The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor)
New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit)
Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit)
The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Best Novella
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
“And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017)
Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)
Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)
Best Novelette
“Children of Thorns, Children of Water,” by Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny, July-August 2017)
“Extracurricular Activities,” by Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com, February 15, 2017)
“The Secret Life of Bots,” by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, September 2017)
“A Series of Steaks,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Clarkesworld, January 2017)
“Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time,” by K.M. Szpara (Uncanny, May/June 2017)
“Wind Will Rove,” by Sarah Pinsker (Asimov’s, September/October 2017)
Best Short Story
“Carnival Nine,” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2017)
“Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, September 2017)
“Fandom for Robots,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny, September/October 2017)
“The Martian Obelisk,” by Linda Nagata (Tor.com, July 19, 2017)
“Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon, (Uncanny, May/June 2017)
“Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™,” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, August 2017)
Haven't read any of the novel contenders, but I have read the first 2 books of Broken Earth but the one I want to read is Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes and probably Scalzi's Collapsing Empire because I know it'll be quick.
Movies, I'm with you Victoria on The Shape of Water. I've seen most of the other ones.
BTW, I don't have an opinion on any of these in so much. But tempted to go to WorldCon just because I like the nominees (I follow a lot of them on twitter) and it's kind of at my backyard but not.
I don't get into awards much these days but it's hard not to want to play Monday morning quarterback. I'll put my own hypothetical ballot in a second post. For the first half of my reaction, I've reordered the nominees I've read in order of preference and added notes (and links and notes about which were picked by "the big four" "year's best SF" editors).
I only read four novellas on the web from 2017 (and none from Tor.com Publishing) and the Pinsker was second best but didn't start well and there are things implicit in the ending that I find off-putting in a couple of ways. Either way, it's not what I think of as being "award-worthy" in the ideal sense of the term.
I picked "A Series of Steaks" for my "web's best" and would be very happy if it won. The next two were readable but didn't actually work for me. "Wind" had good things but was deficiently plotted and "Bots" seems to appeal to people because of its cute tiny anthropomorphic implausible robot which was exactly my problem with it. I haven't read "Children" which, though it was from 2017, was reprinted from some weird gimmick of Ace and/or Gollancz (I don't know why it's being credited to Uncanny) and I was focusing on the web at the time.
I recommended all the top three and thought "Obelisk" was a "web's best" but the Prasad and Vernon were probably the second-best stories Prasad and Vernon wrote last year. (I think "The Dark Birds" edges "Sun, Moon, Dust.") I almost gave "Carnival Nine" an honorable mention and thought "Authentic" was okay. I disliked "Lettered."
IMO, if (and only if) "A Series of Steaks" and "The Martian Obelisk" win, the Hugos might not end up looking too bad this year, though the nominee list leaves much to be desired in general.
Interesting that this is yet another short fiction ballot with almost no males and, as far as I know, no straight males, not to mention straight white males. While my impression of intrinsic quality is my principle of selection (as it may be for everyone), it turns out my own "ballot" would have a little more diversity.
Sidebar: A "category" where I wouldn't have much diversity and which is the only other thing about the official ballot that I want to comment on is the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (sh! not a Hugo!). All but two of the authors are nominated for books rather than short fiction, which is Not How It's Done and I'm only familiar with the two. Obviously Prasad should win, but several are missing. I mentioned my reaction to Roanhorse above and have no problems with her but she didn't stick out like Lina Rather ("Seven Permutations of My Daughter" & "Marking the Witch") or Ashley Blooms ("The Dead Father Cookbook") or even people I honorably mentioned more than once: Kathleen Kayembe ("You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych" & "The Faerie Tree"), Deborah L. Davitt ("Demeter's Regard" & "Candont"), or flash specialist Steven Fischer ("And All Our Bones Were Dust" & "A Siren Song for Two" (I actually recommended the last and, while it doesn't count for this purpose, he's written another good flash piece in F&SF this year)).
