Hugo voter packet and accounting, plus a bit of reading and meme
49. Whitney Gardner, Chaotic Good -- June must be National Polly Oliver Month or something, because when I went to the library the first weekend in June, the new Teen books section had two titles that caught my eye, new since just a couple of days earlier: Chaotic Good, which is the story of a girl who decides to dress as a guy so as to feel more welcome in the neighborhood comic book store, and Note Worthy (below), which is about an alto who dresses up as a guy to join an all-male a capella group because she can't score the female parts she needs to put on her college application. Actually, the similarities don't end there -- both girls are indirectly doing it for the college aps to something artsy -- this one is applying to CalArts for costume design, and needs the comic books as research for her cosplays. Also, both protagonists have conveniently gender neutral names -- Jordan (in the other book) and Cameron, here. And, of course, they both fall for a guy while in their Polly Oliver disguise.
I found the premise of this book fun -- not just the girl-dressed-as-guy central thing, although I'm a sucker for that, but the particular geeky trappings. I don't know anything about cosplay (besides having LJ friends who do so), and not much about comics, and I've never played D&D (although I'm familiar with it from osmosis, D&D based webcomics, and spending many hours perusing the manuals because they were fun) -- the central geeky thing about this book, as you might guess from the title -- but the general fannishness is recognizable to me, and there are even specific bits of geekiness I recognize, like Wyatt listening to WTNV in his car. And I enjoyed reading about the costume-making work, because I enjoy reading about characters being competent in their chosen milieu. And I like all of Cameron's homemade clothes, like the donut dress.
Unfortunately, I was pretty annoyed by Cameron. She is sympathetic enough when it comes to dealing with vicious internet trolls and even the local Nice Guy comic store dude (who is named Brody, get it? XP), but she does So. Much. Stupid stuff. Spoilers from here! I mean yes, she's hurt and scared by internet trolls, but throwing her phone on the ground to break it and then burying it in the garden? I mean, nice to have that much disposable income, I guess? Signing up for just a single school interview for her big portfolio thing, when her mother nagged her about doing multiple schools? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a person who actually applied to a single school for college, so I get the impulse, but I knew what my Plan B was. Anyway, possibly someone who is actually a teen would find Cameron relatable, but I just mostly identified with her hardass Mom, who had all the right ideas.
I liked Cameron's family dynamic, the older professor parents, the love and support and occasional bickering with her twin brother. I liked Wyatt, the genuinely nice comic store clerk, who -- in an interesting Polly Oliver twist -- has a crush on boy!Cam (and used to have a crush on Cameron's love interest, leading to a very, VERY awkward scence) and ends up being her brother's endgame love interest. Lincoln the love interest I'm not really sold on, as beyond "decent guy" and apparently "amazing DM" (which I couldn't really judge), his other specific attribute seems to be that he's a little heavy (which, I mean, nice in a leading man, I guess, unconventional) -- beyond that, it's just that Cam is smitten with him. I did like that Lincoln learns Cam is a girl pretty much as soon as they get close. But then the misunderstandings/comedy of errors with Wyatt continue way beyond that -- Cam is trying to tell him the truth, but the author just won't let it happen, which was frustrating. Besides that, Cooper's snobby cheating emotionally-abusive ex is suitably horrible, and Brody the comic book store dudebro is... I'm not sure, actually. I feel like the book both tried to make him really douchy and to, like, show him learning and changing? But that arc was not handled nearly well enough for my taste, because he basically goes straight from spouting all the standard Nice Guy things to having a potentially eye-opening moment with Cameron. He is occasionally shows to say/do things that seem actually nice, and Cameron thinks maybe she's misjudged him -- but then he turns out to have been awful anyway -- well, except at the end, where he's possibly Learned a Valuable Lesson. I feel like he was basically there to be the personification of the internet trolls, and that makes the group feel unbalanced. But, whatever.
I figured the book had to end with everyone donning Cam's costumes, which did happen, but there's very little closure otherwise. I mean, yes, Cameron and Lincoln are about the get back together/pick up where they left off, Cam and Wyatt seem on their way to coupledom, and Cam's costuming idol retweeted a picture of her costume with very positive words -- but besides implied romantic closure, and reconciliation between Cameron and friends, there isn't really closure? Like, the dress-up scene is supposed to serve as validation of Cam's craft, I guess, along with the tweet? But I would've liked to see something more there. And maybe also Cam folloing on the suggestion from the Portland comic book store lady and going to work at Atomix Comix to help be the change she wants to see in the world (not that she owes that to anyone, but she seems to be hanging out there a lot, anyway).
Speaking of Portland -- that was one minor thing that was fun for me, that Cam et al are from Oregon, and she's just moved to Eugene from Portland, and still gets all nostalgic for Portland things I also know and in some cases love.
So, not great literature, and Becky Albertalli this ain't, but it was a quick, fun book to read on a Saturday afternoon as a palate cleanser from much thinky sci-fi.
*
The Hugo Voter Packet has arrived! Which means I get to go through the Other Categories :D
Best Fanartist:
- Geneva Benton -- cute, colorful, I like the style, and the characters have a lot of personality
- Grace P Fong -- kind of generic... the figures don't feel really alive
- Likhain -- this is definitely different! More conceptual, and also broader range than just characters -- I like the way these almost look like Tarot cards, and the interesting perspecitve.
- Maya Hahto -- the Worldcon75/Helsinki artist. Her other pieces don't do much for me, but Major Ursa is adorable! :D
- Spring Schoenhuth -- OK, I don't know how to judge this against drawings/paintings, but this is so cool! First that there isn't just drawn art in the running, second the pieces themselves. The Tao of the Force is one I especially like, but they're all things I'd stop to look at.
- Steve Stiles -- Oh, I really like the style of the first couple of pieces and the "dark woods" one -- it reminds me of old Soviet illustrations, like the ones that came with Monday Starts on Saturday. The less zany ones are less of a hit for me
Hugos tally (fanartist): Spring Schoenhuth (the jewelry, just because it's so cool), close call between Likhain (I really like the surreal/symbolic touch) and Steve Stiles, close call between Maya Hahto and Geneva Benton, and Grace P Fong.
Best Professional Artist:
- Galen Dara -- I like the Faerie Tree a lot, the other one I'm pretty meh on
- Bastien Lecouffe Deharme -- hmm, I like the color schemes and overlay of images, but the compositions themselves don't really speak to me
- John Picacio -- bit hit or miss for me, but I really love the composition of the dragon-harp-wing cover thing and the "When the Devil Drives" cover
- Kathleen Jennings -- aww, I like the storybook critters style and the silhouettes
- Sana Takeda -- I was trying to recall why I recognized the name, but opening the first image made it fall into place -- the Monstress artist. Well, it is beautiful art, if not entirely to my taste...
- Victo Ngai -- very pretty, but not my preferred style
Hugos tally (pro artist): This one's really tough! But I think for me the order is Sana Takeda, John Picacio, Kathleen Jennings, Galen Dara, Victo Ngai, Bastien Lecouffe Deharme
Best Fancast:
I decided to give everything at least 30 minutes (total), and managed it for all but one of these things.
- Sword and Laser -- I like their sound/jingle thing with the laser buzz + sword clink, but honestly that's about it. Compared to Be the Serpent (which I need to remember to nominate next year), this is very mediocre. I'm not feeling the chemistry between the two hosts, and not finding anything they have to say really interesting either. There's a lot of smalltalk which seems to be more fascinating to the two of them than to me as a reader, just, like, reactions like "oh, that's awesome" that don't add anything, and random chatter -- and some points where they google stuff and read it aloud -- I mean, really? I got to halfway the episode they included and gave up, but decided to give the episode that covered The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet instead. And yet more random chatter (about mangos and crap). I got a third into the episode, and was still really bored, and they hadn't even started talking about books yet. There seems to not be much original content compared to reading stuff from readers or interviews or whatever. This podcast is a good illustration for why I never listened to book-centric podcasts before Be the Serpent...
- Ditch Diggers -- Mur Laffety rap rhyme is pretty awesome, as actually is the rest of the introductory rap. I listned to the beginnings of a couple of episodes, then settled on the post-Hugo one. These guys actually ARE funny, but they're talking about things I'm not really interested in (it seems to be a podcast for writers rather than readers).
- Coode Street Podcast -- Jonathan Strahan (whose accent is fun to listen to) and Gary K Wolfe. They actually had some interesting things to say, and said it in an interesting way. I like the way the two are not afraid to disagree with each other, too. But I don't see myself listening to this for pleasure -- too dry. (I listened to episode 310.)
- Galactic Suburbia -- I did like the chemistry of these guys (unless it's just that Be the Serpent has conditioned me to a Pavlovan positive reflex to a female voice with an Australian accent talking about books XD). I feel like this one, unlike "Sword and Laser", hits the right balance of hosts who sound like people who like each other and whom I'd enjoy hanging out with and people with interesting things to say about stuff I care about. (And looks like one of the hosts is the author of the Hugo-nominated related work on Octavia Butler.) The real test is that even when they were talking about things I didn't have much interest in, I was still enjoying the podcast to a reasonable degree. The only thing is, it's a really long podcast -- the episode I listened to was over 100 min long -- that's, like, a movie!
