Science Fiction

So now we’re getting into some of the more obscure awards categories, and these seem to be a true outlier, as they cover forms that are well covered outside the Hugos. There are some who don’t see the point in these categories because of that, but given how little respect genre filmmaking tends to get, I’m not as gloomy. I love movies, so Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form tends to be a pretty easy one for me. Of course, the issue I have with the category this year is that my preferred #1 pick (Upstream Color) was not nominated (another reason I should have nominated this year)… In any case, here’s my tentative ballot. In all honesty, once you get past #1, I could probably swap a lot around depending on how I feel at the time, but this is where I’m at for now:

1. Gravity – Have spacesuit, will travel. Perhaps more for the technical, visual achievement than for the rather straightforward story and thematic elements, this nevertheless worked on me much more than the other nominees and is a clear #1 vote. Was in my top 10 from last year, and also won the coveted Kaedrin Most Visually Stunning award…
2. Iron Man 3 – This is a movie that has grown in my estimation over time, and while I enjoyed it just fine on first viewing, I found the second viewing better for some reason. Not dramatically so, but Shane Black’s script does give this a slight edge, and it helps that the Marvel movies tend to underline and reinforce other entries in the series. This was a “Just Missed the Cut” pick last year, but I think I might upgrade it to full blown honorable mention.
3. Frozen – A movie I didn’t actually see last year, but caught up with eventually because it became so popular. And I’m glad I did, as I’d rank it amongst the upper tier of recent-era Disney flicks (not including Pixar, of course). I don’t think I’d put it above a good portion of their renaissance period stuff from the late 80s and early 90s, but it comports itself very well indeed, and I enjoyed it, even if it’s not something that’s really sticking with me…
4. Pacific Rim – I’m really surprised that I have this as low as I do, because I was really high on this when I first saw it. And to be sure, it is still a big ball of fun, but catching it again as it airs on cable, I notice that I only really care about one particular monster battle (which, granted, is pretty great). That being said, this is one of the few movies where a sequel might actually excite me (and it’s happening, so we’ll see it again).
5. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – A fine movie, perhaps even an improvement over the first installment (in terms of filmmaking craft, at least) and Jennifer Lawrence is wonderful as always (as was Jena Malone and honestly, the casting is all rather great), but my problems with these movies relate more to the worldbuilding and setting of the story. In particular, I find the villainous totalitarian regime to be incompetent in the extreme, and the movies even stress that more than the books. I always feel weird in thinking that I would be a much better dictator than this President Snow moron, but here we are. So while many of the tactical elements of these movies are fine (which leads to a generally enjoyable viewing experience), it’s the strategic background that I have a problem with. And because that background is always there, I can never really get past it…

Also conspicuously absent from this category is Her, another small indie film that perhaps didn’t get seen by enough voters. Upstream Color was at least on Netflix Instant, so there’s no excuse there. But then, I guess Hugo voters are predominantly literature-focused, which lends credence to the pointlessness of these awards. If you’re not going to do the work of seeking out interesting stuff, this category doesn’t make too much sense.

And now we come to the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, which is also basically known as the “Best Doctor Who episode of the year” award. Year in, year out, this award is dominated by Doctor Who episodes. They usually comprise 3-4 of the nominees, and one of those has won the award 6 out of 8 times. There are 6 nominees this year, and 4 are Doctor Who related (though two of those are more meta-Doctor Who stories than actual Doctor Who episodes). I also fully expect one of these episodes to win.

As someone on the relative outskirts of Doctor Who fandom, this was not a terribly exciting category. I definitely remember watching old-school Doctor Who on PBS when I was a youngin, but the only real episode that I remember was a Tom Baker one called State of Decay, and honestly, I haven’t seen it in over 20 years. I have been very slowly working my way through the modern-era series (currently on Season 3), and I am seeing distinct improvements as time goes on (season 1 was a real slog though). So I think I generally had enough context to watch these episodes, even if there were some bits that I was clearly not getting… That being said, here’s my tentative ballot:

1. “Game of Thrones” The Rains of Castamere – It is so very rare that a series can pull off a surprise of such magnitude in the third season, especially when you consider that the show already had a reputation (to put it mildly). This was amongst the most shocking moments of television that I’ve ever witnessed, so I feel I have to acknowledge that in the voting. I don’t know how the creators pulled this off (and while irrelevant to this particular episode, they continue to pull off such feats in season 4). I know this show is not for everyone, and heck, this shocking moment is ridiculously tragic and heinous, but it’s so well executed that I find it difficult to recognize anything else.
2. “Doctor Who” The Day of the Doctor – As I understand it, this feature-length episode (released in theaters, even) commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who had many potential pitfalls and could very well have been an utter failure. That it works reasonably well, even for underseasoned Who dorks like myself is a testament to how successful they were. I’m sure I was missing out on some things, but I found it to be an above-average Who episode, which was well done and had plenty of interesting ideas (and some nice cameos that I did pick up on). I fully expect this to take the award this year, even if it’s not my favorite of the episodes.
3. “Orphan Black” Variations Under Domestication – This is a show that I had planned to check out at some point, especially when it went on Amazon Prime Instant, but the Hugo nom is what got me to actually start the show. So far, so good, and I’ll almost certainly continue to watch. I haven’t been so sucked in as to full-bore binge it, but I’ve enjoyed the series to date. This is a good episode, though I don’t really see what distinguishes this from the rest of the series, such that it deserves a nomination. As a whole, the series is fun, but seems a little too dependent on a amazing lead performance (several, actually) from Tatiana Maslany. There are worse things to be said, but grand conspiracy stories always give me pause.
4. “Doctor Who” The Name of the Doctor – I will say, I felt like this episode was more problematic for underseasoned Who viewers like myself, though it wound up being a decent enough episode I guess. I really don’t have much to say about it though. It’s clearly not as good as “The Day of the Doctor”, nor would I put it ahead of the other nominated shows… However, it is at least science fiction, which can’t be said about the next two nominees.
5. An Adventure in Space and Time – Not a Doctor Who episode, per say, but it’s basically the dramatization of the making of the show during the time of the first Doctor. As such, it doesn’t feel much like science fiction and is being ranked accordingly. That being said, it’s reasonably well done and never bored me or anything like that…
6. The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot – Also not a Doctor Who episode, this one is more like a sorta parody of the making of the 50th Anniversary. It stars the living actors who have played Doctor Who (but who were not really featured in the 50th Anniversary episode) as they try to find a way to be included, in some way. It’s played for laughs, and is clearly taking the piss out of the likes of Steven Moffat, etc… but it’s also not science fiction, and to me, a fair amount of the humor didn’t really work so much. Again, I get the feeling that this is more for die hard fans of the series, so I’m certain I’m missing something, but as it shakes out, this one remains at the bottom of my ballot…

