Top Ten Tuesday — Non-book Freebie (short stories)

“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” Head over there to link your TTT, if you take part!

April 18: Non-book Freebie (choose your own topic that’s not related to books! This could be hobbies, TV shows/movies, bands/singers, food items/recipes, top ten things about you, your top ten favorite things, places you’ve visited, favorite fashion designers, etc. Take this time to let your readers get to know you a little!)

All great suggestions, but I am totally stealing BookWyrm’s idea to look at free online stories. Tipping that hat back… 😝 I am expanding a bit on the idea: free online short stories by female speculative fiction authors, mostly (not exclusively) Hugo nominations from 2018 — blast from the past!

1. “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies” by Brooke Bollander: Three pages of revenge and profanity (“This is not the story of how he killed me, thank fuck.”) and a Hugo nomination. Nice, too short. Appreciated this story more during my re-read, I think. Yes, profanity, but also fabulous use of words. And applause for taking revenge for all those unnamed victims. Read here, Uncanny Magazine…
2. Rebecca Roanhorse‘s “Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™“: Winner of the 2017 Nebula Award and 2018 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Quite a mind bender. Difficult to comment without giving something away. About representation of Native Americans in SFF, about self-image, loss of self… The second person narrative briefly confused me, but I got into it easily enough. Horrible ending, trippy indeed. Not sure what would be worse—this being his reality or his experience. If it‘s his experience, he at least has the chance to go back to a possibly better life, fingers crossed. Read it here at Apex Magazine…
3. “Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea” by Sarah Pinsker: Nebula Awards Nominee. A post-apocalyptic story. We never find out, what or how, just bits and pieces. This is more about the character development of the rock star and the woman who finds and rescues her. A fairly quiet story and bitter-sweet. I liked it and picked up other things by the author. Read it at Lightspeed Magazine here…
4. “Carnival Nine” by Caroline M. Yoachim: “I’ve heard it said that every hundred days passes faster than the previous hundred. In childhood, the days stretch out seemingly forever, and we spend our time and turns freely on any whim that catches our fancy. But at the end of our lives, each day becomes an increasingly greater fraction of the time we have remaining, and the moments grow ever more precious.” Bittersweet story. First I was sad that Matts got so few turns. But really it’s not about how many turns you have, but what you make of them, isn’t it? And Zee made hers count, even if in the end she didn’t live the life that she had envisioned. Finalist for World Fantasy Awards, Hugo and Nebula. Read for free here…
5. “Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon: A farmer inherits a magical sword from his dying grandmother. But he doesn‘t want to become a warrior. Hugo 2018 short story finalist. Very poetic, from an author with a love for potatoes, apparently. Satisfying ending. Read here at Uncanny Magazine…
6. How about some poetry, it being National Poetry Month in the US… “What to expect from the Hadron Collider as a college roommate” by Betsy Aoki: Pretty amusing poem. I liked it! Read at Uncanny Magazine here…
7. The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer: There seems to be an abundance of misbehaving, self-aware bots gallivanting through our galaxy. Not sure why this was nominated for the Hugo, but definitely fun to read. Good thing that Bot 9 was an outdated model with some design flaws. Hugo Awards winner (novelette). “I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, the bot thought. I have a purpose, therefore I serve.” Read it here at Clarkesworld…
8. “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad: And the winner for odd titles goes to… a very meaty story. Fun. Humorous. Odd. I am not entirely sold on the concepts behind the story, but the world building and characterizations were top-notch for such a short piece. Hugo Awards 2018 Novelette Nominee. Read it at Clarkesworld here…
9. “Nalendar“ by Ann Leckie — she is an instabuy for me. “Umri searched her memory for advise on being rid of a persistent god.“ Those pesky gods, not keeping their promises and dragging people into their business. Umri has enough problems (one, specifically) on her own… What a fun read! If I wasn‘t a big fan of Ann Leckie already, this might have done it. Read it at Uncanny Magazine here… and the interview to go with the story here.
10. “Field Biology of the Wee Fairies” by Naomi Kritzer: “When Amelia turned fourteen, everyone assured her that she’d find her fairy soon. Almost all girls did. You’d find a fairy, a beautiful little fairy, and catch her. And she’d give you a gift to let her go, and that gift was always beauty or charm or perfect hair or something else that made boys notice you.” Great story. Creative. If life gives you obstacles, you don‘t have to fight through them, you can also find another way. Girl power! So what, if people expect girls wanting to look pretty and find a boy. Find a way. Do your thing. Read it at Apex Magazine here…

I could post another 10 or 20… Wow, I really have to get back to reading more short fiction! The Hugo Awards have not been free of conflict in the last few years. However, the short stories and novelettes I read were always interesting.

