View of the Hugo exhibit at Noreascon 3. Photo from Fanac.org.
Fans are welcome to share their Hugo nominating ballots in the comments.
Why? Because you could pick five things — and five is always a magical number around here!
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Given that Uprooted got lots of nominations, let me just mention that we’re starting a discussion of the book over on Compuserve this week. Two chapters, every two days. Chapters 1 and 2 starting today….
http://forums.compuserve.com/discussions/Science_Fiction__Fantasy/The_Reading_Group/ws-sflit/4?listMode=13&nav=messages
An AOL or Compuserve login will let you post, or you can just lurk….
I have received no confirmations whatsoever, so, Cally, yours from the 22nd is more encouraging than me not getting anything from whenever it was I started filling things in, which was, oh, a hundred years ago or so. I did pop in to change the Bandersnatch one when we were informed it wasn’t eligible and everything seemed fine and saved and permanent, but it does seem odd that others have received email confirmations all along and I received none. Never. Negatory. Not a peep.
So IF my ballot actually got to where it was supposed to go, my nominations were:
Campbell:
Victoria Aveyard
Becky Chambers
Natasha Pulley
Andy Weir
Isabel Yap
Novel:
Ancillary Mercy
Castle Hangnail
Darker Shade of Magic
Fifth Season
Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Novella (this may’ve been my favorite category when all was said and done):
The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild
The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn
Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
This Evening’s Performance
Wylding Hall
Novelette:
The Astrkhan, the Homburg, etc.
Botanica Veneris
Entanglements
Hello Hello
So Much Cooking
Short story (although I really, really liked this category, too):
Cat Pictures Please
If on a Winter’s Night
Monkey King Faerie Queen
Pocosin
Wooden Feathers
Graphic:
Lumberjanes vol. 1
Ms. Marvel Generation Why
The Sculptor
Strong Female Protagonist Issue 5
Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
Related work:
Drama and Delight: The Life of Verity Lambert
Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy
Letters to Tiptree
Women of Wonder
You’re Never Weird on the Internet
DP/long:
Ant-Man
Ex Machina
Inside Out
The Martian
Star Wars: Force Awakens
DP/short:
Agent Carter: Now Is Not the Time
Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song
The Leftovers: International Assassin
Mr. Robot: eps1.0_hellofriend_
Supergirl: Human for a Day
Editor/long:
Malcolm Edwards
Sheila Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Jane Johnson
Editor/short:
John Joseph Adams
Nisi Shaw
Ann Vandermeer
Sheila Williams
And I did pro artist and fan artist after looking through a ton of collected work, so I expect I will get no one in common with anyone else, especially since I put Julie Dillon in the fan category, which I’m sure I had a reason for at the time even though I have no idea what that reason was anymore. But here they are:
Pro:
Chris Brand
Goni Montes
Lauren Panepinto
Cynthia Sheppard
David Mann
Fan:
Antonio Caparo
Julie Dillon
Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk
Rachel Kahn
Takeshi Oga
My nominations in other categories were sketchy and I’m not going to include them, but I did give a nod to OGH in fan writer and file770 in fanzine, just because they both clearly deserve it.
And, again, this is IF my ballot was counted because the silence from day one is worrisome.
@Vasha
Interesting, thank you. Looking at the publishers I think I make Tor and Orbit tied on 12 entries each, which is less than a sixth of the list each. Clearly the torspiracy have been slacking off this year.
There’s some great books buried deep in the long tail, and also some interesting sounding ones I’m now going to look up.
@Bruce
Only 30 years? Are you sure? They’re been around for about 36 years. Surely that’s what you meant?
Oops, my bad. I just realized the first time a Tor publication won a Hugo was, in fact, 1986, with that paragon of SJW-ocity, Ender’s Game, written by the far-left, Christ-hating crusader for Sodomy, Orson Scott Card, and then again in ’87, when the same foul civilization-destroying Marxist won a Hugo for the sequel. Oh, gross, and the next Tor Best Novel w as in 1993 – that pathetic poser-sci-fi “story” A Fire Upon the Deep by known Liberal arts major Vernor Vinge was gifted a Hugo by the growing power of the Torlings. At this point, you must have been tearing your hair out, wondering if a True Science Fiction work would ever win another Hugo.
I daren’t even continue looking through past Hugo winners any more, for fear I will faint from the implications.
@Vasha,
The Long Tail to a Small, Angry Ballot ?
(With apologies to Becky Chambers!)
Oh, it gets worse, Kathodus. Vernor Vinge then went on to win TWO MORE best novel Hugos. In fact, between them, those radical leftists Orson Scott Card and Vernor Vinge hold the majority of all the best novel wins Tor has ever gotten!
@Kathodus
I daren’t even continue looking through past Hugo winners any more, for fear I will faint from the implications.
That’s probably for the best, because you might collapse in horror at the airy-fairy social issues of Greg Bear’s work, chuckle at the pathetic manouevres required to get flash-in-the-pan Gene Wolfe a nomination, or wince at the thought of having to read the tedious extruded fantasy product of David Brin.
More on tails: I had 17 other candidates for Best Semiprozine, and 37 (!) for Best Professional Artist. I am noticing a much wider spread in the Artist categories than elsewhere; I don’t know if that is usual.
@Kathodus, @Kyra, @Mark – nice!
@Nicholas Whyte
My method for Artists was to browse the handy tumblr and a couple of other resources looking for stuff I liked the look of, and I suspect a fair proportion of other people will have done the same. I’m not shocked that this has produced a really wide distribution.
I don’t know if the eventual result will have done the art categories any favours, but I’m sure it’s an improvement on the alternative that low participation would allow.
To respond more seriously, though, Saturn Run does sound interesting, I’ll probably check it out. I know some other people here quite liked it. And I remember rather liking Footfall when I read it, if they’re similar (and I read it quite long ago, but I remember it reasonably well, which is usually a good sign.)
