or Anne Sowards or Sheila Gilbert just makes the No Award folks look like a bunch of assholes.
Yes, most of the nominated fiction and nonfiction were simply not very good. Some of it was rubbish (I'm looking at you, Wisdom from My Internet and Revenge of Hump Day). I voted with a very light hand this year, but I can completely understand how most of that would fall under No Award. But the editors? Now we're just being vindictive. These are good editors. Part of me does wish that The Three-Body Problem was nominated by Vox Day as part of his Rabid Puppies slate (as he stated he would have, had he read the book in time), just to see if the No Awarders really would have buried that novel, after spending the previous months praising it as a serious candidate for Best Novel. Would the principle have held in the face of something they might have nominated themselves? Or, would it receive the Guardians of the Galaxy vote? I expect that if the Rabid Puppies elect to troll the Hugo Awards next year by nominating works that would traditionally receive a nomination, the response will be to actually vote for those works rather than No Award them. But it would be an interesting experiment.
I'm annoyed by acronyms and insider terms. Brad Torgersen's invention of CHORF (Cliquish Holier Than Thou Reactionary Fanatics) to describe many on the "other side" of the Puppies was just, well, sad. It's childish and makes Torgersen appear to be a petulant child. Puppy Kicker is annoying. The use of SJW (Social Justice Warrior) as a pejorative is misguided (fighting for diversity and greater representation is not at the expense of quality) and generally when I see it used I can almost always recognize that I'm going to fundamentally disagree with both the message as well as how it is delivered. George R. R. Martin's constant use of "trufan" strikes me as exactly what the Sad Puppies say is telling them that they don't count and are not included. The term refers to the convention going segment of fandom, the ones who go to Worldcon and participate. Those people are awesome that they enjoy going to cons (I don't) and can afford to go to cons (not everyone can) and have been doing so for many decades (I've only been participating as a "fan" for a single decade). "Trufan" suggests that if you're not a "trufan" you're not a "realfan" - which then allows for Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen to be able to talk about "wrong fans" having "wrongfun" as the reason why all of this was necessary in the first place.
But maybe it is wrongfun, because I'm annoyed that the Sad and Rabid Puppies did not nominate better works. I'll give a pass to the Best Novel nominations. I have long standing issues with Kevin Anderson's fiction (I don't think it's very good), but the rest of what was nominated (and declined) were solid. Maybe not what I'd consider the best of the year, but nothing I can complain about any more than I'd complain in any other year (I don't appreciate at least half of what Charles Stross writes and the half I do like doesn't get nominated). I'd also like to thank Brad Torgersen, because if nothing else, I wouldn't have read Skin Game this year without the nomination and that's my first Jim Butcher. It was really damn good. I voted it third and above the eventual winner. I intend to read more from Butcher.
The other categories? Outside of Annie Bellet's story (which she eventually declined a nomination for), the other stories were not Best of Class. True, I voted most of them above No Award but I was voting with a very light hand. They were not among the best of the year (nor was the Heuvelt story not on the slate). I understand that tastes vary, but there are surely better more competent stories that would have and could have been nominated instead. But there's really no excuse for Wisdom from My Internet. It is incoherent rambling and flat out embarrassing - much more so than any other nominee and is one of those that makes folks think the entire process of compiling a slate was about giving those who care about the Hugo Awards a big middle finger. Friggin do better, people. Don't reward an author for a sub-par book even if you think that's happened in the past. You may want Kevin Anderson to receive a Hugo nomination, but if The Dark Between the Stars isn't one of the five best 2015 books you've read - don't nominate the damn thing. And if you don't have five nominees for a category (and you didn't for everything), that's okay - don't add Wisdom from My Internet just to hit five. It's crap and I think you have to know it is.
Be better. Be better, especially if you're complaining about other people being worse. Be better.
And that goes for a lot of the folks who I enjoy and appreciate and read and support and have literary love for. Dropping No Award on five categories was not a victory. It's just not.
A point may have been proven that a group of outsiders who appear to have no respect or love of the traditions of fandom, Worldcon, or the Hugo Awards and want to take over the award will be shown the door with all haste, but that's not a victory. That's not something to celebrate. It happened, it's not pleasant, and I hope like hell it doesn't happen next year.
I hope next year will be a collective of individuals nominating works they truly think are best and are not influenced by outside slates. I don't care who the participants are. If you care about the award, nominate with your heart and with your head and do it as an individual. Have fun talking about the award and who you're considering for nomination. Expect that many of the nominees are not those you would have chosen. Maybe you haven't heard of some of them. Great, it's a new reading list! Maybe you think some of them suck. It happens! But if you care about the award and value it, nominate with integrity. Vote with integrity. Don't slide into second base with your spikes high looking to hurt the other player. Play the game the right way and if you think the other guy or gal is being a little shifty - be better. Don't sink to their live, rise above.
If you don't care at all about the Award and don't value it - why participate? Why try to devalue or destroy something that someone else loves? Don't be that person. Be better than that.
*Yes, I am counting the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer as a Hugo.
If you're curious, I didn't vote that way. I voted like this. Of course, my nominations were far more in line with what might have happened if this whole mess with the Sad and Rabid Puppies didn't go down the way that it did.
I'm annoyed by a lot of things right now. They're all related and they are somewhat distinct.