For the second half, my nominees would be very different, obviously. I still think of Hugos as being for SF with the occasional blue moon exception and the World Fantasy Award as being for fantasies but, if I nominated and I mixed them together, my nominees would have been something like:
Best Novella
"The Dragon of Dread Peak" (Parts One and Two) by Jeremiah Tolbert (Lightspeed, October 2017)
As I said, I only read four novellas. This YA tale is slighter than "N-one" but has fewer problems. Again, it's not ideally "award-worthy" but was the most satisfactory of a small pool. (I actually gave it an honorable mention.)
Best Novelette
"A Series of Steaks" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Clarkesworld, January 2017)
"Uncanny Valley" by Greg Egan (Tor.com, August 9, 2017)
"Fool's Cap" by Andy Dudak (Clarkesworld, June 2017)
"Tav" by Dustin Kennedy (Compelling, February/March 2017)
"Remote Presence" by Susan Palwick (Lightspeed, April 2017)
"The West Topeka Triangle" by Jeremiah Tolbert (Lightspeed, January 2017)
The first four make my ballot with no problem. (Especially the first two. The omission of "Uncanny Valley" from the ballot is the most appalling thing about it.) The last two are very good but mingle in with some others which could just as easily have made the ballot.
Ditto with these first four (and two) and last two.
Other stories I thought were the "web's best," many of which could just as easily be substituted into the ballot are (listed categorically/alphabetically):
Novelettes
“The Dark Birds“ by Ursula Vernon (Apex #92, January 2017)
“Sweetlings“ by Lucy Taylor (Tor.com, May 3, 2017)
Short Stories
“Crossing the Threshold“ by Pat Murphy (Lightspeed #85, June 2017)
“The Garbage Doll“ by Jessica Amanda Salmonson (Nightmare #53, February 2017)
“Penelope Waits“ by Dennis Danvers (Apex #101, October 2017)
“Rising Star“ by Stephen Graham Jones (Uncanny #15, March/April 2017)
“The Şiret Mask“ by Marie Brennan (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #238, November 9, 2017)
“An Unexpected Boon“ by S. B. Divya (Apex #102, November 2017)
“When We Go“ by Evan Dicken (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #223, April 13, 2017)
And there really needs to be a flash category. It's hard to stack a 900 word story up against a 6,000 word story but flash pieces have their own unique aspects and successes. The best of those (allowing that some definitions cap "flash" at 1,000 words while I think it probably ought to be 1,500 and that "This Is for You" is about 1,200 words) were:
“The Black Clover Equation“ by Zach Shephard (Flash Fiction Online, April 2017)
“Cease and Desist“ by Tyler Young (Nature, January 18, 2017)
“Legale“ by Vernor Vinge (Nature, August 9, 2017)
“Marking the Witch“ by Lina Rather (Flash Fiction Online, February 2017)
“This Is for You“ by Bruce McAllister (Lightspeed #84, May 2017)
Hopefully the Rabid Puppies have finally become bored of trying to manipulate the award, although sadly that probably means they're off trying to cause trouble somewhere else instead.
I've read three of the novels so far. I thought The Stone Sky was very good, although I feel that after the first two books have won the award maybe the third should really do something even better to win the award again, and I don't think it necessarily stood out from the rest of the series. I also liked Raven Stratagem a lot, it's a Science Fiction series that manages to feel different to anything else I've read and I thought it was a compelling story. Provenance was disappointing, I really liked Leckie's Ancillary books but felt Provenance didn't have the same depth, although it was an entertaining read.
I'd highly recommend Nnedi Okorafor, NK Jemisin, Fran Wilde, Seanan McGuire, and Linda Nagata from their other work. Heard some good stuff about Yoon Ha Lee, Sarah Gailey, and Martha Wells. I'm eager to check out Rebecca Roanhorse's debut novel when it comes out later this year.
Obviously, Leckie, Scalzi and KS Robinson need no introduction, as they're mainstays. Aliette de Bodard is moving towards that category as well. I have to say it's a really good selection of authors this year, although I've only read one of the actual works listed, Okorafor's Binti: Home, which was excellent.
In regards to Top 40 music, I may be in the same boat, half of the time. My taste is (I am told) sometimes questionable*, but Janelle Monáe is very good.
*I think it's because my tastes include a range from classical, through 1930s Delta Blues and 1970s glam rock, to modern electronica -- kind of the same for my reading material.
