One of the problems with this Hugo category (which has, thank heavens, been renamed to include the crucial word "Comic" - after extraordinary struggle) is that we are not always comparing like with like. For this year, we have two standalone stories, two finalists that are the concluding installments of long series, and a middle volume and a first ( Read more... )

I found it pretty easy to rank these this year, though I am also very well aware that my tastes are very different from those of voters (and indeed nominators). One point before I start: it's of course very gratifying for Tor.com to have got five of the six available slots, but is it such a good thing that one publisher has cornered the market in ( Read more... )

Second para of third chapter: “What is wrong with this silly girl?” he muttered as Sunny leaned against the Jeep with her arm on the warm door. She didn’t need to worry about dirt. As always, it was spotless. Sunny suspected he paid some of the younger boys in the neighborhood to wash it often. Chukwu had gotten the Jeep three weeks ago, and he ( Read more... )

The deadline is coming up, and I still haven't finished Glorious Angels (which maybe says something in itself), but I have re-read all the short fiction on the BSFA list, and will vote as below. I'm expanding my second-paragraph-of-third-chapter-or-section approach to include the short stories not separately published, with a little difficulty in a ( Read more... )