By JJ: CoNZealand has announced the 2020 Hugo Award Finalists. Since the Hugo Voter’s packet will take awhile to arrive, if you’d like to get a head start on your reading, you can use this handy guide to find material which is available for free online. Where available in their entirety, works are linked (most of the Novelettes and Short Stories are free, as are the Pro and Fan Artist images, and many of the Semiprozines and Fanzines).
If not available for free, an Amazon link is provided. If a free excerpt is available online, it has been linked.
If I’ve missed an excerpt, or a link doesn’t work, please let me know in the comments, and I’ll get it fixed.
Fair notice: All Amazon links are referrer URLs which benefit fan site Worlds Without End.
2020 HUGO AWARD FINALISTS
Novel
- The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor; Titan) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) (Chapters 1-8 – audio excerpt)
- The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley (Saga; Angry Robot UK) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (Tor) (Prologue – Chapter 1 – audio excerpt)
- Middlegame, Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK) (First 50 pages – audio excerpt)
Novella
- Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom, Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
- The Deep, Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes (Saga) (excerpt – audio excerpt 1 – audio excerpt 2)
- The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- In an Absent Dream, Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager; Hodder & Stoughton) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
Novelette
- “The Archronology of Love”, Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed April 2019)
- “Away With the Wolves”, Sarah Gailey (Uncanny Magazine: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy Special Issue, September-October 2019)
- “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny July-August 2019)
- “Emergency Skin”, N.K. Jemisin (Amazon Forward Collection) (No excerpt located)
- “For He Can Creep”, Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com July 10 2019)
- “Omphalos”, Ted Chiang (Exhalation, Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf; Picador) (No excerpt located)
Short Story
- “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons September 9 2019)
- “As the Last I May Know”, S.L. Huang (Tor.com October 23 2019)
- “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger”, Rivers Solomon (Tor.com July 24 2019)
- “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny January-February 2019)
- “Do Not Look Back, My Lion”, Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies January 2019)
- “Ten excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island”, Nibedita Sen (Nightmare May 2019)
Best Series
- The Expanse by James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK) (excerpt from Leviathan Wakes)
- InCryptid by Seanan McGuire (DAW) (excerpt from Discount Armageddon)
- Luna by Ian McDonald (Tor; Gollancz) (excerpt from Luna: New Moon)
- Planetfall by Emma Newman (Ace; Gollancz) (excerpt from Planetfall)
- Winternight by Katherine Arden (Del Rey; Del Rey UK) (excerpt from The Bear and the Nightingale)
- The Wormwood Trilogy by Tade Thompson (Orbit US; Orbit UK) (excerpt from Rosewater)
Best Related Work
- Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood, J. Michael Straczynski (Harper Voyager US) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- Joanna Russ, Gwyneth Jones (Modern Masters of Science Fiction, University of Illinois Press) (excerpt)
- The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, Mallory O’Meara (Hanover Square) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, Farah Mendlesohn (Unbound) (excerpt)
- “2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech”, Jeannette Ng (full text – video)
- Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, produced and directed by Arwen Curry (trailer)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
- Die, Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image)
- LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin (Berger Books; Dark Horse)
- Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image)
- Mooncakes, by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker, letters by Joamette Gil (Oni Press; Lion Forge)
- Paper Girls, Volume 6, written by Brian K. Vaughan, drawn by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher (Image)
- The Wicked + The Divine, Volume 9: “Okay”, by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
- Avengers: Endgame – (trailer)
- Captain Marvel – (trailer)
- Good Omens (Season One) – (trailer)
- Russian Doll (Season One) – (trailer)
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – (trailer)
- Us – (trailer)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
- The Good Place: “The Answer” – (trailer)
- The Expanse: “Cibola Burn” – (trailer)
- Watchmen: “A God Walks into Abar” – (trailer)
- The Mandalorian: “Redemption” – (trailer)
- Doctor Who: “Resolution” – (trailer)
- Watchmen: “This Extraordinary Being” – (trailer)
Best Editor, Short Form
- Neil Clarke (The Eagle Has Landed: 50 Years of Lunar Science Fiction [reprint anthology], The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 4 [reprint anthology], Internazionale n. 1339 Storie (Italian magazine issue of translated reprints), Clarkesworld Magazine [12 issues], Clarkesworld Podcasts [80 episodes], Forever Magazine [12 issues])