I just had a look at the 2022 Hugo Awards, specifically the short stories and novelettes finalists and winners—it turns out I only read one of them. So here is one extra story:

“Bots of the lost Ark” by Suzanne Palmer. Bots run amok, aliens threaten, ship and humans need to be saved, little bot to the rescue. Set on the same ship and following the adventures of the same little bot as that other HUGO-awarded The Secret Life if Bots, this is a fun and slightly absurd take on the currently abundant stories and novels about artificial intelligences. I guess it is about time that I pick up one of her full-length novels. Read it at Clarkesworld here…

Sapient or not, that is the question…

Little Fuzzy
by H. Beam Piper

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Jack is a prospector on a colony planet. One day a little bipedal fuzzy guy shows up in his camp. They become friends and Jack starts to wonder if the little guy is more than a very smart animal. Which would throw a very large wrench into the plans of The Big Bad Company with a majority interest in exploiting the natural resources of the presumably uninhabited planet.

The Fuzzies are very cute, the story is well plotted and has some shocking elements. Characters are well developed—even the lone female character, which this time around is an actual person with dialogue. Other than that we are still very much in the 1960s with classic gender stereotypes. The cast of characters is diverse. Bizarrely everybody seems to be smoking nonstop and people drink a lot of highballs. I honestly don‘t see why this is categorized as Young Adult.

Besides those idiosyncrasies I had a lot of fun and really liked the story. The prevailing theme of this novella (novel?) is the definition of sentience/sapience and to a smaller extent the rights of indigenous people. I can see why this was nominated for a Hugo in 1963. 

I might continue with the sequels. John Scalzi wrote a reboot of this story, Fuzzy Nation. I might have a look at it to see what he made of this 50 years later. His version received an Audie Award in 2012, so the audiobook might be the way to go…

“Well, maybe they’re just slightly sapient,” Jimenez suggested. Ruth Ortheris hooted at that. “That’s like talking about being just slightly dead or just slightly pregnant,” she said. “You either are or you aren’t.”

2021 Hugo Awards

I didn‘t really follow the whole process, as I only vaguely care about awards, but here you are anyway—the results!

Best Novel
2040 final ballots cast (86.4%)
1093 nominating ballots for 441 nominees, finalist range 309-132

• Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tor.com) —> I agree, Murderbot is fun, even if the middle dragged a bit.
• The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit) —> read and disliked this one.
• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
• Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery / Saga Press / Solaris)
• The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books / Solaris)
• Harrow The Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com)

Best Novella
1691 final ballots cast (71.6%)
778 nominating ballots for 157 nominees, finalist range 219-124

• The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo (Tor.com)
• Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com) —> on my TBR pile… soon! Maybe…
• Come Tumbling Down, Seanan McGuire (Tor.com)
• Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey (Tor.com) —> did I just get that?
• Finna, Nino Cipri (Tor.com)
• Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi (Tor.com) —> on my TBR pile… soon! Maybe…

Every single one of that category is from Tor. Apparently they give good Novella… *smirk*

Best Novelette
1499 final ballots cast (63.5%)
465 nominating ballots for 197 nominees, finalist range 108-33

• Two Truths and a Lie, Sarah Pinsker (Tor.com)
• “The Inaccessibility of Heaven”, Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny Magazine, July/August 2020)
• “Monster”, Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld, January 2020)
• “The Pill”, Meg Elison (from Big Girl, (PM Press))
• “Helicopter Story”, Isabel Fall (Clarkesworld, January 2020)
• “Burn, or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super”, A.T. Greenblatt (Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2020)

Best Short Story
1574 final ballots cast (66.6%)
586 nominating ballots for 634 nominees, finalist range 65-35

• “Metal Like Blood in the Dark”, T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2020)
• Little Free Library, Naomi Kritzer (Tor.com) —> a friend of mine did the podcast narration, I really need to listen to it…
• “A Guide for Working Breeds”, Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Solaris))
• “Open House on Haunted Hill”, John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots – 2020, ed. David Steffen)
• “The Mermaid Astronaut”, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, February 2020)
• “Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse”, Rae Carson (Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2020)

Best Series
1872 final ballots cast (79.3%)
727 nominating ballots for 180 nominees, finalist range 300-87

• The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells (Tor.com) —> totally agree!
• The Lady Astronaut Universe, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books/Audible/Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction/Solaris) —> read the first one and one or two short stories. It was ok, but not enough for me to continue..
• October Daye, Seanan McGuire (DAW)
• The Interdependency, John Scalzi (Tor Books)
• The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager)
• The Daevabad Trilogy, S.A. Chakraborty (Harper Voyager)

Quite a good run for Martha Wells and Murderbot!

