very brief Hugo thoughts

[cahn]

Argh, it's almost the end of nomination time and I was totally going to make a post and never did!

Best Novel
A Memory Called Empire (Martine)
Ninth House (Bardugo)
Raven Tower (Leckie)
...that's all I can think of right now, any other thoughts?

Best Novelette
For He Can Creep (Carroll) (I expected the title to only be tangentially related but I was happily surprised!) (thanks ambyr)
Dave's Head (Palmer) - I always love Palmer's short work, and this one I think is her best yet. (Also, for anyone who has read or will read this, I would like to talk about what is going on. (I think I have figured out most of what's going on except what exactly IS in the things.) (from psocoptera)

Best Short Story
Compassionate Simulation (Swirsky, Lee). Content note: abuse. ...This one hit me really hard. (I think this one is from psocoptera)

Best Related Work
hamsterwoman pointed out that we can nominate the article about John M. Ford in Slate by which I of course mean not only the article but the work described in that article of bringing together people so that his stuff can be republished! What a great idea!!

Comments

[seekingferret]

Once again I want to hype Throwing Sheyd for Best Fancast: https://anchor.fm/throwingsheyd

[cahn]

Thanks! I rarely listen to any kind of... aural cast thingie but I will try to see if I can listen a bit before noms are up :)

[schneefink]

I'm nominating "Children of Ruin" for best novel, definitely my favorite book from last year.

[cahn]

I have heard so many good things about Tchaikovsky, I will try to at least check this out, thanks!

[leaflemming]

Air Logic (Laurie J Marks) for novel. (Why isn't this part of everyone's Hugo conversation? This is not rhetoric, I'm honestly puzzled).

Also for novel, The Absolute Book (Elizabeth Knox). (Which hardly anyone outside New Zealand has read yet; but still).

[cahn]

Maybe because it's the third book of a series? :) So I wasn't able to get into Fire Logic... would it make sense to try again with a later book (I know this isn't ideal, but sometimes I've had success with a later book grabbing me and then going back to pick up the others), or keep going with FL? It's very possible I gave up too soon, as it's hard for me to distinguish "this starts slow" from "I'm not going to gel with this book" when it's an author I haven't read before.

Hmph, it seems kind of hard to get my hands on The Absolute Book, I wonder if it will be published in the US?

[leaflemming]

Elemental Logic: definitely not a series to jump into anywhere but the start. Which is quite a slow start, and also quite a grim one, relative to the overall mood; I can quite see how it might be offputting. But I'd rate these books as one of the most important spec fic achievements of the last twenty years. If I were asked which ficitonal world I'd choose to live in, it would most likely be Shaftal. (...though not the Shaftal of Fire Logic).

Absolute Book: yeah, it's coming out in the States, later this year I think. (After Dan Kois reviewed it on Slate, there was a 39-party bidding war for the rights. If you're ever writing a rave review and wondering whether anyone will take notice, the answer turns out to be... sometimes!) I have no idea whether this will extend its eligibility for nomination into a second year.

[cahn]

Excellent, good to know! ("Slow and grim start" also means I should tackle it in e-book, as it turns out.)

From http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-categories/

"Because a large proportion of the people who nominate on the Hugo Awards reside in the USA, and because those people often do not get to see works first published outside the USA until those works get US publication, WSFS extends the eligibility of works first published outside the USA. Works published in prior years outside of the USA are eligible if they were published for the first time in the USA in the current year."

So yes!

[leaflemming]

Why ebook for slow/grim, especially?

[cahn]

The e-reader is easy to carry around so I can just sort of take it around with me and flip through pages while I'm doing the laundry or whatever, and I don't have to sit down with it like I often have to do with hardback books, which helps with something being slow as I can multitask. But also I think part of my brain treats the e-reader like a screen so I tend to do more skimming and flipping through slow bits, which helps me get through it, although it's happened before that once I get past the slow part I wish I had a paper copy :P :)

I guess the grim part isn't really relevant, actually, now that I think about it.

[leaflemming]

That makes sense. I seem to choose ebooks mostly where I want to lose the sense of where I am in the text -- so I'm reading Hilary Mantel that way now, not because the book's huge (though it kind of is) so much as because I don't want to see my bookmark slowly sinking towards the back cover.

[cahn]

Yeah, that makes sense too! And in general just for books that are very large, so I don't have to carry around a large book :)

What I really really like paper books for is books where I want to flip around for various reasons. So any reference book, of course, but also often plot-heavy books (hence the "I wish I had a paper copy" above) where something happens and I'm like "...wait!! was that related to the thing five chapters ago??" and I want to flip back and cross-reference. I know there are lots of e-book tools for this (and search is a great thing!) but I'm so used to doing it with paper (and often retain a sort of visual memory for pages) that it's still generally both faster and more pleasant for me to flip through paper pages looking for something like that.

[schneefink]

Thanks for the reminder! I won't nominate Air Logic for best novel (I liked it but not that much,) but I'll definitely nominate it for best series.

[sophia_sol]

Ooh yeah I loved a lot of what you listed in this post. In fact every single one of the works I've read that you list I thought was amazing. Please talk to me about Dave's Head! I definitely don't think I understood everything that was going on, though it was neat how well it worked as a story without being explicit about stuff.

Some other good stories from 2019 that come to mind:

Short story
The King's Mirror
Truth Plus
Gephyrophobia
Many-Hearted Dog and Heron who Stepped Past Time

Novella
To Be Taught, If Fortunate - Becky Chambers
Silver in the Wood - Emily Tesh

Novel
The True Queen - Zen Cho
A Choir of Lies - Alexandra Rowland
(really though A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE forever!!!!)

