Hugo novelettes/short stories

[cahn]

I have been kind of busy and have not been doing my Hugo reading as I should. But I finally got around to finishing at least the short stories and novelettes. Working on the novels, and the novellas are this big blank space for me right now.

Novelettes

• "Ivy, Angelica, Bay" (C.L. Polk) - Atmospheric story about a woman who takes care of her community, who is confronted by a threat to it. I liked the atmosphere, though I found the story itself a bit predictable.



• "On the Fox Roads" (Nghi Vo) - Differently atmospheric story about Jazz Age bank robbers. Hmm. I am not entirely sure how I feel about this story. I don't know whether it's a simpler story than I think it is or a more complex story than I think it is. I am leaning towards simpler-and-atmospheric. I did think the writing was very good.



• "One Man's Treasure" (Sarah Pinsker) - The trashmen in a universe sort-of-like-ours-except-with-more-magic find something they weren't expecting in the trash. I enjoyed the worldbuilding in this one a lot -- I've always kind of low-key wondered why we don't have more fantasy stories with, say, trash collection, or late-stage capitalism. And there is a happy ending (at least locally), which is always nice. I had the issue I often have with Pinsker, which is that I finished it and was like, "hmm, that's it?" but still there was a lot here to like.



• "The Year Without Sunshine" (Naomi Kritzer) - After the (somewhat temporary) apocalypse, a neighborhood bands together to help each other. This is a very affirming story. I don't know that I would call it the greatest story of all time, but I really really liked it because honestly I kind of needed to read an affirming story about people helping each other right now. Although I kept thinking my neighborhood would not be like this! (But my ward would.)



• I AM AI (Ai Jiang) - rather heavy-handed story about AI taking over all human creative endeavors, and humans trying to scratch out a living in the chinks in between, without losing their humanity either figuratively or literally. Now you don't have to read the story, that's the whole thing.



• “Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition” (Gu Shi) - I mean, I'm an absolute sucker for non-traditional story modes; this is a purported introduction to a book written as a retrospective history in a society where reliable cryosleep has become a way of life, with people skipping decades later through that mechanism; this "introduction" brings up both individuals and more broad societal trends. It reminds me of some of Ted Chiang's work -- I liked it a lot! (But if you don't like Chiang, you probably wouldn't like this either.) I did find the ending clunky, but I am willing to put up with that for the sake of my interest in the rest of it.

Vote: AI < No Award < Ivy <= Fox <= Treasure <= Sunshine < 2181
(the equal signs mean I don't feel super strongly about the ranking and could be convinced otherwise)

Short stories:

• >"Better Living through Algorithms" (Naomi Kritzer) - okay -- I liked this! It's pretty much vintage breezy Kritzer and exactly what the title says. But sometimes I just want vintage breezy Kritzer :D



• "How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub" (P. Djèlí Clark) - DNF. I really don't like stories about unpleasant people getting their comeuppance (told from the POV of the unpleasant person -- if it's from anyone else's POV, that's totally fine), and, well, that's what this is.



• "The Mausoleum's Children" (Aliette de Bodard) - A woman who escaped from the Mausoleum of an old spaceship comes back. Huh! This might be my favorite de Bodard story, with a lot of tropes that I enjoy, though it has rather a deus ex machina ending.



• "The Sound of Children Screaming" (Rachael K. Jones) - it starts, "You know the one about the Gun. The Gun goes where it wants to." This is, as you might be able to tell, a very angry story. I'm a bit fried regarding angry stories, but I did think the structure was interesting.



• “Answerless Journey”, Han Song / 没有答案的航程, 韩松 - DNF, I skimmed to the end. This was kind of an... answerless story about two people (?) in a spaceship without memory. Spoiler: they never get back their memories, it's not really clear if one of them is the bad guy and the other one is good or vice versa. Or maybe that's because I skimmed.



• "美食三品 (“Tasting the Future Delicacy Three Times”), 宝树 / Baoshu - okay, uh, I am probably extremely predictable, but I loved these triple linked-vignettes about future food-appreciation technology. I mean, I thought the technologies were both interesting and pointed in regard to how it would intersect with our wealth-stratified societies, and it turns out I do like comeuppances when they're not from the POV of the unpleasant person -- but really you know that the real charm of it for me was the descriptions of food that was experienced as delicious :P
  

My vote: Answerless < No Award < Kraken < Sound < Algorithms < Mausoleum < Delicacy

Comments

[cahn]

You're right, no one really talks about short stories! That is so cool though that you can be the person who introduces us to short stories you like <3