The Retro Hugo Short Fiction finalists: my votes

[nwhyte]

Following up my post yesterday about how to get hold of the Retro Hugo finalists in the short fiction categories, these are the conclusions of my reading.

Best NovellaThis is by some margin the best of the fiction categories. I know that some argue that the novella is SF's natural length; I don't have strong views on that myself, but this list is

Comments

[whswhs]

I liked Atlas Shrugged, and still like it; entirely apart from the philosophical and political content, I think it's the best pulp novel ever written, complete with the long speech by the villain where he explains his master plan that's going to change the world. Of course by this time the story is the protagonists deciding to join him-the same plot twist as the end of Watchmen, though Rand didn't have a Rorschach figure defiant to the last. But certainly I'd recommend Anthem for the curious, just as I'd recommend A Portrait of the Artist rather than Ulysses.