Science Fiction

I’m not entirely sure why I keep reading the Hugo finalists for the Best Short Story category. Actually, strike that, I know exactly why: they’re short and I can get through all of them quickly. And theoretically, they should be a really nice sampler pack of what’s going on in SF. In practice, I’ve really liked about 3-4 of the stories I’ve read over the past 6 or 7 years. A bunch of others are fine if unremarkable, but whatever the case, it’s not a good batting average. This year’s nominees illustrate a couple of my issues. One is that only two of the stories actual deign to tell a real story (they’re both decent, at least). Another is that they’re basically all fantasy stories, and the one that ostensibly has an SF idea doesn’t seem terribly interested by the idea (which, to be sure, is a decades-old idea and partial reality these days). I know the awards are for SF and F, but I tend towards SF. Likewise, some of this has to do with personal preference, and these stories just aren’t pressing my buttons. Perhaps some year they will?

1. “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow – A librarian (who is also a witch) notices a troubled teen who is drawn to stories of escape. It doesn’t take long to see why and what this kid needs, but can our librarian friend find a way to help? Spoiler alert, yes she does, and I can’t help but feel charmed by this stories insistence that escapism can be a pretty decent thing, especially in our troubling times (like any good thing, its possible to overdo it, I guess, but this story does not go there, nor does it need to). Its also in its favor that this is an actual story with actual characters and a real (if short) arc. You’d be surprised how few Hugo finalists in the short story category can meet such a lofty goal.
2. “The Court Magician” by Sarah Pinsker – Chronicles a young street urchin who becomes obsessed with street magic (which are really just tricks), then jumps at the chance to learn “real” magic. Like any good consideration of actual magic, this one has a price. Another actual story with a beginning and an end, albeit a more bittersweet tale. That being said, this is quite good and well worth checking out.
3. “The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society” by T. Kingfisher – A group of fae sit around a campfire and reminisce about a puny mortal named Rose MacGregor who managed to trick all of them before settling down with her true love, a blacksmith. It’s a kinda charming structure, and the idea of the trickster fae getting the tables turned upon them is nice and all, but then, there’s not much meat on the bone here. It’s mostly told in flashback, and the story, such as it is, doesn’t have much of an arc. It’s still enjoyable for what it is, but it just doesn’t have enough oomph to make it higher than this ranking.
4. “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat” by Brooke Bolander – A bumbling and idiotic prince makes his way into the dangerous hunting grounds of three raptor sisters, who are so dumbfounded by this fellow’s lack of fear that one of them figures it must be a trick and follows him back to his castle. She is promptly imprisoned, and the other two sisters seek to break her out, with the help of a witchly princess. The story relies heavily on a sorta fairy tale tone; everything is hightened and a little silly, but it ultimately ends up feeling rather slight. Again, there’s little in the way of story here, just vague tones and mild themes that are barely worth digging out. To be sure, it’s not exactly bad, and I had no problem reading it, but it didn’t particularly grab me, and I can feel its claws slipping, such that I’m pretty sure I won’t remember a thing about this in a few days.
5. “STET” by Sarah Gailey – Ostensibly written in the form of some sort of academic publication, complete with footnotes that are longer than the text, editor’s notes/obelisms (the term “STET” is latin for “let it stand”, which is what an author uses to let the editor know that a note/correction should be ignored and the original text should remain in place). The subject matter concerns autonomous cars and the inevitable deaths that would result from decisions made by AI, etc… However, the “story” is much more concerned with the author processing through some sort of grief (obviously caused by an self-driving car killing a loved one). It’s an interesting, if slightly hard to follow, format, and the subject matter is worth exploration (and indeed, the many complications of self-driving cars has been explore elsewhere)… its just that I don’t feel like there’s enough story here, just a vague sense of grief and rage. This is the only finalist that even comes close to being actual Science Fiction, but it doesn’t do much on that front, preferring instead to focus on the aforementioned grief and rage. It reminded me of the infamous “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” (tiny hint of an SF idea, weird experimental format, wallowing in grief, etc…), but I could see something along these lines working quite a lot better… However, in its current form, it didn’t do a whole lot for me.
6. “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by P. Djèlí Clark – George Washington is famous for having “Wooden Teeth”, but while he had multiple sets of dentures, none appear to have been made of wood. Some were made of ivory, some with various alloys and metals, and most morbidly, some were made of actual human teeth. Said human teeth were almost certainly from slaves, though some of the teeth may have come from desperately poor folk. This story takes this fact and describes the people the teeth came from. Each one has certain characteristics that are sorta imprinted on the tooth, and thus causes some sort of ironic consequence (i.e. a tooth from a slave that escaped often falls out of the denture). These are mundane at first, but get more fantastical as it progresses. He goes through nine teeth… and then the story just sorta ends. By which I mean that it’s not much of a story, per say. Well written and some of the teeth have interesting nuggets, but there’s not a whole lot here, and in fact, I found researching Washington’s actual teeth more interesting than the sorta fantastical stuff in the story.