Best Graphic Story or Comic
1048 final ballots cast (44.4%)
303 nominating ballots for 254 nominees, finalist range 43-24

• Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, written by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, illustrated by John Jennings (Harry N. Abrams)
• Ghost-Spider vol. 1: Dog Days Are Over, Author: Seanan McGuire, Artist: Takeshi Miyazawa and Rosi Kämpe (Marvel)
• Monstress, vol. 5: Warchild, Author: Marjorie Liu, Artist: Sana Takeda (Image Comics) —> Still very, very good!
• Once & Future vol. 1: The King Is Undead, written by Kieron Gillen, iIllustrated by Dan Mora, colored by Tamra Bonvillain, lettered by Ed Dukeshire (BOOM! Studios)
• Invisible Kingdom, vol 2: Edge of Everything, Author: G. Willow Wilson, Artist: Christian Ward (Dark Horse Comics)
• DIE, Volume 2: Split the Party, written by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)

I am tempted to get Parable of the Sower, I will see. My track record with Octavia Butler so far was mixed.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
1551 final ballots cast (64.7%)
574 nominating ballot for 192 nominees, finalist range 164-56

• The Old Guard, written by Greg Rucka, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Netflix / Skydance Media)
• Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), written by Christina Hodson, directed by Cathy Yan (Warner Bros.)
• Soul, screenplay by Pete Docter, Mike Jones and Kemp Powers, directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Kemp Powers, produced by Dana Murray (Pixar Animation Studios/ Walt Disney Pictures)
• Palm Springs, written by Andy Siara, directed by Max Barbakow (Limelight / Sun Entertainment Culture / The Lonely Island / Culmination Productions / Neon / Hulu / Amazon Prime)
• Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, written by Will Ferrell, Andrew Steele, directed by David Dobkin (European Broadcasting Union/Netflix)
• Tenet, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner Bros./Syncopy)

Old Guard is on my Netflix watchlist and the comic is kicking about in my comiXology app as well. Another one I finally want to get to in the new year.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
1667 final ballots cast (70.6%)
454 nominating ballot for 321 nominees, finalist range 130-30

• The Good Place: Whenever You’re Ready, written and directed by Michael Schur (Fremulon / 3 Arts Entertainment / Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group)
• The Expanse: Gaugamela, written by Dan Nowak, directed by Nick Gomez (Alcon Entertainment / Alcon Television Group / Amazon Studios / Hivemind / Just So) —> what season and episode is that??? Expanse is great!
• The Mandalorian: Chapter 16: The Rescue, written by Jon Favreau, directed by Peyton Reed (Golem Creations / Lucasfilm / Disney+) —> so good! One of the reasons I got Disney+. Just for this series totally worth it!
• The Mandalorian: Chapter 13: The Jedi, written and directed by Dave Filoni (Golem Creations / Lucasfilm / Disney+)
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Heart (parts 1 and 2), written by Josie Campbell and ND Stevenson, directed by Jen Bennett and Kiki Manrique (DreamWorks Animation Television / Netflix)
• Doctor Who: Fugitive of the Judoon, written by Vinay Patel and Chris Chibnall, directed by Nida Manzoor (BBC)

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (presented by the World Science Fiction Society)

• A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher (Argyll Productions)
• A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik (Del Rey)
• Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido) —> pretty good UF, I don‘t regret reading it.
• Legendborn, Tracy Deonn (Margaret K. McElderry/ Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing)
• Cemetery Boys, Aiden Thomas (Swoon Reads)
• Raybearer, Jordan Ifueko (Amulet / Hot Key)

I left out a few. If you want to see the full list, just follow the link at the top.

Six degrees of separation, lottery across the ages

Welcome to #6degrees. On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book. I mostly use this meme to work on my backlog, aka reviews that I haven‘t yet posted to my blog here.

