Hugo finalists, reading "roundup" (RoL comic), and Um, Actually
Hugo nominations are out! I'm a mix of yay! and ugh and "I better actually get around to reading it" at the list this year, and of course will natter about it at length. (Will I actually read the stuff I've been intending to read/finish now that they're Hugo nominated? Outlook hazy, try again later.)
Best novel: A Desolation Called Peace, The Galaxy and the Ground Within, Light from Uncommon Stars, A Master of Djinn, Project Hail Mary (the new Andy Weir thing), She Who Became the Sun. So, interestingly, two books I read and did not like much -- I thought Wayfarers 4 was a return to, well, pretty much everything I thought was a weakness in Wayfarers 1, and also the thing it tried to fix about Wayfarers 1 was not the thing I most wanted fixed. I had left A Memory Called Empire with the sense that maybe this series was playing a long game that would pay off in the sequels, and maybe that's why the first book wasn't really working for me; I no longer believe that after 'Desolation', which I just plain disliked, and I think the writing is weak in some pretty objective ways. Not surprised to see these two on the list, but still disappointed. Also, two books that I started and really need to finish -- the Ryka Aoki, which I pounced on as soon as the library got a copy and then got stuck 50 pages in when I stopped reading completely, and A Master of Djinn, where I caught up on the short fiction in preparation for readint he novel, got a couple of pages in, and see above. One book I tried to read, for a value of "tried" where I checked out She Who Became the Sun out of the library like 4 times but didn't even crack the covers. I do want to try again with it, and finish the other two, if I'm going to vote. And the Andy Weir book I hadn't even heard about, I think. I nominated 5 things in this category, none of which made it.
Novella: More Wayward Children, more Becky Chambers (which I think I should avoid for my own sanity), more Cat Valente (huh, is this expanded from a short story? because the premise sounds familiar), and a book that's sitting on my to-read pile (Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered). Also an Adrian Tchaikovsky novella, which maybe is a better length for me to try him at. I nominated 2 things in this category, neither of which made it (I assume Fugitive Telemetry probably did but Martha Wells declined, like she did with the Nebulas).
Novelette: None of these are ringing a bell except via author names. I have enjoyed Caroline M. Yoachim's short fiction before; Suzanne Palmer tends to be hit or miss for me; what I've read by John Wiswell and Fran Wilde hasn't been my cup of tea; and Cat Valente tends to be almost 100% miss. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpek is a name completely new to me.
Short Story: Yay Sarah Pinsker, also glad to see her nominated. I have more hope for Harrow's short fiction than long form, based on past experience. More Cat Valente, more Seanan McGuire (joy), and two names I have not read before though I recognize them (Blue Neustifter, Blue Neustifter). I nominated one thing in this category (a very long shot), which did not make it.
Series: The one thing that would've been a huge disappointment on the ballot for me would've been Terra Ignota not getting a series nom now that it's copleted, and fortunately it made it onto the ballot! (which in itself probably guarantees that I will get a supporting membership and vote) The other pleasant discovery on here was Vernon's/Kingfisher's World of the White Rat; so actually I've only read Swordheart out of this universe (the paladin-centric excerpts and reviews of those books have been doing nothing for me, so I haven't checked them out and probably won't), but I enjoy the White Rat aspects of the world, and am always happy to see Vernon on an awards ballot. Other nominees: Wayward Children (sigh), the Kingston Cycle (I've only read the first one, but I'm still mad about/disappointed by it years later, to a kind of comical degree), and the Merchant Princes (read the first book years ago and thought it was a weak Amber knockoff, which turned me off Charlie Stross's books in general, so). The one I have not read at all is the Fonda Lee (the Green Bone Saga, Jade City etc.), but that one I have been curious about. I nominated 2 things in this category, one of which made it (Terra Ignota, obviously).
Graphic story: I did not nominate in this category at all, and have no informed opinions on anything, but of course more Monstress is nominated, and more Kieron Gillen stuff. N.K.Jemisin has a comic book out now -- apparently a Green Lantern thing. I'm planning to continue ignoring this category, at least until Saga returns to the ballot, I guess.
