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Just realized that with the number of DNFs I have for the category, I can actually post about my final voting decisions for the Astounding Award even though I haven't read any Astounding books for quite a while!
1. Emily Tesh
Tesh's published works are two novellas: Silver in the Wood, and Drowned Country. Both books are really excellent and I love them without reservation! I particularly admire how good Tesh is at using her prose to evoke a specific mood in the reader, though there's also lots of other things to admire in these books.
2. Micaiah Johnson
Johnson's only book so far is The Space Between Worlds, which, though it didn't land perfectly for me, was still a thought-provoking and powerful read.
3. Simon Jimenez
Jimenez's novel offering is The Vanished Birds, which I found deeply upsetting, though it's very good at doing the things it's doing.
4. No Award
The other three in the category (AK Larkwood with The Unspoken Name, Lindsay Ellis with Axiom's End, and Jenn Lyons with The Ruin of Kings).....I tried reading all three of them and for all three of them I just found myself so very bored I couldn't find it within myself to bother continuing to read, though I did my best to get as far as I could. Are there worthwhile things in these books? There might well be, and probably are, given the amount of praise I've heard for them! But it just doesn't feel right for me to vote for any of them to win an award when I personally found them so utterly uncompelling, you know?
(relatedly: I only had the realization partway through this year that I can actually mark things below "No Award" if I really don't feel I can personally endorse it as one of the best things the genre has to offer in its category, so I have now gone back through and added in a "No Award" to previous Hugo posts where that's relevant!)
1. Emily Tesh
Tesh's published works are two novellas: Silver in the Wood, and Drowned Country. Both books are really excellent and I love them without reservation! I particularly admire how good Tesh is at using her prose to evoke a specific mood in the reader, though there's also lots of other things to admire in these books.
2. Micaiah Johnson
Johnson's only book so far is The Space Between Worlds, which, though it didn't land perfectly for me, was still a thought-provoking and powerful read.
3. Simon Jimenez
Jimenez's novel offering is The Vanished Birds, which I found deeply upsetting, though it's very good at doing the things it's doing.
4. No Award
The other three in the category (AK Larkwood with The Unspoken Name, Lindsay Ellis with Axiom's End, and Jenn Lyons with The Ruin of Kings).....I tried reading all three of them and for all three of them I just found myself so very bored I couldn't find it within myself to bother continuing to read, though I did my best to get as far as I could. Are there worthwhile things in these books? There might well be, and probably are, given the amount of praise I've heard for them! But it just doesn't feel right for me to vote for any of them to win an award when I personally found them so utterly uncompelling, you know?
(relatedly: I only had the realization partway through this year that I can actually mark things below "No Award" if I really don't feel I can personally endorse it as one of the best things the genre has to offer in its category, so I have now gone back through and added in a "No Award" to previous Hugo posts where that's relevant!)