How the meme works and how you can join is explained here. The initial blog post about this month‘s choice is here. October begins with Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery. If you haven‘t read this, please do—it‘s very short and only takes about 20 minutes.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Probably a shocking read in 1948, when it came out. In the days of The Hunger Games barely worth a twitch, I guess. Which itself is probably considered a modern classic by now, starting a whole subgenre of likeminded YA books. I wonder, if Ursula LeGuin was inspired by Lottery, when she wrote The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas a few years later? That one had much more of an impact on me.

Anyway, we get a short story that seems to describe a regular, ordinary sounding event in a small town. People are nonchalant about it and want to get on with it, to get that interruption of their normal day out of the way. Suspicion sneaks up on you slowly, that not all is as it seems to be, all the way to the horrific ending.

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins, read in 2016

Well written, good world building, the prose flows along nicely. Well-paced suspense. Love the idea of the mockinjays. All the charactes come to life swiftly and are believable. I saw it all vividly in my mind’s eye. Katniss has the odd moment of stupid. But the action is great, excellent plot and suspense. Katniss Everdeen, where have you been all my life? I read half of the book in one sitting. Bonus points for a YA book, that doesn’t read as if the author thinks that teens are stupid. Obviously, if you read this, you need to read the rest of the trilogy.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin, read in 2020

I picked this up, because I wanted to get to know Le Guin a little better. It looked like a good starting point, having won so many awards. I don‘t want to get into the plot, this needs to be read spoiler-free. If you liked The Lottery and are interested in speculative fiction, read this!

What are you willing to give up to do the right thing? Would you walk away? And would that be good enough? Obviously not, but it‘s not as easy as that. You‘ve dealt with your guilt by walking away, but that doesn‘t really help, does it? How do we deal with our privilege, what would be an acceptable response?

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Omelas leads me to The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu, read in 2019.

“A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.“

https://gizmodo.com/read-ken-lius-amazing-story-that-swept-the-hugo-nebula-5958919

Lovely, truly lovely. And terribly bittersweet and sad. Only 11 pages long, another quick read that packs a punch. It leads me to:

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang, read in 2019.

Story of Your Life is the basis for the movie Arrival.

“Your father is about to ask me the question. This is the most important moment in our lives, and I want to pay attention, note every detail.“

I have seen the movie several times and like it a lot. The most interesting for me were the differences from the story to the film. Would I have liked the story more or less, if I hadn‘t seen the movie? Did I like it more, because I like the movie? Despite the differences? Probably. Would I have understood the story as well without knowing the movie? Maybe. 
Did the story add layers to the movie? Possibly. Either way, it was painful and a great piece of story telling.

Another book looking at family, children and a setting that fits the theme of all these stories, is:

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

The world is a dystopian one, where people can be genetically enhanced and those that choose not to enhance their offspring have started to be relegated to the fringes of society and the children are disadvantaged.

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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley comes to mind after reading Ishiguro.

I read this about 30 years ago, give or take. I struggled with understanding it and remember that I found it hard to get into it. But I liked the concept of the story and ultimately liked the book quite a bit. I think it should be recommended reading for anybody interested in SF that predicts how our society could develop in the not too far away future. Especially nowadays, with the advances being made in cloning, I think this book gains even more importance.

A horrific lottery in the past leads to impossible choices in the future.

What are you willing to do for love?

Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)
by Ann Leckie,  Adjoa Andoh (Narrator)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

A re-read. This is not a love story, it’s a story of revenge.

“If that’s what you’re willing to do for someone you hate, what would you do for someone you love?” 

Breq is willing to do quite a lot. A lot of subtle tones that I missed the first time around and almost missed again during my second read. A many layered narrative, where you have to peel off layers to get to the heart of it all. My favourite part is still the evolving relationship between Breq and Seivarden. And the parts of the story set on Ors. Good stuff and worth the awards this book won.

“Choose my aim, take one step and then the next. It had never been anything else.” 

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Review from my first read in March 2017:

The beginning was a little confusing. Might be due to it being an audiobook, it’s a fairly new medium for me. Here are my slightly spoilerish thoughts.

Breq’s voice in the audibook works well for the character. I didn’t find her too neutral or emotionless. In the beginning she almost felt childlike, exploring and getting to know her world. As the book went on, she gained more emotions and more of a personality.