Best Related Work: Oh hey, first year in a while that all the nominees are written form (I think?) and mostly books. The books exception is a long form article How Twitter can ruin a life” by Emily St. James, which I actually wish I'd thought to noinate myself, because I read it and really appreciated it. Glad enough other people thought of it when I didn't that I can vote for it.
Dramatic Long Form: Happy and unsurprised to see Encanto here, also happy and a little surprised to see WandaVision (I figured it would make it somewhere, but wasn't sure as the full show or not). Not surprised to see Dune (which I haven't yet seen), and expect that'll be the winner. Pretty surprised that Shang-Chi is the MCU movie that made it onto this list, as opposed to Spider-Man (which was the one I nominated; in fairness, I hadn't seen Shang-Chi at the time, but if I had, it wouldn't have bumped Spider-Man). The other two are Space Sweepers (which I tried watching but didn't really click with) and The Green Knight (which I should get around to watching at some point). I nominated 4 things, of which 2 made it (besides Spider-Man, the other one that didn't was The Mitchells vs the Machines, which I'm a bit surprised about actually).
Dramatic Short Form: WoT, Lower Decks, the Expanse, Arcane, and For All Mankind episodes from shows/seasons I've not seen (and in the case of the last, don't even recognize the title of), and a Loki episode (episode 4) that left no particular impression on me. (I nominated 4 things -- 3 What If... episodes and a short film -- none of which made it).
Editor, short form: happy to see Neil Clarke and Jonathan Strahan again
Editor, long form: PNH, Navah Wolfe, and Brit Hvide on the ballot again, and Ruoxi Chen, which is a name I recognize from Serpentcast and such
Pro artist: I did not nominate this year because I didn't feel like doing the homework, but happy to see Alyssa Winans and Rovina Cai nominated again
Semiprozine: all the usual suspects, and Strange Horizons has continued nominating everyone under the sun
Best Fanzine: I nominated 1 thing which didn't make it, no other thoughts this year except this is apparently another category where Seanan McGuire is on the ballot XD
Best Fancast: Yay Serpents made it in what I am guessing will be their last year of eligibility. Happy to see Coode Street and Worldbuilding for Masochists again. Surprised to see Our Opinions Are Correct, who I assumed had decided two wins was enough for them (but maybe there was a different reason they weren't on the ballot last year). I nominated 3 things, two of which made it, which I think makes this the highest overlap category for me, out of the Hugos proper.
Fanwriter: I nominated two fan writers neither of whom made it. No strong opinions about the ones that did.
Fan Artist: Happy to see Ariela Housman nominated again, and hoping Sarah Felix has some pretty new shinies along the lines of last year's tiaras.
Lodestar: There are 3 sequels to previously nominated works on this list (CatNet, Scholomance, and Raybearer); I'm glad Ifueko is getting another shot at a Lodestar (still don't understand why Raybearer placed as low as it did... :/ ) Also a non-sequel from a previously nominated author (A Snake Falls to Earth), and a YA entry from a previous Hugo nominee (Charlie Jane Anders). With all that, I'm pretty surprised an actual newcomer, Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, managed to break through. (I nominated 1 thing -- The Last Graduate -- which made it.)
Astounding: This is the category that makes me happiest, because all three of the people I nominated -- Micaiah Johnson and A.K.Larkwood (who were at the top of my ballot last year) and Everina Maxwell (1st year of eligibility) all made it onto the short list. The other three (new from last year) are Tracy Deonn (in her second year of eligibility; she was the author of one of the Lodestar nominees last year) and Shelley Parker-Chan and Xiran Jay Zhao (1st year). I do not expect Deonn to place high on my ballot -- I didn't dislike Legendborn overall, but I didn't think it was good and ranked it last in a field I wasn't particularly wowed by to begin with.