This category seems more problematic than the Long Form, if only because of the constant Doctor Who love. I don’t really see any solution though, as nominating a whole season would be more of a “Long Form” accomplishment, but if you open it to individual episodes, you get multiples from the same show. I do wonder what else would be nominated if any given show was limited to a single episode (the mechanics of which would be a bit odd, but still). That might get a wider array of shows nominated, but then, what if Doctor Who legitimately had the two best episodes of SF television last year? There’s no real solution, I guess, but I am glad I watched these, so there is that. We’ve got some other obscure categories to cover here, and some that I probably won’t cover at all (looking at you, Editing categories!) I should complete Warbound soon, at which point I’ll be mostly done with the fiction (I am actually reading the second Wheel of Time book, but so far, I see nothing that will change my feelings on the series). So stay tuned, more Hugo stuff is incoming…

This is a category about writers who publish non-professional work. This can appear in appear in a number of venues, but all of this year’s nominees are actually bloggers (there is some consternation about some of these non-fiction categories, as they seem to maintain a lot of legacy publications, like “zines”, which have generally moved onto the web these days. Not being that familiar with the history here, I’ll refrain from commenting further, except to say that it seems like some reform might be wise at this point). The writer in question may actually be a professional, but the publication cannot be so. For example, John Scalzi (winner of last year’s Hugo for Best Novel) won this award a few years ago for his blog.

Other than that, the criteria here is a bit on the vague side. From my perspective, the name of the award indicates that the author should be a fan of something. And since this is about Science Fiction and Fantasy, that fandom should probably relate to works in those fields. This does not preclude them from writing about other things, or from a particular perspective, but one of the things I found this category is that many authors are preoccupied with a single topic that has little to do with actual Science Fiction.

Of course, this notion of reviewing authors who review SF does feel a bit awkward. I am nominally a part of this field, though I’m nowhere near as talented as these authors. But then, I’m not a particularly good fiction author either, and I’ve got enough hubris to think my opinion matters there, so what the hey? Let’s get to it. My ranking as it stands now:

1. Abigail Nussbaum – She comes into this category with a bit of an unfair advantage, in that she’s a blogger I already read regularly. This is because she’s a fantastic critic. Even if I don’t agree with her (and I frequently don’t), her thoughts are always clearly articulated and well thought out. You can tell, because her posts are often almost comically long. Some might find that off-putting, but as someone who has a tendency to ramble, I can’t find fault in that (and to be clear, I don’t think she’s rambling). Like all of the female nominees, Nussbaum will frequently comment on the depiction of women in SF/F, but unlike some of the other nominees, this is not always an overriding topic, but rather one amongst many layers of depth that she embeds in her reviews. There are times when it seems like she likes nothing or that she comes off rather strong, but that’s the way of the critic. To me, she is a clear winner here, while the rest are all on relatively equal footing.
2. Mark Oshiro – The idea here seems to be absurdly in-depth reviews of specific books (or TV shows). I get the impression that this would work extremely well if you were playing along and reading the same books, but if you’re not, I don’t think you’d want to read regularly. On the other hand, one of the posts included in the Hugo Voter’s Packet was a review of the pilot episode of Pushing Daisies. I actually added season 1 to my Netflix queue (yes, I still get discs, wanna fight about it?) based on his enthusiasm. Of the nominees, only Oshiro and Nussbaum have managed to guide me in that way (i.e. as a fan), which is why they get the top slots). There’s an awful lot of stuff at Oshiro’s site though, and I did not have time to read through most of it, especially considering that I have not read a lot of the stuff he’s covering. But when he is, I’m on board. This gives him a slight edge over the rest of the nominees.
3. Liz Bourke – This is a blog for Tor that is specifically designated to look “at the successes and failures of media in terms of portraying women, touching on the history of women in the genre, and highlighting discussions about women and genre in the blogosphere.” So the perspective here is pretty consistent, but strangely, it doesn’t feel as dominant as the next two nominees. It could be that much of the work focuses on actual book reviews, which are generally well done (though not as detailed or multi-faceted as Nussbaum’s work). Also, she seems to actually like the books she’s reading, which could lead to the same sort of infectious enthusiasm as Oshiro.
4. Kameron Hurley – Another blog that is seemingly devoted to the political feminism of the genre, I was a little turned off by the fact that none of the posts in the Voter’s Packet were really about SF/F. There was one good post about My Little Pony fandom that I suppose would qualify, but it’s not really about being a fan of that show so much as how female fans should feel about Bronies. It’s an interesting and thought provoking post, and in poking around on her blog, I’m seeing some other interesting stuff as well. I would put this one about on par with the previous nominee and could probably swap the two…
5. Foz Meadows – Yet another blog that is almost completely devoted to feminist rebuttals of misogyny in fandom. Unlike previous nominees, this one has a distinctly informal air, with stuff like Futurama memes and a tone that is filled with exasperated rage. In a lot of cases, this is a justified reaction, but it can also get repetitive. And this is another situation where I don’t get the impression that Meadows doesn’t actually like a lot of this stuff. That doesn’t make her a bad writer or mean that her blog is worthless, but it does seem less about SF/F than the other nominees. It can be a fun read, but it’s funny, it kinda reminds me of Larry Correia’s blog in a lot of ways. They are, of course, complete political opposites, but that’s kinda the point – they are both preaching to their respective choirs.

So there you have it. Stay tuned for the Best Dramatic Presentation (short and long form) ballots on Sunday.

