Hugo Award Season 2020

The nomination period for the 2020 Hugo Awards closed yesterday, so I figured it was time to take a gander at what's coming. I didn't read a ton of eligible works this year, or, at least, a bunch of stuff I read didn't feel nomination-worthy. I did manage to nominate two novels and a novella though:

I estimate an approximate 1% chance that either of the novels will actually make the ballot, but I really enjoyed both of them and think they're worth checking out. Bujold has secured nominations for the Penric novellas before (not to mention being in the running for most nominated author of all time, maybe?), so there's actually a pretty good chance this one will be nominated (let's say 75% chance).

I read plenty of other eligible works, but nothing that really rose to nomination quality. Longtime readers know I'm totally in the bag for Neal Stephenson, but while half of Fall; or Dodge in Hell was fantastic, the other half was a bit murky, even for me. My anecdotal assessment is that most eligible voters will feel the same way. Michael Mammay's Spaceside was on the bubble and I enjoyed it just fine, but I didn't feel like it did enough to warrant the nomination. I really loved Ted Chiang's Exhalation, but it's a short story (or novelette/novella) collection and... all of the components were already published before 2019 and thus not really eligible.

In accordance with tradition, my Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form will avoid the most mainstream options, but I fully expect the category to be dominated by Marvel/Star Wars anyway.

All three nominees did well in my year-end movie awards and Top 10/Honorable Mentions, but the only one that seems to have a real chance at making the ballot is Us. There are two other quasi-indie darlings out thre, Ad Astra and High Life, but I didn't particularly enjoy either, so I left them off my ballot. Midsommar and The Lighthouse are more borderline cases, but I didn't really go out on a limb for them because I don't really love them either. I fully expect stuff like Avengers: Endgame (which, to be fair, I really enjoyed) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (which I did not love) to make the ballot, along with some other mainstream stuff.

There's also a Retro Hugo Awards this year for 1945 (covering stuff made in 1944), but I sadly did not dedicate a lot of time to this stuff. I really should have sought out Theodore Sturgeon's Killdozer! because it's something I'd always heard about, but it can't possibly be as good as the title implies, can it? There are a some Clifford D. Simak and Leigh Brackett stories that I'd probably be into reading too, but I never got to them. I only really nominated for the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category, with two pretty obvious entries:

There are a bunch of other Universal monster movies that could qualify that I never sought out, so I'm the worst. Also, there's a movie called The Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks that looks promising, but again, I never really got there. The Scarlet Claw seems like it could work too. Man, I should have spent more time on this (in fairness, I've been busy with the 1978 project).

No need for recommendations at this point, since nominations have actually closed, but I'm pretty curious to see how things play out. I'm actually on the fence as to whether or not I'll participate this year. I don't mind stretching myself or getting out of my comfort zone, but the last several years (i.e. almost the entire time I've formally participated) have been pretty rough, so... we'll see what the nominations hold...