So there you go. I don’t generally deploy the “No Award” designation in my voting, but I’m a little tempted to reverse my normal stance and only vote for the top 2, with No Award at 3. That seems somewhat silly though. We’ll see. I’m working my way through the fourth of six novels right now, and I’m not sure if I’ll get to all the Novellas/Novelettes this year (I will read at least a couple of the ones that interest me)…

Record of a Spaceborn Few is the third book set in Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers universe, but like the other two, it is mostly self-contained. There’s an offhand reference to the events of the first book, but it’s from the perspective of a new group of characters. I’ve generally enjoyed the books in this series, a space opera that focuses on nice people, rather than grim despair or dystopia (as a lot of modern takes go). The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was a character-driven, episodic narrative about the crew of a hyperspace tunneling ship that had seen better days. Most of the events covered in the book were well done but underwhelming, though it ended on a relatively strong note and the characters were enjoyable. The next book, A Closed and Common Orbit, focused much closer on two of the characters from the first book, and was significantly better for it. Like the first book, the stakes and tension weren’t particularly high, but the two characters at the heart of the story were endearing and interesting and once again, the ending was strong. I enjoyed that second book enough to nominate it for a Hugo Award, and it did become a finalist (I ended up ranking it #2 on my final ballot). Record of a Spaceborn Few is also a finalist for the Hugo Awards, so I was looking forward to catching up with it.

At this point, I would normally go for some sort of plot summary or describe the premise, but… there’s not really much to go on here. It’s really just a series of day-in-the-life character sketches, similar to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, but with even less tension or drama. The characters are nice and all, but I find that this book doesn’t add much to the universe Chambers has created, and the almost total lack of stakes doesn’t help either. It’s not bad, per say, but the Hugo nomination does it no favors in the expectations department.

The characters are a mixed bunch. Tessa is a mother raising her family as best she can while her husband is often working far away. Kip is a teenager going through a by-the-numbers coming of age story. Eyas is a professional undertaker, which is more important in space because of the way bodies are disposed of (or, er, recycled back into the fragile ecosystem of people living in space), etc… Isabel is an archivist who teams up with an alien ethnologist. Finally, Sawyer is a naive newcomer to the fleet, unsure of his place and struggling to fit in. Each characters’ story has small intersections with the others, but the general lack of plot lessens the impact these can have. At least two of the stories are variations on stories we’ve seen a billion times before (such that honestly, using the word “variation” to describe them is a stretch). Only one has any sort of conflict built into it at all, and it’s one that we readers can see coming a million miles away, but the character in question is too daft to even realize what’s going on. That one, at least, has a genuine surprise built into it, and that surprise drives the last half or so of the book (directly and indirectly).