Another category that is dedicated to stories that are not long enough to be considered a “Novel”, nor short enough to be a “Short Story” (or, as we must apparently consider in SF, a “Novelette”). As such, these tend to be quick reads, somewhere on the order of 2 hours each (give or take). This year’s slate is an odd one. I find myself waffling on how I should rank my votes. This is also a category that makes me wish I submitted a nomination ballot, as I’d really love to be voting for Ian Sales’ excellent novella The Eye With Which The Universe Beholds Itself, which would be near the top (if not the top) of my ballot. Alas, it was not to be. Here’s where I’m at right now, though some of the middle votes may swap around a bit.

1. “The Chaplain’s Legacy” by Brad Torgerson (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013) – I did not realize when I started this that there was a previous story in this series (“The Chaplain’s Assistent”), but fortunately, it does not seem necessary to have read the preceding work. The backstory here is that humanity was attacked by a technologically superior insectoid race of aliens called Mantes. Complete annihilation at the hands of the Mantes was forstalled almost by accident, as the Chaplain’s Assistent befriended a mantis scholar who subsequently became intrigued with the human practice of religion and convinced his superiors that humanity should be spared so that they could study this curiosity (there is some hinting that the Mantes’ biology is not very conducive to religion). As this story opens, a few years have passed and the Mantes are starting to get antsy again. It seems like the peace is about to collapse, so the Chaplain’s Assistant is called on again to help preserve the peace. Hijinks ensue. Ranking this at #1 might be a bit on the controversial side, and I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t win, but it is the story that I connected with the most. This is one of the works nominated via Larry Correia’s “Sad Puppy” slate, which is apparently strike 1 for a large portion of readers. It’s military SF (strike 2) and Torgerson’s style tends to lean towards the functional, prosaic prose of yore (strike 3). Of course, given where I’m ranking this, you will realize that these issues either don’t matter too much to me. Of Torgerson’s two nominated stories (the other being “The Exchange Officers” on the Novelette ballot), this is clearly superior, both in terms of basic prose style and in terms of SFnal ideas. That being said, the story is a bit on the talky side (at least, in the middle, when things aren’t explodey) and I can see why some would chafe at the way some of these ideas are presented. That being said, it has some interesting things to say about faith, about disbelievers, and about over-reliance on technology. Ironically, many of the core themes (which are admittedly stated a little too baldly in the text) are about tolerance or openness, such as:
   

   Just because I don’t necessarily believe in any of it doesn’t mean I have to doubt or deride its value for other people.

   Or:

   Disbelieving and being openly scornful of belief are not the same thing.

   Now, there are many who will read that, and jump down Torgerson’s throat because he’s on the Sad Puppy slate and that somehow means he’s a privileged, bigoted maniac, but as a general idea, it’s something worth taking to heart. I get that there are many who have suffered at the hands of religion and I might not portray this type of story exactly the way he did, but then, why would I? He made me think about those ideas, whether I agree with him on some of the specifics or not. I enjoyed this story and found it more thought provoking than the others. However, I can see why other stories would hold more value to the portion of fandom that got these other stories nominated. But then, I would say that, given the above!

2. “Equoid” by Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013) – This is part of Stross’ Laundry series of stories, though again, it appears to be mostly stand-alone. The series seems to be a humorous, bureaucratic take on the Lovecraft mythos. The “Laundry” is the codename(?) of a governmental secret agency that deals with Lovcraftean horrors, and in this case, our hapless paperwork jockey hero Bob Howard is tasked with investigating a potential Unicorn outbreak. Oh, and unicorns are not the fluffy, majestic beings you might be thinking of, but rather disgusting and gross and potentially cataclysmic. I have been aware of this series for a while and always wanted to check them out, but Stross has always been hit or miss for me, so I’m glad I started with a shorter tale before going all-in on the novels. For the most part, I enjoyed this story, even if Stross’ dark humor doesn’t quite jive with me all the time. He does a nice Lovecraft impression when needed (portions of this novella consist of a letter supposedly penned by Lovecraft himself, which gives Stross the task of aping Lovecraft), and the goofy bureaucracy that combats all this stuff is well realized. The reversal of expectations surrounding unicorns is a lot of fun, and while I’m sure Stross veers a bit too far into gross-out territory for some, horror dorks like myself are desensitized to such shenanigans (though the comic tone helps). I can’t say as though I’m inspired to seek out the rest of the stories, which I guess says something, but I’m glad I did manage to dip my toes into this universe.
3. Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press) – Here we have a retelling of the Snow White story, this time set (as the title suggests) in the old American West. Valente apparently looked at the original Grimm tale and decided that it was not nearly dark enough. Considering that the original story ends with the wicked stepmother being forced to dance herself to death while wearing glowing-hot iron shoes, that’s saying something. Snow White is abused rather heavily throughout the story, first through a neglectful father, then through the wicked stepmother. She eventually runs away (a key difference from the original story), and seeks some semblance of peace with Valente’s version of the 7 dwarfs (which are really just 7 other spurned and abused women who had banded together in the woods…) Some of these updates work well: Making Snow White a badass gunfighter is fantastic, and I like the take on the huntsman (their encounter is very different from the original story, and the highlight of this novella for me, as after this encounter, I feel like the story sorta falls apart). Other changes are perhaps less successful, and the pacing, especially in the middle of the novella, can be challenging. The ending does manage to go to an unexpected place, but I found that the story had basically lost me by that point. It is perhaps unfair to judge this based on the original work, but like all remakes, it begs that question. It also made me want to go back and read Neil Gaiman’s short story Snow, Glass, Apples, which I found to be a much more interesting and successful subversion of the original tale. That being said, I fully expect this to win the award.
4. The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells (Privateer Press) – Media tie-in fiction holds a weird place in fandom. On the one hand, I feel like most readers cut their teeth on stuff like this (for me, it was Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy), and they seem to sell like hotcakes, but they never seem to garner any real respect. This is another “Sad Puppy” nomination, so I’m afraid it won’t change that trend. Also, it’s not that great. Wells does his best, and I can see talent here, but some of the basics just don’t work for me here. The quasi-steampunk setting is one that holds little interest to me, and this is clearly aimed at folks who are fans of Warhammer. I wasn’t super confused or anything, so it kinda worked as a stand-alone, but it really felt like it was providing a backstory to an existing character. That might be fine, but this character seemed like a villain, and his motivation (quasi-avenging his murdered love) is a pretty overplayed trope. I don’t know if Wells was handcuffed by that or if he had the freedom to come up with what he wanted and chose this anyway, but in either case, it wasn’t something that worked that well for me. Wells tried his best to make it interesting, with a complicated non-linear narrative and plenty of action, but it all fell rather flat for me. I would be very curious to see if a media tie-in work could ever be nominated and win, but this is clearly not the story to break that ground.
5. “Wakulla Springs” by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013) – Here’s the thing: this isn’t science fiction. It’s not even fantasy (except insofar as all fiction is fantasy). We could quibble about a few things. It has references to Tarzan and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but those are barely even window-dressing. There are two sentences close to the end of the story, but neither are very important. What we really have here is a series of slice-of-life vignettes told in a literary historical fiction style. As those things go, it’s good, maybe even fantastic, but it’s baffling to me that this has been nominated for a Hugo. I read the whole thing, but it’s pretty emphatically not what I’m looking for out of SF/F. I get that there are some folks who think this is pushing boundaries and growing the genre or something, but I don’t see it at all. I don’t mind reading outside my comfort zone, and I’m glad I read this, but I have a really hard time trying to consider this a genre story. I’ve always said that genres are blurry around the edges, but there needs to be some semblance of the core of a genre, and this one is so far from the outskirts that calling it SF/F would be to call most any story SF/F.