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For all that I was eagerly awaiting Hugo noms, I was still not reading anything, but then I checked my preorders and realized the next RoL novel is coming out in under a week, and I still hadn't caught up on Monday, Monday, despite getting it as soon as it was out. So:
1. Monday, Monday (RoL comics 9), Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel -- is this a new artist? the art looks different, although I can't say I like it more than the previous one (which I also wasn't reading for the art). Anyway, for a comic, there's a lot happening in here after I felt like many of the recent ones were just sort of treading water. SPOILERS!
We get to meet Peter's twins! (Taiwo and Kehinde) and Nightingale entertaining them with bubbles! <33 And Peter is using them in experiments, because of course he is XD (Also, are those babies growing magically fast or does the artist just not realize what 3-month-old babies can do?) And then of course there's the sobering thing with Peter's dad's heart attack; he made a full recovery but it seems like probably we're building up to something sad there.
I enjoyed the Nightingale school flashbacks, complete with the cloud incident, aww! And baby Mellenby and the beginning of their friendship! I also enjoyed Peter nerding out with runaway delinquent about AtLA, and Abigail hanging out with Foxglove -- but I found the long, almost textless action stretch really hard to follow
I was NOT expecting chapter 1 to start and end with Stephanopoulos and wife (I forget if we knew her name before? Pam) having an intimate moment (even if the first one is in silhouette) -- impressed by the commitment to representation, not just on account of it being two women but two middle-aged women, one of whom is heavyset -- nicely done. (Also, looks like there's a nb character at the Goblin Market, Jael with the raven.)
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In the absence of more Taskmaster content outside of the podcast (series 13 on April 14!!), I've been using Um, Actually as my escapist nonsense of choice, following cortue's rec. (The stuff on YouTube is only a subset of what's available by subscription via the the Dropout TV channel -- I've watched only what's on YouTube.) I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it based on the premise -- the host reads a detailed statement about a geeky fan-favorite property (Marvel, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, anime, wrestling, Golden Age sci-fi, etc. etc.) and the three contestants compete to guess what part of the statement is wrong and ideally correct it -- but it's proven quite delightful! The questions are put together really well, so they're challenging even on the subjects I know well (I can get right some but by no means all questions on Tolkien, the Simpsons, etc.), and there's enough bizarre stuff that it's entertaining to listen to and try to guess along even on topics I know nothing and don't care about, like comics or anime. And it's nice both to see the contestants flail when I know the answer, and to have a moment of geeky kinship when they get something right that I also know, AND there's an element of competence kink in watching someone be an expert at something I know nothing about, like Magic: the Gathering deep lore or obscure D&D rules, si it's basically a win-win-win. Plus there are funny bits and riffs that are very enjoyable sprinkled throughout. And pretty much everyone is positive and supportive and laughs at themselves while cheering on others -- it's a really nice atmosphere, different from what I was expecting from a quiz show whose premise is interrupting people to offer pedantic corrections.
I did notice that a lot of the contestants seem to have blind spots when it comes to reading SFF -- nobody but the host seems to know Discworld, people don't seem to recognize Ursula LeGuin titles or know anything about Earthsea, when a Broken Earth question came up, none of the contestants were aware of it -- and these are, like, hardly obscure. I usually do much worse than the contestants on the "shiny questions", where you're supposed to put something in the correct order, or recognize movie villains by their laughs, etc. but one type of question I alway sdo very well on (which many contestants do not) is "A Title of Words", where you're given a bank of words from which to assemble 6 real titles of the "A Clash of Kings" / "A Wizard of Earthsea" / "The Lathe of Heaven" / "Shadow of the Torturer" variety -- a lot of people seem to be straight up guessing on those. Also, I noticed that I seemed to have a much easier time than the contestants with Harry Potter and ASOIAF questions, which is probably due to my time in more active fandom in recent memory.
A couple of my favorite episodes on YouTube were this one with the amazing revelation that the Beatles had been planning and adaptation of LotR with SPOILER for the question John Lennon as Gollum, and The Simpsons episode, whose commitment to the show's aesthetic in the intro I really enjoyed, on top of the questions.