I am annoyed that No Award was used as a mostly nuclear weapon rather than a surgical one. I understand the use of No Award and I think it is a perfectly valid tool to have and to use. Sometimes you would rather have No Award be given out than for a particular work or individual to receive that award. That is completely fair. Sometimes it will happen that you will find no nominee in a particular category were worthy of receiving an award, so again you select No Award.
But the way No Award was used this year was as a weapon of protest. Mostly. When so many nominees lined up with the proposed slates of the Sad and Rabid Puppies and there was so much anger about how the various Puppies went about their business in gaming how Hugo nominating works, No Award was used to protest what the Sad and Rabid Puppies did. Mostly.
Some 5,950 votes were cast in the Hugo Awards and I have only seen the twitter and comment thread responses of a intensely small fraction of those who voted and talked about using No Award as a nuclear option for any Puppy affiliated nomination. Until the nomination and voting numbers were released, there was no way to tell just what the numerical impact of the Puppies were and what the impact of those who stated they would No Award over anything the Puppies touched would be. Chaos Horizon breaks the numbers down in a very preliminary analysis. Apparently the number of people who wanted nothing to do with what the Puppies nominated was significant and they did so regardless of perception of quality.
I can mostly understand the consistency of that stance except that when it came to Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, a category which had three nominees from the puppy slates - including Guardians of the Galaxy, the eventual winner. I believe the argument in favor of voting for the movies but not the rest of the slate is that Hollywood has nothing to do with the Sad or Rabid Puppies and thus should not be "punished" for the transgressions of the Puppies. Or, equally as likely, because those movies are "excellent" and the voters would have nominated Guardians of the Galaxy anyway so why not vote for it? This suggests, of course, that inherently all puppy nominees are crap except for the very few that aren't - which mostly just the Hollywood ones so we're all good, right?
This isn't true, of course. To get back to the previous point, I'd very much prefer that No Award voters would have across the board No Awarded everything the puppies touched, including Dramatic Presentation. Be consistent if you're going to do it. When you're not consistent, it makes the stand you took on Best Editor really, really annoying.
The real reason I'm writing this massively long winded article is that I'm annoyed by how the voting went down for Best Editor Long Form.
George R. R. Martin wrote in his first essay on Handicapping the Hugos, in regards to Best Editor Long Form, that "the Nukes and the Moens will be No Awarding this category, since it is all slate, but I think (hope) there are not enough of them to matter. It would be a tragedy if we threw out four good editors just because the Puppies like them too."
This is exactly what happened to Toni Weisskopf, Anne Sowards, Sheila Gilbert, and Jim Minz. Minz is a more junior editor at Baen, so I suspect the appreciation Baen gets would be more directed towards Weisskopf. But I dare someone to tell me these are not worthy nominees, that they should not be seriously considered for a Hugo Award. I cannot imagine how someone can tell me that these four would be unworthy of a Hugo, but by voting No Award over the full category that is exactly what happened.
Oh, I understand. They were included on the Sad and Rabid Puppies slates, so they cannot be considered. But you can vote for Guardians of the Galaxy. Please, if you're going to do it - be consistent. Because voting for Guardians of the Galaxy but not Toni Weisskopf or Anne Sowards or Sheila Gilbert just makes the No Award folks look like a bunch of assholes.
Yes, most of the nominated fiction and nonfiction were simply not very good. Some of it was rubbish (I'm looking at you, Wisdom from My Internet and Revenge of Hump Day). I voted with a very light hand this year, but I can completely understand how most of that would fall under No Award. But the editors? Now we're just being vindictive. These are good editors. Part of me does wish that The Three-Body Problem was nominated by Vox Day as part of his Rabid Puppies slate (as he stated he would have, had he read the book in time), just to see if the No Awarders really would have buried that novel, after spending the previous months praising it as a serious candidate for Best Novel. Would the principle have held in the face of something they might have nominated themselves? Or, would it receive the Guardians of the Galaxy vote? I expect that if the Rabid Puppies elect to troll the Hugo Awards next year by nominating works that would traditionally receive a nomination, the response will be to actually vote for those works rather than No Award them. But it would be an interesting experiment.
I'm annoyed by acronyms and insider terms. Brad Torgersen's invention of CHORF (Cliquish Holier Than Thou Reactionary Fanatics) to describe many on the "other side" of the Puppies was just, well, sad. It's childish and makes Torgersen appear to be a petulant child. Puppy Kicker is annoying. The use of SJW (Social Justice Warrior) as a pejorative is misguided (fighting for diversity and greater representation is not at the expense of quality) and generally when I see it used I can almost always recognize that I'm going to fundamentally disagree with both the message as well as how it is delivered. George R. R. Martin's constant use of "trufan" strikes me as exactly what the Sad Puppies say is telling them that they don't count and are not included. The term refers to the convention going segment of fandom, the ones who go to Worldcon and participate. Those people are awesome that they enjoy going to cons (I don't) and can afford to go to cons (not everyone can) and have been doing so for many decades (I've only been participating as a "fan" for a single decade). "Trufan" suggests that if you're not a "trufan" you're not a "realfan" - which then allows for Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen to be able to talk about "wrong fans" having "wrongfun" as the reason why all of this was necessary in the first place.
But maybe it is wrongfun, because I'm annoyed that the Sad and Rabid Puppies did not nominate better works. I'll give a pass to the Best Novel nominations. I have long standing issues with Kevin Anderson's fiction (I don't think it's very good), but the rest of what was nominated (and declined) were solid. Maybe not what I'd consider the best of the year, but nothing I can complain about any more than I'd complain in any other year (I don't appreciate at least half of what Charles Stross writes and the half I do like doesn't get nominated). I'd also like to thank Brad Torgersen, because if nothing else, I wouldn't have read Skin Game this year without the nomination and that's my first Jim Butcher. It was really damn good. I voted it third and above the eventual winner. I intend to read more from Butcher.
