Hugos 2019: best novelette and short story

[cahn]

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) - This is a cute one!

“The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections,” by Tina Connolly (Tor.com, 11 July 2018) - I really liked this story, which managed to hold my interest until the end without any breaks, which is sort of amazing. I don't think it does anything particularly impressive, but it's a solid story and more to the point, it's about pastries, which obviously I loved.

“Nine Last Days on Planet Earth,” by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com, 19 September 2018) - I liked this one.

The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com publishing) - This was extremely well written. Only... maybe I wasn't paying enough attention but I don't really understand the worldbuilding. This evil company was feeding elephants radium because...?? because they're eeeeevil? I don't understaaaaand...

“The Thing About Ghost Stories,” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018) - This was a spare and sweet and lovely story about loss.

“When We Were Starless,” by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018) - There's a fine line between not-particularly-groundbreaking and cliched, and this one sort of tipped a little on the latter side for me compared to the other nominees. Not bad, just... not quite as skilled as the others.

Voting: Ghost > Banquet > Nine > Harmless > Succeed > Starless > No Award.

Best Short Story

“The Court Magician,” by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, January 2018) - I really liked this one -- not super surprising, but atmospheric and solid.

“The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society,” by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018) - I adore T. Kingfisher and so I feel bad about saying this, but it seemed like rather a slight story (although of course very well done as her stories always are). Loved it but not voting for it to win.

“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington,” by P. Djèlí Clark (Fireside Magazine, February 2018) - Did this have a plot that I entirely missed because it was about teeth? It was well-written, but I am sort of a sucker for plot.

“STET,” by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine, October 2018) - I mentioned this earlier, but I thought this story was just bad. Interesting ideas and execution, but the internal logic of the story and characters made no sense.

“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) - It was nice? Kind of your run-of-the-mill Fractured Fairy Tale.

“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,” by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, February 2018) - dolorosa_12 pointed out that this says kind of obnoxiously pedestal-y things about librarians, which I hadn't really thought about in so many words while reading it, although I did rather side-eye the line that said that all librarians were either super grumpy or witches -- I mean, really?? In the end, like Among Others, it was for me a story about books and our relationship with books, not a story about people, and I really liked it for that, although I might rethink the voting priority.

Current vote: Magician > Teeth > Escape > Rose > Raptor > No Award > STET.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Of the ones I read, I really liked “The Thing About Ghost Stories.”

“The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat” was kind of mildly amusing but other than the protagonists being dinosaurs, it was a very very standard feminist revisionist fairytale. I found it mostly unfunny and, dinosaurs aside, unoriginal.

“STET" annoyed me. I thought it was manipulative and one-note.

I liked “The Court Magician” but I didn't find it all that memorable.

[cahn]

I agree with all your comments! Except that I think I liked "The Court Magician" better than you did (...though I might still not disagree, as I don't remember as much about it now as I thought I did :P :) )

[isis]

The Bolander was a sort of mashup between Radium Girls and the story of Topsy who was electrocuted. Evil Company weren't feeding them radium, they were using them (elephants and girls) to paint glow-in-the-dark paint (i.e. radium) onto watch dials, and they licked the brushes to get the point right. I agree though that it was a bit weird and not my favorite. Nine Last Days was probably my favorite in this category.

I agree about Negro Teeth, not enough plot for me.

[dolorosa_12]

This is almost always my problem with Clark's short fiction — fantastic ideas and worldbuilding, frustratingly slight on plot. I keep wishing he'd write something novel-length set in any of his short fiction settings, because the ideas and worldbuilding are great, but they're such frustratingly slight stories.

[cahn]

See, I'm not quite sure that would help? Drums was long enough that it could have supported quite a bit more plot, and although it had enough plot that I didn't complain (unlike "Teeth"), I just get the impression that plot isn't his main focus.

[cahn]

Ah, thank you! That... sort of elucidates things? (I got the Topsy part but not the Radium Girls) ... except... in this world the Radium Girls didn't actually realize (I think) that they were being radiation poisoned for quite a while, and more pressingly, why in the world would you get elephants to paint watch dials?? (Possibly this is explained and because I missed the whole Radium Girls thing to begin with I never figured out all these other pressing questions.)

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad to see that you, along with most others I've seen writing about this on Dreamwidth, share my low opinion of 'STET'. I'm going to rank it below No Award as well.

[cahn]

I'm glad to see that too! I mean, the untraditional format is admittedly quite cool, but it shouldn't be an excuse to gloss over the rest of what makes a story.