2014 Hugo Nominees: Novellas
Jun. 12th, 2014 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraNovellae?
Wakulla Springs, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages. I nominated this and it's still my #1 pick. Vivid and slow and rich. Some amazing description.
The Butcher of Khardov, Dan Wells. So I have to admit, when I opened the file and saw on the cover that this was a tie-in work for a game called "Warmachine", my first thought was, really? franchise fic for the Hugo?. And then I thought, wait a minute. I've read plenty of fanfiction that's as gorgeous and hits as hard as anything original. One of my favorite movies is based on a theme park ride. I recently enjoyed another movie based on a plastic building toy. So what if the main character here is also a mass-produced inch-and-a-half-tall paintable metal figurine, this could still be a great story about him! I mean, it wasn't - it was tedious and pointless and an embarrassment to the Hugo ballot. But it was unfair to assume that just from the game logo.
Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente. I liked this a lot. Weird ending, but some fantastic language and detail along the way. My #2.
"Equoid", Charles Stross. I really liked the take on unicorns (the horn is a parasitic/symbiotic cone snail), could have done without the tentacle-rape. (Very strongly played for horror, not, uh, the sort of thing Astolat might write.) I'm not all that into the Laundry universe in general - I've read other stories on Tor but haven't wanted to seek out the novels. Still don't. But such clever unicorns!
“The Chaplain’s Legacy”, Brad Torgersen. Unlike the rest of the nominees from the Correia Ballot so far, this story actually felt like it was nominated by people with whom I could have a conversation about science fiction. Like, we might have different tastes, but some shared interests too. After that awful novelette, I was braced for another one like that but longer, but I actually enjoyed reading this (the survival story, the moment when the queen flies). Torgersen's aliens are recognizably in dialogue with Vinge's skroderiders and Card's Buggers, not with anything terribly interesting to say, but at least he's riffing on good stuff. There is some profound stupidity about technology here - shoes are great, but nobody using a powerchair can ever know God - as well as a moral ontology I would find repugnant if it were real (I do not want any part of a favorites-playing God who intervenes to save humans after letting other sentient peoples be exterminated, thank you) - but those were not "how could this possibly even be on the ballot" level problems to me.
Wakulla Springs, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages. I nominated this and it's still my #1 pick. Vivid and slow and rich. Some amazing description.
The Butcher of Khardov, Dan Wells. So I have to admit, when I opened the file and saw on the cover that this was a tie-in work for a game called "Warmachine", my first thought was, really? franchise fic for the Hugo?. And then I thought, wait a minute. I've read plenty of fanfiction that's as gorgeous and hits as hard as anything original. One of my favorite movies is based on a theme park ride. I recently enjoyed another movie based on a plastic building toy. So what if the main character here is also a mass-produced inch-and-a-half-tall paintable metal figurine, this could still be a great story about him! I mean, it wasn't - it was tedious and pointless and an embarrassment to the Hugo ballot. But it was unfair to assume that just from the game logo.
Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente. I liked this a lot. Weird ending, but some fantastic language and detail along the way. My #2.
"Equoid", Charles Stross. I really liked the take on unicorns (the horn is a parasitic/symbiotic cone snail), could have done without the tentacle-rape. (Very strongly played for horror, not, uh, the sort of thing Astolat might write.) I'm not all that into the Laundry universe in general - I've read other stories on Tor but haven't wanted to seek out the novels. Still don't. But such clever unicorns!
“The Chaplain’s Legacy”, Brad Torgersen. Unlike the rest of the nominees from the Correia Ballot so far, this story actually felt like it was nominated by people with whom I could have a conversation about science fiction. Like, we might have different tastes, but some shared interests too. After that awful novelette, I was braced for another one like that but longer, but I actually enjoyed reading this (the survival story, the moment when the queen flies). Torgersen's aliens are recognizably in dialogue with Vinge's skroderiders and Card's Buggers, not with anything terribly interesting to say, but at least he's riffing on good stuff. There is some profound stupidity about technology here - shoes are great, but nobody using a powerchair can ever know God - as well as a moral ontology I would find repugnant if it were real (I do not want any part of a favorites-playing God who intervenes to save humans after letting other sentient peoples be exterminated, thank you) - but those were not "how could this possibly even be on the ballot" level problems to me.