When I have a chance, I'll read the nominees available on-line one by one.
The only novella I can read that way is "And Then There Were (N-One)" by Sarah Pinsker. (I suspect this may be because this one is more of a "long novelette" and the others, published as books, are more "short novels.")
The narrator -- who has the same name as the author, but who isn't the author, as you'll see -- goes to an isolated hotel on an island for a convention of her other selves from parallel universes. One of them gets murdered. Since she's the only Sarah Pinsker who's an investigator, she tries to solve the crime. It's a clever premise, and the story is written in a clear, very readable style. So, overall, I thought it was pretty good.
(Apparently this was first published in a form only available to people who pre-ordered one of the author's novels, to which this appears to be a prequel.) This is an historical fantasy set in Paris some time in the past, but one in which a war of magic has devastated the city. There are "Houses" ruled by fallen angels. Ordinary people are either living in the streets or work for the Houses. There are also dragons, secretly living under the waters of the Seine, who can take on human form. Two of these try to infiltrate one of the Houses by undergoing the test that allows them to become servants, but before this is completed an unexpected threat forces the dragons and the angels to work together. This was OK, not quite my cup of tea.
Space opera in which a secret agent gets sent on a mission to rescue an old acquaintance and finds out the real truth. An old-fashioned action-adventure story, for the most part, spiced up with some comedy and sex. I didn't care much for it.
At that time I was only reviewing for Tangent or making recommendations so I don't think I published anything on that one but my notes say, "My thumbnail reaction: it was entertaining and moved quickly and so what?" I expanded on that, of course, but it boiled down to it being a space opera with no scientific and little character interest. I can't say why I didn't care for "N-one" without spoilers.
Mutiverse stories in which anything and everything can and does happen are empty to me and the idea that killing or stealing the life of a version of yourself because that version is a drug addict seems to be endorsed (or almost endorsed) in the context of the story and is repugnant. And, as I could and did say without spoiling, I didn't like the opening which initially seemed metafictional, narcissistic, and annoying. To be fair, once you get into it and if you don't mind the milieu and the ending, it's pretty well done and has some cleverness and interest, so I grant it's okay and get people liking it. Just not me.
Sorry to interrupt the story reviews/discussions, but one more general thing on the nominees to say.
Some people are happy that the "Sad Puppy" thing seems to be over and that a portion of fandom has been successfully excluded from participation. Many people laughed at the Puppies' "conspiracy theories" about an unrepresentative cabal skewing the awards and people said only the Puppies themselves were doing that. As I've said before, I'm no Sad Puppy and I'm not arguing for (or against) a coordinated cabal but, aside from the gender/orientation, I noticed something else, less sociologically loaded, about this year's Hugo and Nebula nominees:
Tor, in its two short-fiction guises (Tor.com's webzine short stories and novelettes and Tor.com Publishing's print novellas), got 13 nominations for 10 stories and Uncanny got 10 nominations for 6 stories while all other venues combined got 13 nominations for 9 stories.
So most people agree that Uncanny is three times and Tor.com is four times more award-worthy than, for example, Analog, Asimov's, and F&SF are combined? They are each as, or nearly as, worthy as all other venues combined?
The actual nominees certainly shouldn't correspond to my choices. Since I'm just one guy with his idiosyncratic taste and was only covering webzines at the time, it also seems obvious the award choices would display much greater diversity than mine. But this is how the numbers turned out when I counted the webzine-only venues which produced the stories I picked for my "web's bests" (with ties broken by percentage of generally recommended stories):
Code:
Lightspeed 5 11.63% SF&F
Tor.com 4 14.89% SF&F
Clarkesworld 3 10.87% SF
Apex 3 8.33% SF&F
Flash Fiction Online 2 12.50% SF&F
Uncanny 2 11.76% SF&F
Beneath Ceaseless Skies 2 11.32% F
Nature 2 9.80% SF
Compelling 1 12.90% SF
Strange Horizons 1 5.71% SF&F
Nightmare 1 5.00% H
26 stories from 11 webzine venues (4 venues had no selections).