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And a link: this video has a neat analysis of the prosody of "Surface Pressure" (the Encanto song).
Best novel: A Desolation Called Peace, The Galaxy and the Ground Within, Light from Uncommon Stars, A Master of Djinn, Project Hail Mary (the new Andy Weir thing), She Who Became the Sun. So, interestingly, two books I read and did not like much -- I thought Wayfarers 4 was a return to, well, pretty much everything I thought was a weakness in Wayfarers 1, and also the thing it tried to fix about Wayfarers 1 was not the thing I most wanted fixed. I had left A Memory Called Empire with the sense that maybe this series was playing a long game that would pay off in the sequels, and maybe that's why the first book wasn't really working for me; I no longer believe that after 'Desolation', which I just plain disliked, and I think the writing is weak in some pretty objective ways. Not surprised to see these two on the list, but still disappointed. Also, two books that I started and really need to finish -- the Ryka Aoki, which I pounced on as soon as the library got a copy and then got stuck 50 pages in when I stopped reading completely, and A Master of Djinn, where I caught up on the short fiction in preparation for readint he novel, got a couple of pages in, and see above. One book I tried to read, for a value of "tried" where I checked out She Who Became the Sun out of the library like 4 times but didn't even crack the covers. I do want to try again with it, and finish the other two, if I'm going to vote. And the Andy Weir book I hadn't even heard about, I think. I nominated 5 things in this category, none of which made it.
Novella: More Wayward Children, more Becky Chambers (which I think I should avoid for my own sanity), more Cat Valente (huh, is this expanded from a short story? because the premise sounds familiar), and a book that's sitting on my to-read pile (Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered). Also an Adrian Tchaikovsky novella, which maybe is a better length for me to try him at. I nominated 2 things in this category, neither of which made it (I assume Fugitive Telemetry probably did but Martha Wells declined, like she did with the Nebulas).
Novelette: None of these are ringing a bell except via author names. I have enjoyed Caroline M. Yoachim's short fiction before; Suzanne Palmer tends to be hit or miss for me; what I've read by John Wiswell and Fran Wilde hasn't been my cup of tea; and Cat Valente tends to be almost 100% miss. Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpek is a name completely new to me.
Short Story: Yay Sarah Pinsker, also glad to see her nominated. I have more hope for Harrow's short fiction than long form, based on past experience. More Cat Valente, more Seanan McGuire (joy), and two names I have not read before though I recognize them (Blue Neustifter, Blue Neustifter). I nominated one thing in this category (a very long shot), which did not make it.
Series: The one thing that would've been a huge disappointment on the ballot for me would've been Terra Ignota not getting a series nom now that it's copleted, and fortunately it made it onto the ballot! (which in itself probably guarantees that I will get a supporting membership and vote) The other pleasant discovery on here was Vernon's/Kingfisher's World of the White Rat; so actually I've only read Swordheart out of this universe (the paladin-centric excerpts and reviews of those books have been doing nothing for me, so I haven't checked them out and probably won't), but I enjoy the White Rat aspects of the world, and am always happy to see Vernon on an awards ballot. Other nominees: Wayward Children (sigh), the Kingston Cycle (I've only read the first one, but I'm still mad about/disappointed by it years later, to a kind of comical degree), and the Merchant Princes (read the first book years ago and thought it was a weak Amber knockoff, which turned me off Charlie Stross's books in general, so). The one I have not read at all is the Fonda Lee (the Green Bone Saga, Jade City etc.), but that one I have been curious about. I nominated 2 things in this category, one of which made it (Terra Ignota, obviously).
Graphic story: I did not nominate in this category at all, and have no informed opinions on anything, but of course more Monstress is nominated, and more Kieron Gillen stuff. N.K.Jemisin has a comic book out now -- apparently a Green Lantern thing. I'm planning to continue ignoring this category, at least until Saga returns to the ballot, I guess.