Again, it’s not bad, and I do think there’s a place for this sort of book, but I don’t think that it’s “best SF novel of the year” material. It’s true that I rarely enjoy slice-of-life storytelling though, so maybe others will get more of a kick out of it. Mixed in with the character sketches are some decent SF worldbuilding bits, but they’re all disconnected and feel more like window-dressing, thanks to the meandering plotlines. The nuts and bolts writing craft is certainly up to standard, and I enjoy Chambers’ style and general positivity, so I’m still very open to reading more in this series. As it is nominated for a Hugo though, I think this book is ranking towards the bottom of my ballot (at least, of the three that I’ve read so far – I could see this sticking right in the middle of the ballot once I finish the others).

Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning is a Hugo Awards finalist for best novel. In the wake of a climate catastrophe most of the world has drowned, but the former Navajo reservation, now dubbed Dinétah, has survived. It appears that the tumultuous flooding has summoned the Native American legends of yore, bringing with them gods, heroes, tricksters, and of course, monsters. Maggie Hoskie is a monster hunter gifted with clan powers who seeks to foil a scheme of witchcraft which threatens her homeland. Along the way, she reluctantly enlists the help of a young, unconventional medicine man and a trickster Coyote with his own agenda, eventually realizing that she must confront her past if she wants to defeat the monsters she faces.

The premise reminded me a bit of Sean Stewart’s Resurrection Man books, where magic returns to the earth in the wake of the horrors of WWII (golems appear in concentration camps, etc…), though Trail of Lightning obviously updates the catalyst to climate change and the magic to Native American folklore.

My only previous experience with Roanhorse’s work was her Hugo Award winning short story of yesteryear, Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™. In that story, a guy runs a VR simulation of Native American vision quests for customers, but he eschews the authentic experience in favor of Hollywood-style pap and eventually faces consequences. So I should say that as a white man who speaks with forked tongue, it’s probably not my place to comment on the authenticity of the folklore in Trail of Lightning, not to mention the tribal politics, but it does indeed feel accurate and accessible without appearing to be dumbed-down. Roanhorse knows her stuff, and uses it in service of the story.

Beyond the Native American themes, the story is a pretty straightforward Hero’s Journey style adventure with the requisite spins and twists towards the end of the novel, which I must admit did manage to surprise me a couple of times. While this is the sort of thing we’ve seen countless times before, it’s well executed and entertaining, short and sweet, with some added complexity from the somewhat unique setting. Roanhorse’s style is more prosaic and approachable, making this more of a page turning experience than a lot of Hugo nominees manage.

As this is only the second book I’ve read from the Hugo shortlist, it’s hard to say where it will fall, but I suspect it will teeter towards the middle of the pack. Obviously this could change as I make my way through the rest of the nominees, but for now, I’ll just say that I found it quite enjoyable and am happy that I read it.

Catching up on recent SF reads before Hugo season starts (or, uh, you know, write half this post and then procrastinate until we’re well into Hugo season):