Saturn Run is on my theoretical TBR mountain, but it’s been priced just a bit too high for me ($14 – I can’t justify more than $10) every time I check it out.
more from the list of everything:
NOVELLAS
Binti – Nnedi Okorafor; Tor.com, September (10)
“The Bone Swans of Amandale” – C. S. E. Cooney; Bone Swans, Mythic Delirium Books, July (8)
The Builders – Daniel Polansky; Tor.com, November (2)
“The Citadel of Weeping Pearls” – Aliette de Bodard; Asimov’s, October/November (4)
A Day in Deep Freeze – Lisa Shapter; Aqueduct Press, April (1)
“The Dead City” – Martha Wells; Stories of the Raksura, Volume Two, Night Shade Books, June (1)
Envy of Angels (Sin du Jour #1) – Matt Wallace; Tor.com, October (6)
“The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred” – Greg Egan; Asimov’s, December (5)
“Gypsy” – Carter Scholz; Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December (4)
“Inhuman Garbage” – Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Asimov’s, March (1)
“Johnny Rev” – Rachel Pollack; Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August (2)
The Last Witness – K. J. Parker; Tor.com, October (3)
“The Long Wait” – Allen M. Steele; Asimov’s, January (1)
“The New Mother” – Eugene Fischer; Asimov’s, April/May (8)
Of Sorrow and Such – Angela Slatter; Tor.com, October (3)
“On the Night of the Robo-Bulls and Zombie Dancers” – Nick Wolven; Asimov’s, February (3)
“The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn” – Usman T. Malik; Tor.com, April 22 (10)
Penric’s Demon (World of the Five Gods #3.5) – Lois McMaster Bujold; Self-published, July (19)
“Quarter Days” – Iona Sharma; GigaNotoSaurus, December (5)
Rolling in the Deep – Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire); Subterranean Press, April (5)
The Shootout Solution (Genrenauts #1) – Mike R. Underwood; Tor.com, November (1)
Slow Bullets – Alastair Reynolds; Tachyon Publications, May (3)
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps – Kai Ashante Wilson; Tor.com, September (10)
Speak Easy – Catherynne M. Valente; Subterranean Press, August (1)
Sunset Mantle – Alter S. Reiss; Tor.com, September (5)
Teaching the Dog to Read – Jonathan Carroll; Subterranean Press, April (1)
“A Thousand Nights Till Morning” – Will McIntosh; Asimov’s, August (1)
“Waters of Versailles” – Kelly Robson; Tor.com, June 10 (6)
“What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear” – Bao Shu, trans. Ken Liu; Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April (1)
Witches of Lychford – Paul Cornell; Tor.com, August (11)
Wylding Hall – Elizabeth Hand; Open Road, July (7)
@Mark,
I did much the same, including visiting the art show at Eastercon which gave me a lot more candidates to choose from!
I quickly counted 3 nominations for “Aurora” (Travis Creason, Cheryl S., and me) so Vasha’s count is off on that one, at least. Understandably I’m sure, I don’t mean to be critical, but those numbers shouldn’t be taken as gospel.
I’ve been wondering about the “weak correlation” that… the dude whose name I’m forgetting, but who is working with Schneier on analysis of last year’s nominating votes… mentioned when he was here briefly. Obviously Freer and his fellow yipping types are going to willfully (to give them the benefit of the doubt) ignore what “weak correlation” means, but I’m wondering if our voting pattern shows a weak correlation.
There are several novels that a Vile Hiver is likely to have voted for: Ancillary Mercy, Uprooted, The Fifth Season, Bryony and Roses, The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Karen Memory, Radiance, The Library at Mount Char, The Just City – to name those with five or more votes. Is there a higher likelihood that a ballot, if it contains one of those books, will also contain one or more others, whereas none-Vilers might not have that correlation? Or is it likely that someone who voted for eg. Radiance may have also voted for “Wooden Feathers” in a different section of the ballot?
I’m assuming the “weak correlation” had to do with that – the way people with similar taste will cluster around a similar set of works. Plus, we were all recommending these things to each other all year, we all have finite reading time, and when a person with established good taste (for instance, whoever it was who recommended God Stalk all those months back) starts squeeing about some just-read novel, I’m likely to go out and buy it and try to remember it’s at the top of my TBR mountain. I suspect this is the closest thing to an actual SJW cabal/slate – an active community of fans who read a lot and recommend things to one another.
@BigelowT: Thanks for directing me to “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler” by Xia Jia. That has much the same sense of disconnection from modern technology as Zhang Ran’s “Ether”, though without the paranoid self-pity. Instead, it is about readers connecting with each other by reading the same books, hence the allusion to Calvino’s novel; that one too, if I recall correctly, pulled literature out of the context of its writers while concentrating on the readers. Xia’s story contains a critique of social media, I think; sharing too many personal details, it suggests, might get people in the habit of concentrating only on that, on thinking like a gossipmonger instead of a conoisseur of poetry and philosophy? I don’t know, but the attitude to reading the story contains is definitely “slow down”.
@StephenFromOttawa: Yeah, I’m sure I made mistakes.
I do NOT envy the administrators tallying up thousands of ballots, and dealing with software glitches on top of it.
I’m glad you read it, Vasha. I thought it was quite perfect for its length, the writing was beautiful, and the idea that it is better to leave some things a mystery and enjoy the thing itself instead of searching for answers behind the page really resonated for me. I hadn’t thought about the “gossipmonger” or tabloid/TMZ/National Enquirer aspect of it till you mentioned that, although that certainly works. I think for me it was more of a realization that I have a tendency to be watching a movie or a TV show and researching the people and events while I do it, and, as much as I enjoy my “read more about it” tendencies, how that habit pulls me away from what I’m watching, so that perhaps I don’t enjoy it as much or as deeply as I did before I had an iPad or phone in front of me for instant filling in of dots. It made me think I should perhaps watch and only watch and do the “read more about it” later. I guess I thought the relationship to Calvino was just what reading is and what readers share, the kind of tangible, material relationship between a person and a book.
Plus, honestly, I think the language is beautiful and evocative and just the sort of thing that pulls me in and keeps me. Yes, the title is taken from Calvino, but that alone is lovely.
@Kathodus
An obvious candidate for correlation is that those who are more likely to be filers (i.e. those whose ballot contains one of the novels you listed) is also more likely to have nominated File 770.
There are probably others but my guess (without checking the data) would be that they rely on two associations (likes x – filer – likes y) and are really very weak.
@BigelowT
Did you receive other emails from MidAmericon2? I got PIN info, deadline reminders, and confirmation emails. They were all addressed from [email protected], but the ballot confirmations were sent via a different mail server. Maybe they get stuck in a spam filter.
Here’s what I put in.