- Fangirl Happy Hour -- OK, this is shallow, but I actually find both voices really grating. I made it about four minutes in before really wanting to switch it off, and ten minutes before I finally did, when it got to be too much. Voices aside, I also find the style of talking/conversation really annoying, too, so I didn't feel like looking at the transcript. Hard pass.
- Verity podcast -- Doctor Who centric, so I have no interest in it, but I decided to give it a fair shot, and was actually really impressed by the production values (I think the best of the six by far). The chemistry sounds great, everybody seems like they're having a lot of fun, and also really playing off each other -- more than any of the others, I thought. I mean, I have nothing to say about any of the stuff they say, since I've never seen anything more than gifs of Doctor Who, but I spent a surprisingly entertaining 40 minutes listening to them talk about something I have only fandom osmosis familiarity with and enjoying myself. That's impressive!
Hugos tally (fancasts): Verity (amazingly enough), Galactic Suburbia (apparently I just really like Tansy Rayner Roberts podcasts, what can I say), Coode Street Podcast, Ditch Diggers, Sword and Laser, Fangirl Happy Hour
Best Fan Writer:
- Bogi Takacs -- Points for mentioning B5, but I found the long essay rather dry (or maybe I just wasn't sure of the audience), though it made some interesting points I hadn't thought about before, e.g. on school vs apprenticeship setting. I like the book reviews more, both for the novel I'd not read (never even heard of -- Judenstaat by Simone Zelitch, but was happy to read about (though I don't think I'll be tracking it down), and Strugatskys' Kid from Hell, as well as the short story, translation, and comic review. I feel like they read books I'm interested in and write about them in ways that are interesting to me and have something unusual to say in the best cases. Pleased to learn about this fan writer, and will look to keep an eye on their website periodically.
- Carnestros Felapton -- Yeah, OK, this style of fan writing just doesn't work for me at all. I don't find it particularly funny or cute, and the intrinsic content is not really winning me over, either. And even the pieces where I was interested in what this writer had to say, I found the style getting in the way. I did enjoy the "frozen pizza a la the 2017 Hugo novel nominees", especially the "Too Like the Toppings" (which legit made me LOL) and "Ninetoppings Gambit". I also discovered, when I got to the end, that I'd already read this review of Too Like the Lightning, and enjoyed it reasonably though disagreed with chunks of it.
- Charles Payseur -- Nothing exceptional, but a very readable style, fun and breezy while always having lovely and meaningful things to say. I especially enjoyed the Goosebumps review/rant. I mean, I don't know that this is Hugo-worthy, but I'd read this blog on occasion.
- Foz Meadows -- I found this too moralistic to enjoy fully despite the fact that Meadows makes some really interesting points in a readable way. I skimmed most of the other stuff because it was on topics not very interesting to me, but was quite impressed by how balanced and reasnable the essay on YA Discourse was -- I respected the way Meadows made various points even when I didn't agree.
- Mike Glyer -- was my solo nomination in this category. I enjoyed reading the Hugo and Nebula gaffes story linked from the voter packet, and I have enjoyed lots of articles I've found on my own.
- Sarah Gailey -- I think my problem with her writing, here as in the bisexual hippo novella that so annoyed me, is that Gailey employs prose I could otherwise enjoy to write unsubtly about things, a particular lack of subtlety which takes all my potential enjoyment out of them. Like, the Batman piece -- I love Batman subversions and mockeries and stuff, and this piece has some things to say that I'm not sure Ive encountered before in Batman mockery (the prison-industrial complex, e.g.), and it still left me annoyed. The Blad Runner post -- I mean, I can't fault a reaction post, but it takes the ethical issues at the heart of the Blade Runner story and reduces them to the most anvilicious degree possible (does... anyone actually need that explained?) Basically, he writing thing seems to be preaching to the choir with the force of someone converting the unbelievers, and that just really doesn't work for me.
Hugos tally: (fan writer) Mike Glyer, Bogi Takacs, Foz Meadows, Charles Payseur, Carnestros Felapton, Sarah Gailey (3 and 4 might switch around at some point, I'll have to let it settle...)
Best Semiprozine
- The Book Smugglers -- Before the voter packet came along, I'd read "Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live" (which I enjoyed enough to finish, but don't feel like it really DOES much); I also recognize them from the Ben Aaronovitch kerfuffle some years ago, which did not endear them to me), but I enjoyed some of the voter packet material: the Justice League fan-version (with an all-female line-up) by Tansy Rayner Roberts and the essay on food by YHL. On the other hand, the "abuse of Mantis in GotG" essay by Ana Grilo made me eyeroll SO HARD, but that seems to be true of most things Grilo says (including a positive review of a series I love; it's just that consistent; although the Skinful of Shadows glowing review managed to merely leave me cold).
- Fireside Magazine -- I'm impressed by the Hugo packet itself -- it seems to have been assembled with more care and thoroughness than others. I had read part of one thing from their 2017 output, "The Revolution Brought to You by Nike" (which I'd liked OK but not enough to nominate). From the packet, I actually reasonably enjoyed the Sarah Gailey novelette (although it didn't need to be this long, I think) -- it's nicely creepy, and the Jina Vie-Min Prasad short story with the skull. My favorite might be "The Hulder's Husband Says Don't", another short and creepy story; I'm a sucker for magical bride stories, and I don't think I've read one with hulders before. The Troy Wiggins story "Black Like Them" felt like it wanted to be a short film more than a story, but it was an interesting idea and I enjoyed it despite the script format; and the Junebug barbershop story had a neat kernel and didn't outstay its welcome with me. The Rab the Giant story of British Isle magical denizens in the age of IoT was very simple but fun. I was also impressed with the article on #BlackSpecFic -- it's compelling data with reasonable analysis and disclaimers and no demagoguery, which the author notes reveal was a very deliberate choice (that I respect a lot); and the couple of response pieces included were complementary and worthwhile, too, although that was rather a lot of them for a voter packet. The essay on disability in horror was also one I appreciated reading. There were some duds for me: the "Gepetto" story didn't work for me -- I failed to see the point of it -- and "Radio Werewolf" -- not enough of a punchline. I also did not finish reading the last story, "The River Boy", because the second person wasn't working for me.
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies -- had published one of my favorite short stories ("Carnival Nine", which I nominated for a Hugo), and also several stories I read or started that didn't work particularly well for me. I leafed past most of the stories in the packet after reading the first pages -- they didn't grab me, and they were from authors that haven't worked for me in the past. But I did really love "The Fall of the Mundaneum" by Rebecca Campbell, which is fittingly, beautifully atmospheric and just the right degree of mad for a story set in WWI. I'll need to keep an eye out for more stories by this author. So, based on both the voter packet and my earlier browsing, this one's mostly a miss with a few outstanding hits.
- Strange Horizons -- original fiction did not include any of my favorites so far (although I do like the poetry they publish, including two out of three poems including in the packet), but from the packet, "Utopia, LOL?" was fun and breezy, although I thought it went on rather too long, and "The Constellations Will Be Yours" is an unusual and cbreepy sentient spaceship story. The Kirk Drift essay/rant by Erin Horakova was full of information new to me (since I'm only familiar with TOS via cultural osmosis), but didn't work for me as an essay. I'd been looking forward to an Indigenous voices panel/interview thing that included Rebecca Roanhorse (one of my Campbell favorites and author of my Hugo-favorite short story), but she was the moderator, so I didn't get as much from her, and didn't get all that much out of the panel as a whole -- lots of things mentioned that I hadn't known about, but not in enough detail for me to really appreciate it (I mean, I could do more research on my own, but I almost certainly won't). The non-fiction in general seems to be coming from a place I don't enjoy at all, full of buzzwords and self-righteous smugness. I managed to get maybe three pages into the anthology review, and the author hadn't gotten around to even talking about the stories yet, and not even so far into the Binti write-up (which claimed to be a review but really wasn't); I did make it through the trans anthology review. Anyway, so, I'm very mixed on this one -- I like their poetry selections, I like the fiction pretty well -- no standouts for me, but also no outright duds -- but didn't like the non-fiction content pretty much at all, which is going to knock the whole down in my tallies.