[cahn]

Oooooh thank you for the links! And HOW could I forget about Silver in the Wood, yes, that is going on my ballot too.

Ahhhhhhh I didn't realize the Rowland was eligible, I haven't gotten around to it yet but it is totally on my list as it sounds like I would really love it!

Dave's Head:
Okay, gonna ROT-13 this:
BX, fb, Pnffvr'f zbz jnf va anabgrpu, naq fur znqr fbzr xvaq bs gval anabgrpu guvat naq chg vg va gur ivnyf -- guvf vf gur cneg V qba'g xabj, ohg gur anabgrpu jvyy fbzrubj punatr gur jbeyq? znxr rirelbar rdhny?? naq Pnffvr'f qnq qbrfa'g yvxr gung orpnhfr vg jvyy qrfgnovyvmr uvf svanapvny rzcver naq vf gelvat gb trg vg (gur ivnyf) sebz ure. Ohg jung Pnffvr vf npghnyyl qbvat vf chggvat gur pbagragf bs gur ivny, yvggyr ol yvggyr, va ure unaq fnavgvmre, naq fur jbexf nf n terrgre ng gur nvecbeg fb rirel gvzr fur "fnavgvmrf" ure unaqf naq funxrf fbzrbar'f unaq fur fraqf gur yvggyr anabobgf (be jungrire gurl ner, lbh pna frr jul V jnag fbzrbar gb gryy zr jung gurl ner!) bss jvgu nabgure crefba gb punatr gur jbeyq yvggyr ol yvggyr.

[sophia_sol]

Glad I could remind you of Silver in the Wood and let you know that A Choir of Lies is eligible! :D

Dave's Head: V guvax lbh'er evtug nobhg gur anabobgf, V qvqa'g pngpu gung ersrerapr svefg gvzr guebhtu ohg gung znxrf frafr! Jung V zbfg jnag gb xabj vf JUNG gur anabobgf (be jungrire) ner tbvat gb qb gb svk guvatf gubhtu, naq V qba'g guvax gurer ner rabhtu uvagf gb grnfr gung bhg. Nynf!

[cahn]

Yeeeeeah I want to know what the effect is too!! I was wondering whether she'd left clues to it in the story but I certainly didn't catch it at the time if she did. I may try to reread later with that in mind.

[sophia_sol]

When I reread yesterday I didn't manage to pick up on any clues about the effect but I might still be missing something. Let me know if you do catch anything more in a reread!

[snickfic]

Now that I've read it, I agree with your rot13. And yeah, I don't think there's anything in there about what the effect is. I really enjoyed the story, though - I loved all three of the characters, and Cassie's such a fun narrator. I was SO pleased when I realized the narrator was a "green-haired skinny chick."

[cahn]

Grr, that's rather irritating -- I think the story would have been better if she'd put in *some* clue as to that, even a very slight one. But yay, I'm glad you liked the story! I really liked it.

[cahn]

Wow, these short stories were *excellent*. The only one I didn't absolutely adore was "Many-Hearted Dog," and I think that was a stylistic thing. The others are definitely going on my ballot, thanks!

[sophia_sol]

yessss, I'm delighted you enjoyed these stories! Many-Hearted Dog is actually arguably my favourite of the bunch, lol, but different people can definitely have very different reactions to the same story and I do adore the others too

[cahn]

hahahaha yes just because we agree on 90% of our noms doesn't mean we can't differ on 10%, that's probaly good so we don't get flagged as a slate nom anyway, hee.

[sophia_sol]

I'm actually not a nominating member so no slate worries here! :P It's reading your post that made me realise, oh hey, these days I can afford to be a Hugo member, I should sign up! But it was too late for noms, I can only vote this year, alas.

[snickfic]

Oh hey, For He Can Creep is on my (very short, sadly incomplete) nom list also! I think I will probably nom The Monster of Elendhaven for novella and Magic for Liars for novel, and that might be it. I need to review my spreadsheet from months ago. I have two more novellas home from the library, maybe I can manage to read them in the next two days...

[cahn]

Ooh, isn't it a great story? :) Huh, I haven't read Monster of Elendhaven or Magic for Liars, I wonder how much time I really have in the next couple of days....

[snickfic]

I've just read Compassionate Simulation and am now nominating it. It was GREAT. Brrrr.

[cahn]

Yay!

Yeah, it just knocked me for a loop. Brrr, indeed.

[rosefox]

I highly recommend Sarah Pinsker's A Song for a New Day to round out your Best Novel ballot. Also Seanan McGuire's Middlegame.

[cahn]

Ah, I'll see what I can do about checking them out, thanks!! I do like Pinsker. I honestly have not had huge success with McGuire so far but I've only read her Wayward Children series (part of which I liked, but part of which I noped right out of).

[rosefox]

The Pinsker basically predicted the current moment, except very very slightly worse, plus a generation, all through the lens of making and experiencing music and what it means to do that as people flee the dangerous but vivid real world for the safe but flattened virtual world. It's got a lot of hope in it for a book set in the aftermath of a pandemic. (Emphasis on aftermath—there's mentions of loss and everyone is carrying some trauma, but it's not a horror novel.) I loved it, and right now I want to give a copy of it to every musician I know.

[cahn]

Ohhhh that sounds lovely, I read the Pinsker story about the generational ship that was up for the Hugos a year or two ago, and my thought on that was that I liked it but Needs More Music :) (The music was absolutely the best part of that story.) So this seems like what I am looking for :D