Akata Warrior + Hugo YA ballot
May. 17th, 2018 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraAkata Warrior, Nnedi Okorafor. Unfortunately I think I liked this less well than the first one. There were some really vivid images and gripping moments but the whole thing didn't quite hang together for me as a story. It just felt random what Okorafor was going to throw in there next, which isn't my favorite kind of narrative structure. And I don't really like any of the cast besides the protag, and there's nominally a romance but I didn't feel the chemistry. I don't know, the Nigerian culture angle continues to be sort of interesting, but right now I'm thinking I won't read the next one unless it ends up on a ballot. (It also continues to *totally* be Nigerian Harry Potter and there are *so many comparisons* you could make, although knowing Okorafor is grumpy about that comparison sucks some of the fun out of it. But it's not like that makes me stop seeing it.)
I have now read all six novels, so I'll leave a little space, and then make some predictions and talk about my ballot ranking behind a cut.
Space!
Cut!
My prediction is that voting in this category will be heavily driven by which books of it people actually read. Between this year's addition of the YA NotaHugo/ProtoLodestar and last year's of the Best Series Hugo, there is a *lot* more longform fiction in the picture than there was two years ago, and I think with these new categories in particular there's going to be a tendency for people to either vote for something that they happen to have already read and liked, or to read a couple of things that jump out of them and call it a day. And I think this is going to give a big advantage to the bigger-name authors who people will recognize when they look at the list, namely Pullman, Vernon, and Okorafor. (Vernon and Okorafor have both won previous Hugo awards; I think Pullman was actually only ever nominated indirectly, when the Golden Compass movie was up for Dramatic Long, but is huge in general.) So I think that people who only read one or two of the books will be most likely to read one or two of those three. People who read three or four of the books are likely to read all three of them, plus maybe Miller if they happen to notice he's also on the Norton ballot. YA people will recognize Hardinge and Brennan, but YA people were going to read five or six of the books anyways because they've been campaigning for this category and are excited to see it happening. Anyways, I'm going to call it for Vernon because I think it's hard to go wrong assuming that Hugo voters love Vernon.
My own ballot looks like this:
In Other Lands, Sarah Rees Brennan
A Skinful of Shadows, Frances Hardinge
Summer in Orcus, T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)
The Art of Starving, Sam J. Miller
Akata Warrior, Nnedi Okorafor
No Award
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman
First-place voting for In Other Lands... it's hard to explain just how much I love this book. Actually it's apparently impossible to explain in that I haven't actually written a review of it, because I have a hard time doing anything I care too much about. But I adore it and am in its fandom and would like to shower it with pointy rocket trophies.
Ranking the middle three is painful and I wish I could just give three second places but IRV does not work like that. The experience I had reading Summer In Orcus when Vernon was putting it out as a serial is so weirdly personal and intense, the way it was this act of trying to hold a little piece of the world together with the one thing she had. I still tear up when I reread the author's note. (I guess I've never actually reviewed that one either, because it wasn't in my head as a *book*, exactly. I didn't even think of nominating it until Chaos pointed out that I could.) Hard to disentangle those feelings around the book from feelings about the book itself. Which is that it's a good fantasy and portal fantasy and commentary on portal fantasies, but Skinful of Shadows is just *so* well constructed and satisfying in its slow build and last-act acceleration. And then Art of Starving was also so good, it feels wrong to put it in the bottom half, which is what fourth is, but I guess that's what happens when you have a bunch of good candidates.
Akata Warrior I was less excited about, as just discussed, but if people decide it's the exciting thing happening right now in YA, that doesn't seem like a terrible outcome. I mean, it's not my favorite thing by Okorafor I've read recently (that would be Binti: Night Masquerade, which I look forward to nominating next year) but *Okorafor* is certainly an exciting thing happening right now in sff in general, and if that halo-effectly nudged her into winning, that would feel very Hugos, honestly.
And then there's Belle Sauvage. Which had some great parts! But... I just really don't want to see it win, and I'm going to be angry if it does, if that's what we decide to put at the top of the page as the first ever YA award. I just keep thinking how when I was a kid I started a project to read all the Newbery winners (which I actually still haven't finished but have vague aims to do - I think I'm at about two thirds), and I don't like the idea of indirectly handing Belle Sauvage to some future young adult who decided to read all the Lodestars. The handling of the [redacted for spoilers I guess] was just not well done and gross and I hate that he decided to include that. I think a lot of people might disagree, like I would expect that some people who share a lot of my tastes would still really like this book, and I can respect that. But I, personally, would honestly prefer we not give the award this year than give it to this book, and so that's what I'm putting on my ballot. My twenty-years-ago self would probably faint from shock if I told her we were no-awarding *Philip Pullman*, and, like, Amber Spyglass is always going be close to my heart and inextricably intertwined with a certain time in my life, but that's not a permanent blank check.