Of the situations where I would consider deploying No Award (and/or leaving a work off the ballot), Wakulla Springs might take the cake. But then, judging from the other folks playing along, I’m way more hesitant to use No Award than anyone else.

It turns out that I’m not the only one playing along with this year’s Hugo Awards, and since I know none of you are sick of the subject (right? RIGHT!?), I figured you’d want to see what other people think. Where possible, I’m linking to a relevant category on their blog, because some of these folks are prolific and write about many other things…

• Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!
• CiaraCat Sci-Fi
• Something Fishy – Notable for being the only blog I could find that was written by a Correia fan…
• Reading SFF – Seems to be a blog solely dedicated to this year’s Hugo nominees.
• Diabolical Plots
• The Little Red Reviewer
• Obsidian Wings – No category link, sorry!
• Kiesa’s Mutterings
• Mountain Was Here
• Sci Fi with a Dash of Paprika
• Secrit Crush
• TPI’s Reading Diary
• From the Heart of Europe
• A Kerani In The World – Another Correia fan
• Ristea’s Reads – Does not seem to have posted much yet, but promises that there are “a few draft posts in the pipe”

So there you have it. This is by no means a comprehensive list, just one that I quickly put together using my Google powers. If I find more, I may update this list, just because. I have not made much progress on the Novellas, so I’m not sure if I’ll be finished by Sunday. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be able to comment on some other category if needed.

Update: It seems that CiaraCat had already undertaken to find blogs covering 2014 Hugos, and so I’ve added a few links to the above (I think our lists are now aligned somewhat)…

Again Update: Moar additions! Thanks to Reading SFF for three of them, and I found another that seems to have ambitious plans, but has not posted much yet…

Spellbound is the second book in Larry Correia’s Grimnoir Chronicles. The third books, Warbound, is nominated for this year’s Hugo ballot, so being the completist that I am, I figured I should read these first two books. I enjoyed the first book, Hard Magic, enough that I’m not finding this to be a chore, though I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have been inspired to proceed through these sequels if it weren’t for the third one being nominated this year.

After an introduction set at the close of WWI, this book picks up where Hard Magic left off, with the Japanese Imperium having suffered a defeat at the hands of newfound Grimnoir knight Sally Faye Vierra, with assists from Jake Sullivan, and a diverse crew of magical “actives.” The American government, led by FDR, is trying to align around how to handle actives, possibly leading to registration and reeducation camps and other such dystopian nightmares (which, as established in the previous book, is how the Soviets and Japanese Imperium are handling the Actives). A sudden uptick in terrorist attacks seems to be driving this strategy, and the Grimnoir are being set up. Even more troubling is that Okubo Tokugawa – the fearsome chairman of the Imperium who was thought dead after the Grimnoir victory at the end of Hard Magic – appears to be alive and well. Oh, and the alien being that everyone derives their magical powers from? It has an Enemy, and the Enemy’s scout, called the Pathfinder, is on its way.

So there’s a lot going on in this book, and it very much reads as a sorta middle part of a trilogy to me. Hard Magic set up the world and the magic system, but basically told a self-contained story. This book introduces several elements that are unresolved at the end of the book, though it doesn’t quite end on a cliffhanger either. Again, this seems to be a common thread amongst trilogies, so who knows where it’s going from here. In that way, the plot is a bit more flabby than it was in Hard Magic (which wasn’t exactly tight either), but I’m also reasonably confident that Correia will manage to tie things together in the third book.

As I mentioned in my review of Hard Magic, one of the challenges that any book with magic faces is this sort of escalation of power that is needed to continually up the stakes in the story. This worked well enough in Hard Magic, but it did get a bit excessive towards the end of that book. As such, I was a little worried that this book would just keep escalating, but Correia has shown an admirable restraint. What’s more, he even manages to explain how and why the escalation of power happened in the first book, and he does so in a way that is natural and satisfying. It’s clear that Correia had thought all this through and let that guide the first book without actually explicitly laying out why, for example, Faye has seemingly endless reserves of power. Indeed, after her heroics at the end of Hard Magic, she spends a good portion of this book significantly weaker in power.

I didn’t spend any time going over details of the magical system in the previous review, but it’s worth discussion a bit here because it does naturally lend itself to the story. Each Active has the ability to pull magical power from an alien being, but they are generally limited to a single ability. So Jake Sullivan has the power to manipulate gravity (increasing, decreasing, or shifting the direction of gravity) and he’s referred to as a “Heavy.” Faye is a Traveler, and she has the ability to teleport herself and others (she also has the ability to map out the world in her head, so she can avoid teleporting into other objects, etc…) There are Healers, Cogs (who have supernatural intelligence), Brutes (guess!), Voices (they can do Jedi mind trick manipulations), and so on. The Power seems to be in another plane of existence, and its comprised of all sorts of fancy geometric shapes. If you can see the Power, as some folks can (like Sullivan or Chairman Tokugawa), you can copy some of those geometric shapes and leverage the magic those areas represent. These shapes are kinda like spells, and if you carve them onto yourself, you can gain new powers (for example, many have Healing spells on their body). Of course, it’s a painful process and one person can only take so many spells…

So this is all well thought out and reasonably well balanced. There are still some situations where the magical powers escalate, but Correia is pretty good at keeping it all grounded and reasonably well balanced. There are powerful villains, and you will fear for our protagonists, but Correia is able to come up with solutions that are reasonably satisfying.

