2019 Hugo Finalists!

At first pass, a good ballot with not a lot of big surprises, although I may be missing/forgetting things. See the whole thing here. Some comments on categories I nominate in:

Best Novel
The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)
Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)
Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Macmillan)
Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

Two here I haven't read (Kowal and Valente), one that I nominated (Novik). I'm a little sad Blackfish City didn't also make it but it is up for a Nebula, can't have everything.

Best Novella
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)
The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press / JABberwocky Literary Agency)

*All three* of my nominees (Okorafor, Clark, Robson); one that I haven't read (McGuire).

Best Novelette
“If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018)
“The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections,” by Tina Connolly (Tor.com, 11 July 2018)
“Nine Last Days on Planet Earth,” by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com, 19 September 2018)
The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
“The Thing About Ghost Stories,” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)
“When We Were Starless,” by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018)

Two of my nominees (Cho and Gregory), one I haven't read (Bolander) which I knew was going to make the ballot and I could read when they sent out the packet. Although, wait, I totally thought the Cho was a short story and nominated it thusly, so maybe I didn't technically nominate it, because I had already used all of my short story slots. Whoops. (ETA: I seem to have also failed to notice that the Kritzer story was a novelette in my recs. I'm providing bad information and that sucks and I'm sorry.)

Best Short Story
“The Court Magician,” by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, January 2018)
“The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society,” by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)
“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington,” by P. Djèlí Clark (Fireside Magazine, February 2018)
“STET,” by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)
“The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat,” by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine 23, July-August 2018)
“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,” by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, February 2018)

Well, I've read all six of these, which I guess means I can skip directly to making a prediction, except I don't have one ready to hand. Maybe the Bolander. The Harrow was one of my nominees.

As an interesting observation, if I'm right about everyone's genders there was exactly one man nominated in each of the four main fiction categories (Lee, Clark, Gregory, and Clark again). Seems okay. :)

Best Series
The Centenal Cycle, by Malka Older (Tor.com Publishing)
The Laundry Files, by Charles Stross (most recently Tor.com Publishing and Tor/Orbit)
Machineries of Empire, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
The October Daye Series, by Seanan McGuire (most recently DAW)
The Universe of Xuya, by Aliette de Bodard (most recently Subterranean Press)
Wayfarers, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)

Goooo Malka Older! I would just like to say that I'm going to be pissed off if Stross takes it when this is the field. (I don't dislike Stross - Lobsters totally blew my mind - but that was, like, what, twenty years ago, and isn't the Laundry series.) And I'll be unenthused but not surprised if McGuire does. Let's give it to someone doing really interesting universe-building like Lee or de Bodard if we don't like Older's thing, maybe? Also I've read at least one work of all of these (and all of two to four of them... I'm not sure I've read every Xuya story, and there might be Machineries stories I haven't read either) so I think I'm off the hook for series reading this year, which is a big win for my managing to read anything else in May-July.

Best Related Work
Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by Alec Nevala-Lee (Dey Street Books)
The Hobbit Duology (documentary in three parts), written and edited by Lindsay Ellis and Angelina Meehan (YouTube)
An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000, by Jo Walton (Tor)
www.mexicanxinitiative.com: The Mexicanx Initiative Experience at Worldcon 76 (Julia Rios, Libia Brenda, Pablo Defendini, John Picacio)
Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, by Ursula K. Le Guin with David Naimon (Tin House Books)

I feel twitchy and uncomfortable around this whole "AO3 as best related work" thing and maybe I'll try to unpack that at some point but for now I just want to express some discomfort with that.

Best Graphic Story
Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed, art by Sami Kivelä, colours by Jason Wordie, letters by Jim Campbell (BOOM! Studios)
Black Panther: Long Live the King, written by Nnedi Okorafor and Aaron Covington, art by André Lima Araújo, Mario Del Pennino and Tana Ford (Marvel)
Monstress, Volume 3: Haven, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)
On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden (First Second)
Paper Girls, Volume 4, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher (Image Comics)
Saga, Volume 9, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

On a Sunbeam! Plus more installments of serieses I don't mind reading (actually I think I did read volume four of Paper Girls back when I was writing it for femslashex) plus things by people who seem likely to write good comics. That all seems fine.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Annihilation
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
A Quiet Place
Sorry to Bother You
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Three of my nominees, and I am fascinated to see whether Spiderverse or Black Panther will take it. I, myself, am not even sure which of them gets my top vote. (Also I guess I'm going to have to decide whether I'm giving myself a pass on watching Annihilation and Quiet Place... maybe I'll compromise and just watch Annihilation, hm.)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Expanse: “Abaddon’s Gate”
Doctor Who: “Demons of the Punjab”
Dirty Computer
The Good Place: “Janet(s)”
The Good Place: “Jeremy Bearimy”
Doctor Who: “Rosa,” written by Malorie Blackman and Chris Chibnall, directed by Mark Tonderai (BBC)

I'm really pleased to see Dirty Computer make it; I think it's great for this category to continue to remember there are things other than TV episodes.