Best Related Work: Oh hey, first year in a while that all the nominees are written form (I think?) and mostly books. The books exception is a long form article How Twitter can ruin a life” by Emily St. James, which I actually wish I'd thought to noinate myself, because I read it and really appreciated it. Glad enough other people thought of it when I didn't that I can vote for it.
Dramatic Long Form: Happy and unsurprised to see Encanto here, also happy and a little surprised to see WandaVision (I figured it would make it somewhere, but wasn't sure as the full show or not). Not surprised to see Dune (which I haven't yet seen), and expect that'll be the winner. Pretty surprised that Shang-Chi is the MCU movie that made it onto this list, as opposed to Spider-Man (which was the one I nominated; in fairness, I hadn't seen Shang-Chi at the time, but if I had, it wouldn't have bumped Spider-Man). The other two are Space Sweepers (which I tried watching but didn't really click with) and The Green Knight (which I should get around to watching at some point). I nominated 4 things, of which 2 made it (besides Spider-Man, the other one that didn't was The Mitchells vs the Machines, which I'm a bit surprised about actually).
Dramatic Short Form: WoT, Lower Decks, the Expanse, Arcane, and For All Mankind episodes from shows/seasons I've not seen (and in the case of the last, don't even recognize the title of), and a Loki episode (episode 4) that left no particular impression on me. (I nominated 4 things -- 3 What If... episodes and a short film -- none of which made it).
Editor, short form: happy to see Neil Clarke and Jonathan Strahan again
Editor, long form: PNH, Navah Wolfe, and Brit Hvide on the ballot again, and Ruoxi Chen, which is a name I recognize from Serpentcast and such
Pro artist: I did not nominate this year because I didn't feel like doing the homework, but happy to see Alyssa Winans and Rovina Cai nominated again
Semiprozine: all the usual suspects, and Strange Horizons has continued nominating everyone under the sun
Best Fanzine: I nominated 1 thing which didn't make it, no other thoughts this year except this is apparently another category where Seanan McGuire is on the ballot XD
Best Fancast: Yay Serpents made it in what I am guessing will be their last year of eligibility. Happy to see Coode Street and Worldbuilding for Masochists again. Surprised to see Our Opinions Are Correct, who I assumed had decided two wins was enough for them (but maybe there was a different reason they weren't on the ballot last year). I nominated 3 things, two of which made it, which I think makes this the highest overlap category for me, out of the Hugos proper.
Fanwriter: I nominated two fan writers neither of whom made it. No strong opinions about the ones that did.
Fan Artist: Happy to see Ariela Housman nominated again, and hoping Sarah Felix has some pretty new shinies along the lines of last year's tiaras.
Lodestar: There are 3 sequels to previously nominated works on this list (CatNet, Scholomance, and Raybearer); I'm glad Ifueko is getting another shot at a Lodestar (still don't understand why Raybearer placed as low as it did... :/ ) Also a non-sequel from a previously nominated author (A Snake Falls to Earth), and a YA entry from a previous Hugo nominee (Charlie Jane Anders). With all that, I'm pretty surprised an actual newcomer, Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao, managed to break through. (I nominated 1 thing -- The Last Graduate -- which made it.)
Astounding: This is the category that makes me happiest, because all three of the people I nominated -- Micaiah Johnson and A.K.Larkwood (who were at the top of my ballot last year) and Everina Maxwell (1st year of eligibility) all made it onto the short list. The other three (new from last year) are Tracy Deonn (in her second year of eligibility; she was the author of one of the Lodestar nominees last year) and Shelley Parker-Chan and Xiran Jay Zhao (1st year). I do not expect Deonn to place high on my ballot -- I didn't dislike Legendborn overall, but I didn't think it was good and ranked it last in a field I wasn't particularly wowed by to begin with.
