2016 Hugo Finalist Review Roundup

By JJ: Some of the Filers indicated that a roundup of Hugo Finalist review links would be helpful. So I tried to select both positive and negative reviews, from a wide selection of reviewers, which were substantive and actually provided analysis of and commentary on the story, rather than merely summarizing the plot.

I had a difficult time finding substantive individual reviews for the Novelettes and Short Stories which were originally published as part of an anthology. However, there are numerous whole-category posts which contain reviews of these.

Be Aware that many of these Reviews contain Spoilers!!! Don’t click on them if you don’t want to be Spoiled!

Each category begins with links to articles that review all the nominees collectively, and follows with links to single-story reviews.

Novel

Camestros Felapton, Timothy the Talking Cat’s Blog: Novels (with links to more detailed reviews)
Joe Sherry, Nerds of a Feather: Novels
Marco Zennaro: Novels
Nicholas Whyte, From the Heart of Europe: Novels: 2016 and 1941

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Orbit / Thorndike Press)

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey)

The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit / Hachette UK)

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow / The Borough Press)

The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher (Penguin Books)

Novella

Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum Literary Agency)

Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds (Tachyon Publishing)

Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)

The Builders by Daniel Polansky (Tor.com Publishing)

Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson (Dragonsteel Entertainment)

Novelette

“And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead” by Brooke Bolander (Lightspeed, Feb 2015)

“Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu (Uncanny Magazine, Jan-Feb 2015)

“Obits” by Stephen King (The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Scribner)

“Flashpoint: Titan” by CHEAH Kai Wai (There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House)

“What Price Humanity?” by David VanDyke (There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House)

Short Story

“Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld, January 2015)

“Asymmetrical Warfare” by S. R. Algernon (Nature, Mar 2015)

“Space Raptor Butt Invasion” by Chuck Tingle (Amazon Digital Services)

“Seven Kill Tiger” by Charles Shao (There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House)

“If You Were an Award, My Love” by Juan Tabo and S. Harris (voxday, Jun 2015)

Discover more from File 770

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

29 thoughts on “2016 Hugo Finalist Review Roundup”

Nicholas Whyte on July 10, 2016 at 1:12 am said:

Thanks for doing this, JJ. Early days yet but there are clearly runners and riders in each category.

NB that my novella roundup is here – the link posted is incorrect.
JJ on July 10, 2016 at 1:34 am said:

Thanks for the correction, Nicholas. I did my best to proof everything, but as you can imagine, after sourcing 165 reviews, I was pretty much cross-eyed. Mike will hopefully get that link corrected.

As far as “early days”… voting closes in 3 weeks! So not much time left at all!
Camestros Felapton on July 10, 2016 at 1:39 am said:

Thanks for this JJ!
Steve Wright on July 10, 2016 at 6:15 am said:

Is it worth noting that I too am reading and reviewing as I go, over on my LJ? Probably not, but I shall note it anyway, as I am nothing if not an outrageous flaming egotist.
James Davis Nicoll on July 10, 2016 at 6:52 am said:

I too have the odd relevant review over on my site.
Andrea J on July 10, 2016 at 6:57 am said:

Thanks for picking up my review of Binti!
Jonathan Edelstein on July 10, 2016 at 8:36 am said:

Wow, thanks for this!
Cheryl S. on July 10, 2016 at 9:01 am said:

Thanks so much for doing this, JJ. Now that I’ve finished the fiction portion of my ballot, it’s really interesting to get a concentrated dose of the opinions of others.
Bonnie McDaniel on July 10, 2016 at 9:54 am said:

Thank you for all your work on this, JJ.
Mike Glyer on July 10, 2016 at 10:38 am said:

James Davis Nicoll: The roundup now includes links to five of your reviews — thanks for pointing them out!
James Davis Nicoll on July 10, 2016 at 10:40 am said:

Thank you!
JJ on July 10, 2016 at 3:20 pm said:

Thanks for providing those links, James! I was trying to check all the reviewers I knew about, but after reading about 500 reviews, I just got to the point where I couldn’t do any more. 🙂
robinareid on July 10, 2016 at 3:41 pm said:

Amazing work, JJ!
Chris S on July 10, 2016 at 4:49 pm said:

Thanks JJ. And also James Davis Nicoll – thats a lot of reading!
Mike Glyer on July 10, 2016 at 5:38 pm said:

I’ve added Rich Horton’s discussion of the Hugo nominated Novelettes on Strange at Ecbatan.
Pingback: AMAZING NEWS FROM FANDOM: 7/10/2016 - Amazing Stories
Laura on July 10, 2016 at 6:45 pm said:

Thanks for the roundup and thanks to the reviewers as well!
jayn on July 10, 2016 at 7:04 pm said:

Thanks for the mention!
James Davis Nicoll on July 10, 2016 at 7:21 pm said:

I managed to post enough reviews since 2014 for the memory-intensive author sidebar to choke the site a few weeks ago, which is why that sidebar is MIA.
Pingback: The Hugo Awards 2016 Finalist: Best Novel – Book Reviews & Reading Guides
JJ on July 10, 2016 at 7:58 pm said:

Steve Wright: Is it worth noting that I too am reading and reviewing as I go, over on my LJ? Probably not, but I shall note it anyway, as I am nothing if not an outrageous flaming egotist.

Thanks for pointing those out, Steve! I’ve had Mike add the short fiction reviews (I think that the novels are pretty well covered at this point).

I’m also going to have Mike add your Retro Reviews, but I’m going to try to gather a few others as well first.
Steve Wright on July 11, 2016 at 5:32 am said:

JJ – thanks for that! And, more seriously, thank you for the whole thing – I can imagine how much work it’s been, and it’s a genuinely useful resource for all of us.
Cassy B. on July 11, 2016 at 6:13 am said:

Thank you so much for this! I’ll be checking reviews of categories that I’ve already settled the nomination order for; it’ll be nice to see other people’s opinions after my own have been fixed.
Pingback: 1941 Retro Hugo Finalist Review Roundup | File 770
JJ on July 15, 2016 at 3:02 pm said:

More reviews have been added from Rich Horton, Lisa J. Goldstein, and Steve Wright.
Pingback: The Hugo Awards 2016 Finalist: Best Novella – Book Reviews & Reading Guides
JJ on July 21, 2016 at 12:58 am said:

More reviews have been added from Lis Carey, Lisa J. Goldstein, and Steve Wright.
Pingback: Hugo Award 2016 - Voting - The Earthian Hivemind
Pingback: The Hugo Awards 2016: Best Novelette – Book Reviews & Reading Guides

Comments are closed.

Share this:

Discover more from File 770

29 thoughts on “2016 Hugo Finalist Review Roundup”