Best Novel
The Dark Forest Cixin Liu
The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin
The Grace Of Kings Ken Liu
Ancillary Mercy Ann Leckie
Planetfall Emma Newman
Best Novella:
The Four Thousand, The Eight Hundred Greg Egan
Inhuman Garbage Kristine Kathryn Rush
The Sorceror of the Wildeeps Kai Ashante Wilson
Slow Bullets Alastair Reynolds
Binti Nnedi Okorafor
Best Novelette:
Jamaica Ginger Nalo Hopkinson and Nisi Shawl
Rattlesnakes and Men Michael Bishop
So Much Cooking Naomi Kritzer
Another Word for World Ann Leckie
The Tumbledowns Of Cleopatra Abyss David Brin
Best Short Story:
Cat Pictures Please Naomi Kritzer
A Murmuration Alastair Reynolds
Capitalism In The 22nd Century Or A.I.r. Geoff Ryman
Madeline Amal El-Mohtar
Damage David D. Levine
Best Related Work:
Dangerous Games Joseph Laycock
Letters to Tiptree Alisa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce
@ kathodus
I’d been having thoughts of a similar shape in reading this thread. Plus: having an active and lively “book club” (which we are, in effect) that also is thoughtful and proactive about the nomination/voting process (e.g., providing support/advice regarding apparent interface glitches, encouraging people to continue over obstacles) almost certainly results in a higher percentage of nomination/voting carry-through among Filers than among a more random selection of Worldcon-adjacent fandom.
It’s something to keep in mind when one wants to be charitable about other loosely-correlated communities participating in the process.
I got the PIN info and deadline reminders, but no confirmations. I’ve emailed the “general questions” address and someone is supposedly looking into it, so we’ll see. Considering the crazy stuff that does get through, I would find it odd if things from MACII got stuck in some bizarre spam trap I’m not aware of, but anything is possible.
@The Young Pretender: Ah, you like “Rattlesnakes and Men” which so many people (including me) were harsh on the other day. Mind saying why? I always think your opinions are well-expressed and well-thought.
@Mike Glyer: Thanks for liberating my Hugo nom list from purgatory!
@Jack Lint: “Ah, but maybe we’re just feigning anarchy as part of our cunning Xanadu strategy.” [etc.] – LOL!
@Cassy B.: Hmm, mabe I should start Uprooted so I can follow along. 🙂 Thanks for the reminder & link.
@Christian Bruschen: “The Long Tail to a Small, Angry Ballot ?”
::snort::
@Heather Rose Jones: an active and lively “book club” (which we are, in effect)…[etc.] – what a great way to characterize this aspect of File 770 comment(er)s. 😀
@Mark (Kitteh) & @Nicholas Whyte: Hopefully I’m not the only one who also looked at books covers from my (owned) 2015 books, then looked into those artists to see what their other 2015 art was like. 😉
@Vasha: Thanks for the heads up. ;-( I did only minimal research on Sam J. Miller, and probably I was thinking if the older stuff was from things I hadn’t heard of (like “Fiction International”), maybe they weren’t pro publications (i.e., maybe not Campbell-clock-starting). That was naive and/or lazy of me, but I had slots to burn, so oh well. 🙂 I have really, really loved several of his shorts, so I figured it was worth a shot.
Also: Thanks for the nod to my pro artist picks! 🙂 FYI, the “Duelist” covers are what first made me look up Mollica’s name and look for more examples.
Also also: Thanks for posting the long lists, plus thanks to @Nicholas Whyte for his lists!
@Bruce: Saturn Run is on my list to check out, but I don’t know what this phrase you keep repeating – “gave the book a nice puff” – means. It helped sales? It generated extra buzz? It made the author feel good?
Also: I believe you mean Seveneves, not “Seveneyes.” 😉
Also also: “thirty years of Tor burning the Hugo brand.” – Ah, you’re a delusional Puppy. Thanks for clarifying!
yet more from the list of everything:
NOVELETTES
“Ambiguity Machines: An Examination” – Vandana Singh; Tor.com, April 29 (4)
“And the Ends of the Earth for Thy Possession” – Robert B. Finegold; GigaNotoSaurus, July (1)
“And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead” – Brooke Bolander; Lightspeed, February (8)
“The Animal Women” – Alix E. Harrow; Strange Horizons, January 12 (1)
“Another Word for World” – Ann Leckie; Future Visions, Microsoft, November (8)
“The Astrakhan, the Homburg, and the Red Red Coal” – Chaz Brenchley; Lightspeed, June (2)
“Asymptotic” – Andy Dudak; Clarkesworld, June (1)
“At the End of Babel” – Michael Livingston; Tor.com, July 1 (1)
“The Bastard Prompt”, China Miéville; Three Moments of an Explosion, Del Rey, August (1)
“Ballroom Blitz” – Veronica Schanoes; Tor.com, April 1 (2)
“Bannerless” – Carrie Vaughn; The Apocalypse Triptych: The End Has Come, Broad Reach Publishing, May (1)
“Black Dog” – Neil Gaiman; Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, William Morrow, February (1)
“The Body Pirate” – Van Aaron Hughes; Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August (3)
“Bones of Air, Bones of Stone” – Stephen Leigh; Old Venus, Titan Books, March (1)
“Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan” – Ian McDonald; Old Venus, Titan Books, March (8)
“Burn Her” – Tanith Lee; Dancing Through the Fire, Fantastic Books, September (1)
“By the Numbers” – Lynn Kilmore; Crossed Genres Magazine, July (1)
“Caisson” – Karl Bunker; Asimov’s, August (2)
“The Corpse Archives” – Kameron Hurley; Self-published, May (2)
“The Deepwater Bride” – Tamsin Muir; Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August (3)
“Drinking with the Elfin Knight” – Ginger Weil; GigaNotoSaurus, April (2)
“The Drowned Celestial” – Lavie Tidhar; Old Venus, Titan Books, March (1)
“Elektrograd: Rusted Blood” – Warren Ellis; Self-published, August (1)
“Empty” – Robert Reed; Asimov’s, December (1)
“The End of the War” – Django Wexler; Asimov’s, June (3)
“English Wildlife” – Alan Smale; Asimov’s, October/November (1)
“Entanglements” – David Gerrold; Fantasy and Science Fiction, May/June (5)
“Ether” – Zhang Ran (trans. Carmen Yiling Yan and Ken Liu); Clarkesworld, January (1)
