my Hugo ballot, part 1

[psocoptera]

A couple of things I believe to be true: no matter what happens with the Hugos, some assholes are going to say it was exactly what they wanted, and claim it as an excuse to do more assholish things. No matter what I do with my voting, someone I respect would think I was doing the wrong thing, since there are reasonable competing schools of thought on this. No matter what happens with the Hugos, for a lot of people any results from this year are always going to have a little implicit asterisk by them. No matter what I do with my voting, I will be happier if the outcomes I hope for in my heart of hearts come true than if something else happens.

Partial ballot and some reasoning behind the cut.

Novel
1 - Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie
2 - Uprooted, Naomi Novik
3 - The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
4 - No Award
did not rank Seveneves and that Butcher book
(So right off the bat, I'm breaking my own rule about must have read the work in question because I've skimmed a whole bunch of Fifth Season but I just can't handle the subject matter. But I believe it from my skimming to be a creative and well-written novel that would be worthy of a Hugo and it feels weird to No-Award it just because of my own content issues.)

Novella
1 - Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
2 - No Award
3 - Perfect State, Brandon Sanderson
4 - Penric's Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold
5 - Slow Bullets, Alastair Reynolds
6 - I guess by default The Builders
(In a normal year, I would have ranked all of these above No Award (and I probably would have bothered to read the last one), grudging acceptance of mediocre fiction is part of the Hugo game. But it pisses me off that Bujold and Sanderson haven't used their standing in the field to take more of a stand - Bujold could have rejected this nomination and never noticed a difference in her list of them - so, fuck it, rabies-free or go home.)

Novelette
1 - Folding Beijing, Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu
2 - And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead, Brooke Bolander
3 - No Award
4 - Obits, Stephen King
didn't rank two Castalia stories
(And now, 180° turn, Folding Beijing *is* a rabid nomination, but a) this story was awesome and b) I just don't see Jingfang, who's had a couple of short stories translated, but not her novels, as being in the same position as someone like Bujold when it comes to accepting or declining a nomination. I mean, if a Hugo win made the difference for getting her novels translated, that could be huge for her. But then, there's rabies-response voting further down in that I didn't like the Bolander story much and probably preferred the King but the Bolander was the only rabies-free choice.)

Short Story
1 - Cat Pictures Please, Naomi Kritzer
2 - No Award
3 - Space Raptor Butt Invasion, Chuck Tingle
4 - Asymmetrical Warfare, S.R. Algernon
Didn't rank the Vox ones
(Okay, look. I love everything Tingle is doing re this nomination, including putting "Hugo Nominated Author" on all his covers. But... like... I put some serious effort into reading online short fiction to seek out really excellent works that I would like to see awarded, and I just don't want to give the award as a joke even if in the end it's a good joke we can all feel good about. (In the end. Heh.))

Best Related Work
1 - No Award
2 - an actual tire fire
3 - seriously, what the fuck

Best Graphic Story
1 - The Sandman: Overture
2 - The Divine
3 - No Award
(I couldn't get into Invisible Republic at all, but The Divine is a plausible nominee? I didn't really like it, but I could totally have a good conversation with a reasonable person about it deserving a Hugo? I was a little surprised Gaiman didn't withdraw Sandman, as he's taken himself out of consideration before, but then I thought, wait, he might not need the recognition himself, but he might want it for his artists, and I'm sure he doesn't want to ask/pressure them into giving it up, and, I mean, they fucking deserve it.)

Dramatics, Editors, Zines, Campbell Not A Hugos in a followup post probably this weekend after I finish reading/watching more stuff.