I found some of the dialects of the other characters a bit weird. Some of the voices in the audiobook also sounded a bit “too much” and not natural to me. But they all grew on me eventually.

It’s interesting that Breq used a female pronoun for all other characters, until she could figure out if they were male or female. And even then she often stuck to the female version. It made for an unusual reading experience. Ultimately it made no difference, if a character was male or female. Which was perhaps the point of the whole idea.

What I did find a bit difficult with the audiobook: Telling the other characters apart. And it was slightly annoying that I couldn’t see the spelling of the various names and places.

I liked the timeline alternating from chapter to chapter. The story only really took off for me with the convergence of both plotlines. I liked the story before that, too. But the pace was a bit too leisurely. The last 30% of the book finally picked up speed.

My personal highlight was the development of the relationship between Breq and Seivarden. The conclusion of the book’s underlieing conflict in contrast to that was just ok. Smart, but nothing earth shattering. Nice ending. And I am fairly certain that I will pick up the next book.

Sorry for my fairly lame review, literary mastermind I am not. Bottom line, I liked the book. A bit slow at times. Good plot. Good world building. Interesting characters. Loved Ors, loved Seivarden and the relationship of her and Breq. The last few chapters were fun. One gripping moment full of sadness. Good stuff.

Six degrees of Separation, from Scotland in the past to a dystopian England of the future

Welcome to #6Degrees. On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book. I am using this meme to work on my backlog, aka reviews that I haven‘t yet posted to my blog here. How the meme works and how you can join is explained here. The initial blog post about this month‘s choice is here.

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This month‘s starting book is yet again one I haven‘t read…

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, about a 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow. I don‘t want to follow the same trodden path and the amount of books dealing with unhappy childhoods on my shelf is pretty limited, let‘s go with the author‘s last name. Bizarre, but it worked out in the end and my six degrees settled on children, birth and growing pains in different settings…

The Future Is Nigh (Mass Market Paperback) by C. Stuart Hardwick
A collection of previously published short stories of winners of the Writers of the Future Contest. Length varies from 6 to 32 pages. Pretty decent collection. Three really excellent stories, one that didn‘t really do it for me and the rest was ok to fairly good. 4 stars overall.

My favourites: Martin L. Shoemaker, Today I Am Paul: My emotional winner. I want to hug this android so hard. / Marina J. Lostetter, Rats will Run: Great world building, imaginative flora and fauna. / William Ledbetter, Last House, Lost House: Great post-apocalyptic story with a nice twist.

Thinking about short stories, mothers and unhappy childhood led me to The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu. Read the titular story, if you have the opportunity.

“A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.“

Lovely, truly lovely. And terribly bittersweet and sad. Can be read for free here: https://io9.gizmodo.com/read-ken-lius…

Ken Liu leads me to Ted Chiang almost without pause. And to another mother and child and what effects their shared history has on the world at large…

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Again, look at the titular story, if you can. It was the basis for the SF movie Arrival with Amy Adams in the lead role.

“Your father is about to ask me the question. This is the most important moment in our lives, and I want to pay attention, note every detail.“

I liked the story and the characters. I have seen the movie several times and like it a lot. The most interesting for me were the differences from the story to the film. Would I have liked the story more or less, if I hadn‘t seen the movie? Did I like it more, because I like the movie? Despite the differences? Probably. Would I have understood the story as well without knowing the movie? Maybe. Did the story add layers to the movie? Possibly.

Another books about mothers and children, at least peripherally, is The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (The Road to Nowhere #1) by Meg Elison. Loved the stroy, although it depressed the hell out of me at times. The audiobook was extremely well done as well. The main character waking up in a hospital and figuring out that the world has ended is a pretty tired idea by now. Nonetheless, the book started on full throttle and was great from the get-go. And horrific. By chapter three I had goosebumps allover and was close to crying. The story had an episodic feel to it, as it follows the midwife on her trip across the country, chronicling her encounters with various other survivors. Very graphic, with a realistic feel to it. 

My final book is yet again about children in a fairly horrific, post-apocalyptic setting. And it brings us back to the island we started this journey on. England though, instead if Scotland… The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl with All the Gifts, #1) by M.R. Carey. Here children end up in a very different world.

Short story time

Children of Thorns, Children of Water (Dominion of the Fallen, #1.5)
by Aliette de Bodard

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Desperate people come to take a test, in hopes of being taken into a house of fallen angels. Two of them are spies from a dragon kingdom. Dark magic ensues.