- Uncanny Magazine -- 2017 fiction included the two (Hugo-nominated) novelettes I liked least ('Small Changes' and 'Children of Thorns'), but also my favorite novella nominee, and also several short stories I'd encountered in Hugo homework context: Vernon's "Sun, Moon, Dust" (which I liked OK) and "Packing", which I'd nominated for a Hugo, Fandom for Robots" (meh) and "Clearly lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" (nice if you like that sort of thing but I do not) -- so, not a great track record before I started perusing the packet (and the packet intro is self-congratulatory in a way that the other magazines were not, I thought, and which I found offputting). The stories, though, are rather good. Mary Robinette Kowal's "The Worshipful Society of Glovers" was great. I've actually not read anything by MRK other than weird fanfic, but I really liked the worldbuilding here, which feels solidly like an original fairy tale, maybe even a ballad. I'd been curious about A. Merc Rustad's work after seeing their name around, so was happy to have an opportunity to read "Monster Girls Don't Cry" -- and I liked it. It's not exactly nuanced, but it is evocative, and the simplicity of the story works with the sort of fair tale feel of it, without being undercut by lines too clever for the story's good (the way Seanan McGuire's stories often seem to be). "Paradox" by Naomi Kritzer is a fun, many-branched time-traveler monologue with a punchy last line. "Bodies Stacked Like Firewood" by Sam J Miller (of The Art of Starving) was not the kind of SFF I enjoy reading, but (like the YA novel) compellingly written -- brutally, but compellingly. "Henosis" by N.K.Jemisin was odd and closer to horror than any other part of the genre, I think (not gory horror, more psychological), and I don't know that the discontinuous storytelling contributed much, but it was an interesting enough read. "The Thule Stowaway" is just not my thing, overly purple, and "Though She Be But Little" also failred to catch my attention, but that's a better percentage than most other zines in this category. For nonfiction, this is the magazine in which the Sarah Gailey piece on Batman appeared (which I didn't much like). I was also underwhelmed by the essays from Cecelia Tan or Sarah Kuhn (the Campbell finalist), and found the Mimi Mondal one way too navel-gazey, but the last essay I did find amazingly powerful and well-written, The Shape of the Darkness As It Overtakes Us by Filipino writer Dimal Ilaw, (with an odd but effective use of second person, which I don't think I've seen used quite so explicitly in non-fiction before), which had me tearing up and looking up the author's website. For poetry, I liked "Seven Shoes" by Theodora Goss, although I find it a little too simple, maybe? a little too on the nose? Like, the line by line imagery is great, and the fairy tale connecting is great, but the overall point is too literal for me to really love the poem. The other poems worked for me less well -- a couple of striking lines and images and words here and there, but on the whole they didn't resonate with me. The final thing in the packet were two interviews, both with authors I wanted to hear more from -- Mary Robinette Kowal, whom I've been low-key intrigued by for a while, and Sarah Pinsker (my favorite discovery from Hugo homework, as theauthoer of my favorite novella and novelette this year). And I loved learning about the origin of "And then there were (N-one)" -- which started from the brilliant title, apparently! -- and also answered the question I'd been wondering about (the story with the horse and the little girl is true), and the things MRK had to say about the gloves story which I also really liked. But the interview questions annoyed me -- I felt like the interviewer was being insufficiently, mm, transparent.
- Escape Pod -- Mur Lafferty is one of the editors. This is podfics, I guess, only, well, with original fiction, which I'd been vaguely aware of was a thing but had never actually listened to any stories of. I was skeptical about the concept, since I don't like audiobooks, like, at all, but actually enjoyed this zine to a surprising degree. The format works really well -- there's a short intro to the author and readers from the host, the story itself, then the host's reactions to the story, somebody reading comments on a past story from the reader community, and a quote to wrap things up -- it's nicely organized and varied. The production values are really nice, across the board, everything functions as a well-oiled machine, and, randomly, I liked the author/voice actor intros more than normal. I was also impressed by the quality of this selection of stories -- I enjoyed almost all of them, and thought several of them benefited from the audio format, even. Actually, I liked them enough that I have a paragraph to say about each of them, below:
* "Run" (the interplanetary Morse Code Club with six grade girls, against the backdrop of looming nuclear war on Earth and on the Moon) was a lovely idea poignantly done, and even doing Morse Code in audio worked pretty well. My major quibble is from the Russo-picking side -- the protagonist is supposed to be Russian, and her name is Ivana, which, for the record, is not a Russian name. And the Lunar Colony is called Glasnost Peace Lunar Cooperative Settlement, which, I see what you're going for there, but it's dumb because glasnost doesn't have the right connotations for this, and it literally sounds like you picked the first-Russian sounding word you could think of. Well, maybe the second, after "vodka", but honestly that would make about as much sense. So, that annoyed me in a story I otherwise liked quite a lot.
* "Honey and Bone" I didn't like at all. It's trite and moralistic, with worldbuilding that didn't intrigue me at all, and not having names for anyone did not work well for me because of the need for epithets for everyone, made even more awkward by the fact that one of the characters is nb (well, two of the characters are, but the other one never appears, is just mentioned, presumably mostly for the sake of having another set of pronouns in there -- which was actually interesting, as I'd never heard the ey/em pronouns said aloud before), and so the epithets are extra awkward, like "elderly person". And the host's commentary afterwards attempts to highlight some depth in this story's message that I just didn't feel was there. Well, they can't all be winners.
* "Texts from the Ghost War" by Alex Yuschik (whom I need to keep an eye on, and not just because and judging by the last name, from the Old Country) -- this was absolutely delightful both in audio form (I LOVED 5's voice actor; Hyeon's sounded too disproportionately older, which made it a bit weird, but the audio interplay still worked well) and in the text form that I went and checked out afterwards, which has its own neat little additions, like 5's all lower caps that suddenly become all properly punctuated when he learns who he's texting with, and then go back to normal when Hyeon asks for informality. Anyway, I love dialogue heavy stories, and find epistolary storytelling neat, and was impressed with how the worldbuilding and backstory of the characters and their adorably developing relationship was conveyed via texts (and the longish soliloquy moments did not feel too weird). The worldbuilding is neat in general -- mechas fighting ghosts! It's not even my jam, but Honestly, if I'd come across this one earlier, it would've been one of my Hugo noms. So much fun!
* "Planetbound" -- a neat little story that's too descriptive for the kind of short stories I really like, but does the things it sets out to do well, which is to show the perspective of a space-born human encountering Earth for the first time (as well as the more spoilery things it does later on), in really, really neat POV. This is a really good use of second person POV, and the audio does a neat thing with the voice actors as well. And I enjoyed Mur Lafferty's hosting on this one.
* "Ms Figgle-DeBitt's Home for Waywayrd A.I.s" -- this was cute, but (unlike the other stories) I think I may have actually been better off reading this rather than listening, as the audio format was a little slow for the funny thriller nature of this story.
Hugos tally (semiprozine): This ended up being harder than I expected! I think: Escape Pod (excellent flow, some of the best hit rate for me in the choice of stories in the packet, and nothing framing that annoyed me -- plus just the fact that this format worked for me when I really didn't expect it to), Fireside (which was a class act from start to finish), Uncanny (so much great content, but also a non-trivial number of things that made me roll my eyes on the non-fiction side), then probably Beneath Ceaseless Skies for the couple of gems, then Strange Horizons (with the nonfiction dragging it down), Book Smugglers (just really not for me).
Best Fanzine:
- File 770 -- this is the blog/fanzine I've been turning to for genre fandom news ever since... some major upheaval in the field several years ago (the Requires Hate stuff, maybe? or the Puppies?), and it also has great links roundups, fandom history, and I used it extensively to prep for Hugo nominations this year.
- Galactic Journey -- a blog that reports on early 1960s-contemporary genre related stuff. This is a neat idea, but I'm not that interested in that time in genre, and so, beyond paging through the pictures, I didn't get much out of this one in the voter packet, beyond the knowledge that it's a thing that exists.
- Nerds of a Feather -- first of all, I do love the name! I like their reviews 0-10 scale (from "prosecutable as a crime against humanity" to "mind-blowing/life-changing"), although they seem a bit too ready to hand out perfect 10s. I only skimmed most of the reviews, because I haven't read the books and didn't want to be spoiled for those particular ones (Broken Earth and Witcher finales). I liked the idea of the format of The Monthly Round (based on a beer flight conceit) by Charles Payseur (one of the Fan Writer nominees), but the 'notes' and 'pairs with' bits didn't actually add much for me, and the reviews themselves did not grab me. There's a long section on dystopias, which is a subject that interests me, but the writing itself is very dry, although I liked the dossier format (represented in the package by 1984 and Fahrenheit 451), especially the "for its time" and "read today" ratings, which are not something I've seen before. I think basically what it comes down to it, I like what they're trying to do, but don't actually like the writing, which is a bit of a problem. I enjoyed the writing on The Last Jedi more -- I think maybe the people writing about books for this outfit feel like they have to be formal and academic? The interview portion made me curious about Infomocracy -- I may need to check it out once I'm done with Terra Ignota. And a lot of the other content was just not interesting to me personally -- obscure games, horror. And the weird landscape 3-column format is not doing them any favors, in my book.
