Write All Along Picks Some Hugos

We're just hours from the Hugo Awards. I've read all the nominees for Best Short Story (a fitting end to short story summer) and almost all the novels. I'm not so vain as to even hazard a prediction (there's no accounting for taste, they say, but if I could account for it, a couple of these nominees would be suspect), so below are merely my opinions.

I've read 4.75 out of the 6. I suppose I could finish the fifth one instead of writing this, but time is short. For me, this is about how likely I am to reread it (or read a sequel), how often I recommend it to friends, and how well it cast a spell on me while reading. The nominees:

• Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US, Tor UK)
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press, Sceptre)
• Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom)
• Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (DAW)
• A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher (Tor)
• The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey, Hodderscape UK)

I didn't read Alien Clay so cross that off for now and I haven't finished A Sorceress Comes To Call, though I'm enjoying it immensely. Downton Abbey + magic.

The clear winner here was The Tainted Cup. The sequel is already out and it has been AN EFFORT to not throw everything else aside and pick it up. The world building is superb and truly original, the whole Sherlock-Watson thing is just something that is used to sell you on a fantasy mystery and likely, in my opinion, a comparison that will fall away as the book and characters gain their own fame. I feel like that's what's going to happen too; like I'm getting in on the ground floor of something that people will be reading for years. There were just so many scenes that Bennett rendered in vivid, powerful detail that have stuck with me months later. A friend of mine that I got to read it complained about the main character having a romantic interest, but it didn't bother me one bit. Unlike...

The Ministry of Time which couldn't decide if it wanted to be a sci-fi novel, spy thriller, or romance. I by no means found it a bad book. I enjoyed it and finished it and I liked the way Bradley tied in the events of the Franklin expedition, but overall this novel wasn't for me. Besides the hackneyed romance, I couldn't connect with the main character and this novel provided A LOT of internal exploration of that character. The problem is that two other novels on the list did internality so much better.

Tchaikovsky's sketch of a maybe murderous robotic butler who might have "The Protagonist Virus" in Service Model is perhaps the most British book I've ever read. He really committed to the bit with a robot that wasn't trying to be human or transcend its programming and for whatever reason it worked. Though the narrative sagged in the middle, Service Model was a delightful read, hilarious and heartbreaking and fantastically over-the-top. Someone You Can Build a Nest In, while also sagging in the middle a bit IMO, also conjures up a wholly unique main character. I've recommended this to a few people and told them that it's The Witcher from a monster's point-of-view. Wiswell's portrayal of a definitely murderous shapeshifting man-eater hinges on a compelling voice as this orphan wiggles into your sympathies and a gory fantasy story pivots to a heart-melting romance while ruminating on intergenerational trauma. Extra props to Wiswell for a long denouement that takes trauma and healing seriously.

While it's a toss up between those last two and (probably) A Sorceress Comes To Call (but I shouldn't pass judgement yet) for second place, The Tainted Cup is where it's at.

There is such a vibrant ecosystem for SFF short fiction and as a short story writer myself, I've enjoyed reading these six and many more in the past year. The noms go to:

• “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Rachael K. Jones (Lightspeed Magazine, Jan 2024 (Issue 164))
• “Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 56)
• “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 57)
• “Three Faces of a Beheading” by Arkady Martine (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 58)
• “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine, May 2024 (Issue 168))
• “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld, February 2024)

I don't want to dog too much on two of these that I did not like. I will just say that I don't understand the nominations of "Marginalia" which felt like a quaint and forgettable little story and "Three Faces of a Beheading" which I found unreadable and didn't even finish. But maybe I'm just not an Arkady Martine fan; I struggled to care about A Memory Called Empire and she took home the rocket for that one. No hate and, as I said, I'm not making predictions.

Of the other four, I have to go with “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole." What a great, thought-provoking response to the Le Guin Classic! I read this one and then read it again later that same night. It feels very of the moment, both as a tongue-in-cheek response to current political events and as an indictment of political inaction. I thought it was appropriately irreverent and fast-paced and just... I could gush and gush. It wins!

But don't sleep on the other three. The podcast version of “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” with Stefan Rudnicki is a brilliant rendering of a very alien idea. “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” is yet another great find from the editors at Uncanny. I recommended it to a few people as an immigrant version of HBO's Carnivale. Then there's “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” which I would probably rank second. It's a flash fiction and does exactly what a flash sci-fi should. It's also a great example of Chekov's Gun. If you read nothing else from this blog, “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” is the shortest and delivers a fantastic gut punch. I think I whistled when I finished it.