“Fabulous Beasts” – Priya Sharma; Tor.com, July 27 (1)
“Folding Beijing” – Hao Jingfang (trans. Ken Liu); Uncanny Magazine, January/February (6)
“The Ghost Dragon’s Daughter” – Beth Bernobich; Self-published, October (1)
“Ginga” – Daniel José Older; Tor.com, May 20 (1)
“Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” – Rose Lemberg; Beneath Ceaseless Skies, June 11 (5)
“The Great Pan American Airship Mystery, or, Why I Murdered Robert Benchley” – David Gerrold; Asimov’s, July (2)
“The Grove” – Jennifer Foehner Wells; The Alien Chronicles, Windrift Books, January (1)
“The Heart’s Filthy Lesson” – Elizabeth Bear; Old Venus, Titan Books, March (1)
*”The House of Aunts” – Zen Cho; GigaNotoSaurus, December 2011 (1)
“It Takes More Muscles to Frown” – Ned Beauman; Twelve Tomorrows 2016, MIT Technology Review, September (1)
“Jamaica Ginger” – Nalo Hopkinson and Nisi Shawl; Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany; Rosarium, August (2)
“The Ladies’ Aquatic Gardening Society” – Henry Lien; Asimov’s, June (2)
“Little Men with Knives” – L. S. Johnson; Crossed Genres Magazine, July (1)
“The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild” – Catherynne M. Valente; Clarkesworld, March & April (6)
“The Lord of Ragnarök” – Albert E. Cowdrey; Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October 2015 (1)
“The Machine Starts” – Greg Bear; Future Visions, Microsoft, November (1)
“The Molenstraat Music Festival” – Sean Monaghan; Asimov’s, September (1)
“My Last Bringback” – John Barnes; Meeting Infinity, Solaris, December (1)
“Our Lady of the Open Road” – Sarah Pinsker; Asimov’s, June (6)
“Rattlesnakes and Men” – Michael Bishop; Asimov’s, February (1)
“Red Legacy” – Eneasz Brodski; Asimov’s, February (1)
“A Residence for Friendless Ladies” – Alice Sola Kim; Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April (1)
“Sacred Cows: Death and Squalor on the Rio Grande” – A. S. Diev; GigaNotoSaurus, May (2)
“Saltwater Railroad” – Andrea Hairston; Lightspeed, July (4)
“The Servant” – Emily Devenport; Clarkesworld, August (2)
“So Much Cooking” – Naomi Kritzer Clarkesworld, November (15)
“Star Wars: The Perfect Weapon” – Delilah Dawson; Del Rey, November (1)
“The Tell” – David Brin; Future Visions, Microsoft, November (1)
“The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss” – David Brin; Old Venus, Titan Books, March (2)
“Utrechtenaar” – Paul Evanby; Strange Horizons, June 1 (1)
“Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” – Taiyo Fujii, trans. Jim Hubbert; Lightspeed, July (1)
“We’re So Very Sorry for Your Recent Tragic Loss” – Nick Wolven; Fantasy & Science Fiction, September/October (1)
“What Price Humanity?” – David VanDyke; There Will Be War, Volume X, Castalia House, December (1)
Here’s a few things that were among my Hugo nominations that I don’t think have otherwise come up yet:
Short Story:
The Lily and the Horn, by Catherynne M. Valente
Werewolf Loves Mermaid, by Heather Lindsley
Related Work:
Tropes Vs. Women, Anita Sarkeesian
Professional Editor (Short Form):
Sana Amanat
Fancast:
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men
I was waiting for my final confirmation email so I could just cut ‘n paste my nominations. Since it still hasn’t shown up, I’ll have to type the data in.
A few comments before hand:
I was wondering to what extent there might be a tendency for Filers to converge on the same small group of nominees, just because we’ve been pooling some recommendations, opinions, resources, etc. My completely unscientific preliminary analysis (aka my WAG) looks like no one is marching to anyone else’s drummer, overall. Obviously, we were using the same general pool of candidates because we were sharing recommendations, the upshot being that the pool was larger than it would have otherwise been for individuals alone. There are some obvious crowd favorites in aggregate, but each list appears unique, individual…no inadvertent slating. Cool!
That said, many of the stories that other people nominated were also on my long lists, which means that I agree they’re award worthy, I just liked some others a bit more (and waffled back and forth with indecision in most categories.) This nominating business can be hard. ;-9
My hindsight goofs – It didn’t occur to me to nom an individual Expanse episode! I binge watched the whole season shortly after the end, and it was just stuck in my head that it was a 2016 release, eligible in 2017!!! Grrrrr, stupid head.
I apparently inadvertently deleted the Person of Interest episode from my long list and didn’t notice/remember until I saw someone else had nominated it…”If-Then-Else”. Another grrrrrrrr.
I didn’t see the rec for Uncanny Valley until too late. It would definitely have knocked something off my final list if I had.
I didn’t have full ballots for several categories and just didn’t bother/have time or energy with some I’m not that interested in or don’t understand/agree with (e.g. Editors).
With all that prebabble, here’s my first Hugo nomination ballot…HURRAH!
======================
HUGO NOM LIST
BEST NOVEL
* Uprooted, Naomi Novik
* The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
* Ancillary Mercy, Anne Leckie
* The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Natasha Pulley
* The Trials/Going Dark, Linda Nagata
BEST NOVELLA to 40,000 words
* The Dead City, Martha Wells, Stories of the Raksura V2
* Penric’s Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold.
* The Four Thousand, The Eight Hundred, Greg Egan, Asimov’s, Dec 2015.
* Of Sorrow and Such, Angela Slatter
* Waters of Versailles, Kelly Robson, Tor, 2015
BEST NOVELETTE to 17,500 words
* And You Shall Know Her By Her Trail of Dead, Brooke Bolander, Lightspeed #57, Feb 2015
* The Servant, Emily Devenport, (15,034 words), Clarkesworld #108, Aug 2015
* The End of the War, Django Wexler, Asimovs, June 2015
* Of Apricots and Dying, Amanda Forrest, Asimov’s, Dec 2015
* Machine Learning, Nancy Kress, Future Visions anthology, Microsoft, Nov 2015
BEST SHORT STORY to 7500 words
* Skin in the Game, Elizabeth Bear, Future Visions, Microsoft, Nov 2015.
