Hugo short stories
Jun. 1st, 2026 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnlook at me gooooooo (I have more, but I will probably not continue to be this fast, we'll see)
- 10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days by Samantha Mills (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 63) - I mean, I thought this was nice and I don't regret reading it, but I think I like a little more plot to my stories? It's... basically what the title says.
- "In My Country" by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld, Issue 223) - Hm. I thought this story, set in a fictional and somewhat allegorical-sounding country, was trying to do something interesting with the ambiguity of stories, but I think it would have benefitted from... being less allegorical and more ambiguous, perhaps? Like, I think part of the power of the ambiguity of stories comes from the part where people are real and also ambiguous, and that didn't quite come through so much for me here. But I thought it was interesting, anyway.
- Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything”] by Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots, May 16, 2025) - One-note amusing disabled-superhero story with a Point. It was fun!
- “Missing Helen”( by Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld, Issue 226) - This one I really liked. It asks interesting questions about clones from the human standpoint: what would it be like to know you had a clone out there, what would it be like for the clone, what would it be like for someone who knew the original you? How does that play into human relationships?
- “Six People to Revise You”( by J.R. Dawson (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 62) - okay, so, the conceit of the story -- you can be "revised," which I guess overhauls your whole personality, and the data for doing this comes from asking people around you -- is rather interesting. The story itself didn't engage with the things I wanted it to. Why do you have to ask other people how they would revise you? What does it mean to overhaul your personality, is what makes you you still there? And what does it mean to feel about yourself that you would want to be revised? (Would I want to be revised? The devil is in the details, of course. I could imagine details where I'd jump at the chance, and other details where I'd definitely not want to.) So, yeah, very interesting concept and I wish it had played more with the ambiguities inherent in it; the story clearly feels a certain unambiguous way about it which made it not very interesting to me. As a paired read with "Missing Helen," I thought "Helen" did a much better job of engaging with the humanity in its premise.
- “Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld, Issue 229) - This is the only one of the six I read before nominations, and I didn't like it enough to read it again sooooo these thoughts are a few months old and my memory is terrible. But my recollection is that it was sort of an interesting comment on AI (I must confess that LLMs have gotten to the point as of now, June 2026, where I do have to constantly remind myself it's an algorithm even though I know very well it is... I wonder what it will be like for the people who are kids right now, growing up with AI that sound like people) with an ending that had a bit too much shock value to it.
Helen >> Wire Mother > Revise > Country > Visions > Laser, I guess? idek. Everything under Wire Mother I'm sort of ambivalent about.
- 10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days by Samantha Mills (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 63) - I mean, I thought this was nice and I don't regret reading it, but I think I like a little more plot to my stories? It's... basically what the title says.
- "In My Country" by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld, Issue 223) - Hm. I thought this story, set in a fictional and somewhat allegorical-sounding country, was trying to do something interesting with the ambiguity of stories, but I think it would have benefitted from... being less allegorical and more ambiguous, perhaps? Like, I think part of the power of the ambiguity of stories comes from the part where people are real and also ambiguous, and that didn't quite come through so much for me here. But I thought it was interesting, anyway.
- Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything”] by Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots, May 16, 2025) - One-note amusing disabled-superhero story with a Point. It was fun!
- “Missing Helen”( by Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld, Issue 226) - This one I really liked. It asks interesting questions about clones from the human standpoint: what would it be like to know you had a clone out there, what would it be like for the clone, what would it be like for someone who knew the original you? How does that play into human relationships?
- “Six People to Revise You”( by J.R. Dawson (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 62) - okay, so, the conceit of the story -- you can be "revised," which I guess overhauls your whole personality, and the data for doing this comes from asking people around you -- is rather interesting. The story itself didn't engage with the things I wanted it to. Why do you have to ask other people how they would revise you? What does it mean to overhaul your personality, is what makes you you still there? And what does it mean to feel about yourself that you would want to be revised? (Would I want to be revised? The devil is in the details, of course. I could imagine details where I'd jump at the chance, and other details where I'd definitely not want to.) So, yeah, very interesting concept and I wish it had played more with the ambiguities inherent in it; the story clearly feels a certain unambiguous way about it which made it not very interesting to me. As a paired read with "Missing Helen," I thought "Helen" did a much better job of engaging with the humanity in its premise.
- “Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld, Issue 229) - This is the only one of the six I read before nominations, and I didn't like it enough to read it again sooooo these thoughts are a few months old and my memory is terrible. But my recollection is that it was sort of an interesting comment on AI (I must confess that LLMs have gotten to the point as of now, June 2026, where I do have to constantly remind myself it's an algorithm even though I know very well it is... I wonder what it will be like for the people who are kids right now, growing up with AI that sound like people) with an ending that had a bit too much shock value to it.
Helen >> Wire Mother > Revise > Country > Visions > Laser, I guess? idek. Everything under Wire Mother I'm sort of ambivalent about.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-02 12:32 am (UTC)was trying to do something interesting with the ambiguity of stories, but I think it would have benefitted from... being less allegorical and more ambiguous, perhaps?
