tentative Hugo nominees

[psocoptera]

Lots of blathering on, so it's all behind a cut.

NOVEL: Ok, so here's every 2020 novel I read that also got a "rec" tag when I wrote about it: Paladin's Grace, Deathless Divide, Empire of Gold, Network Effect, Return of the Thief, Harrow the Ninth, Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (might be a novella?), Elatsoe, Bonds of Brass, Deadly Education, Storm the Earth, Burning God. And looking at that list, I'm not really excited about *any* of them for best novel. Some just weren't that good. Some of that is my general preference to nominate standalone or book-one novels... like, I really liked Network Effect, but it's also a book five. Harrow and Deadly Education were fun and I'm super hooked on their series, but best novel? really? One of my vague mental criteria for best novel is that I usually try to nominate or vote for things I'm genuinely excited about recommending pretty broadly, and I don't feel like they're quite there. So, I don't know. If I really think the best books of 2020 are not on this list, the logical thing to do would be to not nominate anything and hope to discover them from the eventual list of nominees. And yet I'd rather a slot go to Network Effect than, like, 88 Names or something. (I don't think there's actually much danger of that, I have picked 88 Names as a book I feel comfortable being mean about.) So... blah.

NOVELLA: Drowned Country, Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Empress of Salt and Fortune, Ring Shout, Seven of Infinities. I'm waiting on Four Profound Weaves and Flyaway from the library; if I get either in time to read them before nominations close and like them too, I guess I'll have to actually pick a top five. Real contrast to the novel category here. :/

NOVELETTE: I definitely want to nominate these three: An Important Failure, Rebecca Campbell, Clarkesworld.
How Quini the Squid Misplaced His Klobučar, Rich Larson, Tor.com.
A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential, JY Neon Yang, Clarkesworld.

And then two of: I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter, Isabel Fall, Clarkesworld.
Exile's End, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Tor.com.
The Immolation of Kev Magee, L.X. Beckett, Clarkesworld.
My Sister's Wings Are Red, Christine Tyler, Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Probably the Fall and the Gilman? The Gilman was memorable and difficult. The Fall is controversial - Fall asked Clarkesworld to pull it after backlash - and I worry that further attention to it would be unwelcome to her. Although she can always decline the nomination in that case.

SHORT STORY: Definitely: The Mermaid Astronaut, Yoon Ha Lee, Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
The Translator, at Low Tide, Vajra Chandrasekera, Clarkesworld.
Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse, Rae Carson, Uncanny.

And then two of: Custom Options Available, Amy Griswold, Fireside.
68:Hazard:Cold, Janelle C. Shane, Strange Horizons.
Never a Butterfly, Nor a Moth With Moon-Painted Wings, Aimee Ogden, Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
AirBody, Sameem Siddiqui, Clarkesworld.
My Country is a Ghost, Eugenia Triantafyllou, Uncanny.
Thank You For Your Patience, Rebecca Campbell, Reckoning.

Or possibly others, I'm still reading stuff from the spreadsheet, and at some point I need to decide if I'm going to try to tackle the New Decameron or what.

SERIES: Queen's Thief! Maybe also Daevabad and Poppy War.

RELATED: So, I feel like Mars Challenge, as a work of graphic nonfiction, would actually be a better Related than a Graphic, the category of which is actually called Graphic STORY and seems to me to be intended to be a fiction category, while Related is format-neutral (if videos, why not comics?). But someone has put it on the spreadsheet as a Graphic and not as a Related, so this is clearly not a universal conclusion.

GRAPHIC STORY: See above about Mars Challenge! I really, really want this to be the year for O Human Star. I had not been thinking of Magic Fish as SFF, but someone put it on Renay's spreadsheet, so clearly *they* thought it was. Witchlight has a prior edition but maybe could get obscurity-ruled 2020 eligible? But is not on the spreadsheet so nobody else thinks so? Anyways, I might as well nominate all of them, we all know the actual nominees are going to be Monstress 5, Die 2, and maybe some franchise/cape stuff. What's Vaughan been up to lately. Oh, wait, looking at the spreadsheet, looks like there was a Parable of the Sower graphic adaptation, Ryan North adapted Slaughterhouse Five, and Jemisin's writing something for DC. Well, that should be a nice ballot.

DRAMATIC LONG: Wolfwalkers and Old Guard. I haven't seen a lot of movies recently.

DRAMATIC SHORT: Hm, I see on the spreadsheet that someone's going for the "Save the Cat" and "Heart" episodes of She-Ra and the "Agony of a Witch" episode of Owl House. And the "I Am My Monster" episode of Steven Universe Future. I feel like all of these represent my TV interests pretty well and I might as well go ahead and back them.

ART: deferring this, separate post

ASTOUNDING: Emily Tesh

LODESTAR: Elatsoe, Return of the Thief, maybe Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking.

Comments

[ursula]

My personal bet is that Best Novel is going to be a contest between Piranesi, The City We Became, and Network Effect.

My own novel nominations are Angel of the Crows, Dead Lies Dreaming, Unconquerable Sun, Phoenix Extravagant, and Tyrant Baru Cormorant. This is heavily tilted by the fact that I beta-read series I'm enthusiastic about. I don't think Angel of the Crows is necessarily that good in absolute terms, but it was the thing I wanted to read as quickly as possible in 2020, and I figure my ballot should reflect that. Phoenix Extravagant is the one I would recommend you consider; it's a lot more exuberant adventure and a lot less bleakness than the premise might suggest, though the conclusion involves more questions than answers.