* Damage, David D. Levine, tor.com, Jan 2015
* To Die Dancing, Sam J. Miller, (6,000 words), Apex, Nov 10, 2015
* Cremulator, Robert Reed, (5,828 words), Clarkesworld #108, Aug 2015
* Little Fox, Amy Griswold, Fantastic, Jun 2015
BEST RELATED WORK
* Why Do We Do This To Ourselves…, Sarah Avery, Nov 15, 2015, Black Gate
https://www.blackgate.com/2015/11/18/the-series-series-why-do-we-do-this-to-ourselves-i-can-explain/
* The Alfies presentation at Sasquan by George R.R. Martin
* A Detailed Explanation, Matthew David Surridge, Black Gate, 4 Apr 2015
* Letter to Tiptree edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce
BEST DRAMATIC, LONG
* Mad Max: Fury Road
* Predestination
* The Martian
* Ex-Machina
* Star Wars: The Force Awakens
BEST DRAMATIC, SHORT
* The Oceanmaker, Lucas Martel-Writer, Director, Producer.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J2J4eareIIg
* Sense8, S1 E12, “I Can’t Leave Her”, Netflix
* Hybrids, Patrick Kalyn
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9c0U-4Axvbw&feature=youtu.be
*”What’s Going On”, Sense8, Netflix
* AKA Smile, Jessica Jones, Netflix
BEST PRO ARTIST
* Victo Ngai – http://victo-ngai.com/69187/news
* John Harris – “Ancillary Mercy”, “The End to All Things”
* Matthew Stewart – “Stories of the Raksura, V2”
* Scott McKowen – “Uprooted”
BEST FANZINE
* File770
* Black Gate
* SF Signal
BEST FAN WRITER
* Matthew David Surridge, “A Detailed Explanation” Apr 4 2015, Black Gate
* Alexandra Erin, http://www.alexandraerin.com/category/sprb/
BEST FAN ARTIST
* Jian Guo – http://breathing2004.deviantart.com
* Carrie Ann Baades – http://uncannymagazine.com/issues/uncanny-magazine-issue-three/
* Sishir Bommakanti – http://www.strangehorizons.com/2015/20150720/bommakanti-a.shtml
CAMPBELL AWARD
* Andrew Weir, The Martian
* Becky Chambers, the Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (2015), Chrysalis (2014)
* Graydon Saunders, The March North (2014), A Succession of Bad Days (2015)
* Natasha Pulley, The Watchmaker of Filligree Street (2015)
* Kelly Robson, Waters of Versailles, Tor, (2015)
Holy carp, I just realized, catching up on videos, that I actually watch something that I could’ve nominated in the Fancast category. Good grief. SFF 180! (kicking self) I only realized because TMW made very brief a reference to it (I almost missed it). Maybe next year.
@ kathodus
There’s a “weak correlation” of nominated titles?
Is that the best the Sekrit SJW Cabel can come up with?
Pitiable, I tell you, just pitiable.
Comes from letting the dang Siamese cats do the organizing, just because they’re so mouthy.
Downside is, they don’t really get the whole lock-step voting concept.
Dang.
Well, actually, I’m enjoying seeing the spread of things nominated.
I think I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks checking out some likely quite good stuff I seem to have missed.
I’ve found people’s reading suggestions have so good that the things that I suspect the things they’ve chosen to nominate are likely to be of interest too.
This moose nominated:
Best Novel:
Ancillary Mercy Ann Leckie Orbit
The House of Shattered Wings Aliette de Bodard Roc
Karen Memory Elizabeth Bear Tor
Uprooted Naomi Novik Del Rey
The Annihilation Score Charles Stross Ace
Best Novella:
Penric’s Demon Lois McMaster Bujold self published
Binti Nnedi Okorafor Tor.com
The Last Witness K.J.Parker Tor.com
Slow Bullets Alastair Reynolds Tachyon
Best Novelette:
Another Word for World Anne Leckie Future Visions
The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild Catherynne M. Valente Clarkesworld
Best Short Story:
The Great Silence Allora & Calzadilla & Ted Chiang e-flux journal 56th Venice Biennale
Pocosin Ursula Vernon Apex
Cat Pictures Please Naomi Kritzer Clarkesworld
Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight Aliette de Bodard Clarkesworld
Please Undo This Hurt Seth Dickinson Tor.com
Best Related Work:
Best Graphic Story:
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form):
The Martian Andy Weir/Ridley Scott 20th Century Fox/Scott Free Productions
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form):
Best Professional Editor (Short Form):
Sheila Williams
Ellen Datlow
Nisi Shaw
Rashida Smith
Best Professional Editor (Long Form):
David Hartwell
Liz Gorinsky
Miriam Weinberg
Best Professional Artist:
John Harris Ancillary Mercy (cover)
Scott McKowen The Library at Mount Char (Cover)
Larry Rostant The Annihilation Score (Cover)
Julie Dillon Lightspeed Feb 2015 cover
Best Semiprozine:
Best Fanzine:
File 770 Mike Glyer
Best Fancast:
Best Fan Writer:
Alexandra Erin Blue Author is about to write (Sad Puppies review books)
Eric Fint Blog articles on the Sad Puppy affair
Kyra The File 770 Brackets
Best Fan Artist:
The John W. Campbell Award (not a Hugo):
Andy Weir The Martian
Laurie Penny Your Orisons May Be Recorded (Tor)
Natasha Pulley The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (novel) 2015
Regrets:
Not reading enough, due to other commitments.
Failing to nominate Lauren Saint-Onge for the Subterranean Press covers
Completely forgetting about Lovelace & Babbage! (I am such a klutz!)
I will do better next time.
Tor published Gene Wolfe? He’s such a lefty newcomer. And we all know what a PC SJW Orson Scott Card is.
I think the average voter (non-Pup, non-Filer) is going to go for Ancillary, Uprooted, Fifth Season, Baru Cormorant — they’ve all gotten buzz everywhere. Certainly the fact that the previous 2 Ancillaries were on the list makes it seem likely. Will this also correlate “down-ticket”?
The Tor novellas should do well because they’re online for free. Same with stuff in Clarkesworld, Uncanny, etc. Asimov’s put a chunk of their stuff up for a short time. The “Future Visions” anthology was also free and heavily advertised. I’d say those have equal access, buzz, and appeal to a wide variety of people.
Now, I daresay the Wombat works (under whatever name) will do proportionately better with Filers than the rest of the voters, but of course Worldcon as a whole has given her the rocket before. And having two excellent stories in the same category might lead to vote-splitting (I went for Pocosin).
But I think everyone (ex. Rabids) liked “Cat Pictures, Please”. Whether they thought it was ballot-worthy, I dunno — but people liked it. Even my non-SF friends liked it. I think it’s a great ambassador story; “Speaker to Mundanes”, as it were.
@Vasha: Thanks for the stats. A finalized list next week might be useful for prioritizing Mount TBR 770.
@Kendall
I nominated SFF180! I’ve never really gotten into listening to podcasts, but this past year I discovered Booktube. So I was very happy when I realized that fancast includes video as well as audio.
Woohoo! I think I have a unique in my best novel! I have to say I loved both Wombats that I put on – couldn’t chooses in the end.
I’m interested to see a few votes for “and you shall know her by the trail of dead” – I thought it was terrible, but a few of the ballots above have it on with many of my noms, so there’s no accounting for taste 😉
Hungry daughters of starving mothers I thought was creepy and fabulous, together.
There definitely looks to be some clustering in novels, but all the ruminating above just shows why slates are so effective – there are a few books with lots of noms, but then a big undifferentiated mass.