- Rocket Stack Rank -- this was a thing I didn't know existed, but it's really good to know about (though I wish I'd known about it in the leadup to the Hugos rather than now) -- they do rankings of SFF short fiction based on an aggregate of things, and provide a lot of information and links for the short fiction they thus roundup. And the scores are pretty interesting -- in the novella category, my favorite "(N-one)" had the highest score, followed by Murderbot, then, at a remove, by Black Tides of Heaven, followed by River of Teeth, Sticks and Bones, and Binti: Home. While this doesn't align 100% to my rankings of the Hugo-nominated novellas, it's actually prety damn close, and would be exact if you were to just move River of Teeth to the end. For novelette, there's a bit less agreement -- their aggregated ranking has A Series of Steaks, The Secret Life of Bots, Wind Will Rove, Extracurricular Activities, [sizable gap], Children of Thorns and Small Changes -- but it's still generally close, except that I really loved Wind Will Rove and rated the Jedao novelette higher because Jedao -- but they did rank the non-Hugo-nominated Society of Glovers and Vernon's Dark Birds pretty low when I really enjoyed both. On the other hand, "The Martian Obelisk" (the one Hugo-nominated short story I'm putting below No Award) got the top score, followed by "Fandom for Robots", had "Authentic Indian Experience" (my Hugo favorite) at the same level as the decent-but-not-amazing "Utopia, LOL?", and just sort of degenerates into uselessness from there. But for novellas and novelettes, what an awesome resource! The capsule reviews and the micro-reviews, just 3 words, are pretty spot on for the things I could judge, the sub-categories they're sorted into are really handy. I also like the format of the individual reviews (short summary, longer review with spoilers, pros/cons). There were not a lot of stories where I could compare the reviews with my own impressions, but where I could, I tended to agree with the pros/cons if not always with the ratings. (Also., props to whoever highlighted the "A Series of Steaks" review with "well-prepared, tender, and satisfying" (ISWYDT XP)). And I was particularly happy to see the "Not Recommended" reviews for River of Teeth (although some of that is due to hippo lore, which I was willing to just accept as part of the setting) and Binti: Home. The monthly roundups also look incredibly useful, and I love the stats! I especially appreciate the roundups of published anthologies, because it's always a bit of a crapshoot when picking them up. I also skimmed the Hugo slate noms/voting analysis from 2017, and while I didn't get into the math (there are logs!), this was also really interesting. And I had a lot of fun with the statistical analysis of length by category, too. (There is even a section for Future Work! I'm actually quite cuted out.) Googling around after, I came upon this kerfuffle (on File770, actually), which makes me sad (the reviews included in the voter packet that I read did not show these issues), but doesn't, I think, detract from the usefulness of this site for me.
- SF Bluestocking -- no interest in the Gormenghas "Let's Read" (at least for now), but I browsed the other file. I pretty strongly disagreed with the complaints about The Bear and the Nightingale, which, given that it was the very first review, made me take the other ones with a grain of salt. I did skim the others, but there was nothing else where I could compare our tastes. In the interests of giving this a fair chance, I went to the website itself and read through the seasonal wrap-ups. Our tastes appear not as divergent as the voter packet would suggest -- she also loved "And Then There Were (N-One)" and The Refrigerator Monologues, Raven Stratagem, All Systems Red, and was reassuringly disappointd by River of Teeth. On the other hand, she also loved Heroine Complex and sequel, and some other things which I felt were merely OK. And/but even on books where she and I agree, it would appear we're coming at them from different perspectives. So, being the blog of a single person with not-very-congruent-to-me tastes, this isn't particularly valuable to me -- or especially unique from what I can see?
- Journey Planet -- first of all, I was annoyed that there wasn't any kind of intro in the voter packet, just a bunch of issues, and I had to go Google these guys -- which turned up the File770 article on them (this is why File 770 is near the top of my list, if not at the top, see?). It looks like they do dedicated issues of their zines, by theme, which is certainly different. The voter packet included issues on Irish Comics (pass), Disney trains (...what even...), con programming (also not something I'm interested in, but I at least skimmed this one instead of just paging through), just generally Disney (I did enjoy reading the article on the Disney World Worlcon that wasn't, and Disney cosplay, what cons can learn from Disney parks), Creature Features (which I may need to read up on for gHost of Honor at the Worldcon but have no intrinsic interest in), and Glasgow conventions (also no interest). So, um, a very low interest hit rate for me, although the one issue that was actually at least a little bit relevant to my interests was OK.
Hugos tally (best fansite) tier 1: Rocket Stack Rank, File 770 (these two might be swapped...); tier 2: potential relevant to me but not that interesting: Nerds of a Feather, SF Bluestocking (in that order); tier 3: neat things that exist but of no interest to me personally: Galactic Journey, Journey Planet. I think I will actually rank them in the order of tier 1, tier 3, tier 2, but we'll see...
It occurs to me belatedly that I have thoughts on various shorter works scattered throughout this post, and I should probably round up at least the ones I have strong feelings for. So:
- The Hulder’s Husband Says Don’t by Kate Lechler -- short, dark fairy tale retelling that I liked a lot
- "The Fall of the Mundaneum" by Rebecca Campbell -- subtly magical WWI story (so, you know, not a happy one)
- The Worshipful Society of Glovers by Mary Robinette Kowal -- a very interesting, shades-of-grey fairy tale subversion with neat worldbuilding and a twist set during the reign of Henry VIII
- Paradox by Naomi Kritzer -- funny, many-branched time-traveler monologu with a nice punch at the end
- Run by C.R.Hodges (in audio and text) -- which I enjoyed despite some unnecessary Russia-fail
- Texts from the Ghost War by Alex Yuschik, which is amazingly fun and I want Yuletide fic of it immediately. Great worldbuilding, fun characters and interactions, told entirely in epistolary style and with great effect. I first listened to it then read it, and each form has something unique to offer.
- Planetbound by Nancy Fulda -- in audio and text. A little slow, but tight POV and second person POV are both used to great effect.
Hugo Homework report:
- Novel: 4/6; need to read KSR, and The Stone Sky (after finishing Obelisk Gate)
- Novella: done
- Novelette: done
- Short story: done
- Best related work: 1/6 (plan to give Liz Bourke a shot for 2nd)
- Editor, long form: 2/6 (plan to check out Robots vs Fairies for 3rd)
- Editor, short form: 4/6 (browse JJA and Strahan collections)
- Fan writer: done
- Fan artist: done
- Fancast: done
- Fanzine: done
- Semiprozine: done
- Pro artist: done
- Dramatic long form: done
- Dramatic short form: 3/6 (watch The Good Place: Trolley Problem for final 4/6)
- Series: 4/6 (read Divine Cities and some Sanderson?)
- YA book: 5/6 ("The Book of Dust" remaining, library)
- Campbell: 5/6 (Ng's "The Pendulum Sun" remaining, in voter packet)
i.e. remaining Hugo Homework to-do list:
1) read The Book of Dust (finishing out YA books)
2) read The Pendulum Sun excerpt (finishing out Campbell nominees)
3) read KSR's New York 2140 (at least 50 pages)
4) finish Obelisk Gate and read The Stone Sky
5) read Divine Cities for series
6) read The Way of Kings or the intro packet Sanderson helpfully included (or at least 50 pages)
7) read or at least browse the JJA and Jonathan Strahan collections (for editor short form)
8) read (or at least skim) Liz Bourke's Sleeping with Monsters for Best Related Work
9) read Robots vs Fairies (editor is nominated for long form Hugo and I like her packet)
10) watch The Good Place, season 2 through "The Trolley Problem" (episode 5) -- i.e. 4 episodes to go
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And a different kind of roundup:
grammarwoman over on
umadoshi's DW asked what was in the voter packet, and since I'd already downloaded everything, I made a tally, for anyone else who wants to know:
Novel -- looks like full text (PDF, mobi, and epub) of Collapsing Empire and Raven Stratagem (or at least the PDF is full text, haven't checked the eReader files); excerpts from The Stone Sky, Six Wakes, Provenance, New York 2140 in PDF.
Novella -- all six nominated, in full, in all 3 formats
Novelette -- all six nominated, in full, in all 3 formats (but all are available online anyway). Ditto short stories.
YA novel -- Summer in Orcus in full, with illustrations, in all 3 formats. In Other Lands and The Art of Starving in full, in PDF. Skinful of Shadows access via NetGalley. Excerpt from Akata Warrior. Nothing from The Book of Dust at all.
Campbell -- excerpt (in 3 formats) for Under the Pendulum Sun; An Unkindness of Ghosts and The Bear and the Nightingale in full in PDF. PDF excerpt from Sarah Kuhn's Heroine Complex stories, but it looks like they're available for download from NetGalley? A duplicate of the Rebecca Roanhorse nominated short story and Vina Jie-Min Prasad's short story and novelette.
Related work -- Luminescent Threads (the Octavia Butler book) in three formats in full. No Time to Spare (Le Guin) in PDF in full. Sleeping with Monsters (Liz Bourke) excerpt in all 3 formats. PDF exerpt of the Harlan Ellison, Iain Banks books and Crash Override (Zoe Quinn) excerpt in PDF.
Editor long form -- variety of excerpts in PDF -- let me know if you want more detail.
Editor short form -- packages with stories from Asimov's, Clarkesworld, Uncanny, some novella excerpts. Lightspeed compilation in all 3 formats (~850 pages...) Strahan's Infinity Wars and Best Science Fiction anthologies in epub/mobi, as far as I can tell, in full.
Series -- like 400MB of Sanderson... (Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer) in all 3 formats and I believe in full, 'cos each thing is like 2000 pages long. Penric's Fox and The Curse of Chalion for World of Five Gods (all 3 formats, in full). Natural History of Dragons first 5 books, in all 3 formats, in full. Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea in all 3 formats, and looks like two stories from the Raksura short stories collection, The Dead City and The Dark Earth Below. Download links to the three book sof the Divine Cities, which will expire in August according to the packet. The entirety of InCryptid -- six novels via NetGalley and all of the anthologized stories (9, looks like?) in all three formats.
Fanzine, fan writer, fancast, semiprozine, fan and pro artist compilations, but all of it of things that can be accessed for free, as far as I can tell.