The other categories? Outside of Annie Bellet's story (which she eventually declined a nomination for), the other stories were not Best of Class. True, I voted most of them above No Award but I was voting with a very light hand. They were not among the best of the year (nor was the Heuvelt story not on the slate). I understand that tastes vary, but there are surely better more competent stories that would have and could have been nominated instead. But there's really no excuse for Wisdom from My Internet. It is incoherent rambling and flat out embarrassing - much more so than any other nominee and is one of those that makes folks think the entire process of compiling a slate was about giving those who care about the Hugo Awards a big middle finger. Friggin do better, people. Don't reward an author for a sub-par book even if you think that's happened in the past. You may want Kevin Anderson to receive a Hugo nomination, but if The Dark Between the Stars isn't one of the five best 2015 books you've read - don't nominate the damn thing. And if you don't have five nominees for a category (and you didn't for everything), that's okay - don't add Wisdom from My Internet just to hit five. It's crap and I think you have to know it is.
Be better. Be better, especially if you're complaining about other people being worse. Be better.
And that goes for a lot of the folks who I enjoy and appreciate and read and support and have literary love for. Dropping No Award on five categories was not a victory. It's just not.
A point may have been proven that a group of outsiders who appear to have no respect or love of the traditions of fandom, Worldcon, or the Hugo Awards and want to take over the award will be shown the door with all haste, but that's not a victory. That's not something to celebrate. It happened, it's not pleasant, and I hope like hell it doesn't happen next year.
I hope next year will be a collective of individuals nominating works they truly think are best and are not influenced by outside slates. I don't care who the participants are. If you care about the award, nominate with your heart and with your head and do it as an individual. Have fun talking about the award and who you're considering for nomination. Expect that many of the nominees are not those you would have chosen. Maybe you haven't heard of some of them. Great, it's a new reading list! Maybe you think some of them suck. It happens! But if you care about the award and value it, nominate with integrity. Vote with integrity. Don't slide into second base with your spikes high looking to hurt the other player. Play the game the right way and if you think the other guy or gal is being a little shifty - be better. Don't sink to their live, rise above.
If you don't care at all about the Award and don't value it - why participate? Why try to devalue or destroy something that someone else loves? Don't be that person. Be better than that.
*Yes, I am counting the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer as a Hugo.
A Potential 2015 Non-Puppies Hugo Award Ballot
One thing I enjoy doing after the Hugo Awards are announced is to look at the nomination numbers. It's interesting to note that Saga: Volume 4 just missed the ballot by 1 nomination for Graphic Story, as did the Coode Street Podcast in Fancast. I've long been fascinated by how few nominations are needed in some years and in some categories and also how small the margin between making the final ballot and missing it can be. Given how relative few people nominate compared to the number of Worldcon members eligible to nominate, it shows how important nominating and voting actually is.
What I want to do this year is to look at those nominating numbers, but rather than talk about how close some works were to making the ballot, I want to look at what the ballot might have looked like had the Sad Puppies slate and Rabid Puppies slate not existed.
Now, I will freely acknowledge that this is a difficult thing to do because many of those who voted either a partial Puppy slate or a full Puppy slate may still have participated in the Hugo Awards anyway and without those published slates to go on as a guide, there is no way to predict how the votes would have gone. Larry Correia would probably still receive a nomination for Monster Hunter Nemesis (he had the second highest novel nominations, but declined prior to the announcement of the ballot). But there's really no way to tell how this would shake out in the absence of public slates, some of which appear to have been voted on right down the line. It would not be nearly as simple as removing all of the SP / RP nominated works off of the ballot, though for this exercise that is what I am going to do. The Long Form Editors, for example, were more than worthy nominees and I should expect that they would be in the mix. Toni Weisskopf for one would almost certainly be nominated without the slates but with the participation of those who voted for the slates. She certainly should have been nominated in the past without the boost that Larry Correia gave her with a previous iteration of Sad Puppies, but unfortunately she was not. I have a number of opinions as to what went down with the Hugo Awards, specifically with the editors, but that is a separate essay which will be written and will also tie into this one.
So - on to A Potential 2015 Non-Puppies Hugo Award Ballot. The actual final ballot can be found here.
This is only using the nomination data provided by Sasquan. The works in italics are those added to the ballot by the absence of Puppies. The number next to the work reflects the number of votes.
Best Novel
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie (279)
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison (256)
The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (210) - Winner
Lock In, by John Scalzi (168)
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett (160)
What is interesting here is that I am including The Three-Body Problem as one of the non-puppy nominees to make the ballot. The reason for that is that it was only the after-the-fact withdrawal of Marko Kloos which allowed Cixin Liu to make the final ballot. I do think there is a chance Skin Game could have made the ballot anyway as Jim Butcher is crazy popular (he ended up being the top vote getter). I would have loved to see City of Stairs make the ballot. Heck, I nominated it! 3/5 would have been my picks.
Best Novella
The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss (124)
The Regular, by Ken Liu (104)
Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress (103)
Grand Jete (The Great Leap), by Rachel Swirsky (95)
The Mothers of Voorhisville, by Mark Rickert (83)
All non-nominees are new. Again, 3/5 were on my nomination ballot, with my other two being the next two down.