Your nominations for Best Novel:
Ancillary Mercy Ann Leckie
House of Shattered Wings Aliette de Bodard
The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin
Dark Intelligence Neal Asher
Uprooted Naomi Novik
Your nominations for Best Novella:
Quarter Days Iona Sharma Gigantosaurus
Waters of Versaille Kelly Robson Tor.com
Your nominations for Best Novelette:
The Tumbledowns Of Cleopatra Abys David Brin Old Venus
Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts By Ida Countess Rathangan Ian MacDonald Old Venus
Your nominations for Best Short Story:
Wooden Feathers Ursula Vernon Uncanny
Hic Sunt Monstra Brian Trent Galaxies Edge
Hungry Daughters of starving mothers Alyssa Wong Nightmare
Pocosin Ursula Vernon Apex Magazine
Lauowolf on April 2, 2016 at 10:25 am said:
That e-mail address, which goes to the Administrators as a group, is the best one to contact, because they are the ones who can do something about it. Nobody else can do so. MAC II delegated the job of running the Hugo Awards to that committee, so your recourse is to them and to them alone.
I’m still waiting for the last few e-mails to come, so I finally just tried to piece together my ballot from what I remember:
Novel
Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie Orbit
Going Dark, by Linda Nagata Saga
Uprooted, by Naomi Novik Del Rey
The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins Crown
Dark Orbit, by Carolyn Ives Gilman Tor
Novella
The Last Witness, by K.J. Parker Tor.com
The Long Wait, by Allen M Steele Asimov’s January 2015
Penric’s Demon, by Lois McMaster Bujold Spectrum Literary Agency
Gypsy, by Carter Scholz
Inhuman Garbage, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Asimov’s March 2015
Novelette
Another Word for World, by Ann Leckie
The Great Pan American Airship Mystery, or Why I Murdered Robert Benchley, by David Gerrold
So Much Cooking, by Naomi Kritzer
Bones of Air, Bones of Stone, by Stephen Leigh
Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan, by Ian McDonald
Short Story
Damage, by David D. Levine Tor.com
Cat Pictures Please, by Naomi Kritzer Clarkesworld
I am Graalnak, by Laura Pearlman Flash Fiction Online
Dave the Mighty Steel-Thewed Avenger, by Laura Resnick Urban Fantasy Magazine
A Walkabout Amongst The Stars Lezli Robyn Mission: Tomorrow anthology
Related Work
Lois McMaster Bujold, by Edward James University of Illinois Press
Women of Wonder, by Cathy Fenner Underwood Books
Letters to Tiptree, by Alisa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce Twelfth Planet Press
These Are The Voyages, by Marc Cushman
The Wheel of Time Companion, by Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, Maria Simons
Graphic Novel
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, by Sydney Padua Pantheon Books
Stand Still Stay Silent, by Minna Sunberg Hivemill / Hive works
Strong Female Protagonist #5, by Brennan Lee Mulligan / Molly Ostertag Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why, by G. Willow Wilson Marvel Comics
Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Ex Machina, by Written, by Alex Garland Film 4 / Universal Pictures
Mad Max: Fury Road, by Written, by George Miller, by Brendan McCarthy, by Nick Lathouris
The Martian, by Ridley Scott Screenplay, by Drew Goddard Scott Free / 20th Century Fox
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, by Written, by Lawrence Kasdan & J. J. Abrams and Michael Arndt Lucasfilm / Bad Robot
Predestination, by The Spierig Brothers Stage 6 / Sony
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
I Remember the Future, by Klayton Stainer KAS Creations
The Expanse ‘CQB’, by James S.A. Corey and Naren Shankar SyFy
Kung Fury David Sandberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg
World of Tomorrow, by Don Hertzfeldt Bitter Films / Netflix
Uncanny Valley http://www.3dar.com/the-work/uncanny-valley/
Editor Short Form
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
Paula Guran
Lee Harris
John Joseph Adams
Editor Long Form
Anne Sowards
Jane Johnson
Malcolm Edwards
Anne Lesley Groell
Liz Gorinsky
Pro Artist
John Harris
Galen Dara
Morgana Wallace
Daniel Dos Santos
Elizabeth Leggett
Semiprozine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
NYRSF
Uncanny Magazine
GigaNotoSaurus
Daily Science Fiction
Fanzine
File 770 Mike Glyer
SF Signal John DeNardo
Lady Business Renay and Jodie
SF Mistressworks Ian Sales
A Dribble of Ink Aidan Moher
Fancast
Tea & Jeopardy Emma & Peter Newman
Fake Geek Girls Merri Missy
StarShipSofa Tony C Smith
The Skiffy and Fanty Show
Dive into World Building Juliette Wade
Fan Writer
Alexandra Erin
James Davis Nicoll
Lis Carey
Aaron Pound
Liz Bourke
Fan Artist
Spring Schoenhuth
Lynne Taylor Fahnestalk
Alector Fencer (Claudya S)
Vonnie Winslow Crist
Iain Clark
Campbell
Becky Chambers The Long Way to a Slow, Angry Planet
Andy Weir The Martian
Scott Hawkins The Library at Mount Char
C.A. Higgins Lightless
Matt Wallace Envy of Angels
Lauowolf: Siamese cats… lock-step voting
*snort*
Now that would be an epic-level fantasy.
Chris S: I’m interested to see a few votes for “And You Shall Know Her By the Trail of Dead” – I thought it was terrible
I’m not surprised that Puppies liked it — but yeah. It reminded me of the sort of cyberpunk stories which would have been considered edgy and avant-garde back in the early 80’s but which I think are, as someone else here put it, just embarrassing now.
I was really hoping that the story’s ending would be new and fresh enough to redeem it, but nope — it went exactly where I thought it would go, a very predictable ending. I was disappointed.
@ kathodus
I daren’t even continue looking through past Hugo winners any more, for fear I will faint from the implications.
Oh, noes, I looked! Vinge won again in 2000 and 2007, too. CONSPIRACY!!1!11!!111
ETA: Ninja’d in a time-warp by Kyra. I really need to read the whole thread before responding, especially when I’m several hours behind.
A last installment of the list of everything and then I call it a night. (I notice 5 stories from the Lightspeed Queers Destroy Science Fiction! issue plus 3 from the fantasy and horror sister-issues.)
