2019 Hugo Finalists!

[psocoptera]

At first pass, a good ballot with not a lot of big surprises, although I may be missing/forgetting things. See the whole thing here. Some comments on categories I nominate in:

Best Novel
The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)
Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)
Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Macmillan)
Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

Two here I haven't read (Kowal and Valente), one that I nominated (Novik). I'm a little sad Blackfish City didn't also make it but it is up for a Nebula, can't have everything.

Best Novella
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)
The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press / JABberwocky Literary Agency)

*All three* of my nominees (Okorafor, Clark, Robson); one that I haven't read (McGuire).

Best Novelette
“If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018)
“The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections,” by Tina Connolly (Tor.com, 11 July 2018)
“Nine Last Days on Planet Earth,” by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com, 19 September 2018)
The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
“The Thing About Ghost Stories,” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)
“When We Were Starless,” by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018)

Two of my nominees (Cho and Gregory), one I haven't read (Bolander) which I knew was going to make the ballot and I could read when they sent out the packet. Although, wait, I totally thought the Cho was a short story and nominated it thusly, so maybe I didn't technically nominate it, because I had already used all of my short story slots. Whoops. (ETA: I seem to have also failed to notice that the Kritzer story was a novelette in my recs. I'm providing bad information and that sucks and I'm sorry.)

Best Short Story
“The Court Magician,” by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, January 2018)
“The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society,” by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)
“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington,” by P. Djèlí Clark (Fireside Magazine, February 2018)
“STET,” by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)
“The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat,” by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine 23, July-August 2018)
“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,” by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, February 2018)

Well, I've read all six of these, which I guess means I can skip directly to making a prediction, except I don't have one ready to hand. Maybe the Bolander. The Harrow was one of my nominees.

As an interesting observation, if I'm right about everyone's genders there was exactly one man nominated in each of the four main fiction categories (Lee, Clark, Gregory, and Clark again). Seems okay. :)

Best Series
The Centenal Cycle, by Malka Older (Tor.com Publishing)
The Laundry Files, by Charles Stross (most recently Tor.com Publishing and Tor/Orbit)
Machineries of Empire, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
The October Daye Series, by Seanan McGuire (most recently DAW)
The Universe of Xuya, by Aliette de Bodard (most recently Subterranean Press)
Wayfarers, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)

Goooo Malka Older! I would just like to say that I'm going to be pissed off if Stross takes it when this is the field. (I don't dislike Stross - Lobsters totally blew my mind - but that was, like, what, twenty years ago, and isn't the Laundry series.) And I'll be unenthused but not surprised if McGuire does. Let's give it to someone doing really interesting universe-building like Lee or de Bodard if we don't like Older's thing, maybe? Also I've read at least one work of all of these (and all of two to four of them... I'm not sure I've read every Xuya story, and there might be Machineries stories I haven't read either) so I think I'm off the hook for series reading this year, which is a big win for my managing to read anything else in May-July.

Best Related Work
Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by Alec Nevala-Lee (Dey Street Books)
The Hobbit Duology (documentary in three parts), written and edited by Lindsay Ellis and Angelina Meehan (YouTube)
An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000, by Jo Walton (Tor)
www.mexicanxinitiative.com: The Mexicanx Initiative Experience at Worldcon 76 (Julia Rios, Libia Brenda, Pablo Defendini, John Picacio)
Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, by Ursula K. Le Guin with David Naimon (Tin House Books)

I feel twitchy and uncomfortable around this whole "AO3 as best related work" thing and maybe I'll try to unpack that at some point but for now I just want to express some discomfort with that.

Best Graphic Story
Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed, art by Sami Kivelä, colours by Jason Wordie, letters by Jim Campbell (BOOM! Studios)
Black Panther: Long Live the King, written by Nnedi Okorafor and Aaron Covington, art by André Lima Araújo, Mario Del Pennino and Tana Ford (Marvel)
Monstress, Volume 3: Haven, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)
On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden (First Second)
Paper Girls, Volume 4, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher (Image Comics)
Saga, Volume 9, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

