2018 Hugo finalists second half

[psocoptera]

Behind a cut again:

When we left off with Best Dramatic Long, I failed to make a prediction, so I'll make one here: I think Shape of Water best fits the pattern of what's been winning lately.

Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form

Black Mirror: “USS Callister,” written by William Bridges and Charlie Brooker, directed by Toby Haynes (House of Tomorrow)
“The Deep” [song], by Clipping (Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes)
Doctor Who: “Twice Upon a Time,” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay (BBC Cymru Wales)
The Good Place: “Michael’s Gambit,” written and directed by Michael Schur (Fremulon / 3 Arts Entertainment / Universal Television)
The Good Place: “The Trolley Problem,” written by Josh Siegal and Dylan Morgan, directed by Dean Holland (Fremulon / 3 Arts Entertainment / Universal Television)
Star Trek: Discovery: “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” written by Aron Eli Coleite & Jesse Alexander, directed by David M. Barrett (CBS Television Studios)

I look forward to watching the Black Mirror episode and would greatly appreciate input from people who watch Discovery or Good Place as to whether these episodes would be at all interesting to someone who isn't watching the series.

Best Editor – Short Form

John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Lee Harris
Jonathan Strahan
Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
Sheila Williams

Best Editor – Long Form

Sheila E. Gilbert
Joe Monti
Diana M. Pho
Devi Pillai
Miriam Weinberg
Navah Wolfe

I didn't nominate any editors (except for the editors of Djinn Falls In Love who might not have been eligible) but I recognize some names and this looks like a plausible ballot in both categories. (This seems like as good a time as any to say that as far as I can tell, this is an entirely dogcrap-free ballot, or at least I don't recognize anybody on here as being part of that crowd, huzzah.)

Best Professional Artist

Galen Dara
Kathleen Jennings
Bastien Lecouffe Deharme
Victo Ngai
John Picacio
Sana Takeda

I don't know who Jennings and Deharme are and will be curious to see. I'll predict Galen Dara though, on the theory that there might be a sort of "Dara's been around for a few years now maybe it's her turn" sentiment.

Best Semiprozine

Beneath Ceaseless Skies, editor-in-chief and publisher Scott H. Andrews
The Book Smugglers, edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James
Escape Pod, edited by Mur Lafferty, S.B. Divya, and Norm Sherman, with assistant editor Benjamin C. Kinney
Fireside Magazine, edited by Brian White and Julia Rios; managing editor Elsa Sjunneson-Henry; special feature editor Mikki Kendall; publisher & art director Pablo Defendini
Strange Horizons, edited by Kate Dollarhyde, Gautam Bhatia, A.J. Odasso, Lila Garrott, Heather McDougal, Ciro Faienza, Tahlia Day, Vanessa Rose Phin, and the Strange Horizons staff
Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, and Julia Rios; podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

Hm, maybe I should be reading Fireside. And/or Book Smugglers. And/or Escape Pod if there's a text version.

Best Fanzine

File 770, edited by Mike Glyer
Galactic Journey, edited by Gideon Marcus
Journey Planet, edited by Team Journey Planet
nerds of a feather, flock together, edited by The G, Vance Kotrla, and Joe Sherry
Rocket Stack Rank, edited by Greg Hullender and Eric Wong
SF Bluestocking, edited by Bridget McKinney

Hmm, I actually use Rocket Stack Rank unlike the rest of these things but I'm also getting the feeling that some of them at RSR may be dicks, so, that's tricky.

Best Fancast

The Coode Street Podcast, presented by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Ditch Diggers, presented by Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace
Fangirl Happy Hour, presented by Ana Grilo and Renay Williams
Galactic Suburbia, presented by Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce and Tansy Rayner Roberts; produced by Andrew Finch
Sword and Laser, presented by Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt
Verity!, presented by Deborah Stanish, Erika Ensign, Katrina Griffiths, L.M. Myles, Lynne M. Thomas, and Tansy Rayner Roberts

Best Fan Writer

Camestros Felapton
Sarah Gailey
Mike Glyer
Foz Meadows
Charles Payseur
Bogi Takács

I don't read them regularly but Bogi Takács seems to have interesting things to say whenever I do so I'm pleased to see them on this list. (Need to read their recent trans scifi anthology at some point...)

Best Fan Artist

Geneva Benton
Grace P. Fong
Maya Hahto
Likhain (M. Sereno)
Spring Schoenhuth
Steve Stiles

Yay, Geneva Benton! Also I just looked up Grace P. Fong and her stuff is gorgeous. Vexing that Steve Stiles is on this list - when will we be free. Well, maybe next year.

Best Series

The Books of the Raksura, by Martha Wells (Night Shade)
The Divine Cities, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway)
InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
The Memoirs of Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan (Tor US / Titan UK)
The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson (Tor US / Gollancz UK)
World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Harper Voyager / Spectrum Literary Agency)

OH GOD. So, okay, this is very difficult! Because I love Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls so much, but have been so underwhelmed with the Penric stories (although let's take a moment to celebrate none of them displacing something better on the novella ballot, that was really nice and not at all guaranteed), so I don't know how to balance that wrt Five Gods. And I haven't read half the Raksura books, but I liked the first three a lot, and I haven't read any of the Lady Trent books, but they're on my to-read list, but how can I possibly have time before voting? Also Divine Cities is apparently City of Stairs, which is also on my to-read list, AUGH this category is SO UNMANAGEABLE why did we doooo this. (Well, it wasn't me.)

John W. Campbell Not A Hugo

Katherine Arden
Sarah Kuhn
Jeannette Ng
Vina Jie-Min Prasad
Rebecca Roanhorse
Rivers Solomon

Sarah Kuhn's book is on my to-read list (at a priority 2, even) and Jeannette Ng wasn't but her book sounds interesting, so, yay. And I've already read Solomon's book so that's out of the way. (I didn't like it at all, but I know some people really did, so I'm not surprised to see Solomon on here, and might even predict them to win.)

