Hugo Series
Jun. 15th, 2019 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraNo real reason I haven't done this category yet - I'm not doing any more reading for it. Thoughts/ballot/predictions behind the cut.
I'm not going to link to stuff I've said about these because there's just too much. Going down the list:
The Centenal Cycle, Malka Older. I nominated these (and have read all three of them). I like the neat political-science gimmick, appealing cast, and near-future global perspective. A bit weirder to read here in the breakdown/destruction of USian democracy than they might have been in the alternate post-2016 with fewer concentration camps, but what can you do. I don't think they have much chance of winning - too small and quiet, not big and splashy enough - but I'm glad they made the ballot. (Older lost the 2017 Campbell to Ada Palmer, but came in second, but I think Infomocracy is probably the strongest of the three, or at least the most ballot-friendly, so I don't expect the other two have recruited a lot of additional fans.)
The Laundry Files, Charles Stross. I hear that these do cool things if you keep going, but Concrete Jungle and Equoid, on previous Hugo ballots, were enough for me. (And possibly Atrocity Archive and Overtime? I'm not even sure now.) There's obviously a chunk of Hugo voters who are really into these, so probably a contender? Possibly the front-runner, actually. I'll go with that prediction.
Machineries of Empire, Yoon Ha Lee. I also nominated these (and have read all three, plus a couple of short stories). Really cool worldbuilding and compelling characters. Still really confused by the end of the third one which is a point against how they work as a series, but there's some really good stuff before that. All three of them made it to the novel ballot but the first two didn't win and I don't think the third will either; there may be some people who want to see them get Series as a consolation prize, but I don't think they'll win here either. (You can see how Raven Stratagem did last year here.)
The October Daye Series, Seanan McGuire. I read Rosemary and Rue, the first one, and was annoyed at McGuire's typical disagreement with me over which parts of the story mattered, and didn't want to read any more. In 2017, the first year of the award, these lost to Vorkosigan and in fact came in last. (Temeraire had less first-place support, but more down-ballot support; you can look back at those results here.) This is a very different ballot but I don't think they're going to pick up dramatically more support this year.
Universe of Xuya, Aliette de Bodard. I've read a bunch of these stories, and there are a whole lot of them! A standout on this ballot for being a constellation of narratively-separate short fiction instead of a linear series, which I think is cool, and would be a really interesting win for the Series award. Hugo voters like de Bodard - we might be giving her the Novella Hugo this year - and I like her a lot too. (The very first thing I read of hers, one of the Aztec-y things I think, I really didn't, but then I really got into the Xuya stories, and I think they're more effective after you've read a few of them, which is an argument that they really are working as a series.) I think this is the other front-runner with Laundry Files, although there are ways in which Xuya and Machineries feel a little similar (technology so advanced it feels like magic, a sort of mood of darkness/spookiness/realpolitik, probably also the Asian cultural influence although I don't know that Lee and de Bodard would appreciate getting lumped together for that), so I don't know whether they might split some of the same fan pool.
Wayfarers, Becky Chambers. I've read all three of these, liked Closed and Common Orbit best. The worldbuilding here feels less original than Lee or de Bodard - or Older, for that matter - but is pretty appealing with its "a little bit of all your favorite sci-fi shows" recipe. (A little Star Trek, a little B5, a little Firefly...) These are a little more like Xuya in being standalones without a narrative throughline, although the connections are a little tighter. Orbit was on the 2017 Novel ballot and the third one is of course on this year's ballot; I don't think these are going to win but I bet they're a lot of people's second or third favorite.
Looking at these comments, I clearly care a lot about worldbuilding when I think about series! And none of them particularly stand out as doing really interesting things *as a series*, except maybe Xuya for its *lack* of trajectory. (Or, I guess, Laundry, I have been told, but I don't know myself.) This is still a very new category, so we don't know much about how voters tend to vote except that everyone loves Bujold, except it's also the category with the most data to mine because so many of the pieces have been on ballots before (and in the case of Toby Daye have been up for this very award before).