On a Sunbeam! Plus more installments of serieses I don't mind reading (actually I think I did read volume four of Paper Girls back when I was writing it for femslashex) plus things by people who seem likely to write good comics. That all seems fine.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Annihilation
Avengers: Infinity War
Black Panther
A Quiet Place
Sorry to Bother You
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Three of my nominees, and I am fascinated to see whether Spiderverse or Black Panther will take it. I, myself, am not even sure which of them gets my top vote. (Also I guess I'm going to have to decide whether I'm giving myself a pass on watching Annihilation and Quiet Place... maybe I'll compromise and just watch Annihilation, hm.)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Expanse: “Abaddon’s Gate”
Doctor Who: “Demons of the Punjab”
Dirty Computer
The Good Place: “Janet(s)”
The Good Place: “Jeremy Bearimy”
Doctor Who: “Rosa,” written by Malorie Blackman and Chris Chibnall, directed by Mark Tonderai (BBC)

I'm really pleased to see Dirty Computer make it; I think it's great for this category to continue to remember there are things other than TV episodes.

Best Professional Artist
Galen Dara
Jaime Jones
Victo Ngai
John Picacio
Yuko Shimizu
Charles Vess

I have no idea who Jaime Jones is, which is interesting. I'd like to bet now that Vess will take it for having done the illustrated Earthsea.

Best Semiprozine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Fireside Magazine
FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction
Shimmer
Strange Horizons
Uncanny Magazine

Oh hey, I bet we'll get some free FIYAH in the packet! Nice!

Best Fan Writer
Foz Meadows
James Davis Nicoll
Charles Payseur
Elsa Sjunneson-Henry
Alasdair Stuart
Bogi Takács

I'm glad to see Payseur and Takács on here.

Best Fan Artist
Sara Felix
Grace P. Fong
Meg Frank
Ariela Housman
Likhain (Mia Sereno)
Spring Schoenhuth

Ok... okay everybody, deep breath... WE HAVE A BALLOT WITH NEITHER BRAD FOSTER NOR STEVE STILES. For the first time since 1997. We did it, we acknowledged the existence of six entirely non-Foster-Stiles fan artists.

Best Art Book
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, illustrated by Charles Vess, written by Ursula K. Le Guin (Saga Press /Gollancz)
Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon, by Julie Dillon (self-published)
Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History, by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, Sam Witwer (Ten Speed Press)
Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, ed. John Fleskes (Flesk Publications)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie, by Ramin Zahed (Titan Books)
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, ed. Catherine McIlwaine (Bodleian Library)

I'm really curious what we're going to get in the packet for these. Presumably not the entire book as a PDF, although wouldn't that be nice if we did. (ETA: I didn't nominate in this category.)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Katherine Arden (2nd year of eligibility)
S.A. Chakraborty (2nd year of eligibility)
R.F. Kuang (1st year of eligibility)
Jeannette Ng (2nd year of eligibility)
Vina Jie-Min Prasad (2nd year of eligibility)
Rivers Solomon (2nd year of eligibility)

... this feels very much like second verse, same as the first. Which, I don't know, I mean, Prasad was my top choice last year but I didn't even nominate her this year because I wasn't that into her one new story, and Arden was my second place but I didn't like Girl in the Tower as much as Bear and the Nightingale, and Ng was my fourth place and I don't think has new work. I guess I hope that either I feel like Kingdom of Copper doesn't have the pacing problems of City of Brass, or Poppy War (Kuang's book) blows me away?

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton
Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi
The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black
Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland
The Invasion, by Peadar O’Guilin
Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman

I did nominate Tess, although I continue to feel like I'm maybe acting for someone not quite me who I nonetheless want to speak for. A hypothetical future of my kids, or something. I haven't read three of these (Clayton, Ireland, O'Guilin) so I guess this is actually where I'm going to need to do the most reading, especially since Invasion seems to be a book two.

Comments

[glynhogen]

FWIW, Kingdom of Copper is much better on the pacing front, unburdened by the load of double worldbuilding on-ramps, and the political intrigue is much more interesting because the POV characters are more direct participants in the intrigue, rather than objects of it.

[psocoptera]

Ooh, good to hear. I'm definitely excited to read it - the first one set up so much, I do really want to see where it all goes (and I've been in the library queue for ages which always builds anticipation).

[jedusaur]

I feel the same way about AO3. Earlier in a Twitter conversation I described my sense of it as "an uncomfortable kind of representation" and stared at it for a little while before changing it to "a very weird/unclear kind of representation." That's still not quite right but y'know, that's how it feels: not quite right. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts whenever you're up to sharing.