Dramatic presentation -- just the song "The Deep"
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Finally, a meme stolen from ikel89:
Offer me a trope (freeform, or tvtropes terminology -- your call), and i'll rank it on a scale of no/rather not/dunno/i guess/ sure/yes/fuck yes/oh god you don't even know, and possibly sprout a mini-rant along with it. in response, you're getting the same number of tropes from me, which you can either take as a prompt to do the same thing, or ignore altogether.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1081672.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
I found the premise of this book fun -- not just the girl-dressed-as-guy central thing, although I'm a sucker for that, but the particular geeky trappings. I don't know anything about cosplay (besides having LJ friends who do so), and not much about comics, and I've never played D&D (although I'm familiar with it from osmosis, D&D based webcomics, and spending many hours perusing the manuals because they were fun) -- the central geeky thing about this book, as you might guess from the title -- but the general fannishness is recognizable to me, and there are even specific bits of geekiness I recognize, like Wyatt listening to WTNV in his car. And I enjoyed reading about the costume-making work, because I enjoy reading about characters being competent in their chosen milieu. And I like all of Cameron's homemade clothes, like the donut dress.
Unfortunately, I was pretty annoyed by Cameron. She is sympathetic enough when it comes to dealing with vicious internet trolls and even the local Nice Guy comic store dude (who is named Brody, get it? XP), but she does So. Much. Stupid stuff. Spoilers from here! I mean yes, she's hurt and scared by internet trolls, but throwing her phone on the ground to break it and then burying it in the garden? I mean, nice to have that much disposable income, I guess? Signing up for just a single school interview for her big portfolio thing, when her mother nagged her about doing multiple schools? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a person who actually applied to a single school for college, so I get the impulse, but I knew what my Plan B was. Anyway, possibly someone who is actually a teen would find Cameron relatable, but I just mostly identified with her hardass Mom, who had all the right ideas.
I liked Cameron's family dynamic, the older professor parents, the love and support and occasional bickering with her twin brother. I liked Wyatt, the genuinely nice comic store clerk, who -- in an interesting Polly Oliver twist -- has a crush on boy!Cam (and used to have a crush on Cameron's love interest, leading to a very, VERY awkward scence) and ends up being her brother's endgame love interest. Lincoln the love interest I'm not really sold on, as beyond "decent guy" and apparently "amazing DM" (which I couldn't really judge), his other specific attribute seems to be that he's a little heavy (which, I mean, nice in a leading man, I guess, unconventional) -- beyond that, it's just that Cam is smitten with him. I did like that Lincoln learns Cam is a girl pretty much as soon as they get close. But then the misunderstandings/comedy of errors with Wyatt continue way beyond that -- Cam is trying to tell him the truth, but the author just won't let it happen, which was frustrating. Besides that, Cooper's snobby cheating emotionally-abusive ex is suitably horrible, and Brody the comic book store dudebro is... I'm not sure, actually. I feel like the book both tried to make him really douchy and to, like, show him learning and changing? But that arc was not handled nearly well enough for my taste, because he basically goes straight from spouting all the standard Nice Guy things to having a potentially eye-opening moment with Cameron. He is occasionally shows to say/do things that seem actually nice, and Cameron thinks maybe she's misjudged him -- but then he turns out to have been awful anyway -- well, except at the end, where he's possibly Learned a Valuable Lesson. I feel like he was basically there to be the personification of the internet trolls, and that makes the group feel unbalanced. But, whatever.
I figured the book had to end with everyone donning Cam's costumes, which did happen, but there's very little closure otherwise. I mean, yes, Cameron and Lincoln are about the get back together/pick up where they left off, Cam and Wyatt seem on their way to coupledom, and Cam's costuming idol retweeted a picture of her costume with very positive words -- but besides implied romantic closure, and reconciliation between Cameron and friends, there isn't really closure? Like, the dress-up scene is supposed to serve as validation of Cam's craft, I guess, along with the tweet? But I would've liked to see something more there. And maybe also Cam folloing on the suggestion from the Portland comic book store lady and going to work at Atomix Comix to help be the change she wants to see in the world (not that she owes that to anyone, but she seems to be hanging out there a lot, anyway).
Speaking of Portland -- that was one minor thing that was fun for me, that Cam et al are from Oregon, and she's just moved to Eugene from Portland, and still gets all nostalgic for Portland things I also know and in some cases love.
So, not great literature, and Becky Albertalli this ain't, but it was a quick, fun book to read on a Saturday afternoon as a palate cleanser from much thinky sci-fi.
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The Hugo Voter Packet has arrived! Which means I get to go through the Other Categories :D
Best Fanartist:
- Geneva Benton -- cute, colorful, I like the style, and the characters have a lot of personality
- Grace P Fong -- kind of generic... the figures don't feel really alive
- Likhain -- this is definitely different! More conceptual, and also broader range than just characters -- I like the way these almost look like Tarot cards, and the interesting perspecitve.
- Maya Hahto -- the Worldcon75/Helsinki artist. Her other pieces don't do much for me, but Major Ursa is adorable! :D
- Spring Schoenhuth -- OK, I don't know how to judge this against drawings/paintings, but this is so cool! First that there isn't just drawn art in the running, second the pieces themselves. The Tao of the Force is one I especially like, but they're all things I'd stop to look at.
- Steve Stiles -- Oh, I really like the style of the first couple of pieces and the "dark woods" one -- it reminds me of old Soviet illustrations, like the ones that came with Monday Starts on Saturday. The less zany ones are less of a hit for me
Hugos tally (fanartist): Spring Schoenhuth (the jewelry, just because it's so cool), close call between Likhain (I really like the surreal/symbolic touch) and Steve Stiles, close call between Maya Hahto and Geneva Benton, and Grace P Fong.
Best Professional Artist:
- Galen Dara -- I like the Faerie Tree a lot, the other one I'm pretty meh on
- Bastien Lecouffe Deharme -- hmm, I like the color schemes and overlay of images, but the compositions themselves don't really speak to me
- John Picacio -- bit hit or miss for me, but I really love the composition of the dragon-harp-wing cover thing and the "When the Devil Drives" cover
- Kathleen Jennings -- aww, I like the storybook critters style and the silhouettes
- Sana Takeda -- I was trying to recall why I recognized the name, but opening the first image made it fall into place -- the Monstress artist. Well, it is beautiful art, if not entirely to my taste...
- Victo Ngai -- very pretty, but not my preferred style
Hugos tally (pro artist): This one's really tough! But I think for me the order is Sana Takeda, John Picacio, Kathleen Jennings, Galen Dara, Victo Ngai, Bastien Lecouffe Deharme
Best Fancast:
I decided to give everything at least 30 minutes (total), and managed it for all but one of these things.
- Sword and Laser -- I like their sound/jingle thing with the laser buzz + sword clink, but honestly that's about it. Compared to Be the Serpent (which I need to remember to nominate next year), this is very mediocre. I'm not feeling the chemistry between the two hosts, and not finding anything they have to say really interesting either. There's a lot of smalltalk which seems to be more fascinating to the two of them than to me as a reader, just, like, reactions like "oh, that's awesome" that don't add anything, and random chatter -- and some points where they google stuff and read it aloud -- I mean, really? I got to halfway the episode they included and gave up, but decided to give the episode that covered The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet instead. And yet more random chatter (about mangos and crap). I got a third into the episode, and was still really bored, and they hadn't even started talking about books yet. There seems to not be much original content compared to reading stuff from readers or interviews or whatever. This podcast is a good illustration for why I never listened to book-centric podcasts before Be the Serpent...
- Ditch Diggers -- Mur Laffety rap rhyme is pretty awesome, as actually is the rest of the introductory rap. I listned to the beginnings of a couple of episodes, then settled on the post-Hugo one. These guys actually ARE funny, but they're talking about things I'm not really interested in (it seems to be a podcast for writers rather than readers).
- Coode Street Podcast -- Jonathan Strahan (whose accent is fun to listen to) and Gary K Wolfe. They actually had some interesting things to say, and said it in an interesting way. I like the way the two are not afraid to disagree with each other, too. But I don't see myself listening to this for pleasure -- too dry. (I listened to episode 310.)
- Galactic Suburbia -- I did like the chemistry of these guys (unless it's just that Be the Serpent has conditioned me to a Pavlovan positive reflex to a female voice with an Australian accent talking about books XD). I feel like this one, unlike "Sword and Laser", hits the right balance of hosts who sound like people who like each other and whom I'd enjoy hanging out with and people with interesting things to say about stuff I care about. (And looks like one of the hosts is the author of the Hugo-nominated related work on Octavia Butler.) The real test is that even when they were talking about things I didn't have much interest in, I was still enjoying the podcast to a reasonable degree. The only thing is, it's a really long podcast -- the episode I listened to was over 100 min long -- that's, like, a movie!
- Fangirl Happy Hour -- OK, this is shallow, but I actually find both voices really grating. I made it about four minutes in before really wanting to switch it off, and ten minutes before I finally did, when it got to be too much. Voices aside, I also find the style of talking/conversation really annoying, too, so I didn't feel like looking at the transcript. Hard pass.