- Ellen Datlow (Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories [original anthology], The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Eleven [reprint anthology], Tor.com Short Fiction (2 novellas, 4 novelettes, 5 short stories)
- C.C. Finlay (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction [6 double issues])
- Jonathan Strahan (Mission Critical [original anthology], The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen [reprint anthology], Tor.com Short Fiction (4 novellas, 2 novelettes, 4 short stories)
- Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas (Uncanny Magazine [5 issues])
- Sheila Williams (Asimov’s Science Fiction [6 double issues])
Best Editor, Long Form
- Sheila E. Gilbert
(Terminal Uprising by Jim C. Hines,
The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire,
The Gossamer Mage by Julie E. Czerneda,
Empire of Grass by Tad Williams) - Brit Hvide
(Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan,
Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe,
No Way by S.J. Morden,
Reticence by Gail Carriger) - Diana M. Pho
(Tides of the Titans by Thoraiya Dyer,
The Perfect Assassin by K. A. Doore,
The Revenant Express by George Mann,
The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz) - Devi Pillai
(A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine,
A Chain Across the Dawn by Drew Williams (with Anne Perry),
The Name of All Things by Jenn Lyons (with Bella Pagan),
The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons (with Bella Pagan)) - Miriam Weinberg
(Turning Darkness Into Light by Marie Brennan,
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey,
The City in The Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders,
The Warrior Moon by K. Arsenault Rivera) - Navah Wolfe
(The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss,
The Twisted Ones by Ursula Vernon,
A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland,
Nest of the Monarch by Kay Kenyon)
Best Professional Artist
Best Semiprozine
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies, editor Scott H. Andrews
- Escape Pod, editors Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya, assistant editor Benjamin C. Kinney, audio producers Adam Pracht and Summer Brooks, hosts Tina Connolly and Alasdair Stuart
- Fireside Magazine, editor Julia Rios, managing editor Elsa Sjunneson, copyeditor Chelle Parker, social coordinator Meg Frank, publisher & art director Pablo Defendini, founding editor Brian White
- FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, executive editor Troy L. Wiggins, editors Eboni Dunbar, Brent Lambert, L.D. Lewis, Danny Lore, Brandon O’Brien and Kaleb Russell
- Strange Horizons, edited by Vanessa Rose Phin, Catherine Krahe, AJ Odasso, Dan Hartland, Joyce Chng, Dante Luiz, and the Strange Horizons Staff
- Uncanny Magazine, editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, nonfiction/managing editor Michi Trota, managing editor Chimedum Ohaegbu, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky, Disabled People Destroy Fantasy Special Issue editors Katharine Duckett, Nicolette Barischoff, and Lisa M. Bradley
Best Fanzine
- The Book Smugglers, editors Ana Grilo and Thea James
- Galactic Journey, founder Gideon Marcus, editor Janice Marcus, senior writers Rosemary Benton, Lorelei Marcus and Victoria Silverwolf
- Journey Planet (issues 45-48), editors James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, Alissa McKersie, Ann Gry, Chuck Serface, John Coxon and Steven H Silver
- nerds of a feather, flock together, editors Adri Joy, Joe Sherry, Vance Kotrla, and The G
- Quick Sip Reviews, editor Charles Payseur
- The Rec Center, editors Elizabeth Minkel and Gavia Baker-Whitelaw
Best Fancast
- Be The Serpent presented by Alexandra Rowland, Freya Marske and Jennifer Mace
- Claire Rousseau’s YouTube channel produced & presented by Claire Rousseau
- The Coode Street Podcast presented by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
- Galactic Suburbia presented by Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce and Tansy Rayner Roberts, producer Andrew Finch
- Our Opinions Are Correct presented by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders
- The Skiffy and Fanty Show presented by Jen Zink and Shaun Duke
Best Fan Writer
Best Fan Artist
Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
- Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen) (Chapters 1-2 – audio excerpt)
- Deeplight, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee (Disney Hyperion) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- Minor Mage, T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) (Argyll) (excerpt)
- Riverland, Fran Wilde (Amulet) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
- The Wicked King, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Hot Key) (excerpt – audio excerpt)
Astounding Award for Best New Writer
- Sam Hawke* – City of Lies – (Chapters 1-4)
- R.F. Kuang* – The Poppy War – (excerpt)
- Jenn Lyons – The Ruin of Kings – (Chapters 1-11)
- Nibedita Sen* – “Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree” (full text and audio) – “Leviathan Sings to Me in the Deep” (full text and audio)
- Tasha Suri* – Empire of Sand – (excerpt)
- Emily Tesh – Silver in the Wood – (excerpt)
* [2nd year of eligibility]
Thank you for putting all of this together!
Thanks JJ!
Thanks for putting this together, JJ.
Thank you, JJ! Amazingly quick!
Thanks JJ!