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For all that I was eagerly awaiting Hugo noms, I was still not reading anything, but then I checked my preorders and realized the next RoL novel is coming out in under a week, and I still hadn't caught up on Monday, Monday, despite getting it as soon as it was out. So:
1. Monday, Monday (RoL comics 9), Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel -- is this a new artist? the art looks different, although I can't say I like it more than the previous one (which I also wasn't reading for the art). Anyway, for a comic, there's a lot happening in here after I felt like many of the recent ones were just sort of treading water. SPOILERS!
We get to meet Peter's twins! (Taiwo and Kehinde) and Nightingale entertaining them with bubbles! <33 And Peter is using them in experiments, because of course he is XD (Also, are those babies growing magically fast or does the artist just not realize what 3-month-old babies can do?) And then of course there's the sobering thing with Peter's dad's heart attack; he made a full recovery but it seems like probably we're building up to something sad there.
I enjoyed the Nightingale school flashbacks, complete with the cloud incident, aww! And baby Mellenby and the beginning of their friendship! I also enjoyed Peter nerding out with runaway delinquent about AtLA, and Abigail hanging out with Foxglove -- but I found the long, almost textless action stretch really hard to follow
I was NOT expecting chapter 1 to start and end with Stephanopoulos and wife (I forget if we knew her name before? Pam) having an intimate moment (even if the first one is in silhouette) -- impressed by the commitment to representation, not just on account of it being two women but two middle-aged women, one of whom is heavyset -- nicely done. (Also, looks like there's a nb character at the Goblin Market, Jael with the raven.)
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In the absence of more Taskmaster content outside of the podcast (series 13 on April 14!!), I've been using Um, Actually as my escapist nonsense of choice, following cortue's rec. (The stuff on YouTube is only a subset of what's available by subscription via the the Dropout TV channel -- I've watched only what's on YouTube.) I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it based on the premise -- the host reads a detailed statement about a geeky fan-favorite property (Marvel, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, anime, wrestling, Golden Age sci-fi, etc. etc.) and the three contestants compete to guess what part of the statement is wrong and ideally correct it -- but it's proven quite delightful! The questions are put together really well, so they're challenging even on the subjects I know well (I can get right some but by no means all questions on Tolkien, the Simpsons, etc.), and there's enough bizarre stuff that it's entertaining to listen to and try to guess along even on topics I know nothing and don't care about, like comics or anime. And it's nice both to see the contestants flail when I know the answer, and to have a moment of geeky kinship when they get something right that I also know, AND there's an element of competence kink in watching someone be an expert at something I know nothing about, like Magic: the Gathering deep lore or obscure D&D rules, si it's basically a win-win-win. Plus there are funny bits and riffs that are very enjoyable sprinkled throughout. And pretty much everyone is positive and supportive and laughs at themselves while cheering on others -- it's a really nice atmosphere, different from what I was expecting from a quiz show whose premise is interrupting people to offer pedantic corrections.
I did notice that a lot of the contestants seem to have blind spots when it comes to reading SFF -- nobody but the host seems to know Discworld, people don't seem to recognize Ursula LeGuin titles or know anything about Earthsea, when a Broken Earth question came up, none of the contestants were aware of it -- and these are, like, hardly obscure. I usually do much worse than the contestants on the "shiny questions", where you're supposed to put something in the correct order, or recognize movie villains by their laughs, etc. but one type of question I alway sdo very well on (which many contestants do not) is "A Title of Words", where you're given a bank of words from which to assemble 6 real titles of the "A Clash of Kings" / "A Wizard of Earthsea" / "The Lathe of Heaven" / "Shadow of the Torturer" variety -- a lot of people seem to be straight up guessing on those. Also, I noticed that I seemed to have a much easier time than the contestants with Harry Potter and ASOIAF questions, which is probably due to my time in more active fandom in recent memory.
A couple of my favorite episodes on YouTube were this one with the amazing revelation that the Beatles had been planning and adaptation of LotR with SPOILER for the question John Lennon as Gollum, and The Simpsons episode, whose commitment to the show's aesthetic in the intro I really enjoyed, on top of the questions.
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And a link: this video has a neat analysis of the prosody of "Surface Pressure" (the Encanto song).