The expansion of story threads has also lead to an expansion of characters. We still have our core Grimnoir Knights from the first book, lead by Sullivan and Faye, but we also get another cell of Grimnoir, some more of the Grimnoir elders, a whole group of villains at the OCI (a government organization that is being set up to take control of U.S. actives), a woman named Hammer (sorta freelance), and even an Iron Guard from the Imperium. For the most part, I was very happy to return to the characters from the first book, and that’s usually a good sign. The structure of the magical powers sorta lends itself to a large ensemble, kinda like the X-Men, so it’s good to know and like many of these characters.

Ultimately, this was a fine sequel, even if it felt like it was setting up a lot of things that wouldn’t be resolved in this book. Correia can spin a good yarn, but I’m find it to be a little too loose. This is probably a matter of preference, and I’m sure there are many who love these characters so much that they want to spend as much time as possible hanging out with them, but I find that these books don’t necessarily need to be as long as they are. So what we have here is a well executed sequel, and I am looking forward to seeing how some of these threads are resolved in Warbound, which I am starting this week. Given what I’ve read so far, I can’t really see Warbound taking one of my top two votes, but it’s got a pretty darn good chance at snagging that #3 slot in my Best Novel ballot.

In other news, I’ve knocked down 3 out of 5 Novellas and am hoping to finish that category off this week. After that, I’ve got to finish Warbound, and then I’m done with the fiction categories. I’m looking at a few of the other categories (Dramatic Presentation, Fan Writer, Zines, etc…) though there are definitely a few categories I don’t think I’ll be voting on (how does one vote for the “Editor” categories?) So yeah, I hope you’re enjoying these Hugo posts, because we’ve got several more to go!

(Oh, I almost forgot: Obligatory note of all the controversy surrounding the nomination of Correia’s book. I’ve already (briefly) discussed it elsewhere, but for now I’m concentrated on actually reading the books and stuff. I may get around to doing something in more detail about it, but then, I may not, because who cares about that sorta Inside Baseball crap when I could be reading about how Faye is going to kick the crap out of this Enemy Pathfinder thing we keep hearing about?)

Since I know you’re all curious about the voting system for the Hugo Awards, I thought I’d spend some time babbling about it, just for your edification. Believe it or not, voting systems have a lot of interesting pitfalls, not the least of which is that there isn’t a particularly great solution to discerning the preference of a large community of individuals. Every system has its flaws, even something as simple as Plurality voting (i.e. the choice with the most votes wins).

Fortunately for you, I’m not going to babble on about this too much (and you don’t want to get me started on the Electoral College, our misunderstood friend), I’ll just note that the Hugo Awards uses an Instant Runoff System. In other words, I don’t just vote for my favorite novel, I rank all the nominated novels in order of my personal preference. When it comes time to vote, unless there is a clear majority favorite, most winners can’t win based solely on the voters who ranked the winner #1. There is an additional wrinkle in that there is an option available in every category called “No Award”, which means that you think that no one should be awarded for that category (or that the category should be abolished). There are some finer points to the voting process, and this has already been discussed to death in other venues so I won’t belabor the point.

Add in a particularly controversial ballot this year, and I think the voting process is going to play a particularly big role, especially when it comes to the Best Novel ballot. When the awards were announced this year and the entire The Wheel of Time series was nominated for Best Novel, there were a number of people who seemed to think that it was a shoe in to win the award. Given the Hugo Award’s populist nature and just how popular The Wheel of Time series is (despite it’s length, it’s got more readers by at least an order of magnitude), that’s probably a fair supposition… except that I think Instant Runoff Voting will squash any hopes that it will win.

While I assume the dedicated fans of the series would vote for it in the #1 position, I suspect few will rank it at #2 or below… and many have already expressed the notion of voting for it below No Award (or, as the link above notes, not include it on the ballot at all). Some will do this because they actually hate the books, but many will be doing this as a sorta protest of the obscure rule that allows multiple books to be nominated as one.

Personally, while I recognize the need for the No Award option (and the ability to leave options off the ballot), I’m also hesitant to deploy it except in extreme circumstances. The No Award option makes me a little uncomfortable. I mean, I am voting, so I’m obviously considering my opinion to be worthwhile, but on the other hand, the No Award option feels sorta petty, except in extreme circumstances. I’m even a little on the fence about the Wheel of Time situation, though I think I’m leaning towards ranking No Award above it because it is ridiculous to nominate a 14 book, 11,000 page, 4.4 million word work for a best novel award. The only other situation I’d consider deploying No Award is when a nominee is not at all Science Fiction or Fantasy. Given the fuzzy nature of genres, it would also have to be an extreme case, but in this year’s Novella category, we have a great example: I’m sorry Wakula Springs, but there is nothing even remotely science fiction or fantasy about this story (except insofar as all fiction is a fantasy, I guess). We could quibble about a couple lines in the story, but this is ultimately historical fiction or maybe literary fiction. It’s a fine story, but I have no idea what it’s doing on the Hugo ballot, except that it was published by Tor (a genre imprint).

So there you have it. I’m still pondering, and obviously I’m not done reading all the stuff, so maybe I’ll turn around on the No Award option in some other categories. I’ll be sure to post my final ballot once I submit it (probably towards the end of July, which is when the deadline is…)

As far as I can tell, Science Fiction is the only genre that continues to use Novelettes as a category. For the uninitiated, the Hugo Awards defines a Short Story as less than 7,500 words. A Novelette is between 7,500 words and 17,500 words. A novella is between 17,500 and 40,000 words, and a novel is more than 40,000 words. Everyone else says there are short stories and Novels, with the Novella being anything inbetween (and many awards only feature short fiction and novels, with no space for novellas). Science Fiction, on the other hand, clings to the Novelette. Legend has it that this is a legacy of SF’s pulpy magazine roots, where different sized works had different pay scales, which I guess makes sense, but it’s otherwise a pretty pointless distinction. That being said, I was much more happy with this year’s slate of Novelettes than I was with the Short Stories… There were 5 nominees, and it only took a couple hours to read all of them (on average, somewhere between 30-60 minutes per story), and if you’re looking for some quality short fiction, this is a decent place to start. My rankings for the Hugo Voting.

1. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, by Ted Chiang (Subterranean, Fall 2013) – Anyone who’s looked at SF short fiction awards will be bound to recognize Ted Chiang’s name. Indeed, even I’d heard of him, and I don’t read much short fiction. This was the first time I read Chiang, and I am suitably impressed. The story takes the form of a relatively near future article, with our narrator describing how the world’s life-logging is about to get even more complicated by the emergence of better search and analysis software. Basically, this is a world where most people record most every action in their life logs. This proves useful in a number of ways, notably in court cases, but since so much data is collected, it can be difficult and time consuming to find a specific memory. Along comes this new software that promises easy recall. Our narrator is unsure of whether or not this will be a good thing. This future tale is juxtaposed against a missionary in Africa (Tivland), who introduces the written word to a tribe that relies solely on Oral Tradition. Of all the things I’ve read so far, this one seems to be the most relevant and prescient in that it’s something we’re going to deal with at some point. Those of you who are uncomfortable with something like Google Glass may be quite skeeved out by this story, especially insofar as Chiang is very clearly evangelizing this sort of technological change as a good thing. That is ultimately this story’s biggest fault (if you would count it as such), because while Chiang pays lip service to the challenges of such technology, he comes down very clearly on one side, and the entire story hinges on the narrator’s discovery of one particular memory and the revelation that imparts. It makes for a fine story, but it also feels rather contrived and manipulative. On the other hand, this is a very thought provoking and well written exploration of a topic that will only grow more important over time… A clear #1 vote here.
2. “The Exchange Officers”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jan-Feb 2013) – (Sorry, not available online…) This is a well executed, entertaining, but pretty standard military SF story. The US is competing with China in space, and have devised a complex system of space stations built by robot proxies that are controlled by Operators back on Earth. The story alternates between the introduction and training of the titular “Exchange Officers” and a Chinese attack on an uncompleted space station. Torgersen manages to cover a lot of ground while keeping the story moving, and it’s the most entertaining and fun of all the Novelettes for sure. That being said, this is a soft #2 that I could easily swap with #3 below. It will probably depend on my mood at the time of voting…
3. “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com/Tor.com, 09-2013) – Apparently there was a bit of controversy about this story during last year’s awards because it was disqualified for only being available as Audio in 2012. Well, the text of the story was published in 2013, and voters decided to make things right by renominating Kowal’s excellent story. It basically tells the story of the titular Lady Astronaut, many years after she helped colonize Mars. At the core of the story is a heartbreaking dilemma that I don’t want to go into during this short review. Suffice to say, our protagonist has to make a painful decision. It’s an emotional, human decision and not some sort of SF puzzle or anything like that. So the resolution isn’t quite satisfying, but when all of your choices are horrible, how could it be? And given the circumstances, it’s about as good as it could get. The story is well written and has a sorta retro feel to it (lots of references to punch cards, which made me chuckle), but it’s that central dilemma that really weighs on my mind and makes this story something worth recognizing.
4. “The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky, Candlemark & Gleam) – This is a rather interesting far-future Space Opera type of tale that really made me think that there must be more to this universe (and apparently, there are other stories and books set in this universe). Unfortunately, as a standalone story, it doesn’t quite work as well as the above stories. That being said, I did enjoy it, and it does have some interesting components, but I kept wishing the story would go into more detail. It was never boring and it wasn’t so obtuse that I couldn’t read it or anything, and I did enjoy it, but it never really struck a chord with me…
5. “Opera Vita Aeterna”, Vox Day (The Last Witchking, Marcher Lord Hinterlands) – Given all the vitriol surrounding Vox Day, I was not terribly excited to read this novel. It turns out that while this is clearly not a sexist/racist/homophobic diatribe, it’s also not all that great. It was never really boring either, but it’s a story where very little happens. It’s set in a sorta Fantasy world and leverages many of those tropes, but all that happens is that an Elf hangs out at a Monastery and befriends a priest. They talk philosophy and use Latin and stuff, and then everyone dies. Spoiler, I guess, but there’s not really enough here to spoil. Again, the prose itself is fine and I didn’t mind reading it, but when it ends, I was left wondering why I should really care. I don’t see any reason to vote No Award above this or anything so drastic, but there’s no way this is going to win, and it is clearly my least favorite of the bunch.

From what I’ve seen, I’d put even odds on the Chiang or Kowal to win. I don’t think anyone else has a realistic chance, though I think 4 out of the 5 stories are well worth reading and I wouldn’t be upset if any of them won… I may keep the Torgersen at #2 simply because he’s an underdog, and there are some folks who will be gunning for him because he was on Correia’s “Sad Puppies” slate. I find that unfair and since I did enjoy the story, I’ll probably keep it there.

I just finished the second Grimnoir book and am starting on the third (i.e. the actual nominee) this week. I’ve also started the Novella slate, and should be finishing that off soon enough. If I have time, I will try to tackle the second Wheel of Time book as well. The voting deadline for the Hugos is the end of July, so you will only have to deal with these Hugo posts for about another month or so…

I have never been a huge fan of short stories. I think the biggest part of that is that I tend to read them in collections of short fiction, which tend to be, by their very nature, uneven. Like anthology films, it’s hard for me to take in a bunch of short stories at once, and I usually find myself exhausted by the inconsistency. There are some exceptions, I guess. I’ve always been a fan of I, Robot, but those stories have a consistent style and throughline that is usually missing in short fiction. I have a fondness for Clive Barker’s Books of Blood series of horrific short stories and they are some of the most imaginative writing around, but even those tend to be very uneven (and I suspect many would more readily be classified as a Novelette or Novella). Of course most short fiction is published in magazines (or websites these days) first, and are never meant to be collected together, but I still tend to struggle with them.