• The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner – Set in a dystopian early 21st century America where the government has turned into an oligarchy that oppresses its people through computer networks. Nicky Halfinger has escaped from Tarnover, a quasi-corporate government program intended to find and indoctrinate gifted children to help keep the computer networks running, and so on. He’s a fugitive, but he’s able to use his knowledge of the networks to evade capture by continually changing identities. Soon he discovers he’s not alone, and sets about working against the oppressive government system. Published in 1975, this is a pretty precursor to what would later be known as “Cyberpunk” and hugely influential in the nascent computer hacker scene. Indeed, if you ever read any early histories of computer hacking (see: Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier for an example I recently read which unexpectedly contained references to Shockwave Rider), you’ll see the people breaking into systems and releasing worms/viruses often reference The Shockwave Rider as an inspirational text. The book itself is a bit tame by modern standards and has some odd narrative tics. A good portion of the novel is told in flashback, which when combined with our protagonist’s tendency to constantly swap identities can be a bit disorienting at times. This sort of narrative complexity sorta disguises that the plot itself is rather straightforward, though not without its requisite twists and turns. At this point it feels more interesting as a book that contextualizes later works (like stuff from Gibson, Sterling, Rucker, etc…) than as a story in itself. This is mostly just because I’ve already consumed a lot of what this influenced, so it doesn’t feel as fresh as it obviously did to nerds of its day. Enjoyable enough for sure, and it didn’t trigger a lot of my usual complaints about dystopia, but it’s seemingly fallen into the trap of being so influential that I’ve already internalized most of its lessons, so while it’s still interesting to see where it comes from, it also doesn’t add a ton to my understanding.
• Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee – The ostensible conclusion to Lee’s Machineries of Empire series, this novel has been nominated for this year’s Hugo Awards. Shuos Jedao wakes up in a befuddled state. His memories tell him that he’s a 17 year old cadet, but he’s in the body of an older man. He’s been resurrected by Hexarch Nirai Kujen, who hopes to use Jedao’s military genius to reconquer a fractured empire… but Jedao’s ailing memories make that a bit of difficult. Making things more difficult is Jedao’s opponent, one Kel Cheris, who knows more about Jedao than he does about himself. So I guess I could get more into the plot here, but this series is dense stuff and thus it sorta defies short summaries. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed the series. There’s plenty of handwaving about the whole “Calendar” system, but Lee at least seems able to set consistent boundaries and rules around it, such that it never really spirals too far out of the reader’s goodwill. I do find Jedao to be a fascinating character, but on the other hand, it’s hard to pin him down. Part of the issue is that we never really get a good feel for the character. He’s been uploaded, chopped up, and spun around so much during the course of the series (indeed, before the books even begin) that you always see Jedao through some sort of intermediary. In the previous books, he shared a brain/body with Kel Cheris (thanks to a sneaky calendrical attack in the first book, she retains his memories, but not his consciousness). In this book we follow both Cheris and a reincarnated Jedao (a sorta backup with incomplete memories). Both characters struggle with Jedao’s past, which includes a traitorous massacre (this could be interpreted in other ways, I think?), but since neither character is actually the one who committed those actions, how responsible should they feel? This is a meaty conundrum for sure, but I don’t know that there’s ever going to be a satisfying answer. A part of me wishes we got a more simplistic, straightforward Space Opera set before this series that could then be recontextualized, but that’s unfair (oh, and we already got something like that, albeit a short one). The other characters and overarching narrative suffer a bit from the