That was also my quibble with it -- for a story about the importance of ambiguity in stories, I kept thinking, this could be a little more ambiguous. You make a really good point about allegory, which this does feel like, not really lending itself to ambiguity -- I hadn't thought about those two approaches being, essentially, in conflict, but I do think they are...
My feelings about the stories and my rankings are very similar to yours, except that I'm ranking 'Revise' way lower, because, in part, of the squandering of the sole speculative conceit of the story.
And what does it mean to feel about yourself that you would want to be revised? (Would I want to be revised? The devil is in the details, of course. I could imagine details where I'd jump at the chance, and other details where I'd definitely not want to.)
That is so interesting to me! I think I wouldn't consider it -- not that I think I'm perfect, but I wouldn't want to mess with the totality of "me", you know? (Possibly this is also why I find the story less interesting, because the only exploration of this idea I would find interesting is a societal implications one, as opposed to a personal one, and there is zero attention paid to that.)
no subject
Date: 2026-06-02 02:38 am (UTC)Yeah, I am ranking 'Revise' as high as I am because I do think it's an interesting conceit. But I guess you're right that it is being squandered, and I should subtract points for that :)
I am mostly pretty happy with myself, but, like, if I were me but with slightly better focus/less distractibility and were slightly better at looking at the big picture, I think that would be preferable. But I imagine there are always tradeoffs, like, if I were better at looking at the big picture I might be less good at detail technical work, right? (But then again, if I had better focus...) And if, for example, E were even a little better at people (which I wish she were, and which would probably be better for her long-term than being really good at math) she'd probably be less good at math than she is. Would she make that trade? Would I, if I could choose for her? And then of course there are all the stories (I'm thinking e.g. of Beggars in Spain) about what happens societally if some people have access to this kind of thing (because of money/privilege/etc), and others don't.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-02 04:05 pm (UTC)Would she make that trade? Would I, if I could choose for her?
This is where it's starting to get into interesting questions for me (which of course the story was not at all interested in exploring :P)
And I haven't read Beggars in Spain (I should! I heard Nancy Kress on a panel last Worldcon, and what she had to say about worldbuilding was really interesting! and I felt she was one of the few panelists who was, like, keeping up with Ada Palmer on the panel, which is a pretty high bar) but yes also to finding the societal questions of access and implications the other interesting part of this notion.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 02:53 am (UTC)No, that's true, and I was thinking that too -- that it would have to be a pretty substantial upside for me to want to change things now, vs. when I was in my 20's. Then again, in my 20s I don't think I had as good a bead on what parts of my personality weren't ideal -- like, I think I would generally have agreed with my later self, but I just couldn't really articulate it at that stage, plus which I didn't have the life experience to understand how various imperfect bits would affect me over time. (hey, this would be an interesting concept combined with a time loop!)
Ugh, so many interesting questions that could have been explored!
(Hm, another interesting thing: I have a very good idea of what parts of my kid's personality I don't think are ideal. But my parents also had a very good idea of what parts of my personality they didn't/don't think were ideal, which... are very different from my ideas!)
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 07:39 pm (UTC)That's also a really good point.
(hey, this would be an interesting concept combined with a time loop!)
Ooh! Now that actually WOULD be really interesting to see!
I have a very good idea of what parts of my kid's personality I don't think are ideal. But my parents also had a very good idea of what parts of my personality they didn't/don't think were ideal, which... are very different from my ideas!)
Oh yeah, and hard same! Which is an excellent argument for why doing revisions based on other people's input is a very stupid way to go about it :)
no subject
Date: 2026-06-05 10:01 pm (UTC)(I must confess that LLMs have gotten to the point as of now, June 2026, where I do have to constantly remind myself it's an algorithm even though I know very well it is…
Same! My only use of ChatGPT right now is getting it to do it a bad job on physics problems so I can ask students to critique it on exams—it’s getting harder to find something it will mess up with a verbal answer, but it’s still pretty bad at diagrams. So I get frequent reminders that it doesn’t really “understand” its output. But I’m still definitely anthropomorphizing it, because I get so annoyed at its tone. It manages to be both incredibly sycophantic—it always says stuff like, “What a great problem! It really highlights common student misconceptions!” —and also insufferably smug. If I ask it to criticize its own work, it usually comes up with something like, “This diagram is a little too perfect-looking. A grader would probably expect something a little less polished.”
I think the context of LLM’s makes the world of Wire Mother seem even more dystopian and just viscerally gross to me than it would have even, say, five years ago, when I would have thought of AI in sort of a more classical sci-fi context. Like, I do think it’s conceivable that there could be a robot/computer intelligence that is genuinely sapient. But LLM’s ain’t it.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 03:03 am (UTC)Hahahaha, it really is!
And I think it can sometimes be hard, especially if one doesn't really understand the way LLMs work, to wrap one's head around it not really "meaning" the sycophantic things because it doesn't really mean anything, and to prefer "someone" who always agrees with you to actual people who don't. (I'm actually specifically thinking about a couple of people I know, one of whom has been known to take ChatGPT's advice over mine -- for very small things, it's true, but... still.) And that seems really dangerous.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 07:41 pm (UTC)Oh lol XD
"Wire Mother" definitely felt like a story written in a LLM bubble world...