The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) Award for Best Young Adult Book Which Is Apparently Not The Lodestar But Come On This Is Basically The First Lodestar Winner Even If It's Technically Not

Akata Warrior, by Nnedi Okorafor (Viking)
The Art of Starving, by Sam J. Miller (HarperTeen)
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman (Knopf)
In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan (Big Mouth House)
A Skinful of Shadows, by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan UK / Harry N. Abrams US)
Summer in Orcus, written by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), illustrated by Lauren Henderson (Sofawolf Press)

IN OTHER LANDS IN OTHER LANDS I am so excited. Disappointed but not really surprised not to see Thick As Thieves... I don't know why everyone is overlooking Megan Whalen Turner but signs were clearly pointing that way already. The Akata books and Art of Starving are on my to-read list (I loved Sam J. Miller's short fiction last year). I've been skittish about Hardinge... I really liked Well Witched, and then tried Fly By Night and bounced off of it completely to my great confusion (it *sounded* like it should be exactly my thing!), and since then all of her books sound so interesting but *are they really*? I was not impressed by Book of Dust but at least I've already read it. It's very interesting to me how little overlap there is here with the Norton nominees (just Art of Starving) although perhaps if there had been more of them we would have seen more overlap. I have no idea what the Hugo voters are going to do with this category, although Okorafor and Vernon are both popular.

So, concluding thoughts. One, I got nominees onto the ballot in pretty much every category where I made serious nominations... I didn't expect my YA graphic novels to make it into Graphic, or my possibly-not-qualified anthology editors to make it into Short Editors, and other than that I had hits everywhere and have basically already personally won Hugo Bingo or something, go me and also go all of these talented writers and artists who are getting recognized by lots of people beyond just me. Two, I'm still really enjoying 5&6, what a good process improvement. Will be interesting to see the stats on how EPH affected things. Three, setting aside the very difficult series situation, if I read all the fiction I haven't read, that's two novels, two novellas, two novelettes, one short story, five graphic novels plus the first volume of Bitch Planet, two more novels for the Campbell, and three novels for the YA plus the first Akata, which sounds doable? I mean, I say this with three books out from the library on multiple renewals that I just haven't been making progress in at all, but if I can get a bunch of the novels as ebooks in the packet, I should be fine, ebooks are always easier. Yay Hugos!

Comments

[psocoptera]

Intentions of parking myself in a half-dozen ebook queues thwarted by the ebooks I looked up mostly not having queues. Well, Akata Witch did and then I realized I already owned it, I seem to have bought it on sale last October, thank you past me. But, seriously, I was able to waltz right in to checking out Collapsing Empire (?) and Art of Starving, and I could have had the Kuhn book too, and am 1 of 1 for the Hardinge, this is not at all what I was expecting. (My theory was that I would try to get through everything else first and then think about serieses, but maybe I should try to get in some of those queues? I must have to wait a million weeks for *something*, right??)

[jedusor]

I wouldn't recommend trying to watch any single episode of The Good Place. If you do decide to watch from the beginning, avoid spoilers. My first viewing of season 1 was vastly improved by knowing nothing about it.

[psocoptera]

Hmm, good to know! I am somewhat significantly spoiled from various sources (although it's hard to say whether I'm spoiled for *everything* without, you know, hunting for spoilers I didn't already know) but am just as happy to file it under "I would have to watch the whole thing" and then not do that. :)

[jain]

Bastien Lecouffe Deharme is the illustrator whom Terry Goodkind bashed for doing a "laughably bad" cover for Goodkind's latest novel. Personally, I think the cover is all right but nothing outstanding. (I haven't checked out Deharme's other work.) And I feel sorry for whatever artist got bumped off the finalist list due to this kerfuffle, since it's almost certain that Deharme wouldn't have gotten so many votes without it. Still, Goodkind getting a bit of comeuppance in response to his being an asshole isn't a terrible thing.

Re: Hardinge, I have the impression that her books are quite different from each other, so you won't know what you're getting into until you're actually in it. The two books of hers I've read so far are The Lie Tree and Cuckoo Song. The Lie Tree is really interesting and has some very enjoyable characters and kept surprising me in a good way as I read it. While Cuckoo Song is one of my favorite YA historical fantasies ever, with a great post-WWI setting and a wonderfully depicted sibling relationship and, again, a lot of perfectly done narrative surprises.

And I'm also sad not to see Thick as Thieves as a Lodestar finalist (or The Queen's Thief for Best Series, though I didn't have high hopes for that one). Thick as Thieves, Amberlough for Best Novel, Tommy Arnold for Best Pro Artist, and Wonder Woman for BDP-LF were the four of my noms that I was really crossing my fingers for, and only getting one out of the four is a little disappointing.

[psocoptera]

Aha, I remember hearing something about the Goodkind thing. I appreciate this advice about Hardinge and will keep it in mind when I embark on Skinful of Shadows! There's supposed to be one more Queen's Thief book, right - or at least MWT said in an interview years ago that she was planning a 5th and 6th, and we got a 5th, so that part was accurate - so maybe we get one more shot in a few years at getting MWT some Hugo recognition? (Ok, I'm grasping at consolatory straws here, but dammit, they're SO GOOD...) Amberlough is on my to-read list although in the priority region where I might never actually get there but maybe based on this I'll bump it up a bit!

[ursula]

I would advise prioritizing the Lady Trent books! I like them very much, and I think they're a series where our tastes will overlap.

[psocoptera]

Ooh, thank you, good to know!