Hugos: Novelettes
Jun. 8th, 2009 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zing_ochWhat are novelettes anyway? (I can see the need for a word that means "longer than a short story but shorter than a novella", but somehow I'd expected the English language to come up with something... better. I'm thankful for "Erzählung".)
Anyway, nominees and my votes! The links take you directly to the stories (the overview is here); you can read them for free and I encourage you to do this. Cool fiction for free - almost like in fandom! *g* (In fact, some of the Nominees are fanfic.)
My number one: The Gambler by Paolo Bacigalupi. READ THIS. I MEAN IT. The POV character is an online journalist in the US with Lao roots, and the story is about that, but also about doing the right thing and telling the important stories and how you hold on to what's important. I loved this and I really, really want this story to win a Hugo.
Second place: Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders by Mike Resnick. This is a story about two ninety-year-old guys who have been friends all their life. It's a nice short story with a concept that's at least as old as the characters, but Resnick keeps it ambigous enough to make it interesting. And I really liked the image of the two in their Retirement Home - and then out of it. *g* The reviews I've seen are mostly negative, but I liked this.
Third: Pride and Prometheus (pdf-link) by John Kessel. This is exactly what you might suspect - and by "you" I'm talking about a fandom person. This is in fact a "Pride and Prejudice"/"Frankenstein's Monster" crossover. It's Mary Bennet POV and a cool read. But I think it should have been... I don't know, more. It could have been more interesting. And
[SPOILER FOR PLOT POINTS!]
the ending was rather unsatisfying. Not to mention that the woman who has unmarried sex promptly dies of a fever and her body is stolen by Frankenstein for you-know-what.... meh.
So I recommend those stories (the last one with caveats, see the cut above). The last two nominees I don't want to win.
Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear. This one's fanfic, too! Lovecraft fanfic, to be exact. The reason I'm not rating this one is the obvious one - I only heard of Bear during RaceFail, and I don't want her to win a Hugo. I read the story with that in mind, to be honest, but the story itself didn't convince me either. a black man studies Lovecraft's Shoggoths in the 1930s. I could have done without the moral dilemma of "I can stop WWII by using the shoggoths as the slaves they were engineered to be." with all its icky parallels.
The last nominee: The Ray Gun - a Love Story by James Alan Gardner. This one simply bored me, and I didn't finish it, so I don't have anything useful to say.
Anyway, nominees and my votes! The links take you directly to the stories (the overview is here); you can read them for free and I encourage you to do this. Cool fiction for free - almost like in fandom! *g* (In fact, some of the Nominees are fanfic.)
My number one: The Gambler by Paolo Bacigalupi. READ THIS. I MEAN IT. The POV character is an online journalist in the US with Lao roots, and the story is about that, but also about doing the right thing and telling the important stories and how you hold on to what's important. I loved this and I really, really want this story to win a Hugo.
Second place: Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders by Mike Resnick. This is a story about two ninety-year-old guys who have been friends all their life. It's a nice short story with a concept that's at least as old as the characters, but Resnick keeps it ambigous enough to make it interesting. And I really liked the image of the two in their Retirement Home - and then out of it. *g* The reviews I've seen are mostly negative, but I liked this.
Third: Pride and Prometheus (pdf-link) by John Kessel. This is exactly what you might suspect - and by "you" I'm talking about a fandom person. This is in fact a "Pride and Prejudice"/"Frankenstein's Monster" crossover. It's Mary Bennet POV and a cool read. But I think it should have been... I don't know, more. It could have been more interesting. And
[SPOILER FOR PLOT POINTS!]
the ending was rather unsatisfying. Not to mention that the woman who has unmarried sex promptly dies of a fever and her body is stolen by Frankenstein for you-know-what.... meh.
So I recommend those stories (the last one with caveats, see the cut above). The last two nominees I don't want to win.
Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear. This one's fanfic, too! Lovecraft fanfic, to be exact. The reason I'm not rating this one is the obvious one - I only heard of Bear during RaceFail, and I don't want her to win a Hugo. I read the story with that in mind, to be honest, but the story itself didn't convince me either. a black man studies Lovecraft's Shoggoths in the 1930s. I could have done without the moral dilemma of "I can stop WWII by using the shoggoths as the slaves they were engineered to be." with all its icky parallels.
The last nominee: The Ray Gun - a Love Story by James Alan Gardner. This one simply bored me, and I didn't finish it, so I don't have anything useful to say.