I liked it. There was nice, creepy imagery and I identified with the main characters quickly. The world building was well done and the narrative flowed well and kept me hooked.

Hugo Awards 2018 Novelette Nominee

Story can be found here…

HUGO AWARDS 2020 announced

The HUGO AWARDS have been announced and I managed to miss the live stream of the ceremony. Bummer. Here is the list of the winners.

I am pleased about these category winners, as I read and liked them:

BEST NOVEL — A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine — looking forward to the sequel!

BEST NOVELETTE — Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin — she‘s been hit and miss for me so far.

BEST SHORT STORY — “As the Last I May Know”, by S.L. Huang

BEST SERIES — The Expanse, by James S. A. Corey — this makes me want to re-read them or at least some of my favourites.

BEST RELATED WORK — “2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech”, by Jeannette Ng — great to see that individual people can make a difference!

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM — Good Omens, written by Neil Gaiman, directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Amazon Studios/BBC Studios/Narrativia/The Blank Corporation) — loved it! Michael Sheen and David Tennant were brilliant. This was so much fun to watch!

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/2020-hugo-award-winners

GRR Martin was the Master of Ceremony for the proceedings and apparently made a mess of it. It ran overly long, he mispronounced many of the winners’ names and seems to have come across as racist and misogynistic. I am refraining from linking more stuff in this post. But google it and you find a ton of blog posts about it. I can‘t really say yay or nay about it, as I haven‘t watched it. Dang it.

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Link to my entry about the finalists

Link to my entry about the short stories

2020 Hugo Award Finalists

I keep seeing reviews of HUGO nominated stories pop up allover, so I decided to finally have a look at this year‘s finalists for myself.

The complete list of the finalists for 2020 is here. I do not plan to read all of them, but I might have a look at some of the shorter works.

Here is what I have read so far:

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Best Novel

A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)
by Arkady Martine

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

It was easily one of my favourite novels of last year. You can call me ThirtyOne Adaptation!

My review is here.

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Best Novelette

Emergency Skin
by N.K. Jemisin (Goodreads Author),  Jason Isaacs (Narrator)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Entertaining. Subversive. Amusing. My first Jemisin. Maybe not my last. Hard to put down. The unusual POV was well done and increased my fun through coming up with the missing part of the conversation.

I listened to the audio. Jason Isaac did a great job with the narration. But I expected no less from him.

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Best Series

The Expanse, by James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I read all full novels of this series. Or rather, I listened to the excellent audio narration of all of them. I read some of the shorts/novellas as well, but I miss a few of those. If you like space opera, military SF, Star Trek and good adventure yarns, this might be for you. The TV adaptation is also very good. My personal preference and recommendation: Read the books first.

You can find my reviews for all of them here. You should start reading the series with this one:

Leviathan Wakes (Expanse, #1)
by James S.A. Corey

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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Another Best Series finalist is this one:

Luna: New Moon (Luna, #1)
by Ian McDonald

This first book of the series has been sitting on my TBR shelf since 2018. I suppose it‘s time that I actually read it!

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Best Graphic Story or Comic

Monstress, Vol. 4: The Chosen
by Marjorie M. Liu (Goodreads Author),  Sana Takeda (Illustrator) 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

My review is here, however I strongly recommend that you start at the beginning, with Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening.

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So, that is what I have read so far of this year‘s Hugo Finalists. As mentioned, I might have a go at the short stories and novelettes/novellas, I‘ll see!

Which of the Hugo finalists was your favourite so far?

Blast from the past, I missed posting this review… Expanding!

Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)
by James S.A. Corey

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

In the first chapter we jump into the future of our known timeline, which is at first confusing. And our favourite heroes are quite a bit older, too. Which is a shocker. I felt as if I had missed a book.

The rest of the book almost follows the usual set-up. Some new characters are introduced and play a central role. Some old favourites show up as well. The dynamics between our beloved Rocinante crew have changed and are a little unsettling at times. 

The look at Singh‘s character and what makes him tick is quite good. He is so naive and so clueless about his own inhumanity. Or rather his inability to comprehend others and the situation he is in.

Despite that I struggled to finish the book. I really had to make myself listen to the last 4 or 5 hours. And I did it at double the normal speed, just to get it over with. The story did not do it for me.

3 stars because I pretty much loved all the other books of the series and managed to get through it without major skimming. Just.