Hugos 2022: short stories
Apr. 27th, 2022 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSo Hugo nominees have come out! And I have read all the short stories and started on the novelettes, but got pulled away by a bunch of holds coming in from the library for the novels -- watch this space :)
Short stories:
“Mr. Death”, by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, Feb 2021) - Feel-good story about Death's minions. Sometimes one just wants the feel-good story, okay? :) I liked this one, though I will say that it's not one that I see myself rereading.
“Proof by Induction”, by José Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny Magazine, May/Jun 2021) - The conceit here of a person talking to a recording of his dead relative and working out (or not) issues with relative is not super new (Compassionate Simulation is a powerful recent take on it), but gosh I really liked the academic/mathematician twist on it, and how it interplayed with the themes of the story.
“The Sin of America”, by Catherynne M. Valente (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021) - Having been burned by Space Opera, I forgot that Valente could write powerfully, but yes, she can. Valente made me have a lot of feelings and thoughts about the process of redemption and what we mean by it. Now, I will say that the central conceit was maybe... done better and more subtly by Shirley Jackson? But I still thought it was an interesting story.
“Tangles”, by Seanan McGuire (Magicthegathering.com: Magic Story, Sep 2021) - I think that McGuire's stuff works better for me when it doesn't try so hard to be ~profound~ or ~numinous~. I really liked Middlegame! But this story... didn't do it for me. I popped right out of my suspension of disbelief when, in the middle of a story that seems like it's supposed to be reminiscient of high fantasy, there was a parenthetical clause about the pronouns and gender of a tree's dryad. (I mean, it's great that McGuire is cognizant of gender questions and so on! But wow that was a weird tone shift, and didn't seem to be at all relevant for the rest of the story.)
“Unknown Number”, by Blue Neustifter (Twitter, Jul 2021) - This story, told all in text bubbles, is great and has interesting things to say about identity -- just, I feel a little like the author got to elide most of the hard parts of telling a story due to the creative format, so I'm not rating it quite as highly as the other ones I liked.
“Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021) - I feel like this one was tailor-made for my id?? Pinsker is super hit and miss for me. I've read a couple by Pinsker where I think they were reasonably good stories but she didn't tell the story I wanted, and at least one where she actually wrote a story I wanted to read. But this one is the story I never knew I wanted but I really did, told entirely through a wikipedia-like message board where a few really committed internet fans are commenting on a ballad. It's everything I love about the internet, how sometimes you find a few people who really like something you also really like and form a tiny virtual community in a corner of the internet (hello all of my DW friends! you guys are the best!! so glad you talk to me about SF and Hugos and opera and crochet and 18th-century history and all the other completely random stuff around here), and also it's about people geeking out about a ballad, I mean, this was made for me :)
If you liked e.g. Wylding Hall, I think you'll like this story. (why yes,rachelmanija, you should read this)
1. Oaken
2. Proof
3. Unknown NUmber
4. Sin
5. Death
6. Tangles
Short stories:
“Mr. Death”, by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, Feb 2021) - Feel-good story about Death's minions. Sometimes one just wants the feel-good story, okay? :) I liked this one, though I will say that it's not one that I see myself rereading.
“Proof by Induction”, by José Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny Magazine, May/Jun 2021) - The conceit here of a person talking to a recording of his dead relative and working out (or not) issues with relative is not super new (Compassionate Simulation is a powerful recent take on it), but gosh I really liked the academic/mathematician twist on it, and how it interplayed with the themes of the story.
“The Sin of America”, by Catherynne M. Valente (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021) - Having been burned by Space Opera, I forgot that Valente could write powerfully, but yes, she can. Valente made me have a lot of feelings and thoughts about the process of redemption and what we mean by it. Now, I will say that the central conceit was maybe... done better and more subtly by Shirley Jackson? But I still thought it was an interesting story.
“Tangles”, by Seanan McGuire (Magicthegathering.com: Magic Story, Sep 2021) - I think that McGuire's stuff works better for me when it doesn't try so hard to be ~profound~ or ~numinous~. I really liked Middlegame! But this story... didn't do it for me. I popped right out of my suspension of disbelief when, in the middle of a story that seems like it's supposed to be reminiscient of high fantasy, there was a parenthetical clause about the pronouns and gender of a tree's dryad. (I mean, it's great that McGuire is cognizant of gender questions and so on! But wow that was a weird tone shift, and didn't seem to be at all relevant for the rest of the story.)
“Unknown Number”, by Blue Neustifter (Twitter, Jul 2021) - This story, told all in text bubbles, is great and has interesting things to say about identity -- just, I feel a little like the author got to elide most of the hard parts of telling a story due to the creative format, so I'm not rating it quite as highly as the other ones I liked.
“Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, Mar/Apr 2021) - I feel like this one was tailor-made for my id?? Pinsker is super hit and miss for me. I've read a couple by Pinsker where I think they were reasonably good stories but she didn't tell the story I wanted, and at least one where she actually wrote a story I wanted to read. But this one is the story I never knew I wanted but I really did, told entirely through a wikipedia-like message board where a few really committed internet fans are commenting on a ballad. It's everything I love about the internet, how sometimes you find a few people who really like something you also really like and form a tiny virtual community in a corner of the internet (hello all of my DW friends! you guys are the best!! so glad you talk to me about SF and Hugos and opera and crochet and 18th-century history and all the other completely random stuff around here), and also it's about people geeking out about a ballad, I mean, this was made for me :)
If you liked e.g. Wylding Hall, I think you'll like this story. (why yes,
rachelmanija, you should read this)1. Oaken
2. Proof
3. Unknown NUmber
4. Sin
5. Death
6. Tangles
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Date: 2022-05-03 12:57 pm (UTC)