It should be pretty clear that I don't have anything against Tor.com's or Uncanny's fiction (they do quite well) but I do question the statistics of the actual nominations and think the argument that some voices in fandom aren't being heard (or others are being heard disproportionately) could have some merit.
My numbers were easy but who cares about me? It's a little harder so I didn't crunch all the numbers on Clarke, Datlow, Dozois, Horton, and Strahan but I think those 5 selectors chose 120 stories. Tor.com has 10 stories nominated 15 times and Uncanny 4 and 5. I think the total number of venues is 48.
Listing just those venues with three or more stories:
So that list essentially corresponds with mine in that there's nothing against Tor or Uncanny but they don't finish at the top (and Uncanny is substantially lower than the Hugos and Nebulas would have them) and there's a gradual curve for all venues. It also will likely correspond with my 2018 list in that the printzines will rank highly, especially compared to their places in the Hugos and Nebulas.
Odd notes: Of the eleven stories that were nominated which no "year's best" editor selected, six come from Tor.com Publishing and four come from Uncanny (the other from Apex). Even odder, three of the Tors, two of the Uncannys and the Apex were double-nominees (for eleven total nominations). Granted, not all stories are applicable to all editors' anthologies and, as crazy as it would be, Tor.com Publishing may not be allowing the editors to reprint their novellas but, still: five of five professional "year's best" editors "missed" three to six double-nominees? On the other hand, of the six stories listed in the "Uncanny Reader Poll," five are nominees (four, double) taking nine slots.)
I don't have anything in particular against the Sad Puppies recommending whatever they like as potential award-winners. I do have something against the Rabid Puppies (which is pretty much just one person and people who will obey him) deliberately trying to destroy the awards.
Enough of that.
I thought the dominance of Tor.com and Uncanny was peculiar, too. Possible reasons (for which I have no evidence one way or the other) suggest themselves.
1. A lot more people are reading free web fiction than print magazines or web zines that have to be paid for. The editors of the "best" anthologies, of course, read more widely. This may be regrettable, but seems inevitable.
2. Tor.com and Uncanny are heavily promoting themselves, asking folks to vote for their authors. Maybe not the most admirable thing to do, but understandable. (Like those "for your consideration" Oscar ads in the Hollywood trade papers.)
3. There are lots of voters who base their decisions to a large extent on reasons other than literary quality; voting for women writers over men writers, etc. I can't read the minds of voters, but if this is going on, it's reprehensible.
(If people just wanted to vote for "politically correct" fiction, I'd expect more from Strange Horizons; but I digress.)
Do you see the same kind of thing happening in the Nebulas, which are supposed to be more professional?
A tiny robot tries to get rid of an alien creature who has infested a nearly derelict starship. Meanwhile, a much large battle to save the Earth is going on. I may be damning this story with faint praise when I say that I found it best described by words like "nice," "pleasant," and "cute." It's like an episode of Star Trek seen from the point of view of an insect-sized machine. I enjoyed it to a reasonable degree, but I wouldn't call it outstanding.
A tiny robot tries to get rid of an alien creature who has infested a nearly derelict starship. Meanwhile, a much large battle to save the Earth is going on. I may be damning this story with faint praise when I say that I found it best described by words like "nice," "pleasant," and "cute." It's like an episode of Star Trek seen from the point of view of an insect-sized machine. I enjoyed it to a reasonable degree, but I wouldn't call it outstanding.
I was a little cooler to the story but basically agree with that review, too.
(I have the weirdest feeling it may win, though, which would be a crime vs. "Steaks." I'm putting this in "spoilers" just because I don't think you've read "Steaks" yet and I don't want to oversell it.)
I don't have anything in particular against the Sad Puppies recommending whatever they like as potential award-winners. I do have something against the Rabid Puppies (which is pretty much just one person and people who will obey him) deliberately trying to destroy the awards.
Enough of that.
I thought the dominance of Tor.com and Uncanny was peculiar, too. Possible reasons (for which I have no evidence one way or the other) suggest themselves.
1. A lot more people are reading free web fiction than print magazines or web zines that have to be paid for. The editors of the "best" anthologies, of course, read more widely. This may be regrettable, but seems inevitable.