Best Novelette
The Day the World Turned Upside Down, by Thomas Olde Huevelt (72) - Winner
Each to Each, by Seanan McGuire (69)
The Devil in America, by Kai Ashante Wilson (65)
The Litany of Earth, by Ruthana Emrys (54)
The Magician and Laplace's Demon, by Tom Crosshill (54)
I only nominated one novelette and it did not make the top fifteen.
Best Short Story
Jackalope Wives, by Ursula Vernon (76)
The Breath of War, by Aliette de Bodard (73)
The Truth About Owls, by Amal El Mohtar (48)
When it Ends, He Catches Her, by Eugie Foster (44)
A Kiss With Teeth, by Max Gladstone (41)
This is an interesting category because it invokes Section 3.8.5 of the WSFS Constitution, which states that to receive a nomination a work must receive nomination from at least 5% of the ballots which voted on this category. The only exception is that at minimum three nominees will be listed. Only the Vernon and de Bodard eclipse that 5% line, but to make three you would also include El Mohtar's story. So, it should be only those three. But this is another place where you can start playing with numbers. If the puppy related voters did not nominate, all five are now likely above 5%. But if they split their votes across a wider board then a) a different story is probably on the ballot (Annie Bellet's "Goodnight Stars", most likely) or b) there are still only three nominations because it is difficult to get 5% of the nominations for short story. In other news, 0/5 of my nominations would have made the ballot, and none of them were in the top fifteen.
Best Related Work
What Makes This Book so Great, by Jo Walton (105)
Chicks Dig Gaming, by Jennifer Brozek, Robert Smith, and Lars Pearson (92)
Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology, by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Taylor (83)
Invisible: Personal Essays on Representation in SF, by Jim C Hines (79)
Tropes vs Women: Women as Background Decoration, by Anita Sarkeesian (77)
1/5 from my nominating ballot (Jo Walton's book)
Best Graphic Story
Ms Marvel: No Normal, by G. Willow Wilson (145) - Winner
Saga: Volume 3, by Brian K. Vaughan (110)
Rat Queens: Sass and Sorcery, by Kurtis J. Weibe (64)
Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick, by Matt Fraction (60)
Saga: Volume 4, by Brian K. Vaughan (59)
1/5 from my nominating ballot (Saga 3).
Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (295)
Edge of Tomorrow (204)
Big Hero 6 (183)
Snowpiercer (131)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (109)
I'm not convinced this is a category that would have been any different on the final ballot without any puppy voting whatsoever. But, if I'm being fair to this exercise, I have to pull them. 2/5 of these were on my nominating ballot, but so were Interstellar and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form
Doctor Who: "Listen" (89)
Oprhan Black: "By Means Which Have Never Been Tried Yet" (71) - Winner
Agents of SHIELD: "Turn, Turn, Turn" (62)
Game of Thrones: "The Lion and the Rose" (61)
The Legend of Korra: "The Last Stand" (47)
Best Editor: Short Form
John Joseph Adams (149)
Neil Clarke (133)
Ellen Datlow (108)
Jonathan Strahan (101)
Sheila Williams (95)
0/2 of my nominating ballot still would have made it, though my two were both the next up after Sheila Williams. This would have been a solid and an outstanding lineup, but then those who made the final ballot also would have been solid and fresh choices.
Best Editor: Long Form
Liz Gorinsky (96)
Beth Meacham (69)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (65)
Lee Harris (35)
Anne Perry (31)
Devi Pillai (31)
Jenni Hill (31)
As with Short Story, four of the seven potential nominees did not surpass the 5% mark, which means we would have only three nominees here. Except that I think Toni Weisskopf probably would have had enough votes to go Top 4 without the SP / RP slates and there's just no way to tell about Sowards and Gilbert. I have very strong thoughts about how the voting went down for Long Form Editor (spoiler for the next article, I disagree with it) because the lineup that actually made the ballot: very strong and worthy.
Best Professional Artist
Julie Dillon (136) - Winner
John Picacio (97)
Galen Dara (68)
Stephan Martiniere (65)
Chris McGrath (46)
3/5 from my nominating ballot.
Best Semiprozine
Lightspeed (159) - Winner
Strange Horizons (152)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies (94)
The Book Smugglers (84)
Interzone (49)
Best Fanzine
Journey Planet (68) - Winner
The Drink Tank (58)
Lady Business (51)
File 770 (50)
A Dribble of Ink (46)
2/5 from my nominating ballot (A Dribble of Ink and Lady Business)
Best Fancast
Galactic Suburbia (80) - Winner
Tea and Jeopardy (69)
The Coode Street Podcast (68)
Verity! (66)
The Skiffy and Fanty Show (60)
Here's where I point out how tight the line can be between making the ballot and not. Coode Street, third here, missed the actual ballot by 1 nomination.
Best Fan Writer
Laura J. Mixon (129) - Winner
Abigail Nussbaum (89)
Liz Bourke (78)
Natalie Luhrs (76)
Mark Oshiro (69)
You will note that I am nowhere near this list. I would need to see a full nomination breakout (including everyone receiving votes), but I believe I received up to three (so I was told by someone who included me and recommended me to others) - none of which were from me. So, that's nice.
