Hugo Thoughts, Hopes, and Predictions
Novel:
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross
In the novel category, I've read (or, in the case of Anathem, happily hacked partway through) all of the nominees except Saturn’s Children, and quite liked all of them in wildly various ways. I’m pleased to see the roster dominated by YA (Even Anathem is sort of YA in disguise), as I really believe it’s the new heartbeat of genre, both creatively and economically.
Of course, there's a…preponderance of white-Anglo-American-males-with-enormous-internet-presences on the novel list. Never mind that Anathem, The Graveyard Book, and Little Brother enjoyed massive-for-SF traditional marketing pushes, a proportionately massive advantage in a pseudo-democratic award like the Hugo. It’s problematic, no doubt, but it’s also a dynamic inherent in the award-there’s more to say on that point in the future, but whatever my queasinesses, for the moment I’m fairly pleased with the quality of the selections.
Even though I haven’t quite finished it, my favorite-to actually win, and in a personal sense-is Anathem. Its central SFnal conceit is brilliant and new and its setting is absolutely seductive. That the neologisms and invented language didn’t compel me to build a bonfire is testament enough to its quality. I think The Graveyard Book is Gaiman’s best in some time, and worthy, but he’s been rather thoroughly Hugo’d, hasn’t he? Little Brother is a great deal of fun, and I like that it’s fiction about present-tense science, but both its futurism and its simplistic politics are often…less than persuasive.
The obligatory but-where-is-my-favorite bit: I would’ve liked to have seen Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go here; as I noted a while ago, it’s almost certainly the best SF novel published in 2008.
Short Story:
“Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)
“Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Solaris SF 2)
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s)
“From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s)
“Article of Faith” by Mike Resnick (Baen’s Universe)
Bizarre list. “Exhalation”-more a thought experiment than a story but a rigorous and hand-to-God tearjerking thought experiment-will and should win, though I like the Kowal as well.
Novelette:
“The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2)
“Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel (F&SF)
“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s)
“Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s)
“Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick (Asimov’s)
The Bacigalupi story is, unsurprisingly, in a league of its own, up there with Link and Chiang and MacDonald and only a few others. Another piece of present-tense-science fiction. Ideally, this would be no contest (though I like the Kessel piece as well). Realistically, I have no idea who will win. Bacigalupi or Gardner, is my guess. I’ll say Bacigalupi.
I’m surprised and a bit frowny-faced that Kelly Link’s “The Surfer” isn’t here (or in the novella category-not sure about its word-count). It, “The Gambler,” “Exhalation,” and Kris Dikeman’s “Nine Sundays in a Row” were this year’s short stand-outs, for me.
Semiprozine:
Interzone
Clarkesworld
Weird Tales
New York Review of Science Fiction
Locus
I don’t have much to say here, but this is the most exciting category, to my mind. Any one of the fiction venues deserve to win-they’re all some of the most warm-blooded, forward-looking magazines out there. Interestingly, those three feature hands down the most beautiful art and design anywhere in SF. No one else even competes.
Oh, and a win for Locus would be a thumb bitten at short fiction.