2. Tor.com and Uncanny are heavily promoting themselves, asking folks to vote for their authors. Maybe not the most admirable thing to do, but understandable. (Like those "for your consideration" Oscar ads in the Hollywood trade papers.)
3. There are lots of voters who base their decisions to a large extent on reasons other than literary quality; voting for women writers over men writers, etc. I can't read the minds of voters, but if this is going on, it's reprehensible.
(If people just wanted to vote for "politically correct" fiction, I'd expect more from Strange Horizons; but I digress.)
Do you see the same kind of thing happening in the Nebulas, which are supposed to be more professional?
Thanks - I wasn't sure if it would be interesting or really boring. And, agreed, I actually thought the Sads were trying to be reasonable part of the time but couldn't find anything to appreciate with the Rabids. And, like you, I don't have evidence as to whys and only numbers for whats. On #1, I agree that the general bias against print is likely down to availability/cost. But webzines are on even footing with each other in that regard and there was still quite a bit statistically odd there. #2, I agree, they are better at promotion than many though (ideally) this would help with "circulation" (do we still call it that for webzines?) more than awards. #3, I don't want to say that's what it is but it also seems like a reasonable (at least partial) explanation. (As far as Strange Horizons, they may be a little too slipstream for most readers.) What I was doing above was based on combined Hugos and Nebulas which may show an unusual (based on my memories of many years ago) degree of overlap. As far as the differences, the Nebulas substitute a NobleFusion Press for a Tor.com Publishing, an F&SF and The Expanding Universe for a Clarkesworld and an Uncanny, and a Strange Horizons for a second Uncanny. So more diverse and less tilted towards Tor.com and Uncanny but not a lot of difference. (Incidentally, there were some Tor-for-Tor switches and one was "The Last Novelist" for a Nebula vs. "The Martian Obelisk" for a Hugo. Now, I liked and recommended "Novelist" but how it tops "Obelisk" with writers (unless purely by being about a writer) I just don't know.)
A woman whose semi-legal job is producing phony beef with a biological 3-d printer is blackmailed into taking on a seemingly impossible job. When I first heard that this story was about forging steaks, I thought it was going to be comedy. Although it has its humorous aspects, it's mostly serious. The premise is carefully thought out and made plausible. It was nice to see the heroines triumph over the bad guy without some kind of violent climax. (Again, a false assumption on my part. In a story dealing with meat, I was expecting a gruesome conclusion. That may be the prejudice of a herbivore.) So, definitely a good story.
The female-to-male transgendered narrator gets bitten by a vampire and faces the choice of true death or getting turned into a vampire also. This all takes place in a world where vampires are known to exist and are even regulated by the government. (The biting was illegal, and it's also illegal for transgendered persons to become vampires.) I imagine an allegory between changing gender and changing from non-vampire to vampire is intended. (In both cases, the main point seems to be that the change is difficult.) Strong sexual content. I found the narrator's description of the day-to-day struggles of being transgendered more interesting than the vampire stuff. Over all, fair-to-middling.
Takes place on a generation ship some time after a combination of carelessness and malevolence wiped out the ship's records of history, art, literature, music, and so on, along with their ability to communicate with Earth. This results in desperate attempts to recreate what has been lost. Some of the young people born on the ship feel no connection with Earth or its past, looking only to the future. There's not really much of a linear plot, and the story includes multiple flashbacks and accounts of past events. It actually reads more like a novel than short fiction, for good or bad.
So, of the nominees, I'd definitely go with "A Series of Steaks."
I have read far fewer deserving novelettes that were not nominated than J-Sun, and I probably can't even remember some of them, but one which immediately comes to mind is "Remote Presence," mentioned above, which I really liked.
Edited to add:
Other novelettes which I recommended for Tangent, looking at their list:
"That Lingering Sweetness" by Tony Pi (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
"Dirty Old Town" by Richard Bowes (F&SF)
"To See the Elephant" by Julie Novakova (Asimov's)
Too late to edit the above -- "To See the Elephant" was in Analog, not Asimov's.
And I might add that the only novella I recommended for Tangent (mostly because I read so few novellas) was "Mountain" by Ursula Pflug (published as a book.)
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My taste is (I am told) sometimes questionable*, but Janelle Monáe is very good.
