Hugo-ish reading

[cahn]

I guess nomination season is beginning, thus also my annual panic of "huh, I haven't really read anything published in the last year..." Fortunately sophia_sol had a post that inspired me to read/post about a couple of things! But this will be short because I am writing this during E's math competition - we'll see whether she finishes first or I do ;) [I did, as you can see!] I loved all of these and they are going on my ballot for sure. In the order in which I read them:

A Garter as a Lesser Gift (Gray, novella?) - 3+/5 - rec from skygiants - I really, really liked this. Basically there was no chance I was not going to like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Arthuriana in a WWII AU :D It's quite well done the way the characters are both all their own selves and their doubled Arthuriana selves, so that a character does something and I would be like, "ah, of course that's how that person acts!"

The Sadness Box (Palmer, novelette) - Dystopia, with nanobots and artificial intelligence. I forget who posted about this (I could have sworn it was psocoptera, but I don't see it in any of their posts) but, like. Palmer is my jam when she writes about robots/AI. I wouldn't call this story particularly deep, I don't think? but I love it anyway, okay, and it's also about people, and relationships, and what makes us human, as the best robot/AI stories are.

Unraveller (Hardinge, YA) - 3+/5 - This is my third full Hardinge, and so far she's three for three on unsettling worldbuilding, lovely prose, fascinating ideas, deeply dysfunctional relationships, and hope despite all those things. Here, the idea is that people in this world, when they are angry enough at someone else, grow "curse eggs" inside themselves that, when hatched, spring a curse on the one they're angry with. You can see what kinds of ramifications this might have, both good and bad, and so does Hardinge.

I thought it was great, but it didn't knock my socks off like Deeplight did. I think partially that I wasn't in the right frame of mind for reading about dysfunctional relationships right now. In addition the structure is a bit episodic -- they need to find clue X, so they go to place A to solve problem A'; that helps them find X, so then it's time to find Y, which takes them to place B to solve problem B'; and so on. Some of the characters do reappear, and there's certainly a through-arc, but there was a certain amount of "huh, I just got attached to this character, but now it's time to move on."

Now reading: Spear (Griffith, novella) - I absolutely adore Griffith's writing (I should read more by her) and also I just got to the (first?) reveal (!!), and I am dying to see what she does with this, and I forgot to pack it on this trip and I am kicking myself so hard (though I guess if I had I'd be reading it now instead of posting this, so there's that)

How much time do I have before nominations close? I could probably knock down one or two more...

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

How much time do I have before nominations close?

end of April! (the Chengdu Worldcon website could make this info a little easier to find XD I had to check my email to confirm that my memory was correct)

This is my third full Hardinge, and so far she's three for three on unsettling worldbuilding, lovely prose, fascinating ideas, deeply dysfunctional relationships, and hope despite all those things.

this has been my experience of 100% of the Hardinges I've read (or started) too (which are A Skinful of Shadows, The Lie Tree, and Cuckoo Song in full, and a couple more that I'm still working my way through, theoretically, including Deeplight)

And, ooh, I should go read the Suzanne Palmer novelette -- they always work well for me (despite not being earthshaking or particularly deep), and I never read novelettes in the wild, so I never have any to nominate unless I go out and search for some.

[cahn]

Oh loooool you know what, I totally scrolled by the Chengdu Worldcon email because the first part of it was in Chinese and I figured it must be spam! Whoops.

they always work well for me (despite not being earthshaking or particularly deep)

Yes, that's exactly it! I think part of what works well for me is that Palmer doesn't seem to make any pretensions towards being deep, the stories are there to tell a good story, and I'm there for that!

[hamsterwoman]

I totally scrolled by the Chengdu Worldcon email because the first part of it was in Chinese and I figured it must be spam! Whoops.

You are definitely not alone in that! XD The only reason I *didn't* miss it is that by the time I got the email (it seems to have gone out to people at different times, which is also somewhat baffling -- I guess those who were members of the Chengdu Worldcon got theirs first and those eligible via the previous one only later?), I had seen people on File770 talking about how they thought it was spam at first because the preview of the subject line is all Chinese characters. And even then it was a double-take for me, before my brain caught up with the fact that the weird all Chinese characters email in my inbox was probably not spam but the Hugo Nominations email I've been griping about not getting, and I should open it :P

Palmer doesn't seem to make any pretensions towards being deep, the stories are there to tell a good story, and I'm there for that!

Yeah, same! I'm glad people are still writing SFF in this vein and it's still getting recognized.

[luzula]

I need to read more Hardinge! I've read a couple, and they're always so good.

[cahn]

They really are! I think they are intense enough that I can only take about one a year, lol, but I'm very glad when I have even a vague excuse to read them!