I have read occasional short stories here and there on the interwebs, but I’ve rarely strayed from known authors… which is odd, because you’d think that short stories would be a good way to experiment and try new things without making too much of a commitment to any one story. And while I’ve struggled with short stories in the past, I’ve also been getting a little tired of stories that are much longer than they need to be, so maybe it’s time for a sea change. So it’s a good thing there are a bunch of short fiction categories in the Hugo awards, eh? Well, if the Short Story slate is any indication… I’m not going to get back into short stories after all. This is not a statement of quality, just of my personal taste – these are all well written stories, they’re just depressing as all get out, none seem to have much of a plot, and none of them really scratch my speculative fiction itch (indeed, most of them would probably fit more under Fantasy than SF, but even amongst Fantasy, these are a challenging bunch). That being said, I read them all, and will rank them as best I can. There are only 4 nominees (the Hugo rules say that a work cannot be nominated unless it has at least 5% of the votes, and the short story ballot tends to be the most contentious – last year there were only 3 nominees!) and they are all available for free online, but like I said, these weren’t really my cup of tea.

1. The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere, by John Chu – Tor.com, Feb. 20, 2013 – The story starts with this: “The water that falls on you from nowhere when you lie is perfectly ordinary, but perfectly pure.” It’s a rather silly premise, but Chu has used it as the backdrop for a more traditional love story, where a gay man navigates the marriage question with his love and struggles to find a way to “come out” to his traditional Chinese family. Indeed, of the short stories, this is the only one that has something really resembling a plot, with a whole narrative arc and everything. And while the “coming out” story isn’t a particularly pleasant one, Chu doesn’t wallow in misery the way some of the other stories do (the mother’s reaction is actually really brilliant, and made me laugh out loud – she’s a clever one). Also, while the premise is kinda silly, Chu does engage with it in a speculative way, making this the most SF of the stories. For instance, because people can’t lie without water falling on them from nowhere, they’ve gotten really good at wording things like a weasel or phrasing declarations as a question, and so on. I am curious about this world’s water-drying technology, or perhaps their mold-fighting capabilities (neither of which get much play), but that’s just because I’m a nerd. Naturally, that doesn’t really matter much when placed against the emotional elements of the story, and I will say that I enjoyed this one the most.
2. Selkie Stories Are for Losers, by Sofia Samatar – Strange Horizons, Jan. 7, 2013 – So I had no idea what a Selkie was before reading this story, but now that I do, I agree with the narrator when she laments:
   

   I hate selkie stories. They’re always about how you went up to the attic to look for a book, and you found a disgusting old coat and brought it downstairs between finger and thumb and said “What’s this?”, and you never saw your mom again.

   Alright, I will say that I didn’t hate this story, but seeing as though it plays out in a series of vignettes and relies on that sort of structure for its impact, I was a little unsatisfied at the end of the story. I like the obscure choice of folklore, though I can’t say as though I would like Selkie stories very much. That being said, I did enjoy reading this tale of resentment, beauty, love, and loss, and the structure works on me, but it just wasn’t as cohesive as Chu’s above story.

3. The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt – Tor.com, April 24, 2013 – This is the most evocative of all the stories… but also the least cohesive. I don’t think there is really much of a plot, but when you add in the fact that this is a story written in Dutch, translated into English, and set in Thailand, I think you can see why the story doesn’t quite flow so well. That said, the setting and fantastical elements of the story are wonderfully evocative. I just wish there was something more to hang that on, as I really have no idea what this story is actually about…
4. If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love, by Rachel Swirsky – Apex Magazine, March 5, 2013 – This is the shortest of the nominees, and yet it does accomplish a ton in that short time, even incorporating a dark twist that completely changes the tone about 3/4 of the way through the story. Perhaps because it is so short, I felt that the twist was more manipulative than anything else, like I could see Swirsky trying to pull the rug out from under me. I guess that’s a matter of debate, a lot of folks seem to think of it as being powerful and intense, and I can see that, even if it didn’t strike me that way. The other challenge with this story is that there’s nothing really SF or F about it. There’s an offhand reference to that hoary old Jurassic Park premise of cloning dinosaurs, but that’s really it. Given that we’re trying to judge the best SF/F stories, that doesn’t bode well here (and from what I can see, even those who love this story seem to acknowledge this). What’s more, this doesn’t feel like a story to me in any way. Indeed, with it’s almost formal cadence and repetitive sentence structure, it feels a whole lot more like Poetry than straight fiction. If there was a SF/F poetry category, I’d be a lot happier with this one. As it is, I was left a little underwhelmed.

Not having read much in the way of other short stories this year, I can’t say as though these are very representative or not, nor can I say that we should not give the award to any of these (I think I understand how the No Award vote works, but I should clarify that at some point), but I was not very happy with them. Man, I feel like a real miser with these short stories. I am the worst. Fortunately, I’m almost done the Novelettes and I’ll just say that I find myself much more enthusiastic about them than I am with these.

One of the challenges of an award like the Hugo is how to handle sequels. One of the nominees this year is Warbound, by Larry Correia… but it’s the third in a series of books. Do I need to read the first two books in the series in order to give the third a fair shake, or are all bets off when an individual entry gets nominated? Being something of a completist when it comes to questions like this, I decided to start from the beginning. As luck would have it, Hard Magic (the first book in the series) is a fine book, and I’ve already begun the second book too. It does seem like these books are relatively self-contained though, which is good (I’m still glad I started from the beginning, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t have to…)

This series, called the Grimnoir Chronicles, takes place in an alternate history version of the 1930s. It’s a universe where magic started appearing in the mid-nineteenth century, and has slowly but surely become more common. Many differing attitudes about “actives” (folks with magical power) exist, from the Japanese Imperium (who kidnap active children and train them in scary “schools”) to the German war machine (who leveraged an active to raise zombie armies) to the Americans, who seem to sway back and forth in their democratic ways (this seems to be something that will be tackled in later books, but is introduced here). Jake Sullivan is an active, a war hero and ex-con working for the government. He quickly runs afoul of a secret society called the Grimnoir, actives who seek to ensure that magical powers are used only for good (or something like that), and a plot by the Imperium to assemble a super-science doomsday weapon. Will Sullivan and his plucky allies fend off the dreaded Imperium?

This books is attempting an interesting balancing act, mashing up many different sub-genres, including urban fantasy, pulpy noir, gritty action, and even a bit of steampunk for flair (really just a bunch of dirigibles, but hey, that’s steampunky, right?) For the most part, Correia makes this mixture work, which is impressive – this combination of elements was far from a sure thing, but he manages. The only thing I was hoping for that I didn’t get much of is some fantastic noir turns of phrase, but then, it’s hard to hold something like this up to the standards set by folks like Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler (but then, the setting does sorta beg the comparison).