- Verity podcast -- Doctor Who centric, so I have no interest in it, but I decided to give it a fair shot, and was actually really impressed by the production values (I think the best of the six by far). The chemistry sounds great, everybody seems like they're having a lot of fun, and also really playing off each other -- more than any of the others, I thought. I mean, I have nothing to say about any of the stuff they say, since I've never seen anything more than gifs of Doctor Who, but I spent a surprisingly entertaining 40 minutes listening to them talk about something I have only fandom osmosis familiarity with and enjoying myself. That's impressive!
Hugos tally (fancasts): Verity (amazingly enough), Galactic Suburbia (apparently I just really like Tansy Rayner Roberts podcasts, what can I say), Coode Street Podcast, Ditch Diggers, Sword and Laser, Fangirl Happy Hour
Best Fan Writer:
- Bogi Takacs -- Points for mentioning B5, but I found the long essay rather dry (or maybe I just wasn't sure of the audience), though it made some interesting points I hadn't thought about before, e.g. on school vs apprenticeship setting. I like the book reviews more, both for the novel I'd not read (never even heard of -- Judenstaat by Simone Zelitch, but was happy to read about (though I don't think I'll be tracking it down), and Strugatskys' Kid from Hell, as well as the short story, translation, and comic review. I feel like they read books I'm interested in and write about them in ways that are interesting to me and have something unusual to say in the best cases. Pleased to learn about this fan writer, and will look to keep an eye on their website periodically.
- Carnestros Felapton -- Yeah, OK, this style of fan writing just doesn't work for me at all. I don't find it particularly funny or cute, and the intrinsic content is not really winning me over, either. And even the pieces where I was interested in what this writer had to say, I found the style getting in the way. I did enjoy the "frozen pizza a la the 2017 Hugo novel nominees", especially the "Too Like the Toppings" (which legit made me LOL) and "Ninetoppings Gambit". I also discovered, when I got to the end, that I'd already read this review of Too Like the Lightning, and enjoyed it reasonably though disagreed with chunks of it.
- Charles Payseur -- Nothing exceptional, but a very readable style, fun and breezy while always having lovely and meaningful things to say. I especially enjoyed the Goosebumps review/rant. I mean, I don't know that this is Hugo-worthy, but I'd read this blog on occasion.
- Foz Meadows -- I found this too moralistic to enjoy fully despite the fact that Meadows makes some really interesting points in a readable way. I skimmed most of the other stuff because it was on topics not very interesting to me, but was quite impressed by how balanced and reasnable the essay on YA Discourse was -- I respected the way Meadows made various points even when I didn't agree.
- Mike Glyer -- was my solo nomination in this category. I enjoyed reading the Hugo and Nebula gaffes story linked from the voter packet, and I have enjoyed lots of articles I've found on my own.
- Sarah Gailey -- I think my problem with her writing, here as in the bisexual hippo novella that so annoyed me, is that Gailey employs prose I could otherwise enjoy to write unsubtly about things, a particular lack of subtlety which takes all my potential enjoyment out of them. Like, the Batman piece -- I love Batman subversions and mockeries and stuff, and this piece has some things to say that I'm not sure Ive encountered before in Batman mockery (the prison-industrial complex, e.g.), and it still left me annoyed. The Blad Runner post -- I mean, I can't fault a reaction post, but it takes the ethical issues at the heart of the Blade Runner story and reduces them to the most anvilicious degree possible (does... anyone actually need that explained?) Basically, he writing thing seems to be preaching to the choir with the force of someone converting the unbelievers, and that just really doesn't work for me.
Hugos tally: (fan writer) Mike Glyer, Bogi Takacs, Foz Meadows, Charles Payseur, Carnestros Felapton, Sarah Gailey (3 and 4 might switch around at some point, I'll have to let it settle...)
Best Semiprozine
- The Book Smugglers -- Before the voter packet came along, I'd read "Avi Cantor Has Six Months to Live" (which I enjoyed enough to finish, but don't feel like it really DOES much); I also recognize them from the Ben Aaronovitch kerfuffle some years ago, which did not endear them to me), but I enjoyed some of the voter packet material: the Justice League fan-version (with an all-female line-up) by Tansy Rayner Roberts and the essay on food by YHL. On the other hand, the "abuse of Mantis in GotG" essay by Ana Grilo made me eyeroll SO HARD, but that seems to be true of most things Grilo says (including a positive review of a series I love; it's just that consistent; although the Skinful of Shadows glowing review managed to merely leave me cold).
- Fireside Magazine -- I'm impressed by the Hugo packet itself -- it seems to have been assembled with more care and thoroughness than others. I had read part of one thing from their 2017 output, "The Revolution Brought to You by Nike" (which I'd liked OK but not enough to nominate). From the packet, I actually reasonably enjoyed the Sarah Gailey novelette (although it didn't need to be this long, I think) -- it's nicely creepy, and the Jina Vie-Min Prasad short story with the skull. My favorite might be "The Hulder's Husband Says Don't", another short and creepy story; I'm a sucker for magical bride stories, and I don't think I've read one with hulders before. The Troy Wiggins story "Black Like Them" felt like it wanted to be a short film more than a story, but it was an interesting idea and I enjoyed it despite the script format; and the Junebug barbershop story had a neat kernel and didn't outstay its welcome with me. The Rab the Giant story of British Isle magical denizens in the age of IoT was very simple but fun. I was also impressed with the article on #BlackSpecFic -- it's compelling data with reasonable analysis and disclaimers and no demagoguery, which the author notes reveal was a very deliberate choice (that I respect a lot); and the couple of response pieces included were complementary and worthwhile, too, although that was rather a lot of them for a voter packet. The essay on disability in horror was also one I appreciated reading. There were some duds for me: the "Gepetto" story didn't work for me -- I failed to see the point of it -- and "Radio Werewolf" -- not enough of a punchline. I also did not finish reading the last story, "The River Boy", because the second person wasn't working for me.
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies -- had published one of my favorite short stories ("Carnival Nine", which I nominated for a Hugo), and also several stories I read or started that didn't work particularly well for me. I leafed past most of the stories in the packet after reading the first pages -- they didn't grab me, and they were from authors that haven't worked for me in the past. But I did really love "The Fall of the Mundaneum" by Rebecca Campbell, which is fittingly, beautifully atmospheric and just the right degree of mad for a story set in WWI. I'll need to keep an eye out for more stories by this author. So, based on both the voter packet and my earlier browsing, this one's mostly a miss with a few outstanding hits.
- Strange Horizons -- original fiction did not include any of my favorites so far (although I do like the poetry they publish, including two out of three poems including in the packet), but from the packet, "Utopia, LOL?" was fun and breezy, although I thought it went on rather too long, and "The Constellations Will Be Yours" is an unusual and cbreepy sentient spaceship story. The Kirk Drift essay/rant by Erin Horakova was full of information new to me (since I'm only familiar with TOS via cultural osmosis), but didn't work for me as an essay. I'd been looking forward to an Indigenous voices panel/interview thing that included Rebecca Roanhorse (one of my Campbell favorites and author of my Hugo-favorite short story), but she was the moderator, so I didn't get as much from her, and didn't get all that much out of the panel as a whole -- lots of things mentioned that I hadn't known about, but not in enough detail for me to really appreciate it (I mean, I could do more research on my own, but I almost certainly won't). The non-fiction in general seems to be coming from a place I don't enjoy at all, full of buzzwords and self-righteous smugness. I managed to get maybe three pages into the anthology review, and the author hadn't gotten around to even talking about the stories yet, and not even so far into the Binti write-up (which claimed to be a review but really wasn't); I did make it through the trans anthology review. Anyway, so, I'm very mixed on this one -- I like their poetry selections, I like the fiction pretty well -- no standouts for me, but also no outright duds -- but didn't like the non-fiction content pretty much at all, which is going to knock the whole down in my tallies.
