2020 Hugo Award: Best Short Story

[sophia_sol]

I've started working on reading through the things on the Hugo nominations list, in preparation for voting this summer! I'm hampered right now in many categories by not all nominees being available either for free online or from my library as an e-resource, but I'm hoping that when the Hugo Voters Packet comes that'll help.

But I can do the short stories no problem.

I'd already read all but one of the short stories on the nominee list, because for the last number of years I have make it a regular practice to give a try to everything published by the major SFF magazines that provide their stories for free online. The one I hadn't read is is published by a horror magazine, and horror is really not my thing so I don't frequent horror venues.

I bookmark on my pinboard all the stories that I like well enough to want to be able to find again in the future. And none of this year's nominees are on my pinboard. Which means that none of them spoke to me when I first read them, which is disappointing when I think of how many stories I read in the last year which I loved and which are not a Hugo nominee. At least the nominees are all stories I found compelling enough that I actually read them all to the end when I first encountered them!

I've now given a reread to all the short stories I'd read before, and a first read to the one I hadn't. And looking at the stories together, I think that Hugo nominators as a group must be more interested in bleak or angry or violent stories than I am. Ah well.

Here's my (occasionally spoilery) thoughts about all the nominated stories, organized from my first choice vote to my last. None of these will go below No Award, because I do see admirable things in all of them, even if none are really to my taste.

As the Last I May Know, by S.L. Huang
This one is based on the thought experiment I've heard of elsewhere before, that maybe nuclear missile strikes could be prevented if the person ordering the strike had to personally murder a child in order for the missile to be launched. I really like how it humanizes the child in question and gives her a voice. But the premise the whole thing is based on is just one that has never really interested me, so a story focused on that thought experiment is one that ultimately I don't love, well-constructed as it is.

Do Not Look Back, My Lion, by Alix E. Harrow
This story successfully emotionally connected me with the main character, and I enjoyed what it was doing with gender roles, but....it's a story about war and about having babies. Not my thing.

And Now His Lordship Is Laughing, by Shiv Ramdas
It's a story of defiance of the British colonial era in India, featuring an older woman who makes traditional dolls (with magic). It's well done, but it's a story wherein the point and the emotional climax is taking bloody revenge on large numbers of people, and although I can understand why that is a story that people would want to tell about the situation in question, it is again not my kind of story.

A Catalog of Storms, by Fran Wilde
Look, it's fine, I just find it kind of boring. Interesting premise but that's all that it's got going for it imo, I don't feel like I know or understand any of the characters, I never got drawn into the mood or feel of the piece, and there's not much of a story either.

Blood Is Another Word for Hunger, by Rivers Solomon
Another story about people of colour taking violent revenge against white oppressors--again, valid, but I don't personally like reading about violent revenge no matter who's revenging themselves upon whom. And this story is very focused on murder and childbirth, neither of which are themes I enjoy, and then it links the two together in a way that I don't totally understand but still manages to throw a spotlight on how much I don't love having a focus on either theme. It's just really not for me.

Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island, by Nibedita Sen
It's a story about cannibalism. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. I do really like the excerpts-from-varying-accounts thing it's doing to build the story, and I think it's saying interesting things probably, and I can understand why other people might be really into this one, but a focus on cannibalism is a strong nope for me so I wasn't able to read it very closely.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts if you've read any of these stories! (Except the cannibalism one. Please do not talk to me about cannibalism. Thank you.)

Comments

[pauraque]

The kill-a-child-to-launch-the-nukes thing never made any sense to me. It's impossible for me to believe that a society which would put such a restriction on the use of nuclear weapons wouldn't find a path towards nuclear disarmament instead. We're positing a society that wants to avoid the use of weapons of mass destruction, presumably for very compelling and even existential reasons (because that's how nuclear escalation works!), yet instead of pursuing a true and lasting resolution to the problem, they set up this weird shortcut to try to "trick" one individual into not killing millions/billions of people and possibly leading to their own nation's demise? That's the answer? That's what they're going to rely on?

I know it's just a thought experiment, but it actually gets my hackles up because of the way it isolates one decision (to press the button or not) and considers it in a vacuum without any cultural context. But maybe the story addresses that? I guess I could read it, but I'm already getting het up just thinking about it so maybe it's not worth it. :)

[sophia_sol]

I think part of the point of the thought experiment is that.....the people who would set up a society like this think that there ARE occasionally times when it might be a good idea to launch a nuke, so they are making sure that a leader would only launch it in times of direst need, when they can manage to justify to themselves that killing a child really is worth it in order to launch the missile. And nuclear disarmament would not allow for that possibility.

But that approach still doesn't work for me, which is why I'm on your side of the whole thing not making sense and being a bad idea.

The story doesn't spend a lot of time focusing on your concerns, because it's from the perspective of the child and she has other priorities in mind than ruminating on the history of the political system that set things up so that she's in the position she's in. I don't know if you'd like the story or not.