focus on Jedao, or at least, don’t hold interest as much. Some aspects of the worldbuilding remain unexplored (it’s sometimes intimated that the grand majority of the Hexarchate live pretty decent lives, but all we see is the beaurocratic nightmare of the military and political classes and the horror of calendrical attacks), but what we get is interesting and reasonably well done. I’ve long enjoyed Yoon Ha Lee’s work, so I’m curious to see what he tackles next. In terms of Hugo voting, I have not yet read the other nominees, but this one suffers a bit from being so heavily integrated in a series… but then, it’s still very good. I expect a middle of the pack showing, but only time will tell.
• Arkad’s World, by James L. Cambias – I greatly enjoyed Cambias’s debut novel, A Darkling Sea. His follow up, Corsair, was perhaps not quite as great, but still really enjoyable. I liked some of his short fiction as well, so I was looking forward to tackling his latest novel. Alas, this one doesn’t quite live up to the standards that Cambias previously set. The story follows the titular Arkad, a young man who happens to be the only human being on an alien world. He makes his way through the planet in street urchin fashion, barely scraping by on the lawless streets. The arrival of three humans searching for a priceless artifact that could help free earth from the grips of an alien invasion offers a promise of escape for Arkad, who knows a little something about what is being sought. The group must make their way across the planet, traversing dangerous landscapes, negotiating passage with litigious aliens, fending off various bandits and monsters, amongst other hijinks. I’m finding that this sort of episodic storytelling often rubs me the wrong way, and this book is not an exception. There’s a lot going on and there’s some ambitious worldbuilding, but none of it is as clever as Cambias’ previous efforts. Some of the alien interactions contain the kernal of an interesting idea, but it’s rarely explored in depth. Some choices could be interesting, such as the oddly literal language tics employed by some of the aliens, but even those get played out by the end. Plus, since we’re covering so much ground, no one episode is able to impart the kind of depth Cambias was able to achieve in previous books. It’s certainly not bad, but it’s a distinct step down from the past couple of books.
• The Consuming Fire, by John Scalzi – The sequel to Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire, this book picks up right where that one left off and progresses things well enough from there. The Flow, a transportation network that allows access to all the human planets/colonies/habitats, is collapsing. The first connection has already been blocked off, and one of our protagonist scientists has worked through the math well enough to predict future collapses (and even potential reopenings, etc…). Emperox Grayland II is doing her best to help the scientists out while fending off looming civil war from unruly governing houses. Will her political enemies gain the upper hand? Hijinks ensue. Scalzi’s delivered another page-turner that is quite entertaining in its execution, complete with his usual snappy dialogue and clever twists. Unfortunately, the worldbuilding is starting to show some strain. They call the network of planets ruled by the Emperox the “Interdpendency”, a reference to the fact that each Human colony is desperately dependent on the other colonies to survive. This was mentioned in the previous book, but this book drives home how dumb an idea that is. Ok, sure, no one expects the transportation network to collapse… but then, we find out that this sort of thing is not entirely uncommon, and indeed, we even see an example of an isolated human colony that’s only barely managed to survive being temporarily cut off from the network. There are some other twists and turns that could mitigate some of these concerns, and to be sure, the story and plot progress well enough, even if some aspects of the worldbuilding can’t withstand scrutiny. In fact, I rather enjoyed the novel, perhaps more than any other in this post. Scalzi is good at plotting and dialog, which keeps the pages turning, and he manages a decent enough climax, which is always a big challenge in the second book in a series. Despite any qualms I might have with the worldbuilding, I’m very much looking forward to the next book.