- Uncanny Magazine -- 2017 fiction included the two (Hugo-nominated) novelettes I liked least ('Small Changes' and 'Children of Thorns'), but also my favorite novella nominee, and also several short stories I'd encountered in Hugo homework context: Vernon's "Sun, Moon, Dust" (which I liked OK) and "Packing", which I'd nominated for a Hugo, Fandom for Robots" (meh) and "Clearly lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" (nice if you like that sort of thing but I do not) -- so, not a great track record before I started perusing the packet (and the packet intro is self-congratulatory in a way that the other magazines were not, I thought, and which I found offputting). The stories, though, are rather good. Mary Robinette Kowal's "The Worshipful Society of Glovers" was great. I've actually not read anything by MRK other than weird fanfic, but I really liked the worldbuilding here, which feels solidly like an original fairy tale, maybe even a ballad. I'd been curious about A. Merc Rustad's work after seeing their name around, so was happy to have an opportunity to read "Monster Girls Don't Cry" -- and I liked it. It's not exactly nuanced, but it is evocative, and the simplicity of the story works with the sort of fair tale feel of it, without being undercut by lines too clever for the story's good (the way Seanan McGuire's stories often seem to be). "Paradox" by Naomi Kritzer is a fun, many-branched time-traveler monologue with a punchy last line. "Bodies Stacked Like Firewood" by Sam J Miller (of The Art of Starving) was not the kind of SFF I enjoy reading, but (like the YA novel) compellingly written -- brutally, but compellingly. "Henosis" by N.K.Jemisin was odd and closer to horror than any other part of the genre, I think (not gory horror, more psychological), and I don't know that the discontinuous storytelling contributed much, but it was an interesting enough read. "The Thule Stowaway" is just not my thing, overly purple, and "Though She Be But Little" also failred to catch my attention, but that's a better percentage than most other zines in this category. For nonfiction, this is the magazine in which the Sarah Gailey piece on Batman appeared (which I didn't much like). I was also underwhelmed by the essays from Cecelia Tan or Sarah Kuhn (the Campbell finalist), and found the Mimi Mondal one way too navel-gazey, but the last essay I did find amazingly powerful and well-written, The Shape of the Darkness As It Overtakes Us by Filipino writer Dimal Ilaw, (with an odd but effective use of second person, which I don't think I've seen used quite so explicitly in non-fiction before), which had me tearing up and looking up the author's website. For poetry, I liked "Seven Shoes" by Theodora Goss, although I find it a little too simple, maybe? a little too on the nose? Like, the line by line imagery is great, and the fairy tale connecting is great, but the overall point is too literal for me to really love the poem. The other poems worked for me less well -- a couple of striking lines and images and words here and there, but on the whole they didn't resonate with me. The final thing in the packet were two interviews, both with authors I wanted to hear more from -- Mary Robinette Kowal, whom I've been low-key intrigued by for a while, and Sarah Pinsker (my favorite discovery from Hugo homework, as theauthoer of my favorite novella and novelette this year). And I loved learning about the origin of "And then there were (N-one)" -- which started from the brilliant title, apparently! -- and also answered the question I'd been wondering about (the story with the horse and the little girl is true), and the things MRK had to say about the gloves story which I also really liked. But the interview questions annoyed me -- I felt like the interviewer was being insufficiently, mm, transparent.
- Escape Pod -- Mur Lafferty is one of the editors. This is podfics, I guess, only, well, with original fiction, which I'd been vaguely aware of was a thing but had never actually listened to any stories of. I was skeptical about the concept, since I don't like audiobooks, like, at all, but actually enjoyed this zine to a surprising degree. The format works really well -- there's a short intro to the author and readers from the host, the story itself, then the host's reactions to the story, somebody reading comments on a past story from the reader community, and a quote to wrap things up -- it's nicely organized and varied. The production values are really nice, across the board, everything functions as a well-oiled machine, and, randomly, I liked the author/voice actor intros more than normal. I was also impressed by the quality of this selection of stories -- I enjoyed almost all of them, and thought several of them benefited from the audio format, even. Actually, I liked them enough that I have a paragraph to say about each of them, below:
* "Run" (the interplanetary Morse Code Club with six grade girls, against the backdrop of looming nuclear war on Earth and on the Moon) was a lovely idea poignantly done, and even doing Morse Code in audio worked pretty well. My major quibble is from the Russo-picking side -- the protagonist is supposed to be Russian, and her name is Ivana, which, for the record, is not a Russian name. And the Lunar Colony is called Glasnost Peace Lunar Cooperative Settlement, which, I see what you're going for there, but it's dumb because glasnost doesn't have the right connotations for this, and it literally sounds like you picked the first-Russian sounding word you could think of. Well, maybe the second, after "vodka", but honestly that would make about as much sense. So, that annoyed me in a story I otherwise liked quite a lot.
* "Honey and Bone" I didn't like at all. It's trite and moralistic, with worldbuilding that didn't intrigue me at all, and not having names for anyone did not work well for me because of the need for epithets for everyone, made even more awkward by the fact that one of the characters is nb (well, two of the characters are, but the other one never appears, is just mentioned, presumably mostly for the sake of having another set of pronouns in there -- which was actually interesting, as I'd never heard the ey/em pronouns said aloud before), and so the epithets are extra awkward, like "elderly person". And the host's commentary afterwards attempts to highlight some depth in this story's message that I just didn't feel was there. Well, they can't all be winners.
* "Texts from the Ghost War" by Alex Yuschik (whom I need to keep an eye on, and not just because and judging by the last name, from the Old Country) -- this was absolutely delightful both in audio form (I LOVED 5's voice actor; Hyeon's sounded too disproportionately older, which made it a bit weird, but the audio interplay still worked well) and in the text form that I went and checked out afterwards, which has its own neat little additions, like 5's all lower caps that suddenly become all properly punctuated when he learns who he's texting with, and then go back to normal when Hyeon asks for informality. Anyway, I love dialogue heavy stories, and find epistolary storytelling neat, and was impressed with how the worldbuilding and backstory of the characters and their adorably developing relationship was conveyed via texts (and the longish soliloquy moments did not feel too weird). The worldbuilding is neat in general -- mechas fighting ghosts! It's not even my jam, but Honestly, if I'd come across this one earlier, it would've been one of my Hugo noms. So much fun!
* "Planetbound" -- a neat little story that's too descriptive for the kind of short stories I really like, but does the things it sets out to do well, which is to show the perspective of a space-born human encountering Earth for the first time (as well as the more spoilery things it does later on), in really, really neat POV. This is a really good use of second person POV, and the audio does a neat thing with the voice actors as well. And I enjoyed Mur Lafferty's hosting on this one.
* "Ms Figgle-DeBitt's Home for Waywayrd A.I.s" -- this was cute, but (unlike the other stories) I think I may have actually been better off reading this rather than listening, as the audio format was a little slow for the funny thriller nature of this story.
Hugos tally (semiprozine): This ended up being harder than I expected! I think: Escape Pod (excellent flow, some of the best hit rate for me in the choice of stories in the packet, and nothing framing that annoyed me -- plus just the fact that this format worked for me when I really didn't expect it to), Fireside (which was a class act from start to finish), Uncanny (so much great content, but also a non-trivial number of things that made me roll my eyes on the non-fiction side), then probably Beneath Ceaseless Skies for the couple of gems, then Strange Horizons (with the nonfiction dragging it down), Book Smugglers (just really not for me).
Best Fanzine:
- File 770 -- this is the blog/fanzine I've been turning to for genre fandom news ever since... some major upheaval in the field several years ago (the Requires Hate stuff, maybe? or the Puppies?), and it also has great links roundups, fandom history, and I used it extensively to prep for Hugo nominations this year.
- Galactic Journey -- a blog that reports on early 1960s-contemporary genre related stuff. This is a neat idea, but I'm not that interested in that time in genre, and so, beyond paging through the pictures, I didn't get much out of this one in the voter packet, beyond the knowledge that it's a thing that exists.
- Nerds of a Feather -- first of all, I do love the name! I like their reviews 0-10 scale (from "prosecutable as a crime against humanity" to "mind-blowing/life-changing"), although they seem a bit too ready to hand out perfect 10s. I only skimmed most of the reviews, because I haven't read the books and didn't want to be spoiled for those particular ones (Broken Earth and Witcher finales). I liked the idea of the format of The Monthly Round (based on a beer flight conceit) by Charles Payseur (one of the Fan Writer nominees), but the 'notes' and 'pairs with' bits didn't actually add much for me, and the reviews themselves did not grab me. There's a long section on dystopias, which is a subject that interests me, but the writing itself is very dry, although I liked the dossier format (represented in the package by 1984 and Fahrenheit 451), especially the "for its time" and "read today" ratings, which are not something I've seen before. I think basically what it comes down to it, I like what they're trying to do, but don't actually like the writing, which is a bit of a problem. I enjoyed the writing on The Last Jedi more -- I think maybe the people writing about books for this outfit feel like they have to be formal and academic? The interview portion made me curious about Infomocracy -- I may need to check it out once I'm done with Terra Ignota. And a lot of the other content was just not interesting to me personally -- obscure games, horror. And the weird landscape 3-column format is not doing them any favors, in my book.
- Rocket Stack Rank -- this was a thing I didn't know existed, but it's really good to know about (though I wish I'd known about it in the leadup to the Hugos rather than now) -- they do rankings of SFF short fiction based on an aggregate of things, and provide a lot of information and links for the short fiction they thus roundup. And the scores are pretty interesting -- in the novella category, my favorite "(N-one)" had the highest score, followed by Murderbot, then, at a remove, by Black Tides of Heaven, followed by River of Teeth, Sticks and Bones, and Binti: Home. While this doesn't align 100% to my rankings of the Hugo-nominated novellas, it's actually prety damn close, and would be exact if you were to just move River of Teeth to the end. For novelette, there's a bit less agreement -- their aggregated ranking has A Series of Steaks, The Secret Life of Bots, Wind Will Rove, Extracurricular Activities, [sizable gap], Children of Thorns and Small Changes -- but it's still generally close, except that I really loved Wind Will Rove and rated the Jedao novelette higher because Jedao -- but they did rank the non-Hugo-nominated Society of Glovers and Vernon's Dark Birds pretty low when I really enjoyed both. On the other hand, "The Martian Obelisk" (the one Hugo-nominated short story I'm putting below No Award) got the top score, followed by "Fandom for Robots", had "Authentic Indian Experience" (my Hugo favorite) at the same level as the decent-but-not-amazing "Utopia, LOL?", and just sort of degenerates into uselessness from there. But for novellas and novelettes, what an awesome resource! The capsule reviews and the micro-reviews, just 3 words, are pretty spot on for the things I could judge, the sub-categories they're sorted into are really handy. I also like the format of the individual reviews (short summary, longer review with spoilers, pros/cons). There were not a lot of stories where I could compare the reviews with my own impressions, but where I could, I tended to agree with the pros/cons if not always with the ratings. (Also., props to whoever highlighted the "A Series of Steaks" review with "well-prepared, tender, and satisfying" (ISWYDT XP)). And I was particularly happy to see the "Not Recommended" reviews for River of Teeth (although some of that is due to hippo lore, which I was willing to just accept as part of the setting) and Binti: Home. The monthly roundups also look incredibly useful, and I love the stats! I especially appreciate the roundups of published anthologies, because it's always a bit of a crapshoot when picking them up. I also skimmed the Hugo slate noms/voting analysis from 2017, and while I didn't get into the math (there are logs!), this was also really interesting. And I had a lot of fun with the statistical analysis of length by category, too. (There is even a section for Future Work! I'm actually quite cuted out.) Googling around after, I came upon this kerfuffle (on File770, actually), which makes me sad (the reviews included in the voter packet that I read did not show these issues), but doesn't, I think, detract from the usefulness of this site for me.
