Hugo Short Stories

[jimhines]

First off, happy book day to my friend Lisa Shearin, whose book All Spell Breaks Loose [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] is out today. And last week marked the release of Mira Grant’s Blackout [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].

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This year will be my first Worldcon, and the first time I’ve voted in the Hugos. I’ve been diligently downloading and

Comments

[asakiyume]

i really loved Lily Yu's story--I *loved* the detail of wasp and bee society; it was completely absorbing.

From what you say, I think I'm going to love "Movement"--just the words "temporal autism" conjure an upswelling of love! I've got it bookmarked for later reading.

[jimhines]

Yu's story felt really well thought-out, familiar and alien and fascinating, with so many great details.

I almost wish Fulda's story had been longer. I think it works fine as a short story, but I'd also love to see a longer exploration of temporal autism, and perhaps to see others like Hannah. Which is a long-winded way of saying it was interesting and I wanted more.

[asakiyume]

I just read it--I really liked it! It conceived temporal autism differently from how I imagined, but I very much liked what it did, the conceptions of time. I liked the narrator's voice very much, and I liked many, many of the little details (the grandparents remembering the healthy entertainments of their childhood, for example :-P)

[jimhines]

Oh yes, those details were great. Particularly the grandparents talking about the good old days.

[tuftears]

Thank you for linking these, they are marvelous short stories!

[jimhines]

Aren't they? It's a great ballot. Reading them made me want to rush to the computer and write more short fiction!

[phantom_wolfboy]

You could tell Scalzi was having a good old time with this one. That said, some of the humor felt a little forced.

For me, Scalzi's humour is kinda hit or miss--I like it better so far (I haven't read Redshirts yet) in the context of character bits inside a more serious story than as something driving the story. Fortunately, I don't think Scalzi is capable of not writing a strong story, whether the humour works or not.

[jimhines]

Humor in general can be hit or miss, too. I like to consider myself pretty good at writing humor, but I know my funnier stuff just doesn't work for some people.

I'm looking forward to checking out Redshirts.

[calico_reaction]

I thought the same thing about Resnick's story regarding the metaphor for sexuality, but you put it in plainer words, which is better than I did. :) I'm also glad that I'm not the only one who doesn't feel the story rings with truth. I thought it was trying way too hard...

I splurged and bought a supporting membership, and I'm tracking all my reviews for everything here if you or any of your other readers are interested. I finished posting my short story reviews last week, and I'm moving onto novelettes next!

As for your thoughts here, I have to say I agree with you. Cool to see more opinions of these stories out there!

[jimhines]

Thanks for the link! I had seen that you were posting reviews, but wanted to wait to read your thoughts until after I got through the stories.

It seems like a lot of our thoughts overlapped. I'll be curious to see if that happens again with the next category.

[calico_reaction]

Just started novelettes today. The story I read (I won't say which yet) reminded me why I stopped getting subscriptions to short story magazines. :)

[jimhines]

Oh, now I'm curious! I've read 3 of the 5 so far.

[markbernstein]

Overall, nothing in this year's nominees blew me away completely, but none of them will fall below "No Award" on my ballot. "The Cartographer Wasps" is the one that's sticking in my mind, and will probably get my vote. "The Paper Menagerie" is also strong, but I'm a sucker for great world-building.

I know exactly what you mean about the Resnick. As good a writer as he is, sometimes his stories strike me as more calculated than heartfelt.

[jimhines]

I'm still on the fence about those two. Yu's worldbuilding is amazing, but I'm more of a sucker for characters, which is why I'm leaning a bit toward Liu's story.

I wouldn't be at all sad to see either one of them take home a Hugo, though.