Best Fan Artist
Steve Stiles (48)
Brad W. Foster (29)
Ninni Aalto (28)
Spring Schoenhuth (26)
Elizabeth Leggett (23) - Winner
I believe this is the only category untouched by the SP / RP slates.
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Wesley Chu (106) - Winner
Andy Weir (95)
Alyssa Wong (80)
Carmen Maria Marchado (61)
Django Wexler (60)
1/5 were from my nominating ballot, but three more were in the top fifteen receiving nominations.
What I want to do this year is to look at those nominating numbers, but rather than talk about how close some works were to making the ballot, I want to look at what the ballot might have looked like had the Sad Puppies slate and Rabid Puppies slate not existed.
Now, I will freely acknowledge that this is a difficult thing to do because many of those who voted either a partial Puppy slate or a full Puppy slate may still have participated in the Hugo Awards anyway and without those published slates to go on as a guide, there is no way to predict how the votes would have gone. Larry Correia would probably still receive a nomination for Monster Hunter Nemesis (he had the second highest novel nominations, but declined prior to the announcement of the ballot). But there's really no way to tell how this would shake out in the absence of public slates, some of which appear to have been voted on right down the line. It would not be nearly as simple as removing all of the SP / RP nominated works off of the ballot, though for this exercise that is what I am going to do. The Long Form Editors, for example, were more than worthy nominees and I should expect that they would be in the mix. Toni Weisskopf for one would almost certainly be nominated without the slates but with the participation of those who voted for the slates. She certainly should have been nominated in the past without the boost that Larry Correia gave her with a previous iteration of Sad Puppies, but unfortunately she was not. I have a number of opinions as to what went down with the Hugo Awards, specifically with the editors, but that is a separate essay which will be written and will also tie into this one.
So - on to A Potential 2015 Non-Puppies Hugo Award Ballot. The actual final ballot can be found here.
This is only using the nomination data provided by Sasquan. The works in italics are those added to the ballot by the absence of Puppies. The number next to the work reflects the number of votes.
Best Novel
Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie (279)
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison (256)
The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (210) - Winner
Lock In, by John Scalzi (168)
City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett (160)
What is interesting here is that I am including The Three-Body Problem as one of the non-puppy nominees to make the ballot. The reason for that is that it was only the after-the-fact withdrawal of Marko Kloos which allowed Cixin Liu to make the final ballot. I do think there is a chance Skin Game could have made the ballot anyway as Jim Butcher is crazy popular (he ended up being the top vote getter). I would have loved to see City of Stairs make the ballot. Heck, I nominated it! 3/5 would have been my picks.
Best Novella
The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss (124)
The Regular, by Ken Liu (104)
Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress (103)
Grand Jete (The Great Leap), by Rachel Swirsky (95)
The Mothers of Voorhisville, by Mark Rickert (83)
All non-nominees are new. Again, 3/5 were on my nomination ballot, with my other two being the next two down.
Best Novelette
The Day the World Turned Upside Down, by Thomas Olde Huevelt (72) - Winner
Each to Each, by Seanan McGuire (69)
The Devil in America, by Kai Ashante Wilson (65)
The Litany of Earth, by Ruthana Emrys (54)
The Magician and Laplace's Demon, by Tom Crosshill (54)
I only nominated one novelette and it did not make the top fifteen.
Best Short Story
Jackalope Wives, by Ursula Vernon (76)
The Breath of War, by Aliette de Bodard (73)
The Truth About Owls, by Amal El Mohtar (48)
When it Ends, He Catches Her, by Eugie Foster (44)
A Kiss With Teeth, by Max Gladstone (41)
This is an interesting category because it invokes Section 3.8.5 of the WSFS Constitution, which states that to receive a nomination a work must receive nomination from at least 5% of the ballots which voted on this category. The only exception is that at minimum three nominees will be listed. Only the Vernon and de Bodard eclipse that 5% line, but to make three you would also include El Mohtar's story. So, it should be only those three. But this is another place where you can start playing with numbers. If the puppy related voters did not nominate, all five are now likely above 5%. But if they split their votes across a wider board then a) a different story is probably on the ballot (Annie Bellet's "Goodnight Stars", most likely) or b) there are still only three nominations because it is difficult to get 5% of the nominations for short story. In other news, 0/5 of my nominations would have made the ballot, and none of them were in the top fifteen.
Best Related Work
What Makes This Book so Great, by Jo Walton (105)
Chicks Dig Gaming, by Jennifer Brozek, Robert Smith, and Lars Pearson (92)
Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology, by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Taylor (83)
Invisible: Personal Essays on Representation in SF, by Jim C Hines (79)
Tropes vs Women: Women as Background Decoration, by Anita Sarkeesian (77)
1/5 from my nominating ballot (Jo Walton's book)
Best Graphic Story
Ms Marvel: No Normal, by G. Willow Wilson (145) - Winner
Saga: Volume 3, by Brian K. Vaughan (110)
Rat Queens: Sass and Sorcery, by Kurtis J. Weibe (64)
Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick, by Matt Fraction (60)
Saga: Volume 4, by Brian K. Vaughan (59)
1/5 from my nominating ballot (Saga 3).
Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (295)
Edge of Tomorrow (204)
Big Hero 6 (183)
Snowpiercer (131)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (109)
I'm not convinced this is a category that would have been any different on the final ballot without any puppy voting whatsoever. But, if I'm being fair to this exercise, I have to pull them. 2/5 of these were on my nominating ballot, but so were Interstellar and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form
Doctor Who: "Listen" (89)
Oprhan Black: "By Means Which Have Never Been Tried Yet" (71) - Winner
Agents of SHIELD: "Turn, Turn, Turn" (62)
Game of Thrones: "The Lion and the Rose" (61)
The Legend of Korra: "The Last Stand" (47)
Best Editor: Short Form
John Joseph Adams (149)
Neil Clarke (133)
Ellen Datlow (108)
Jonathan Strahan (101)
Sheila Williams (95)
0/2 of my nominating ballot still would have made it, though my two were both the next up after Sheila Williams. This would have been a solid and an outstanding lineup, but then those who made the final ballot also would have been solid and fresh choices.
Best Editor: Long Form
Liz Gorinsky (96)
Beth Meacham (69)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (65)
Lee Harris (35)
Anne Perry (31)
Devi Pillai (31)
Jenni Hill (31)
As with Short Story, four of the seven potential nominees did not surpass the 5% mark, which means we would have only three nominees here. Except that I think Toni Weisskopf probably would have had enough votes to go Top 4 without the SP / RP slates and there's just no way to tell about Sowards and Gilbert. I have very strong thoughts about how the voting went down for Long Form Editor (spoiler for the next article, I disagree with it) because the lineup that actually made the ballot: very strong and worthy.
Best Professional Artist
Julie Dillon (136) - Winner
John Picacio (97)
Galen Dara (68)
Stephan Martiniere (65)
Chris McGrath (46)
3/5 from my nominating ballot.
Best Semiprozine
Lightspeed (159) - Winner
Strange Horizons (152)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies (94)
The Book Smugglers (84)
Interzone (49)
Best Fanzine
Journey Planet (68) - Winner
The Drink Tank (58)
Lady Business (51)
File 770 (50)
A Dribble of Ink (46)
2/5 from my nominating ballot (A Dribble of Ink and Lady Business)
Best Fancast
Galactic Suburbia (80) - Winner
Tea and Jeopardy (69)
The Coode Street Podcast (68)
Verity! (66)
The Skiffy and Fanty Show (60)
Here's where I point out how tight the line can be between making the ballot and not. Coode Street, third here, missed the actual ballot by 1 nomination.
Best Fan Writer
Laura J. Mixon (129) - Winner
Abigail Nussbaum (89)
Liz Bourke (78)
Natalie Luhrs (76)
Mark Oshiro (69)
You will note that I am nowhere near this list. I would need to see a full nomination breakout (including everyone receiving votes), but I believe I received up to three (so I was told by someone who included me and recommended me to others) - none of which were from me. So, that's nice.
Best Fan Artist
Steve Stiles (48)
Brad W. Foster (29)
Ninni Aalto (28)
Spring Schoenhuth (26)
Elizabeth Leggett (23) - Winner
I believe this is the only category untouched by the SP / RP slates.
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Wesley Chu (106) - Winner
Andy Weir (95)
Alyssa Wong (80)
Carmen Maria Marchado (61)
Django Wexler (60)
1/5 were from my nominating ballot, but three more were in the top fifteen receiving nominations.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
2015 Hugo Award Winners
(Via Locus and my entire internet)
Below are the winners of the 2015 Hugo Awards. Congratulations to all the winners!
Best Novel: The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
Best Novella: No Award
Best Novelette: The Day the World Turned Upside Down, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Best Short Story: No Award
Best Dramatic Presentation - Long: Guardians of the Galaxy
Best Dramatic Presentation - Short: Orphan Black "By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried"
Best Related Work: No Award
Best Graphic Story: Ms Marvel: No Normal
Best Professional Editor - Long Form: No Award
Best Professional Editor - Short Form: No Award
Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon
Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed
Best Fanzine: Journey Planet
Best Fancast: Galactic Suburbia Podcast
Best Fan Writer: Laura J Mixon
Best Fan Artist: Elizabeth Leggett
John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Wesley Chu
I have a whole lot of additional thoughts regarding the awards and everything, but those will have to wait until this week because I don't have quite enough time to get my thoughts down.
Below are the winners of the 2015 Hugo Awards. Congratulations to all the winners!
Best Novel: The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
Best Novella: No Award
Best Novelette: The Day the World Turned Upside Down, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Best Short Story: No Award
Best Dramatic Presentation - Long: Guardians of the Galaxy
Best Dramatic Presentation - Short: Orphan Black "By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried"
Best Related Work: No Award
Best Graphic Story: Ms Marvel: No Normal
Best Professional Editor - Long Form: No Award
Best Professional Editor - Short Form: No Award
Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon
Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed
Best Fanzine: Journey Planet
Best Fancast: Galactic Suburbia Podcast
Best Fan Writer: Laura J Mixon
Best Fan Artist: Elizabeth Leggett
John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Wesley Chu
I have a whole lot of additional thoughts regarding the awards and everything, but those will have to wait until this week because I don't have quite enough time to get my thoughts down.
Monday, August 03, 2015
Hugo Awards 2015: My Final Ballot
Now that the deadline has passed and I have done all the Hugo reading and consuming that I am going to do this year, the final ballot I submitted is below. The full list of nominees can be found here.