Best Professional Artist
Galen Dara
Jaime Jones
Victo Ngai
John Picacio
Yuko Shimizu
Charles Vess

I have no idea who Jaime Jones is, which is interesting. I'd like to bet now that Vess will take it for having done the illustrated Earthsea.

Best Semiprozine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Fireside Magazine
FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction
Shimmer
Strange Horizons
Uncanny Magazine

Oh hey, I bet we'll get some free FIYAH in the packet! Nice!

Best Fan Writer
Foz Meadows
James Davis Nicoll
Charles Payseur
Elsa Sjunneson-Henry
Alasdair Stuart
Bogi Takács

I'm glad to see Payseur and Takács on here.

Best Fan Artist
Sara Felix
Grace P. Fong
Meg Frank
Ariela Housman
Likhain (Mia Sereno)
Spring Schoenhuth

Ok... okay everybody, deep breath... WE HAVE A BALLOT WITH NEITHER BRAD FOSTER NOR STEVE STILES. For the first time since 1997. We did it, we acknowledged the existence of six entirely non-Foster-Stiles fan artists.

Best Art Book
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, illustrated by Charles Vess, written by Ursula K. Le Guin (Saga Press /Gollancz)
Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon, by Julie Dillon (self-published)
Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History, by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, Sam Witwer (Ten Speed Press)
Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, ed. John Fleskes (Flesk Publications)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie, by Ramin Zahed (Titan Books)
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, ed. Catherine McIlwaine (Bodleian Library)

I'm really curious what we're going to get in the packet for these. Presumably not the entire book as a PDF, although wouldn't that be nice if we did. (ETA: I didn't nominate in this category.)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Katherine Arden (2nd year of eligibility)
S.A. Chakraborty (2nd year of eligibility)
R.F. Kuang (1st year of eligibility)
Jeannette Ng (2nd year of eligibility)
Vina Jie-Min Prasad (2nd year of eligibility)
Rivers Solomon (2nd year of eligibility)

... this feels very much like second verse, same as the first. Which, I don't know, I mean, Prasad was my top choice last year but I didn't even nominate her this year because I wasn't that into her one new story, and Arden was my second place but I didn't like Girl in the Tower as much as Bear and the Nightingale, and Ng was my fourth place and I don't think has new work. I guess I hope that either I feel like Kingdom of Copper doesn't have the pacing problems of City of Brass, or Poppy War (Kuang's book) blows me away?

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton
Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi
The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black
Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland
The Invasion, by Peadar O’Guilin
Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman

I did nominate Tess, although I continue to feel like I'm maybe acting for someone not quite me who I nonetheless want to speak for. A hypothetical future of my kids, or something. I haven't read three of these (Clayton, Ireland, O'Guilin) so I guess this is actually where I'm going to need to do the most reading, especially since Invasion seems to be a book two.

Vonda McIntyre

I'm sad to hear the news about Vonda McIntyre. Dreamsnake is excellent, as I recall, and I've read "Little Faces" and I'm pretty sure her Star Wars novel although I don't remember anything about that, and Starfarers has been on my to-read list for awhile and Barbary and Fireflood less while.

But what I really want to talk about is "Looking for Satan", her Thieves' World story, where she hooked one of her OCs up with MZB's character Lythande. I don't want to talk about Lythande or MZB, except that my copy of the Lythande collection is actually *signed* by MZB, so every time I interact with it now I have this little cringe of revulsion for this cursed object, but I can't get rid of it because it has "Looking for Satan" in it.

The thing about "Looking for Satan" is that it's about a polycule. Well, that's a word I wouldn't have until much later. It's about a group of close friends from a distant, magical land - a much nicer place than the Thieves' World setting - who have formed a sort of adventuring party to come look for one of them who has gone missing. And they all love each other and have sex sometimes in various pairs or as a group, we are told, but the POV character is also free to start an (intentionally temporary) relationship with Lythande, and, look, I don't know whether this was actually the first thing I ever read that said that love didn't have to be exclusive and relationships didn't have to be at least potentially permanent and sex could be something shared by beloved friends rather than lovers in the passionate-romance sense. There was Gossamer Axe, which I might have read earlier or later, not sure. And some of that in the Song of the Lioness quartet, which I definitely read earlier, although in both of those the relationships are more like sequential than simultaneous/overlapping, and do eventually end in permanent monogamy. And, I mean, I'm sure I had read Stranger in a Strange Land earlier, but there was always something off-putting to me in SIASL's construction of gender and sexuality, whereas "Looking for Satan" (and Gossamer Axe) blew my tiny little mind and had this huge impact on my assumptions about what love and relationships could look like, years before I would ever meet actual poly people or start making relationship choices for myself.

Am I saying that I owe Vonda McIntyre for my marriage, given the, er, backstory thereof? Well, maybe a little. ;) I would definitely give her some credit for certain recurring themes in my fic. So, thank you, Vonda McIntyre. I promise except for this one post I'll mostly just tell people to read Dreamsnake. :)