Hugo novelettes and short stories
Jun. 22nd, 2020 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraFinally read "Emergency Skin", which was fine, although a little more on the "thought experiment" side than the "narrative" side, but some good details, and v. sympathetic main thrust. Anyways, now I've read all the short fiction and it's time to rank stuff! Behind a cut.
Novelettes:
These divide easily into a top and bottom half for me; ranking within the top half is going to be a little trickier. Well, really it's "am I first-place voting for Omphalos or Wolves", which I feel very torn about. Maybe Omphalos? I think it jumped out at me more on first read as something I might want to nominate, although I then didn't.
1 - “Omphalos”, by Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
2 - “Away With the Wolves”, by Sarah Gailey (Uncanny Magazine: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy Special Issue, September/October 2019)
3 - “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, July-August 2019)
4 - Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin (Forward Collection (Amazon))
5 - “The Archronology of Love”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, April 2019)
6 - “For He Can Creep”, by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com, 10 July 2019)
Oh, I should make a prediction! Well, Chiang is always a safe bet. The Pinsker, Carroll, and Yoachim stories all didn't win the Nebula and I don't think they're going to win this either, although I guess they made the Nebula ballot and the others didn't, so, hm. Sticking with the Chiang.
Short Stories:
Top two were easy, ranking the four I didn't like was a little harder but here we are.
1 - “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island”, by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine, May 2019)
2 - “Do Not Look Back, My Lion”, by Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, January 2019)
3 - “As the Last I May Know”, by S.L. Huang (Tor.com, 23 October 2019)
4 - “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 9 September 2019)
5 - “A Catalog of Storms”, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2019)
6 - “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger”, by Rivers Solomon (Tor.com, 24 July 2019)
A prediction here: hmm, maybe the Huang. Like with the novelettes, the Sen, Wilde, and Ramdas stories were on the Nebula ballot but didn't win.
(And now some personal Hugo housekeeping: that's five categories I've ranked now (Novels, Novellas, Novelettes, Short Stories, and Lodestar). Online ballot still not available so I haven't actually entered these votes, but I'm ready. I've started the first Luna novel, and will probably rank series once I finish that, I don't think I'm going to get the second Rosewater book from the library in time to read it before the deadline. I still haven't read the Hawke or Lyons novels in the Astoundings. I've made zero progress on Graphics but would like to. Could look at the art at any point. Was hoping to rewatch Captain Marvel before doing Dramatic Longs but could just go ahead and rank those. Probably skipping the Relateds this year, I just don't see how I'm going to get to any of them with like three weeks left to go, gaaah.)
Novelettes:
These divide easily into a top and bottom half for me; ranking within the top half is going to be a little trickier. Well, really it's "am I first-place voting for Omphalos or Wolves", which I feel very torn about. Maybe Omphalos? I think it jumped out at me more on first read as something I might want to nominate, although I then didn't.
1 - “Omphalos”, by Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
2 - “Away With the Wolves”, by Sarah Gailey (Uncanny Magazine: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy Special Issue, September/October 2019)
3 - “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, July-August 2019)
4 - Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin (Forward Collection (Amazon))
5 - “The Archronology of Love”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, April 2019)
6 - “For He Can Creep”, by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com, 10 July 2019)
Oh, I should make a prediction! Well, Chiang is always a safe bet. The Pinsker, Carroll, and Yoachim stories all didn't win the Nebula and I don't think they're going to win this either, although I guess they made the Nebula ballot and the others didn't, so, hm. Sticking with the Chiang.
Short Stories:
Top two were easy, ranking the four I didn't like was a little harder but here we are.
1 - “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island”, by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine, May 2019)
2 - “Do Not Look Back, My Lion”, by Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, January 2019)
3 - “As the Last I May Know”, by S.L. Huang (Tor.com, 23 October 2019)
4 - “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 9 September 2019)
5 - “A Catalog of Storms”, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2019)
6 - “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger”, by Rivers Solomon (Tor.com, 24 July 2019)
A prediction here: hmm, maybe the Huang. Like with the novelettes, the Sen, Wilde, and Ramdas stories were on the Nebula ballot but didn't win.
(And now some personal Hugo housekeeping: that's five categories I've ranked now (Novels, Novellas, Novelettes, Short Stories, and Lodestar). Online ballot still not available so I haven't actually entered these votes, but I'm ready. I've started the first Luna novel, and will probably rank series once I finish that, I don't think I'm going to get the second Rosewater book from the library in time to read it before the deadline. I still haven't read the Hawke or Lyons novels in the Astoundings. I've made zero progress on Graphics but would like to. Could look at the art at any point. Was hoping to rewatch Captain Marvel before doing Dramatic Longs but could just go ahead and rank those. Probably skipping the Relateds this year, I just don't see how I'm going to get to any of them with like three weeks left to go, gaaah.)