SHORT STORIES
“The Adjunct Professor’s Guide to Life After Death” – Sandra McDonald; Asimov’s, October/November (1)
“…And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes” – Scott Alexander; author’s website, June 2 (5)
“And to the Republic” – Rachel Kolar; Crossed Genres Magazine, February (1)
“The Apartment Dweller’s Bestiary” – Kij Johnson; Clarkesworld, January (1)
“Asymmetrical Warfare” – S. R. Algernon; Nature, March 26 (1)
“Broken-Winged Love” – Naru Dames Sundar; Strange Horizons, October 5 (1)
“Bucket List Found in the Locker of Maddie Price, Age 14, Written Two Weeks Before the Great Uplifting of All Mankind” – Erica L. Satifka; Lightspeed, June (2)
“The Buzzard’s Egg” – China Miéville; Three Moments of an Explosion, Del Rey, August (1)
“Capitalism in the 22nd Century or A.I.r.” – Geoff Ryman; Stories for Chip, Rosarium, August (1)
“Cat Pictures Please” – Naomi Kritzer; Clarkesworld, January (16)
“Catcall” – Delilah Dawson; Uncanny, July/August 2015 (1)
“The Cellar Dweller” – Maria Dahvana Headley; Nightmare, June (1)
“Cupid and Psyche at the Caffé Sol Y Mar” – José Iriarte; Fireside Magazine, October (1)
“Damage” – David D. Levine; Tor.com, January 21 (11)
“Dark Matter” – Pippa Goldschmidt; I Am Because You Are, Freight, October (1)
“Dave the Mighty Steel-Thewed Avenger” – Laura Resnick; Urban Fantasy Magazine, February (3)
“Doors” – Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam; Interzone, May (1)
“Elephants and Corpses” – Kameron Hurley; Tor.com, May 13 (2)
“Emergence” – Gwyneth Jones; Meeting Infinity, Solaris, December (1)
“The Empress in Her Glory” – Robert Reed; Clarkesworld, April (1)
“eyes I dare not meet in dreams” – Sunny Moraine; Cyborgology, June 2 (4)
“The First Gate of Logic” – Benjamin Rosenbaum; Stories for Chip, Rosarium, August (1)
“Forestspirit, Forestspirit” – Bogi Takács; Clarkesworld, June (1)
“The Game of Smash and Recovery” – Kelly Link; Strange Horizons, October 17 (4)
“Ghosts of Home” – Sam J. Miller; Lightspeed, August (1)
“The Great Silence” – Allora & Calzadilla with Ted Chiang; E-Flux Journal, May (4)
“Hadley Full of Hate” – Michael Hernshaw; The Sockdolager, Summer (1)
“Hello, Hello” – Seanan McGuire; Future Visions, Microsoft, November (5)
“Hic Sunt Monstra” – Brian Trent; Galaxy’s Edge, September (1)
“Hold-Time Violations” – John Chu; Tor.com, October 7 (1)
“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” – Alyssa Wong; Nightmare, October (6)
“I am Graalnak of the Vroon Empire, Destroyer of Galaxies, Supreme Overlord of the Planet Earth. Ask Me Anything.” – Laura Pearlman; Flash Fiction Online, April (5)
“If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler” – Xia Jia, trans. Ken Liu; Clarkesworld, November (1)
“In Libres” – Elizabeth Bear; Uncanny, May/June (1)
“Influence Isolated, Make Peace” – John Chu; Lightspeed, June (1)
“It Brought Us All Together” – Marissa Lingen; Strange Horizons, July 13 (2)
“Kaiju maximus®” – Kai Ashante Wilson; Fantasy Magazine Queers Destroy Fantasy! special issue, December (2)
“The King in the Cathedral” – Rich Larson; Beneath Ceaseless Skies, February 5 (1)
“The Lily and the Horn” – Catherynne M. Valente; Fantasy Magazine Queers Destroy Fantasy! special issue, December (1)
“Limestone, Lye, and the Buzzing of Flies” – Kate Heartfield Strange Horizons, February 16 (1)
“Little Fox” – Amy Griswold; Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, June (1)
“Madeleine” – Amal El-Mohtar; Lightspeed, June (3)
“Men of Unborrowed Vision” – Jeremiah Tolbert; Lightspeed, January (1)
“The Merger” – Sunil Patel; The Book Smugglers, June (1)
“Meshed” – Rich Larson; Clarkesworld, February (1)
**”Midnight Hour” – Mary Robinette Kowal; Uncanny, May/June (1)
“Monkey King, Faerie Queen” – Zen Cho; Kaleidotrope, Spring (6)
“Monologue of a Universal Transverse Mercator Projection” – Yumeaki Hirayama, trans. Nathan A. Collins; Hanzai Japan, Haikasoru, October (1)
“A Murmuration” – Alastair Reynolds; Interzone, March/April (6)
“Mutability” – Ray Naylor; Asimov’s, June (1)
“The Myth of Rain” – Seanan McGuire; Lightspeed, May (1)
“Nine Thousand Hours” – Iona Sharma; Strange Horizons, April 20 (1)
“Nothing Is Pixels Here” – K. M. Szpara; Lightspeed, June (1)
“Oral Argument” – Kim Stanley Robinson; Tor.com, December 7 (2)
“Pictures from the Resurrection” – Bruce Sterling; Meeting Infinity, Solaris, December (1)
“Planet Lion” – Catherynne M. Valente; Uncanny, May/June (1)
“Please Undo This Hurt” – Seth Dickinson; Tor.com, September 16 (4)
“Pocosin” – Ursula Vernon; Apex, January (17)
“Probably Definitely” – Marissa Lingen; Strange Horizons, August 3 (1)
“Rat Catcher’s Yellows” – Charlie Jane Anders; Press Start to Play, Penguin Random House, August (1)
*”Razorback” – Ursula Vernon; Apex, January 2016 (1)
“Sea Change” – Kimberly Unger; Galaxy’s Edge, September (1)
“Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” – Caroline M. Yoachim; Lightspeed, September (2)
“The Shape of My Name” – Nino Cipri; Tor.com, March 4 (1)
*”Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters” – N. K. Jemisin; The Company He Keeps: Postscripts 22/23, PS Publishing, September 2010 (1)
“The Smog Society” – Chen Qiufan, trans. Ken Liu and Carmen Yiling Yan; Lightspeed, August (1)
“Summer at Grandma’s House” – Hao Jingfang, trans. Carmen Yiling Yan; Clarkesworld, October (1)
“Tea Time” – Rachel Swirsky; Lightspeed, December (1)
“Tender” – Sofia Samatar; OmniVerse, August (1)
“Things You Can Buy for a Penny” – Will Kaufman; Lightspeed, February (4)
“This Is the Way the Universe Ends: With a Bang” – Brian Dolton; Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April (1)
“Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight” – Aliette de Bodard; Clarkesworld, January (2)
“The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill” – Kelly Robson; Clarkesworld, February (1)
“The Thyme Fiend” – Jeffrey Ford; Tor.com, March 11 (1)
“The Ticket Taker of Cenote Zací” – Benjamin Parzybok; Strange Horizons, February 2 (1)
“Time Bomb Time” – C. C. Finlay; Lightspeed, May (2)
“To Die Dancing” – Sam J. Miller; Apex, November (1)
“Today I Am Paul” – Martin L. Shoemaker; Clarkesworld, August (6)
“Tomorrow When We See the Sun” – A. Merc Rustad; Lightspeed, December (2)
“Trickier with Each Translation” – Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam; Lightspeed, June (1)
“Tuesdays” – Suzanne Palmer; Asimov’s, March (1)
“Two to Leave” – Yoon Ha Lee; Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 28 (1)
“The Way Home” – Linda Nagata; Operation Arcana, Baen, March (2)
“A Walkabout Amongst the Stars” – Lezli Robyn; Mission: Tomorrow, Baen, November (1)
“Werewolf Loves Mermaid” – Heather Lindsley; Lightspeed, September (1)
“Who Will Greet You at Home” – Lesley Nneka Arimah; The New Yorker, October 26 (2)
“Wooden Feathers” – Ursula Vernon; Uncanny, Issue 7, November/December (13)
“You Have Always Lived in the Castle” – Cat Rambo; Daily Science Fiction, April 22 (1)
…not to mention at least 12 other stories with queer authors and/or characters. That makes nearly one-quarter of the stories.