Best Novel (my thoughts)
1. Ancillary Sword
2. The Goblin Emperor
3. Skin Game
4. The Three-Body Problem
5. The Dark Between the Stars
Best Novella (my thoughts)
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"
Best Novelette (my thoughts)
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"
Best Short Story (my thoughts)
1. "On a Spiritual Plain"
2. "A Single Samurai"
3. "Totaled"
4. "Turncoat"
5. No Award
Best Related Work (my thoughts)
1. "The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF"
2. "Why Science Is Never Settled"
3. Letters from Gardner
4. No Award
Best Graphic Story (my thoughts)
1. Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick
2. Saga, Volume 3
3. Rat Queens: Sass and Sorcery
4. Ms. Marvel: New Normal
5. No Award
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
1. Interstellar
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. The LEGO Movie
-Note: I did not get the chance to watch Edge of Tomorrow
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
1. Game of Thrones: "The Mountain and the Viper"
-Note: I did not get the chance to watch the other nominees
Best Editor, Short Form
-No Vote
Best Editor, Long Form (my thoughts)
1. Toni Weisskopf
2. Anne Sowards
3. Sheila Gilbert
4. Jim Minz
5. Vox Day
Best Professional Artist (my thoughts)
1. Nick Greenwood
2. Julie Dillon
3. Alan Pollack
4. Kirk DouPonce
5. No Award
Best Semiprozine
-No Vote
Best Fanzine (my thoughts)
1. Elitist Book Reviews
2. Journey Planet
3. Tangent Online
4. No Award
Best Fancast (my thoughts)
1. Tea and Jeopardy
2. Galactic Suburbia
3. Adventures in SF Publishing
4. The Sci Phi Show
5. Dungeon Crawlers Radio
Best Fan Writer
1. Jeffro Johnson
2. Laura Mixon
3. Cedar Sanderson
4. No Award
5. Amanda Green
Best Fan Artist (my thoughts)
1. Elizabeth Leggett
2. Spring Schoenhuth
3. No Award
The John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer
1. Wesley Chu
2. Kary English
3. Jason Cordova
Note: I did not get the chance to read the work of Rolf Nelson or Eric Raymond
Best Novel (my thoughts)
1. Ancillary Sword
2. The Goblin Emperor
3. Skin Game
4. The Three-Body Problem
5. The Dark Between the Stars
Best Novella (my thoughts)
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"
Best Novelette (my thoughts)
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"
Best Short Story (my thoughts)
1. "On a Spiritual Plain"
2. "A Single Samurai"
3. "Totaled"
4. "Turncoat"
5. No Award
Best Related Work (my thoughts)
1. "The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF"
2. "Why Science Is Never Settled"
3. Letters from Gardner
4. No Award
Best Graphic Story (my thoughts)
1. Sex Criminals: One Weird Trick
2. Saga, Volume 3
3. Rat Queens: Sass and Sorcery
4. Ms. Marvel: New Normal
5. No Award
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
1. Interstellar
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. The LEGO Movie
-Note: I did not get the chance to watch Edge of Tomorrow
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
1. Game of Thrones: "The Mountain and the Viper"
-Note: I did not get the chance to watch the other nominees
Best Editor, Short Form
-No Vote
Best Editor, Long Form (my thoughts)
1. Toni Weisskopf
2. Anne Sowards
3. Sheila Gilbert
4. Jim Minz
5. Vox Day
Best Professional Artist (my thoughts)
1. Nick Greenwood
2. Julie Dillon
3. Alan Pollack
4. Kirk DouPonce
5. No Award
Best Semiprozine
-No Vote
Best Fanzine (my thoughts)
1. Elitist Book Reviews
2. Journey Planet
3. Tangent Online
4. No Award
Best Fancast (my thoughts)
1. Tea and Jeopardy
2. Galactic Suburbia
3. Adventures in SF Publishing
4. The Sci Phi Show
5. Dungeon Crawlers Radio
Best Fan Writer
1. Jeffro Johnson
2. Laura Mixon
3. Cedar Sanderson
4. No Award
5. Amanda Green
Best Fan Artist (my thoughts)
1. Elizabeth Leggett
2. Spring Schoenhuth
3. No Award
The John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer
1. Wesley Chu
2. Kary English
3. Jason Cordova
Note: I did not get the chance to read the work of Rolf Nelson or Eric Raymond
Saturday, August 01, 2015
Books Read: July 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 July.
1. Cibola Burn, by James S. A. Corey
2. The Breadwinner, by Stevie Kopas
3. Consider Phlebas, by Iain Banks
4. A Crown of Cold Silver, by Alex Marshall
5. Daughters of the North, by Sarah Hall
6. Adrift on the Sea of Rains, by Ian Sales
7. Die Trying, by Lee Child
8. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
9. High Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz
10. Darkspell, by Katherine Kerr
11. Terms of Enlistment, by Marko Kloos
12. Crucible of Gold, by Naomi Novik
13. Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee
14. Justice Calling, by Annie Bellet
15. The Eye With Which the Universe Beholds Itself, by Ian Sales
16. Witch Hunt, by Annie Bellet
17. The Assassins, by Gayle Lynds
18. The Complete Peanuts: 1995-1996, by Charles M. Schulz
Best Book of the Month: It was close between Daughters of the North and Darkspell, but I think the slight edge is going to go to Sarah Hall's wonderful and beautifully ugly novel.