Phew, that’s all for now. I’m finishing off a couple of non-Hugo books at the moment, but I should be able to start some of the Hugo nominees shortly thereafter…

The 2019 Hugo Award Finalists were announced earlier this week, so it’s time for the requisite joyful praise and bitter recriminations.

• Best Novel has a reasonably balanced mixture of elements. 4 of 6 are part of a series… but two of those are the first in a series (which can often operate in a standalone way, though far too many do not), one of them seems to be a standalone novel set in the same universe, and one is the third in a series (and decidedly not standalone). 4 of the 6 are also pretty squarely Science Fiction, which is about par for the course of late (and generally reflects my preferance). 4 of the 6 authors have nominations for Best Novel before, and all 6 have nominations in shorter fiction categories in recent years too. This could probably be better, but the Hugos have a long history of this sort of thing and it’s somewhat unavoidable given the popularity contest aspects of the way Hugos are administered.
• The only Best Novel finalist I’ve read is Yoon Ha Lee’s Revenant Gun, the third in his Machineries of Empire series (the previous two entries in the series were also nominated, but did not win). I quite liked it, but did not nominate due to it’s place in the series. I have not read Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers or Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik, but based on previous experience with both authors, I’m anticipating that I’ll enjoy both. Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse has an interesting premise that I’m sure I can sink my teeth into, despite my moderate ambivalence to her Hugo-winning short story of last year (I ranked it middle-of-the-pack). It’s also always nice to see a new name on the Novel ballot, which tends to fill up with the same names year after year (as mentioned above, most of the authors have been nominated for best novel before…). The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal seems to be based on a previously nominated novelette, which I thought was good, even if it didn’t really scratch my sense of wonder itch and fell to the middle of my ballot that year. Finally, there’s Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente. The concept sounds interesting enough I guess, but everything I’ve read about this indicates that it’ll be an uphill battle for me. I’m not much into musicals or character sketches, and this seems filled with both. I will dutifully give it a shot though…
• Best Novella has a couple of stories I’m interested in, namely another of Martha Wells’ Murderbot stories (which I read and enjoyed greatly) and The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard, which was on my reading queue, I just didn’t get to it in time. A couple of the nominees are completely new to me, and a couple others are from authors that I’ve had mixed reactions to in the past. Also of note is that 5 of the 6 finalists are from Tor. Granted, they’ve made a concerted push for Novellas in recent years, and it’s nice to see the Novella enjoying a general resurgence, as it’s long enough to provide depth, but not so long as to always be a slog… I feel like a lot of Novels these days are far too long (ditto for a lot of long-form storytelling in TV shows). I can’t tell if that’s just because I’m getting older and more impatient, or if there’s something more broad going on. On the one hand, I generally feel like every Netflix season I’ve watched is about 5 episodes too long and a lot of novels over 500 pages don’t warrant the extra length, on the other hand, I love Neal Stephenson’s unwieldy tomes.
• Short Stories and Novelettes feature a bevy of familiar names, which is again, par for the course when it comes to the Hugos. Still a few new names here and there though, which is nice.
• Best Series continues to vex. Aside from logistical concerns (if any of the series are new to you, how on earth are you supposed to read all the qualifying material or even enough to get a good feel for the series?), it does seem a bit weird that fully half of the series finalists have the actual latest installment also nominated by itself in the other fiction categories. I thought part of the impetus for this award was to give recognition to series where none of the individual installments was nominated, but the series as a whole is still beloved. This made a lot of sense a few years ago when The Wheel of Time got nominated in the Best Novel category (certainly a stretch, even if technically not against the rules), but so far, the award hasn’t exactly served its purpose. I mean, I love Lois McMaster Bujold as an author, but it’s not like the Vorkosigan Saga or Five Gods universes got no recognition before… (while several of the other nominees fit the mold well enough, I guess, though again, who has the time to read through all of it if you haven’t already…) This again speaks to the popularity contest aspects of the Hugos, I think.
• Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form is about what you’d expect, though it’s nice to see smaller indie-esque fare like Annihilation and Sorry to Bother You make the cut. Still, there’s no stopping the Marvel juggernaut. A little surprised to see A Quiet Place make the grade. It’s got horror/suspense chops, but as SF it’s pretty dumb stuff. Pour one out for actual indie flicks that were deserving: Upgrade and The Endless, both well worth your time.
• The 1944 Retro Hugos have some interesting stuff in there. No Heinlein, owing to his work during WWII and thus not publishing anything in 1943, which clears the field a bit for some of the folks Campbell turned to in his absence, like the Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore duo, Fritz Leiber, and A.E. van Vogt. Asimov somehow squirmed his way onto the ballot, but then, popular names always do, even when the story is by all accounts minor. H.P. Lovecraft also makes an appearance, which is interesting because I don’t normally peg him as a Hugo favorite. More interesting to see are multiple noms for Leigh Brackett, and some stories from the likes of Hal Clement and Eric Frank Russell… Some of this stuff interests me more than present-year nominees in shorter fiction categories. Maybe I’ll focus more on the Retros this year. It’s always an awkward set of nominees though, as most people aren’t especially familiar with all the 1943 works (only 217 nominating ballots for the Retros, three of which were on paper), and thus you end up with the really common names. But then, you end up with that in present-day too, so it’s not too surprising.
• The Retro Dramatic Presentation categories are interesting too. It seems that the 75 minute features favored by Val Lewton and Universal get categorized as “Short Form”, and it’s great to see Lewton’s work in particular get recognized. Great to see Heaven Can Wait on the list, which to my mind is the clear favorite. The Batman serials, on the other hand, are hot garbage and presumably only made the list due to the general recognizability of a popular superhero. I wasn’t particularly impressed by The Ape Man, though Bela Lugosi is always entertaining. Would have rather seen something like The Leopard Man (arguably not SFF, but it makes feints that direction) or even Son of Dracula (look, I get it, Lon Chaney Jr. makes for a terrible Dracula, but the movie itself is decent; certainly better than The Ape Man). There’s a few nominees that I don’t recognize, but I should be able to catch up with them easily enough…