[psocoptera]

That seems reasonable as a guess about novels. Have you read Roanhorse's Black Sun? I've been in a library queue for it but I haven't gotten there yet.

I am currently about a third of the way into Angel of the Crows and not feeling charitable. On the one hand, Goblin Emperor is one of my all-time favorites, and Monette chose to put the Addison name on this one too, on the other hand, I just do not care about Sherlock Holmes enough to want to recap all his most famous cases with an urban fantasy twist. :/ I do like Lee, and would like to read Phoenix Extravagent eventually, but I don't think I'll have time in the next two weeks... but I appreciate the rec!

[ursula]

I gave Black Sun to the spouse for Christmas on the theory that grim epic fantasy is more his style than mine. I will read the book when he is done with it, but he's only partway in!

I think I'm unreliable about Angel of the Crows because I never had a Sherlock Holmes phase to start with, so though I recognize the case names, I don't know how they should work out. But I also like Monette as Monette better than I liked Goblin Emperor, so the resonant tropes aren't likely to match here.

[jedusor]

I absolutely loved "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" and I was really bummed by the aftermath. Also loved AirBody, and obviously Custom Options Available since I bought it lol (we haven't publicly specified which reprints are in IGEB but I doubt anyone will track me down all the way over here to break the news). My personal favorite from last year was AJ Fitzwater's "Cascade" but that's not the kind of thing that gets awards. I haven't read much from last year that isn't queer as fuck so I don't have a super solid grasp on what's actually likely to make the ballot, but Sarah Gailey's "Drones to Ploughshares" feels pretty appropriate to the cultural moment, and I feel like at least among queer folks I've seen a lot of buzz about Lauren Ring's "Sunrise, Sunrise, Sunrise."

[psocoptera]

Thank you for these recs! I'm glad I got to read them. All three definitely going in my next batch of misc recs. As an alternate history fan I love the disparity of "edit the Bible" and "Carter gets another term" in "Cascade" - like at first those seem so different, but it's all just changes.

[jedusor]

Here's my top 20 if you want more queer stories! Some others I liked that didn't make that list (I think these are all 2020 but verify if you're nominating anything!):

The Cursed Noel by Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw
Everything Important in One Cardboard Box by Jason Kimble
My Love, Our Lady of Slaughter by Christine Lucas
We're Here, We're Here by KM Szpara

I was gonna also mention "Two Watersheds" by Kelly Robson, but it appears to be no longer available online, which is a shame because I feel like you might really connect with that one. :(

[psocoptera]

There were several things on the Locus list in that anthology that's no longer online. A reason to not leave all my reading for the last minute, perhaps. :/

[psocoptera]

Thank you for the link to your recs! I had missed that thread when it happened (or was too holiday-overwhelmed to think about it, who even knows now). Good stuff in there!

[glynhogen]

In addition to The City We Became and Black Sun, Mexican Gothic and Beneath the Rising might be others to watch for (though IIRC you weren't into the fungus). And I suspect Defensive Baking has a better shot at the Lodestar. (And the most recent paladin book is quite delightful.)

[psocoptera]

Beneath the Rising wasn't on my radar at all, looks interesting! I didn't love Mexican Gothic as a whole but I really liked parts of it and I'd be happy to see it win if that's how the ballot shakes out. Does that mean I want to nominate it? Hmmm.

[glynhogen]

I enjoyed Beneath the Rising, though I ended up feeling that it was a bit overstuffed (I might just like Mohamed's work more at novella length). I'm planning to pick up the sequel in part because the first one was fun, and in part because apparently it was originally intended as a standalone so I want to see if I can reverse engineer that conversion process.

[glassonion]

Did you see Birds of Prey? That secretly came out in 2020, you just don't remember because it was 500000 years ago.

[glassonion]

Also Hilda season 2 dropped in December 2020, though it may be more "kids" and less "speculative fiction" than some of the other stuff you list.

...as did all three seasons of Kipo apparently. (Maybe i should stop posting comments until i actually make it through my "tv watched in 2020" list, but where's the fun in that?

...also (i promise i'm really done after this, at least with TV) the last few episodes of The Good Place s4 seem to have aired in 2020 rather than 2019.

[psocoptera]

Kipo! I totally want to pick some Kipo, good call. I'm so bad at writing up TV, although apparently I did do a post about Kipo season 2 and then failed to even search my own TV tag because I assumed there was nothing useful in it. Also I never saw Birds of Prey, but I assume I still could. Although not I guess this week if we're boycotting Amazon this week.

[psocoptera]

I have picked "Heroes On Fire" (the last ep of season 2) as my episode of Kipo to nominate!

[glassonion]

New category, new comment: The Daughters of Ys falls into the category of "graphic story which is basically a folktale but has some speculative elements and good art", and was published in 2020. (Did you read it? Maybe via an ARC that i was flinging around earlier? Anyway, you could borrow it.)

[psocoptera]

I think I saw your ARC but never borrowed your arc. You could put it in with the drives? :)

[psocoptera]

I ended up adding the Ogden and Griswold short stories, swapping Four Profound Weaves for Seven of Infinities after much flipflopping about it, and adding, uh, whatever else I've mentioned adding.