Disappointment of the Month: I hesitate to call The Three-Body Problem a true disappointment, because usually I reserve this space for what is often the "worst book of the month", and Cixin Liu's novel is certainly not that. But I had such high expectations for it based on all of the hype and the buzz and the award nominations and it was...also not that. The Three-Body Problem is a novel of ideas and some cool science-y type stuff. Remember, kids, I have a degree in English so when science becomes a major aspect of a novel, it's all hand waving magic to me. I like it, but it's magic. The ideas of The Three-Body Problem were cool and interesting and I wanted to know more about what happened next. The characters and the dialogue and the prose...I expected something different. Better? Cleaner? Less cardboard? Different. I'll still read The Dark Forest, it's just that my expectations will have changed and be more in line with what these books are.
Discovery of the Month: I had never read the short fiction of Ian Sales before learning about his Apollo Quartet, a series of novellas (and one short novel, I think) dealing with and around the space program - but exploring different science fictional ideas. The first two volumes are tightly told and thrilling stories and while they are not left with cliff hanger endings and each told very complete stories I was itching to know what happened after the final page. What happened next?
Worth Noting: I thought Katherine Kerr's Daggerspell was fantastic. Darkspell is even better. I hope to not let two years pass before reading The Bristling Wood.
Gender Breakdown: July was a weird month for me. At several times I thought the gender balance was going to skew heavily towards male writers, only to even the course and have it totter right back again. I swear I had this month planned out, but it all went wonky. I had some issues with my Nook at the end of the month, so several books I had loaded from the library became unreadable and I had to pull stuff I had on there from other sources, which helped me read two of Annie Bellet's novellas and one more Ian Sales. As for the breakdown, nine of of the eighteen books I read were written by women (Stevie Kopas is female). This brings my yearly total to 49 out of 86 books and moves my percentage to 56.97%. I am still on track.
Previous Months:
January
February
March
April
May
June
1. Cibola Burn, by James S. A. Corey
2. The Breadwinner, by Stevie Kopas
3. Consider Phlebas, by Iain Banks
4. A Crown of Cold Silver, by Alex Marshall
5. Daughters of the North, by Sarah Hall
6. Adrift on the Sea of Rains, by Ian Sales
7. Die Trying, by Lee Child
8. The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
9. High Deryni, by Katherine Kurtz
10. Darkspell, by Katherine Kerr
11. Terms of Enlistment, by Marko Kloos
12. Crucible of Gold, by Naomi Novik
13. Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee
14. Justice Calling, by Annie Bellet
15. The Eye With Which the Universe Beholds Itself, by Ian Sales
16. Witch Hunt, by Annie Bellet
17. The Assassins, by Gayle Lynds
18. The Complete Peanuts: 1995-1996, by Charles M. Schulz
Best Book of the Month: It was close between Daughters of the North and Darkspell, but I think the slight edge is going to go to Sarah Hall's wonderful and beautifully ugly novel.
Disappointment of the Month: I hesitate to call The Three-Body Problem a true disappointment, because usually I reserve this space for what is often the "worst book of the month", and Cixin Liu's novel is certainly not that. But I had such high expectations for it based on all of the hype and the buzz and the award nominations and it was...also not that. The Three-Body Problem is a novel of ideas and some cool science-y type stuff. Remember, kids, I have a degree in English so when science becomes a major aspect of a novel, it's all hand waving magic to me. I like it, but it's magic. The ideas of The Three-Body Problem were cool and interesting and I wanted to know more about what happened next. The characters and the dialogue and the prose...I expected something different. Better? Cleaner? Less cardboard? Different. I'll still read The Dark Forest, it's just that my expectations will have changed and be more in line with what these books are.
Discovery of the Month: I had never read the short fiction of Ian Sales before learning about his Apollo Quartet, a series of novellas (and one short novel, I think) dealing with and around the space program - but exploring different science fictional ideas. The first two volumes are tightly told and thrilling stories and while they are not left with cliff hanger endings and each told very complete stories I was itching to know what happened after the final page. What happened next?
Worth Noting: I thought Katherine Kerr's Daggerspell was fantastic. Darkspell is even better. I hope to not let two years pass before reading The Bristling Wood.
Gender Breakdown: July was a weird month for me. At several times I thought the gender balance was going to skew heavily towards male writers, only to even the course and have it totter right back again. I swear I had this month planned out, but it all went wonky. I had some issues with my Nook at the end of the month, so several books I had loaded from the library became unreadable and I had to pull stuff I had on there from other sources, which helped me read two of Annie Bellet's novellas and one more Ian Sales. As for the breakdown, nine of of the eighteen books I read were written by women (Stevie Kopas is female). This brings my yearly total to 49 out of 86 books and moves my percentage to 56.97%. I am still on track.
Previous Months:
January
February
March
April
May
June
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
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.
Monday, July 27, 2015
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
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.
The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
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.
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
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
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)
- 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)
- “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)
- 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)
- 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)
- Samuel Araya
- Galen Dara
- Jeffrey Alan Love
- Erik Mohr
- John Picacio
- 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
- 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
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)
- 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)
- “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)
- 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)
- 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)
- Samuel Araya
- Galen Dara
- Jeffrey Alan Love
- Erik Mohr
- John Picacio
- 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
- 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
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)
- 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)
- “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)
- 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)
- 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)
- Samuel Araya
- Galen Dara
- Jeffrey Alan Love
- Erik Mohr
- John Picacio
- 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
- 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
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)
- 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)
- “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)
- 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)
- 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)
- Samuel Araya
- Galen Dara
- Jeffrey Alan Love
- Erik Mohr
- John Picacio
- 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
- 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
Thursday, July 02, 2015
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
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
Friday, June 19, 2015
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.
“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.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
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.
“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)
"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.
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