A Fan's Playground

Woohoo I finally got through another Hugo category! Here's how I'm voting for the novellas this year. Links to full reviews in the titles.

1. Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I LOVED THIS. I was not expecting it at all and it blew me away!

2. The Past is Red, by Catherynne M Valente

Yes, I'm surprised as you are that I'm ranking a Valente this high, but you know what, every now and then she manages to write something that really works for me, and this does.

3. Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard

Loved everything about this one except that the romance felt too rushed.

4. A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E Harrow

Although I don't love everything this book is doing, I still really liked it!

5. No Award

6. A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers

I've loved most of the Becky Chambers books I've read in the past, but this one just really rubbed me the wrong way in a number of aspects. DNF.

Not ranking: Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire

I find myself so deeply irritated by something or other about every single book in this series I've read over the years for the Hugos and I'm not gonna keep on trying.

Hugo novelette review time!

I don't love the selection in this category overall, I must say. Though I also didn't nominate a lot -- perhaps there's just less out there in the novelette category? Or at least less in easily accessible venues. I nominated only one novelette, Power to Yield by Bogi Takács, which I really wish had made it onto the finalist list :( Oh well.

Here's the stories that were finalists, in the order I'll be voting for them.

1. Helicopter Story, by Isabel Fall
I read this back when it was first out and causing a hue and cry, but it's taken down now so I can't reread it. From what I recall, I found it fascinating and sharp and worthwhile and not for me, but not for me in a way where I really admired what it was doing.

2. Monster, by Naomi Kritzer
Compelling, interesting, well-constructed. The slow build toward the reveals as well as the incidental details included are great. Still not sure if I like it or not, but it's a good one.

3. Two Truths and a Lie, by Sarah Pinsker
Oh, I remember this one, and I remember finding it creepy in a very unpleasant way, and I do NOT want to reread it! Which isn't to say that it's a bad story, just a story that's emphatically not for me. This is not the first time I've had that reaction to a Sarah Pinsker story either, as I recall. Sorry, Sarah Pinsker, it's not you, it's me!

4. No Award

5. The Pill by Meg Ellison
A treatise in the form of a story, which I find tiresome; I don't read fiction to be preached at, even if I generally agree with the subject of the preaching! Also I do not believe all the worldbuilding, which is clearly created to make a Point rather than to make Sense, and it bugs me.

6. Burn, or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super, by A.T. Greenblatt
I just feel so extraordinarily "meh" about this whole thing that I can't even muster up the will to write anything about it.

7. The Inaccessibility of Heaven, by Aliette de Bodard
Apparently an AU of the author's "Dominion of the Fallen" universe; I've tried to read things set in that universe before and just can't get into it. This one is no exception. It's inspired by the notion of the christian mythology about fallen angels, which is just....not at all interesting to me. And this story is ALSO a noir about a serial killer, which makes it even less interesting to me. DNF.