A Fan's Playground

Here's my thoughts on the six short story finalists for this year's Hugos! None of my fave stories for the year ended up on the list, despite me nominating them and everything, but so it goes. I at least like this list better than the short story list from last year! There's even a story I like well enough to be voting it #1 without complaint!

I'm putting these down in the order in which I will vote for them.

1. Open House on Haunted Hill, by John Wiswell
Aww, I'm charmed by this! I love the pov of the haunted house, and the decisions it makes as it tries to bond with people. This is the only story on the list of finalists I hadn't already read before, since it's not published in one of the venues I regularly keep on top of, so it was a pleasant surprise.

2. Little Free Library, by Naomi Kritzer
I like it for what it is, but it's pretty lightweight and short, and feels more like an introduction to an idea/world than like a story that's complete in itself.

3. Metal Like Blood in the Dark, by T Kingfisher
It's interesting and I found it compelling, but I don't like it.

4. A Guide for Working Breeds, by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
Okay so I like the idea of robots rebelling against the capitalist framework they're trapped in, through the power of FRIENDSHIP, but the focus on cute dogs is not working for me, and the voices of the main characters feel pretty one-note, so the story didn't really resonate for me.

5. Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse, by Rae Carson
A decent story, but it's about a) zombies and b) giving birth, so I'm just not that interested.

6. The Mermaid Astronaut, by Yoon Ha Lee
The prose style feels so distancing to me that I just glaze over when I try to read this story. I think it's going for a fairy-tale feel, given that it is clearly inspired by The Little Mermaid, but it doesn't land for me. Sometimes when I push through to keep reading a story that is boring me at the start, it picks up eventually, but I skimmed my way all the way to the end of this one and never got pulled in. Which is too bad because I think the things it's trying to do are probably interesting.

Back to working my way through the Hugos because oh no I have too many books to read before voting time. This is a nominee for the YA category (technically not a Hugo, but voted for on the same ballot), though it's really a middle grade book not YA.

Min is a 12 year old fox spirit from a backwater planet who discovers that her brother has disappeared from the Space Force in mysterious circumstances, and runs away to find him, using her fox magic to help her along the way. Futuristic science fiction using Korean mythology as a basis is GREAT and I love that part of things, as well as the casual normalcy of queerness in this world.

But I'm not super into the book as a whole. I nearly didn't even finish it. It's a decent adventure story, but a) quest adventures aren't my favourite genre, and b) I am way too old to be reading stories about preteens saving the day, Min is TOO YOUNG to have this kind of responsibility, I just spent way too much time worried about her! And then on the flip side, Min's magic abilities are so powerful that it's actually kind of boring to me, she succeeds at every magic thing she tries to do and is apparently more powerful than any other fox she knows.

Anyway I'm glad this book exists for the adventure-loving preteens out there but I'm not the right audience for this particular book.