So there you have it. I just took on a couple of long-ish books, so I’m not going to get to any of this for a bit, but there’s plenty to seek my teeth into here…

The nomination period for the 2019 Hugo Awards has been open for a little while now, and since I’m finally done whinging about 2018 movies, it’s time to get with the Hugo program. I’ve read somewhat less eligible works this year than usual, and naturally not everything I’ve read made the cut. In fact, as of right now, only two novellas will make the cut in the fiction categories:

• Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells (Capsule Review)
• The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts

I also considered Bujold’s The Flowers of Vashnoi, but didn’t nominate because it’s so far down the series that while I enjoyed it a lot, it doesn’t really rank among the best Vorkosigan stories, and I’m much less willing to put installments from long-running series on my ballot unless they’re truly standalone (which I don’t think this is).

When it comes to novels, I read several eligible and even enjoyed most of them, but almost all are part of a series, and none really blew me away to the point where I’d consider nominating. The closest I’ve come is Yoon Ha Lee’s Revenant Gun (third of a trilogy) and John Scalzi’s The Consuming Fire (second in the series), both of which I think are really good, though I don’t know that they’re the best of their respective series or good enough to make my ballot this year (the preceding entries for each were nominated last year, so there’s a fair chance they’ll still make it on the ballot).

As per usual, I’ll continue to avoid the most mainstream choices for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (i.e. Star Wars and Marvel don’t need my help here and will most likely make the ballot, but these movies are definitely worthy of consideration… alright, technically one of these involves Marvel, but not in an MCU way):

• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Upgrade
• The Endless
• Sorry to Bother You
• Annihilation

Of those, Annihilation is the only one I’m not super enthused about (in my year end roundup, I gave it a Quantum Jury prize, meaning that it exists only in a quantum superposition of two or more states, and that every time I think about it, I experience something like a wave function collapse and get a different answer as to whether I like it or not). That being said, who are we kidding, Black Panther is going to win this award and it probably won’t even be close. I like that movie and all, but I suspect many voters will not have seen most of my above nominees, and that’s a shame.

This year we’re also going to have a Retro Hugos for 1944 (i.e. works produced in 1943). Looking at what I’ve read from this period, I’ve only found one short story that I’m going to nominate:

• “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” by Lewis Padgett (aka Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)

It’s funny though, many of the typical Golden Age names are mostly absent from 1943, perhaps due to participation in WWII (i.e. no Heinlein or Asimov, not even short stories). Others picked up the slack for sure (i.e. Moore/Kuttner/van Vogt/Williamson, etc…), but I’m not as familiar with their work. Will be curious to see what gets nominated in the retros for fiction categories precisely because I’m not as familiar with those other authors. In the meantime, SF Magazines has a pretty good roundup of eligible stories (complete with links to the Internet Archive scans of various magazines, etc…)

In terms of Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, the pickings are a little slim, mostly fantasy or horror, but here are my current picks:

• Heaven Can Wait
• Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
• I Walked with a Zombie
• The Leopard Man

Not sure what I’m going to put in the fifth slot there, but it feels like it’ll be another Universal monster movie (Son of Dracula) or Val Lewton RKO picture (The Seventh Victim). In case you can’t tell from the nominees, I have a soft spot for both Universal monsters and Lewton, but on the other hand, Heaven Can Wait is clearly the superior film that would qualify this year (highly recommended!) Pickins are slim though, and none of these are particularly adept as “Science Fiction”, but fantasy elements are present in all, to some extent.

Any recommendations or suggestions are welcome!