One of the things I find frustrating with fantasy stories is the way magic is handled. All too often, the magic is described in such vague ways and with few limits, leading to an escalation of powers that can get tedious and strain credibility. Correia manages to design a system with some limits and logical extensions, and he does treat the subject consistently, but there is still that escalation of magical powers that gets difficult to swallow. It never gets too ridiculous, and the limitations of the system are clear and well balanced, but it’s still magic, so it can also, at times, get to be a bit much. I do wonder how well Correia will be able to swing this in future books, though I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

The characters are, for the most part, a compelling bunch. Sullivan makes for a good hero, a huge physical presence who is nevertheless deceptively clever, we discover much about the magical system through his eyes. His gang of allies also has some bright spots, in particular Faye, a young teleporter who has seemingly endless reserves of magical power and a fast thinking mind. This being alternate history, we’re also treated to some historical figures like General John “Black Jack” Pershing and John Browning (this works, but I’ll also say that Neal Stephenson did it better in Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle). As villains go, the Chairman of the Imperium is imposing and while his powers are seemingly infinite (there’s that escalation of magical power I was talking about), Correia comes up with a believable way to “defeat” him (spoiler, I guess!) Sullivan’s brother Madi is also a formidable foe (and again, we get some escalation of powers to make him so).

What you end up with is a well executed mashup that is a very fun read. Correia can spin a good yarn, and while I will say that this isn’t something I’d have sought out on my own, I’m glad I read it and will have no problem getting through the next two books. I found this one a tad on the long side, but again, I had no major problems getting through it, and it was a lot of fun. Since this isn’t actually one of the nominees this year, I shouldn’t really be ranking it, but it feels like something that would come in towards the middle of the pack. Assuming there’s not a drastic uptick in quality or something in the nominated work, I can’t see it unseating my top two votes (which remain Ancillary Justice or Neptune’s Brood). Again, this is blatant speculation, but I could see Warbound coming in third (ahead of Parasite and The Wheel of Time). I’m currently reading Spellbound (the second book in this series) and have started reading the other fiction categories (look for a recap of the short story ballot next week).

(Incidentally, I’ve left out all the controversy surrounding the nomination of Correia’s book. I’ve already discussed it elsewhere, and will probably bring it up again at some point, but for now, I’m concentrated on actually reading the books…)

One of the complaints frequently leveled against the Hugo awards is that the same folks tend to get nominated every year. This makes a certain sort of sense, since the Hugo is a populist award, and a lot of authors tend to put out novels at a roughly once-a-year pace. There is a bit of truth to this, but on the other hand, there are folks who seem to break into this process fairly often. Mira Grant (a pen name of Seanan McGuire) has somewhat recently established herself as an annual resident on the Best Novel ballot, securing nominations for each of the last 4 years (not to mention several nominations in other categories, like novella or novelette, etc…) Alas, the Mira Grant style seems to encompass a zombie sub-genre, with 3 of the last 4 nominations being part of one series of zombie books. This novel, Parasite, is the first in a new series, and while it starts out as a sort a medical thriller, it is basically a zombie story as well.

The story takes place in the near future, about a decade out from now, when genetically modified tapeworms have become a sorta universal healthcare solution. Like any good capitalist solution, there’s a planned obsolescence and replacement regime, but the tapeworm also provides a very reliable means of regulating the human body, even going so far as to administer various medications at the appropriate intervals, and other such conveniences. Our protagonist, Sally “Sal” Mitchell, was in a car accident and while initially thought to be brain-dead, she manages to come back with the help of her “Intestinal Bodyguard” (the innocuous name Symbogen has given to this seemingly helpful tapeworm). She has no memory before the accident, and has to relearn basic social skills and knowledge, living a life of a lab rat mixed with socially awkward teen (as the story opens, she’s basically 6 years old, though she has the body of an early twenties woman). Of course, all is not what it seems, and we quickly see a series of sleepwalkers that are becoming more and more violent (and frequent) over time.

For the most part, I can see why these Mira Grant novels are so popular. I am pretty emphatically not a zombie story fan, but this novel worked well enough for me. It helps that there is a rational scientific explanation for the zombification process, but on the other hand, many of the supposed revelations in this novel are not all that surprising. I hate to be that guy, you know the one, who claims they predicted the final twist early on in the novel, but this isn’t a claim of superiority. I suspect most, if not all, readers would come to the same conclusions much sooner than our hapless protagonists. The ending, in particular, is unsatisfying, settling on a cheap reveal (which, again, is entirely predictable) and sequel setup, rather than an actual resolution. I would assume that Mira Grant’s fans are eating this stuff up and eagerly awaiting the next book in the series, but as an awards nominee, it feels rather incomplete.

It is certainly a page turner, which is an accomplishment in itself. The characters are, for the most part, personable and relatable. Sal is a fine protagonist, though because we get the grand majority of the story from her perspective, we perhaps get a bit too much in the way of uncertainty and anxiety. Add in the predictable plot twists (which Sal somehow does not see coming), and you’ve got a character who is sympathetic, but not all that bright. Her family has some typical hesitations when it comes to her condition, but for the most part, they’re fine (until they take a harsh turn later in the book, where Grant relies on miscommunication as a plot device, which always frustrates me). Sal also has pretty much the greatest boyfriend in the history of the planet, fictional or non-fictional. He shows some frustration from time to time, but even those instances are somewhat restrained. Other side character range from the very colorful (the sprightly Tansy) to obviously devious (CEO Dr. Banks).

In the end, this takes the form of a slick medical thriller, with some SF tropes sprinkled in for fun. Again, I Can see why this sort of thing is popular with the Hugo voters, and it is a very easy going read. On the other hand, it is a bit predictable and its ending leaves a bit to be desired. There’s a forthcoming volume that is supposed to finish off the story, but I find it hard to judge this book in that it’s so clearly not finished. Given recent history, I guess we can expect the next book to be nominated as well, but for now, this is not a book that will unseat Ancillary Justice or Neptune’s Brood from the top of my Best Novel voting.