I have now read all six novels, so I'll leave a little space, and then make some predictions and talk about my ballot ranking behind a cut.
Space!
Cut!
My prediction is that voting in this category will be heavily driven by which books of it people actually read. Between this year's addition of the YA NotaHugo/ProtoLodestar and last year's of the Best Series Hugo, there is a *lot* more longform fiction in the picture than there was two years ago, and I think with these new categories in particular there's going to be a tendency for people to either vote for something that they happen to have already read and liked, or to read a couple of things that jump out of them and call it a day. And I think this is going to give a big advantage to the bigger-name authors who people will recognize when they look at the list, namely Pullman, Vernon, and Okorafor. (Vernon and Okorafor have both won previous Hugo awards; I think Pullman was actually only ever nominated indirectly, when the Golden Compass movie was up for Dramatic Long, but is huge in general.) So I think that people who only read one or two of the books will be most likely to read one or two of those three. People who read three or four of the books are likely to read all three of them, plus maybe Miller if they happen to notice he's also on the Norton ballot. YA people will recognize Hardinge and Brennan, but YA people were going to read five or six of the books anyways because they've been campaigning for this category and are excited to see it happening. Anyways, I'm going to call it for Vernon because I think it's hard to go wrong assuming that Hugo voters love Vernon.
My own ballot looks like this:
In Other Lands, Sarah Rees Brennan
A Skinful of Shadows, Frances Hardinge
Summer in Orcus, T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon)
The Art of Starving, Sam J. Miller
Akata Warrior, Nnedi Okorafor
No Award
The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman
First-place voting for In Other Lands... it's hard to explain just how much I love this book. Actually it's apparently impossible to explain in that I haven't actually written a review of it, because I have a hard time doing anything I care too much about. But I adore it and am in its fandom and would like to shower it with pointy rocket trophies.
Ranking the middle three is painful and I wish I could just give three second places but IRV does not work like that. The experience I had reading Summer In Orcus when Vernon was putting it out as a serial is so weirdly personal and intense, the way it was this act of trying to hold a little piece of the world together with the one thing she had. I still tear up when I reread the author's note. (I guess I've never actually reviewed that one either, because it wasn't in my head as a *book*, exactly. I didn't even think of nominating it until Chaos pointed out that I could.) Hard to disentangle those feelings around the book from feelings about the book itself. Which is that it's a good fantasy and portal fantasy and commentary on portal fantasies, but Skinful of Shadows is just *so* well constructed and satisfying in its slow build and last-act acceleration. And then Art of Starving was also so good, it feels wrong to put it in the bottom half, which is what fourth is, but I guess that's what happens when you have a bunch of good candidates.
Akata Warrior I was less excited about, as just discussed, but if people decide it's the exciting thing happening right now in YA, that doesn't seem like a terrible outcome. I mean, it's not my favorite thing by Okorafor I've read recently (that would be Binti: Night Masquerade, which I look forward to nominating next year) but *Okorafor* is certainly an exciting thing happening right now in sff in general, and if that halo-effectly nudged her into winning, that would feel very Hugos, honestly.
And then there's Belle Sauvage. Which had some great parts! But... I just really don't want to see it win, and I'm going to be angry if it does, if that's what we decide to put at the top of the page as the first ever YA award. I just keep thinking how when I was a kid I started a project to read all the Newbery winners (which I actually still haven't finished but have vague aims to do - I think I'm at about two thirds), and I don't like the idea of indirectly handing Belle Sauvage to some future young adult who decided to read all the Lodestars. The handling of the [redacted for spoilers I guess] was just not well done and gross and I hate that he decided to include that. I think a lot of people might disagree, like I would expect that some people who share a lot of my tastes would still really like this book, and I can respect that. But I, personally, would honestly prefer we not give the award this year than give it to this book, and so that's what I'm putting on my ballot. My twenty-years-ago self would probably faint from shock if I told her we were no-awarding *Philip Pullman*, and, like, Amber Spyglass is always going be close to my heart and inextricably intertwined with a certain time in my life, but that's not a permanent blank check.