Chris S – I’m interested to see a few votes for “And You Shall Know Her By the Trail of Dead” – I thought it was terrible, but a few of the ballots above have it on with many of my noms, so there’s no accounting for taste
JJ – I’m not surprised that Puppies liked it — but yeah. It reminded me of the sort of cyberpunk stories which would have been considered edgy and avant-garde back in the early 80’s but which I think are, as someone else here put it, just embarrassing now.
Ahem. Yes, it was on my ballot. Yes, I’m familiar with cyberpunk. No, I don’t think it was particularly avant garde. No, I don’t think it’s embarrassing.
I thought it did two things really well: It told a story with pretty much maximum profanity (that’s not as easy as it looks) and it maintained a shimmering level of hope without betraying the character. I can always be seduced by language and hopefulness and the combination put it ahead of other worthy choices.
Also, Tastes Differ. 😉
Cheryl S.: Also, Tastes Differ. 😉
Yes, indeedy. My comment about Puppies liking it refers to the fact that it’s uber-violent and features a couple of super-competent main characters — things which seem to be among their preferences.
I didn’t feel that the high-density profanity was done well at all — I felt that it was covering up for a lack of good exposition — but I understand that YMMV.
I read lots and lots of science fiction, which may be why I found the story very predictable and not particularly special.
But clearly a number of Filers liked it enough to nominate it, and I’m not going to gainsay the validity of their choices, just as I would not want them to gainsay the validity of mine.
A last easy one: CAMPBELL AWARD. Asterisks mark writers not on the Writertopia eligibility page. How complete is that list?
Charlotte Ashley (1)
*Victoria Aveyard (1)
*Bo Balder (1)
*Pamala Brondos (1)
Becky Chambers (16)
Gillian Conahan (1)
*Seth Dickinson (1)
Chikodili Emelumadu (1)
Scott Hawkins (9)
C. A. Higgins (1)
*Charlie Holmberg (1)
S. L. Huang (2)
L. S. Johnson (1)
*Kirsty Logan (1)
*Sam J. Miller (1)
Ilana C. Myer (1)
Megan E. O’Keefe (1)
*Daniel José Older (1)
Carrie Patel (1)
Sunil Patel (1)
Laurie Penny (1)
Andrea Philips (1)
Natasha Pulley (13)
Kelly Robson (5)
Lauren Roy (1)
*Graydon Saunders (4)
Iona Sharma (4)
Brian Staveley (1)
Naru Dames Sundar (1)
*Sabaa Tahir (1)
*Matt Wallace (1)
Andy Weir (19)
Alyssa Wong (9)
*Ray Wood (1)
JY Yang (2)
Isabel Yap (1)
Jo Zebedee (1)
Jon F. Zeigler (1)
@JJ – I read lots and lots of science fiction, which may be why I found the story very predictable and not particularly special.
Ahem again. 😉 I also read lots of SF and the bulk of it has been shorter fiction, at least since 1991, because having children shortened my attention span. Also, because Asimov’s and F&SF got delivered to the house, which was convenient.
I don’t actually require originality (mostly because I think the concept depends quite heavily on how close you’re standing, as the farther away you get the more apparent it is that original concepts are generally details rather than big ideas), but I do require that writers do something that nobody else can do in just that way. So, idiosyncrasy rather than originality. And there is something about what Bolander did that worked for me, in spite of my familiarity with the genre. And profanity. (Also, I owe a bit to SP4, because I had read and really liked the story when I first read it, but – like pretty much I read before May – hadn’t made any particular note of it.)
Vasha: Asterisks mark writers not on the Writertopia eligibility page. How complete is that list?
Bo Balder first published in 2013
Seth Dickinson first published in 2011
Kirsty Logan first published in 2011
Sam J. Miller first published in 2008
Daniel José Older first published in 2010
Matt Wallace first published in 2006
The rest of your asterisks appear to be eligible.
I think it was very much a case of whether the author (or someone who avidly follows them) knew and cared about the Campbell and the Writertopia page (frex, Hawkins and Higgins are on the Writertopia list by my request).
@junego: Hey, nice to see that someone else liked “Of Apricots and Dying”. It was so detailed, and perfectly paced, wasn’t it?
(BTW, I somehow missed adding your ballot to my lists. Sorry.)
Vasha: Hey, nice to see that someone else liked “Of Apricots and Dying”. It was so detailed, and perfectly paced, wasn’t it?
I bought that single issue for the Egan story, so I’ll have to get around to the other stories in it sooner rather than later. Thanks for the rec.
Cheryl S.: And there is something about what Bolander did that worked for me, in spite of my familiarity with the genre.
I didn’t share the enthusiasm so many people had for The New Mother, either — I was really liking it and thought it was hugely promising until about 2/3 of the way through, when I thought it seemed to go off the rails and ended in a fizzle.
Why what works for some people doesn’t for others is the big mystery, isn’t it?
I didn’t remember being that impressed with “The Last Surviving Gondola Widow” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch when I first read it several months ago — but I’ve just now re-read it, and am sorry that I didn’t nominate it for Short Story.
My gratitude to everyone who nominated me–realistically, I don’t think Bryony’s got a snowball’s chance, but I feel the love, and the love is worth a lot in a crowd like this. (As to the split shorts–well, I shall simply have yo challenge myself to a duel…)