There’s a Kameron Hurley short story called “The Light Brigade” in an anthology which can be downloaded here in EPUB or MOBI formats – it’s an EFF donation page, but they let you download the anthology without making a donation.
Not sure how it relates to the novel – maybe an early version that was expanded into the novel? – but a cursory glance indicates it’s not the same text as in the B&N except.
EDIT: Also here in HTML form.
Thank you very much, JJ, for your hard (and rapid!) work.
@John S. / ErsatzCulture: I skimmed through that story briefly and it reads as an extremely compressed version of the novel, from beginning to end, with a lot of novel-specific beats omitted.
Thank you, JJ.
In addition to that S&F link, more of my fan writing is here:
http://www.nerds-feather.com/search/label/paul%20weimer
From the Acknowledgments of The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley:
Thank you, JJ. This will be a great help to those of us whose libraries are currently shut down.
Thanks for the links, JJ. The novels and novellas seem a bit pricey online, though, so for my reviews I’m off to the library.
Thanks, JJ!
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Our local library is currently closed, but I scored some ebooks. .
Thanks, JJ!
The work in my Etsy shop includes a lot of 2020 work and what’s unsold from the 2019 work, which isn’t all that much.
If you’d like to see a retrospective of 2019’s work with photographs (all of which have alt text for those who find it useful), there is a Twitter thread with upward of 190 pieces (so far; it’s not finished yet) from 2019. 90% of them are sold, and thus not visible anywhere else online at this point.
It’s the deep dive, really, and I do hope to make a tl;dr version with a dozen pieces once folks on Twitter can help me decide which twelve.
Here’s the Tweet thread: https://twitter.com/LionessElise/status/1245880798265278466
Worth also noting that “The Archronology of Love” is available as audio, though it looks like it’s dropped off the podcast’s RSS feed. Download and add to your device if you’re that way inclined. Link is on the story page above.
The Uncanny Magazine stories may also be available on their podcast, but I find the Uncanny podcast so damned annoying that I can’t be entirely sure. “A Catalog of Storms” definitely is.
Not free, but, as noted on a scroll earlier ‘A Memory Called Empire’ is currently a UK Kindle monthly deal.
A few of the novels & novellas finalists are available on Scribd (ebook and audio), which is currently offering free reading for 30 days during the lockdown. This is different from their usual trial periods because you don’t need to register for a subscription using your credit card details and then remember to cancel it, it’s just full on free: https://www.scribd.com/readfree
If I recall correctly, at least Gideon, Light Brigade, The City in the Middle of the Night, Tram Car 015 and In An Absent Dream are on there for me (UK region) and there might be more available for the US market.
Also a good chunk of Mooncakes is available as a webcomic on Tumblr – don’t know how different it is from the published version but I can give you an idea: https://mooncakescomic.tumblr.com/post/130986680250
Claire Rousseau: A few of the novels & novellas finalists are available on Scribd (ebook and audio)… Gideon, Light Brigade, The City in the Middle of the Night, Tram Car 015 and In An Absent Dream
I find it extremely difficult to believe that Macmillan would permit their copyrighted works to be hosted on the Scribd platform and read for free. Are those pirated works?
@JJ
Thank you for doing this!
@JJ —
It’s not difficult to believe — it’s just like when Amazon or Audible oftens free trials or free books. Scribd is a subscription service; when they offer free subscriptions, they aren’t stiffing the publishers, they’re covering the costs with the publishers.
Scribd is like the paid subscription libraries of old, only in ebook and audio format instead of physical books.
Contrarius: It’s not difficult to believe — it’s just like when Amazon or Audible oftens free trials or free books. Scribd is a subscription service; when they offer free subscriptions, they aren’t stiffing the publishers, they’re covering the costs with the publishers.
Let me rephrase: given that Macmillan is the publisher who was denying libraries the ability to purchase their e-books in the first 6 months of their release, I find it extremely difficult to believe that Macmillan has authorized Scribd to offer their books in this way, in the same way I could not see them allowing the Kindle Unlimited service to offer their books in this way.
Isn’t Scribd a website where anyone can upload books and offer them, legally or not?
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@JJ —
IIRC, it’s Macmillan who pulled their books from Scribd some months ago. In any case, some publisher did, and I think it was Macmillan.
You’re looking at this the wrong way. First, with KU it’s the authors who make the decision to go on KU, not Amazon; second, you’re still assuming that when Scribd offers free subscriptions, the publishers are getting stiffed. I doubt the publishers care one whit how many free subscriptions Scribd hands out, as long as those publishers are still getting their contracts with Scribd fulfilled.
