Hugo nominations part 2
Best Novelette
There were a lot of excellent nominations in this catagory - but of course, that wasn't a surprise after the other catagories thus far. For the record, I'm putting all of my comments on the stories roughly in the order I like them from best to worst, although that doesn't mean I hated any of them by any means. :)
That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made, by Eric James Stone - an excellent story, with a unique take on how religion would adapt if aliens did exist.
Eight Miles by Sean McMullen - a fun steam-punk story about a hot air balloonist hired to take a rich gentleman and a strange creature up in a hot air balloon 8 miles in the air. I really enjoyed the world building in this one, and the ending was satisfying too.
The Emperor of Mars, by Allen M. Steele - This one is about a leader on a colony on Mars who has one of his workers go insane and start proclaiming himself the emperor of Mars. I expected some major power struggle to follow, but it turned out to be nothing of the sort - and the resulting story acutally strikes a very satisfying bittersweet tone. It's a quiet story, so I don't think it will win, but it's quite well done.
Plus or Minus, by James Patrick Kelly - This one fell a little flat for me. It was decent, but I just didn't find the characters as interesting (or maybe it was just that I didn't like them or connect with them). It's about a group of people on a mining vessel transporting water from one planet to another, and something malfunctions with the ship's air filters.
The Jaguar House, in Shadow, by Aliette de Bodard - I found this one to be a little too abstract for me. It is not chronological so it was a bit confusing for me trying to figure out what the heck was going on, especially when the learning curve for the world was a bit steeper than the other stories on top of that. I felt like it would be a really interesting world (set in Mexico with various houses or tribes fighting for control) but I found it too difficult to follow what was happening.
Work's over, I'll do the short stories another time.
There were a lot of excellent nominations in this catagory - but of course, that wasn't a surprise after the other catagories thus far. For the record, I'm putting all of my comments on the stories roughly in the order I like them from best to worst, although that doesn't mean I hated any of them by any means. :)
That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made, by Eric James Stone - an excellent story, with a unique take on how religion would adapt if aliens did exist.
Eight Miles by Sean McMullen - a fun steam-punk story about a hot air balloonist hired to take a rich gentleman and a strange creature up in a hot air balloon 8 miles in the air. I really enjoyed the world building in this one, and the ending was satisfying too.
The Emperor of Mars, by Allen M. Steele - This one is about a leader on a colony on Mars who has one of his workers go insane and start proclaiming himself the emperor of Mars. I expected some major power struggle to follow, but it turned out to be nothing of the sort - and the resulting story acutally strikes a very satisfying bittersweet tone. It's a quiet story, so I don't think it will win, but it's quite well done.
Plus or Minus, by James Patrick Kelly - This one fell a little flat for me. It was decent, but I just didn't find the characters as interesting (or maybe it was just that I didn't like them or connect with them). It's about a group of people on a mining vessel transporting water from one planet to another, and something malfunctions with the ship's air filters.
The Jaguar House, in Shadow, by Aliette de Bodard - I found this one to be a little too abstract for me. It is not chronological so it was a bit confusing for me trying to figure out what the heck was going on, especially when the learning curve for the world was a bit steeper than the other stories on top of that. I felt like it would be a really interesting world (set in Mexico with various houses or tribes fighting for control) but I found it too difficult to follow what was happening.
Work's over, I'll do the short stories another time.