I also have read all the short stories already (probably partially due to your recs, though I've been keeping up with several of the big short story markets myself since last fall). Standing by my prediction of STET winning, though I'd be happy to see Alix Harrow beat it out. I'm not sure what to make of the Pinsker--it didn't connect with me at all when I first read it, nor when the awards buzz started up early in the year and I reread it to see if I could figure out what I'd missed. The other three in that category were all stories I thought were good but didn't have super strong feelings about.

Very happy about Dirty Computer too :D

[jedusaur]

(pls excuse my ridiculous inconsistency regarding commenting from different DW accounts, the distinction between them is a legacy system that hasn't aged well XD)

[psocoptera]

I really appreciate that there is one other person with a foot in both of these worlds who is not just like "wheeee this is the best thing that ever happened". I'm still trying to figure out if what I think is my objection is *actually* my objection or if my brain just invented it retroactively. I'll get there.

I thought the Pinsker story was interesting but I think a lot of things are interesting. You could be right about STET... sometimes I have a strong sense of how I think it'll go, maybe I don't have that here because I keep overlooking STET :)

Also no worries about accounts, you have way less "I'm going to use four completely unrelated names across these three different platforms, hope you took notes" going on than some people.

[jedusor]

(back to the account I've been trying to stick to, la la la)

I read Macey's thread about the AO3 thing and... okay, let me put it this way. I spent a few years being very defensive about my legitimacy as a hockey fan, because men often pressed me to defend myself. I have a lot of stories about times men were jackasses to me and I proved my knowledge to them while simultaneously loudly defending the right of casual fans to also be considered legitimate regardless of whether they could shut down the quizzing like I could So There. And then maybe two years ago I just kind of... relaxed. Because I have my people, I know my shit, I exist in spaces and social circles where it's understood that I know my shit, and I don't have to be on guard anymore. When men try to quiz me, I don't shut them down with savage eloquence, I roll my eyes and go back to my conversation with my teammates. I guess what I mean is... who fuckin' asked them? The whole reason AO3 exists is so fandom doesn't have to submit to the judgment of people who need to be convinced of its worth.

[ursula]

I'm really stoked about Laundry Files, actually. It was one of my nominations, along with MoE. I specifically think that the Laundry Files are doing interesting things as a series, in the way that the characters and the stakes change across the broad arc of the books.

[psocoptera]

That's fair, and not something I'm in a position to assess - I may have read Atrocity Archive, not sure, but what I'm sure I've read is just Concrete Jungle and Equoid (the vulva horror in Equoid is what put me off the series). Anyways, I will retract my potential pissed-offedness and instead prepare to be happy for you that one of your nominees did well, in the event. :)

[glynhogen]

My thoughts on AO3 are vague and uninformed by personal use, but generally trend in the direction of the tech and UI discussion in this and related threads (which may or may not relieve some discomfort): https://twitter.com/GretchenAMcC/status/1113256514758762496?s=19.

[elysdir]

Yay ballot comments!

(I’ve finally set up Feedly, and am hoping to get in the habit of using it to more regularly check your DW posts. We’ll see if I manage it.)

Series: Agreed re Stross, except I’ll go further: I actively dislike the Laundry Files. :( …While I’m here: as someone who doesn’t read many series, I was startled to realize that I’ve read enough of all but one of these nominees to have fairly strongly held opinions about them. I suppose that means I need to read something from the Centenal Cycle now, which on the one hand is good because I keep hearing good things about Malka Older, but on the other hand is One More Thing To Read. (I usually just skip the Series category entirely.)

Will be interested to hear more about your discomfort with the AO3 nom when you’re ready to talk about it.

DPLF: I expect Black Panther to take it easily. (Though I personally may put Spider-Verse higher.) I’m not going to watch Quiet Place (too horrory for me) even though I’m vaguely curious about it because the core premise seems to be pretty close to that of a story I wrote around 1990… :) Have seen all the others.

Pro Artist: Agreed re Vess, which is disappointing to me because although I’ve always loved his work, I’m finding his Earthsea illos underwhelming.

Fan Artist: Whoa! I totally missed the absence of Foster and Stiles! Fascinating! Thanks for pointing that out.