- SF Bluestocking -- no interest in the Gormenghas "Let's Read" (at least for now), but I browsed the other file. I pretty strongly disagreed with the complaints about The Bear and the Nightingale, which, given that it was the very first review, made me take the other ones with a grain of salt. I did skim the others, but there was nothing else where I could compare our tastes. In the interests of giving this a fair chance, I went to the website itself and read through the seasonal wrap-ups. Our tastes appear not as divergent as the voter packet would suggest -- she also loved "And Then There Were (N-One)" and The Refrigerator Monologues, Raven Stratagem, All Systems Red, and was reassuringly disappointd by River of Teeth. On the other hand, she also loved Heroine Complex and sequel, and some other things which I felt were merely OK. And/but even on books where she and I agree, it would appear we're coming at them from different perspectives. So, being the blog of a single person with not-very-congruent-to-me tastes, this isn't particularly valuable to me -- or especially unique from what I can see?
- Journey Planet -- first of all, I was annoyed that there wasn't any kind of intro in the voter packet, just a bunch of issues, and I had to go Google these guys -- which turned up the File770 article on them (this is why File 770 is near the top of my list, if not at the top, see?). It looks like they do dedicated issues of their zines, by theme, which is certainly different. The voter packet included issues on Irish Comics (pass), Disney trains (...what even...), con programming (also not something I'm interested in, but I at least skimmed this one instead of just paging through), just generally Disney (I did enjoy reading the article on the Disney World Worlcon that wasn't, and Disney cosplay, what cons can learn from Disney parks), Creature Features (which I may need to read up on for gHost of Honor at the Worldcon but have no intrinsic interest in), and Glasgow conventions (also no interest). So, um, a very low interest hit rate for me, although the one issue that was actually at least a little bit relevant to my interests was OK.
Hugos tally (best fansite) tier 1: Rocket Stack Rank, File 770 (these two might be swapped...); tier 2: potential relevant to me but not that interesting: Nerds of a Feather, SF Bluestocking (in that order); tier 3: neat things that exist but of no interest to me personally: Galactic Journey, Journey Planet. I think I will actually rank them in the order of tier 1, tier 3, tier 2, but we'll see...
It occurs to me belatedly that I have thoughts on various shorter works scattered throughout this post, and I should probably round up at least the ones I have strong feelings for. So:
- The Hulder’s Husband Says Don’t by Kate Lechler -- short, dark fairy tale retelling that I liked a lot
- "The Fall of the Mundaneum" by Rebecca Campbell -- subtly magical WWI story (so, you know, not a happy one)
- The Worshipful Society of Glovers by Mary Robinette Kowal -- a very interesting, shades-of-grey fairy tale subversion with neat worldbuilding and a twist set during the reign of Henry VIII
- Paradox by Naomi Kritzer -- funny, many-branched time-traveler monologu with a nice punch at the end
- Run by C.R.Hodges (in audio and text) -- which I enjoyed despite some unnecessary Russia-fail
- Texts from the Ghost War by Alex Yuschik, which is amazingly fun and I want Yuletide fic of it immediately. Great worldbuilding, fun characters and interactions, told entirely in epistolary style and with great effect. I first listened to it then read it, and each form has something unique to offer.
- Planetbound by Nancy Fulda -- in audio and text. A little slow, but tight POV and second person POV are both used to great effect.
Hugo Homework report:
- Novel: 4/6; need to read KSR, and The Stone Sky (after finishing Obelisk Gate)
- Novella: done
- Novelette: done
- Short story: done
- Best related work: 1/6 (plan to give Liz Bourke a shot for 2nd)
- Editor, long form: 2/6 (plan to check out Robots vs Fairies for 3rd)
- Editor, short form: 4/6 (browse JJA and Strahan collections)
- Fan writer: done
- Fan artist: done
- Fancast: done
- Fanzine: done
- Semiprozine: done
- Pro artist: done
- Dramatic long form: done
- Dramatic short form: 3/6 (watch The Good Place: Trolley Problem for final 4/6)
- Series: 4/6 (read Divine Cities and some Sanderson?)
- YA book: 5/6 ("The Book of Dust" remaining, library)
- Campbell: 5/6 (Ng's "The Pendulum Sun" remaining, in voter packet)
i.e. remaining Hugo Homework to-do list:
1) read The Book of Dust (finishing out YA books)
2) read The Pendulum Sun excerpt (finishing out Campbell nominees)
3) read KSR's New York 2140 (at least 50 pages)
4) finish Obelisk Gate and read The Stone Sky
5) read Divine Cities for series
6) read The Way of Kings or the intro packet Sanderson helpfully included (or at least 50 pages)
7) read or at least browse the JJA and Jonathan Strahan collections (for editor short form)
8) read (or at least skim) Liz Bourke's Sleeping with Monsters for Best Related Work
9) read Robots vs Fairies (editor is nominated for long form Hugo and I like her packet)
10) watch The Good Place, season 2 through "The Trolley Problem" (episode 5) -- i.e. 4 episodes to go
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And a different kind of roundup:
grammarwoman over on
umadoshi's DW asked what was in the voter packet, and since I'd already downloaded everything, I made a tally, for anyone else who wants to know:
Novel -- looks like full text (PDF, mobi, and epub) of Collapsing Empire and Raven Stratagem (or at least the PDF is full text, haven't checked the eReader files); excerpts from The Stone Sky, Six Wakes, Provenance, New York 2140 in PDF.
Novella -- all six nominated, in full, in all 3 formats
Novelette -- all six nominated, in full, in all 3 formats (but all are available online anyway). Ditto short stories.
YA novel -- Summer in Orcus in full, with illustrations, in all 3 formats. In Other Lands and The Art of Starving in full, in PDF. Skinful of Shadows access via NetGalley. Excerpt from Akata Warrior. Nothing from The Book of Dust at all.
Campbell -- excerpt (in 3 formats) for Under the Pendulum Sun; An Unkindness of Ghosts and The Bear and the Nightingale in full in PDF. PDF excerpt from Sarah Kuhn's Heroine Complex stories, but it looks like they're available for download from NetGalley? A duplicate of the Rebecca Roanhorse nominated short story and Vina Jie-Min Prasad's short story and novelette.
Related work -- Luminescent Threads (the Octavia Butler book) in three formats in full. No Time to Spare (Le Guin) in PDF in full. Sleeping with Monsters (Liz Bourke) excerpt in all 3 formats. PDF exerpt of the Harlan Ellison, Iain Banks books and Crash Override (Zoe Quinn) excerpt in PDF.
Editor long form -- variety of excerpts in PDF -- let me know if you want more detail.
Editor short form -- packages with stories from Asimov's, Clarkesworld, Uncanny, some novella excerpts. Lightspeed compilation in all 3 formats (~850 pages...) Strahan's Infinity Wars and Best Science Fiction anthologies in epub/mobi, as far as I can tell, in full.
Series -- like 400MB of Sanderson... (Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer) in all 3 formats and I believe in full, 'cos each thing is like 2000 pages long. Penric's Fox and The Curse of Chalion for World of Five Gods (all 3 formats, in full). Natural History of Dragons first 5 books, in all 3 formats, in full. Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea in all 3 formats, and looks like two stories from the Raksura short stories collection, The Dead City and The Dark Earth Below. Download links to the three book sof the Divine Cities, which will expire in August according to the packet. The entirety of InCryptid -- six novels via NetGalley and all of the anthologized stories (9, looks like?) in all three formats.
Fanzine, fan writer, fancast, semiprozine, fan and pro artist compilations, but all of it of things that can be accessed for free, as far as I can tell.
Dramatic presentation -- just the song "The Deep"
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Finally, a meme stolen from ikel89:
Offer me a trope (freeform, or tvtropes terminology -- your call), and i'll rank it on a scale of no/rather not/dunno/i guess/ sure/yes/fuck yes/oh god you don't even know, and possibly sprout a mini-rant along with it. in response, you're getting the same number of tropes from me, which you can either take as a prompt to do the same thing, or ignore altogether.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1081672.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).