my 2015 Hugo nominations - novelettes
Feb. 12th, 2015 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraA recap of novelettes (minus the five Giganotosaurus ones I liked but am not considering nominating):
Saltwater Economics, Jack Mierzwa. Field biology at the Salton Sea.
The Djinn Who Sought To Kill The Sun, Tahmeed Shafiq. Classic-feeling fantasy.
Giants, Peter Watts. Reprint from a 2014 source. Far-future space exploration story.
*Wine, Yoon Ha Lee. Dark SF-or-maybe-high-fantasy.
The Dead Star, The Satirist, and the Soldier, Rachel Sobel. Big-R Romantic tragedy.
Reborn, Ken Liu. Aliens in Boston; memory and accomodation.
*The End of the End of Everything, Dale Bailey. Art and death.
*The Litany of Earth, Ruthanna Emrys. Humanist Lovecraft story.
*The Colonel, Peter Watts. Interstitial between Blindsight and the sequel. Serious science fiction.
*The Last Log of the Lachrimosa, Alastair Reynolds. Space adventure-horror, meh ending.
The five in bold are the ones I think I'm nominating.
In many ways the piece of fiction that brought me the most joy this year was Sarah Rees Brennan's "Wings In The Morning" in Monstrous Affections, which I would *totally* nominate if it were a novella, but my best guess based on number of pages (I asked SRB for a wordcount but never heard back) is that it's a novelette, and - I'm not sure I want to use one of my novelette slots? Let me digress for a minute about my philosophy of nominating. Certainly my own personal reading pleasure is a major factor, but I also see the Hugos as an ongoing conversation in SFF fandom, and so I'm looking for works for the Hugos that I think everyone (for, you know, large-percentage values of "everyone") might like, or that I think everyone *ought* to read; works I want to send forward to readers in the future as representing SFF today, or that I think the future *will* consider significant and I want us in the present to look smart by recognizing contemporarily. As much as I am crazy fannish about that SRB story, I don't think it's as interesting a contribution to the bigger conversation as the rest of these. Also, I'm interested in applying my nominations where they might actually push something over the line into making the ballot, because I like having things I like on the ballot. "Wine" and "The Colonel" made the Locus 2014 recommended reading list, which is a sign of possible ballot potential. "Litany of Earth" also made the Locus list and I'm a little tempted to swap it out for "Reborn" which didn't, although Ken Liu is very ballotable in himself. Anyways, this is where I am right now with novelettes.
Saltwater Economics, Jack Mierzwa. Field biology at the Salton Sea.
The Djinn Who Sought To Kill The Sun, Tahmeed Shafiq. Classic-feeling fantasy.
Giants, Peter Watts. Reprint from a 2014 source. Far-future space exploration story.
*Wine, Yoon Ha Lee. Dark SF-or-maybe-high-fantasy.
The Dead Star, The Satirist, and the Soldier, Rachel Sobel. Big-R Romantic tragedy.
Reborn, Ken Liu. Aliens in Boston; memory and accomodation.
*The End of the End of Everything, Dale Bailey. Art and death.
*The Litany of Earth, Ruthanna Emrys. Humanist Lovecraft story.
*The Colonel, Peter Watts. Interstitial between Blindsight and the sequel. Serious science fiction.
*The Last Log of the Lachrimosa, Alastair Reynolds. Space adventure-horror, meh ending.
The five in bold are the ones I think I'm nominating.
In many ways the piece of fiction that brought me the most joy this year was Sarah Rees Brennan's "Wings In The Morning" in Monstrous Affections, which I would *totally* nominate if it were a novella, but my best guess based on number of pages (I asked SRB for a wordcount but never heard back) is that it's a novelette, and - I'm not sure I want to use one of my novelette slots? Let me digress for a minute about my philosophy of nominating. Certainly my own personal reading pleasure is a major factor, but I also see the Hugos as an ongoing conversation in SFF fandom, and so I'm looking for works for the Hugos that I think everyone (for, you know, large-percentage values of "everyone") might like, or that I think everyone *ought* to read; works I want to send forward to readers in the future as representing SFF today, or that I think the future *will* consider significant and I want us in the present to look smart by recognizing contemporarily. As much as I am crazy fannish about that SRB story, I don't think it's as interesting a contribution to the bigger conversation as the rest of these. Also, I'm interested in applying my nominations where they might actually push something over the line into making the ballot, because I like having things I like on the ballot. "Wine" and "The Colonel" made the Locus 2014 recommended reading list, which is a sign of possible ballot potential. "Litany of Earth" also made the Locus list and I'm a little tempted to swap it out for "Reborn" which didn't, although Ken Liu is very ballotable in himself. Anyways, this is where I am right now with novelettes.