Scribd is a big messy thing that has “documents” — that’s where any shenanigans would go on, and I’m not familiar with it — as well as commercial ebooks and audiobooks. The commercial ebooks and audios are where the paid subscriptions come in; I think it’s still true that the “document” area can be accessed without any subscription, paid or otherwise. Scribd has changed a lot in recent years, and I never paid much attention to the non-subscription, free part.
In DC at least, the digital parts of the public library are still available (ebooks and eaudiobooks). I’ve currently got In an Absent Dream, After Atlas and The Winter of the Witch on my kindle.
I’m on the wait list/digital holds for 6 others. I’ll probably get to most of them in time, except for Middlegame, as I’m #36 in the queue for that one.
P.S. —
I’ve just confirmed that, in audio, Scribd has three of the nominated novels (not McGuire, Martine, or Harrow), and all of the vellas except for the Chiang. I haven’t checked the ebooks yet.
In text, Scribd has only the Hurley, El-Mohtar/Gladstone, and Chambers.
Click
Woah, way to assume that I would be using & recommending a pirate site – I obviously did due diligence on Scribd before I started using it, let alone recommending it to other people. They work with publishers, presumably purchasing lending licenses for electronic works similarly to a library. They’ve got four of the big five listed as partners on their about page, including Macmillan – looks like it’s PRH they’re not working with.
As to why Macmillan would work with them, I don’t know. But like I said, I’m in the UK, where Pan Macmillan never had that library policy in the first place so perhaps they’re working with Scribd separate from the US branch? Or maybe the US branch works with Scribd because the library ban was a purely ideological decision about not wanting people reading their stuff free of charge, which wouldn’t be the case on a subscription-based service.
In my experience, ‘documents’ on Scribd now have to be paid for as well (modulo free trials and stuff). This puzzles me, as many of these documents were originally put there with the deliberate intention that they be free to all, and at least in some cases the people who did this were the owners and had the right to do it, but that’s what seems to be happening.
Andrew M: In my experience, ‘documents’ on Scribd now have to be paid for as well (modulo free trials and stuff). This puzzles me, as many of these documents were originally put there with the deliberate intention that they be free to all, and at least in some cases the people who did this were the owners and had the right to do it
Interesting. I’ve just had a look at the website, and it appears that they went “legit” at some point (possibly in response to a copyright lawsuit, and/or someone’s recognition that legal monetization might be possible). My recollection of the site was based on having been drawn there by a Google result, and the document to which it linked was clearly a pirated copy of a work under copyright. The site itself was very basic at the time. I’ve never been back since, because screw pirates. A stroll through the Wayback Machine indicates that it changed to something more professional around 2015 (I wouldn’t have said it was that long ago since I visited, but hey, time flies).
But yes, there were also documents on Scribd which had been uploaded by their owners to provide free access to others, and those now appear to be monetized. It would be interesting to know whether their owners are getting any of the subscription money based on how many reads they get.
Thank you, JJ. For posting who edited what and the word lengths in the Best Editor Short Fiction category.
There are a couple short fiction pieces in Ian McDonald’s Luna series which were originally in Jonathan Strahan’s Infinity Project anthologies and have been reprinted online:
The Fifth Dragon, Reach for Infinity (2014)
The Falls: A Luna Story, Meeting Infinity (2015)
@JJ: Wow, thanks for all your work in pulling this together! 😀
@John S / ErsatzCulture: I originally listened to the short story (button near top right of the Lightspeed page). I liked it enough that I got the novel in audiobook, too. 🙂
“Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree” by Nibedita Sen was originally published in the August 2017 issue of Anathema (not considered a pro sale at that point, I assume).
There’s also:
“Pigeons“, Fireside (Aug 2018)
“Sphexa, Start Dinosaur“, reprinted at Cast of Wonders 384 in Dec 2019, originally published at Robot Dinosaur Fiction! (Aug 2018)
The Fireside piece and the two Nightmare stories (linked in the post above) should count as professional publication in the qualifying period, but I’m not sure about the other two. Do reprints to pro venues count? Or just originals?
Laura: Do reprints to pro venues count? Or just originals?
For Campbell purposes, I would presume that a reprint from a non-pro venue to a pro venue within the author’s eligibility period is also eligible (even though reprints are usually purchased at a lower rate).
Thanks, JJ.
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Charles Payseur has put up a Hugo Voter Packet post for his fanzine Quick Sip Reviews.
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Nerds of a feather have made their Hugo Packet available to all.
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Are you okay with me linking to your post on my book club’s blog site, https://beamerbooks.wordpress.com/ ?
Sure. Why not?
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