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Hugo Short story nominees (/Jukebox recs)
I have now read the short story nominees for the 2015 Hugo ballot. Verdict: read Jukebox stories instead, it will be much more enjoyable. (And you have a soundtrack, too!) In all but one case, because I am super punchy tonight, I have found you a vaguely related Jukebox story that is better than the story in question. Ranked from worst to best (the nominees, that is, not the Jukebox stories):
"All the Beasts and Birds" was the worst of them. None of the other nominees approached such heights of argh, though possibly because none of the others was trying to do a Parable. Read With Brief Thanksgiving for consummate style; this is how you do it, Wright. (And Greek Myth allusions that work a lot better than the Biblical allusions in "Beasts.")
"On a Spiritual Plain" was nearly as bad, although less in the rabid incompetence realm and more in the supreme blandness realm. I can't remember any of this, two days later. I think there was, like, a ghost? Or something? Read You Are Building an Abbey for Lovers for something that is interesting and intriguing. (This is the only one where I would strongly recommend having some familiarity with the song first, e.g., here, scroll down.)(Also I can't help but re-rec the interactive fic that inspired this one, my amazing jewel of a Yuletide gift, the Preideu Annwn fic And Even the Graves Are Lost.)
"Turncoat" tried to sort of have character development. Unfortunately that character development made no sense, really. AIs are unemotional, unlike humans! Except when they are emotional. Which is all the time. And so on. This thing was just incoherent in the character realm. For a much more consistent (and therefore moving) AI, read How the Airship VERA Came to Land.
"The Last Samurai" was cute: author, a white boy, writes about honorable Japanese Samurai! Aw. Didn't we get enough of this kind of thing in the 80's? There was no actual, like, worldbuilding or character development or, you know, Stuff Like That. For something that does all these things better, and doesn't do Japanese cultural appropriation, the rightly lauded Devil Went Down to Georgia fic Antiphon (though there's a weird jarring sentence where the devil plays a C string on his fiddle, what).
"Totaled" was the only short story nominee I would characterize as even mildly competent. It was also the only short story on the ballot that held my attention to the end (though I skimmed all the others to the end). It isn't the best story of the year by a large margin, but it's at least not fundamentally incompetent and I didn't do a science-cringe or laugh in inappropriate places while reading it.
The question is now the following: should I rank it below No Award or leave it off the ballot entirely? I am vaguely leaning towards ranking it below No Award; if No Award does not win (which I am hoping and expecting), I'd rather this win than any of the others, by a large margin. The political statement would be to leave all the Puppy nominees off, but I think for me the literary outweighs the political. (Otherwise, man, I wouldn't be reading these to begin with.)
I am, of course, leaving all the other stories off the ballot entirely.
"All the Beasts and Birds" was the worst of them. None of the other nominees approached such heights of argh, though possibly because none of the others was trying to do a Parable. Read With Brief Thanksgiving for consummate style; this is how you do it, Wright. (And Greek Myth allusions that work a lot better than the Biblical allusions in "Beasts.")
"On a Spiritual Plain" was nearly as bad, although less in the rabid incompetence realm and more in the supreme blandness realm. I can't remember any of this, two days later. I think there was, like, a ghost? Or something? Read You Are Building an Abbey for Lovers for something that is interesting and intriguing. (This is the only one where I would strongly recommend having some familiarity with the song first, e.g., here, scroll down.)(Also I can't help but re-rec the interactive fic that inspired this one, my amazing jewel of a Yuletide gift, the Preideu Annwn fic And Even the Graves Are Lost.)
"Turncoat" tried to sort of have character development. Unfortunately that character development made no sense, really. AIs are unemotional, unlike humans! Except when they are emotional. Which is all the time. And so on. This thing was just incoherent in the character realm. For a much more consistent (and therefore moving) AI, read How the Airship VERA Came to Land.
"The Last Samurai" was cute: author, a white boy, writes about honorable Japanese Samurai! Aw. Didn't we get enough of this kind of thing in the 80's? There was no actual, like, worldbuilding or character development or, you know, Stuff Like That. For something that does all these things better, and doesn't do Japanese cultural appropriation, the rightly lauded Devil Went Down to Georgia fic Antiphon (though there's a weird jarring sentence where the devil plays a C string on his fiddle, what).
"Totaled" was the only short story nominee I would characterize as even mildly competent. It was also the only short story on the ballot that held my attention to the end (though I skimmed all the others to the end). It isn't the best story of the year by a large margin, but it's at least not fundamentally incompetent and I didn't do a science-cringe or laugh in inappropriate places while reading it.
The question is now the following: should I rank it below No Award or leave it off the ballot entirely? I am vaguely leaning towards ranking it below No Award; if No Award does not win (which I am hoping and expecting), I'd rather this win than any of the others, by a large margin. The political statement would be to leave all the Puppy nominees off, but I think for me the literary outweighs the political. (Otherwise, man, I wouldn't be reading these to begin with.)
I am, of course, leaving all the other stories off the ballot entirely.