My ballot:
1 - Centenal Cycle
2 - Universe of Xuya
3 - Machineries of Empire
4 - Wayfarers
5 - Laundry Files, I guess
6 - October Daye, I guess
I'm not going to link to stuff I've said about these because there's just too much. Going down the list:
The Centenal Cycle, Malka Older. I nominated these (and have read all three of them). I like the neat political-science gimmick, appealing cast, and near-future global perspective. A bit weirder to read here in the breakdown/destruction of USian democracy than they might have been in the alternate post-2016 with fewer concentration camps, but what can you do. I don't think they have much chance of winning - too small and quiet, not big and splashy enough - but I'm glad they made the ballot. (Older lost the 2017 Campbell to Ada Palmer, but came in second, but I think Infomocracy is probably the strongest of the three, or at least the most ballot-friendly, so I don't expect the other two have recruited a lot of additional fans.)
The Laundry Files, Charles Stross. I hear that these do cool things if you keep going, but Concrete Jungle and Equoid, on previous Hugo ballots, were enough for me. (And possibly Atrocity Archive and Overtime? I'm not even sure now.) There's obviously a chunk of Hugo voters who are really into these, so probably a contender? Possibly the front-runner, actually. I'll go with that prediction.
Machineries of Empire, Yoon Ha Lee. I also nominated these (and have read all three, plus a couple of short stories). Really cool worldbuilding and compelling characters. Still really confused by the end of the third one which is a point against how they work as a series, but there's some really good stuff before that. All three of them made it to the novel ballot but the first two didn't win and I don't think the third will either; there may be some people who want to see them get Series as a consolation prize, but I don't think they'll win here either. (You can see how Raven Stratagem did last year here.)
The October Daye Series, Seanan McGuire. I read Rosemary and Rue, the first one, and was annoyed at McGuire's typical disagreement with me over which parts of the story mattered, and didn't want to read any more. In 2017, the first year of the award, these lost to Vorkosigan and in fact came in last. (Temeraire had less first-place support, but more down-ballot support; you can look back at those results here.) This is a very different ballot but I don't think they're going to pick up dramatically more support this year.
Universe of Xuya, Aliette de Bodard. I've read a bunch of these stories, and there are a whole lot of them! A standout on this ballot for being a constellation of narratively-separate short fiction instead of a linear series, which I think is cool, and would be a really interesting win for the Series award. Hugo voters like de Bodard - we might be giving her the Novella Hugo this year - and I like her a lot too. (The very first thing I read of hers, one of the Aztec-y things I think, I really didn't, but then I really got into the Xuya stories, and I think they're more effective after you've read a few of them, which is an argument that they really are working as a series.) I think this is the other front-runner with Laundry Files, although there are ways in which Xuya and Machineries feel a little similar (technology so advanced it feels like magic, a sort of mood of darkness/spookiness/realpolitik, probably also the Asian cultural influence although I don't know that Lee and de Bodard would appreciate getting lumped together for that), so I don't know whether they might split some of the same fan pool.
Wayfarers, Becky Chambers. I've read all three of these, liked Closed and Common Orbit best. The worldbuilding here feels less original than Lee or de Bodard - or Older, for that matter - but is pretty appealing with its "a little bit of all your favorite sci-fi shows" recipe. (A little Star Trek, a little B5, a little Firefly...) These are a little more like Xuya in being standalones without a narrative throughline, although the connections are a little tighter. Orbit was on the 2017 Novel ballot and the third one is of course on this year's ballot; I don't think these are going to win but I bet they're a lot of people's second or third favorite.
Looking at these comments, I clearly care a lot about worldbuilding when I think about series! And none of them particularly stand out as doing really interesting things *as a series*, except maybe Xuya for its *lack* of trajectory. (Or, I guess, Laundry, I have been told, but I don't know myself.) This is still a very new category, so we don't know much about how voters tend to vote except that everyone loves Bujold, except it's also the category with the most data to mine because so many of the pieces have been on ballots before (and in the case of Toby Daye have been up for this very award before).
My ballot:
1 - Centenal Cycle
2 - Universe of Xuya
3 - Machineries of Empire
4 - Wayfarers
5 - Laundry Files, I guess
6 - October Daye, I guess
