ceb, posts by tag: hugos - LiveJournal

* Pierce Brown - Red Rising extract
Seems like competent post-apocalyptic YA writing, I may pick up more at some point.

* Brian Niemeyer - Strange Matter
A rather weak _Groundhog Day_ knock-off in which the protagonist gives up on saving the world in order to get laid (but he can always save it later, a break's probably not a bad idea. Not acknowledged by the story though!).

* Brian Niemeyer - Nethereal
Effortlessly dull fantasy of the type that feels like a perpetual memory test of made-up names. Didn't care, gave up.

* Alyssa Wong - Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers
* Alyssa Wong - The Fisher Queen
* Alyssa Wong - Sampos de Sanpaguitas
* Alyssa Wong - Scarecrow
Creepy supernatural stories told from the POV of someone who is a non-human being or is turning into one. Well-written and effective.

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* Jo Walton - The Philosopher Kings
2nd book in the trilogy about the attempts of an essentially random collection of people to create Plato's Just City, with added Greek gods. The City of the first book has splintered into several cities, all following slightly different philosophies. The protagonists go on a voyage to visit them all for reasons which I won't spoil but which really are secondary to the point of the book, which is a loving exploration of what it means to strive for excellence.

* Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima - Lone Wolf & Cub vol 21
* Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima - Lone Wolf & Cub vol 22
Manga about the totally bad-ass Lone Wolf and Cub, who are so bad-ass that they're practically demons incarnate (despite the fact that one of them is aged 4). Gearing up for the big ending already (vol 28) in a continuingly blood-spattered way.

Also assorted Hugo things, reviews here: http://ceb.dreamwidth.org/249454.html
* Space Raptor Butt Invasion by Chuck Tingle
* Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson
* “And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead” by Brooke Bolander
* “Seven Kill Tiger” by Charles Shao
* “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu
* “Flashpoint: Titan” by CHEAH Kai Wai
* “Obits” by Stephen King
* “What Price Humanity?” by David VanDyke
* “Asymmetrical Warfare” by S. R. Algernon
* Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold
* Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds
* The Builders by Daniel Polansky
* The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

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* Hayfever by Frances Hardinge ("I enjoy inventing mini-genres. In this case I seem to have created Lovecraftian culinary fiction.")
http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/winter_2014/hayfever_by_frances_hardinge

* Leeds University Department of Transtemporal Studies
https://web.archive.org/web/20151022152939/http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/transtemporal-studies

* how Hugo awards are made
http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-trophies/making-hugos/

* the Lost London tube map - interesting facts about a selection of historical London buildings &c.
http://londonist.com/2016/03/lostlondonmap

* 1908 tram-decorating competition
http://ryanpanos.tumblr.com/post/77731153620/competition-for-decorated-trams-1908-via

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Remember to nominate for the Hugos if you're eligible (see below)! You *don't* have to have read everything published last year, you only have to have read/watched/appreciated at least one thing that was first published/broadcast last year that you think might be worthy of a Hugo[*]. The wisdom of crowds will sort the rest out. If you liked it, nominate it :-)

The deadline is March 31st, but you can keep editing and saving your ballot so put your ideas into it now before you forget, you can always go back later and edit them...

You're eligible if you are/were a member of last year's Worldcon (Sasquan), this year's Worldcon (MidamericonII) or next year's Worldcon (Worldcon 75 aka Helsinki). http://midamericon2.org/the-hugo-awards/hugo-nominations/ has the email address to contact if you are eligible but haven't received a voting PIN (or have lost it).

[*] Or read one new author first published last year/the year before who you think might be worthy of a Campbell Award.

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Collecting links to Hugo nominees that might have been (or excerpts of same). With thanks to rushthatspeaks for compiling the list of who these were. Drop me a comment if you find anything I've missed.

Best Novel:

• Lock In, by John Scalzi: http://www.tor.com/2014/05/21/lock-in-john-scalzi-excerpt-chapter-1/ (excerpt)
  
• City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett: http://www.tor.com/2014/08/20/city-of-stairs-excerpt-robert-jackson-bennett/ (excerpt)
  

Best Novella:

• The Slow Regard of Silent Things, by Patrick Rothfuss
  
• The Regular, by Ken Liu
  
• Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress: http://www.tor.com/2014/08/05/yesterdays-kin-excerpt-nancy-kress/ (excerpt)
  
• Grand Jete (The Great Leap), by Rachel Swirsky: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/summer_2014/grand_jet_the_great_leap_by_rachel_swirsky
  
• The Mothers of Voorhisville, by Mary Rickert/: http://www.tor.com/2014/04/30/the-mothers-of-voorhisville-mary-rickert/
  

Best Novelette:

• 'Each to Each', by Seanan McGuire: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/each-to-each/
  
• 'The Devil in America', by Kai Wilson: http://www.tor.com/2014/04/02/the-devil-in-america-kai-ashante-wilson/
  
• 'The Litany of Earth', by Ruthanna Emrys: http://www.tor.com/2014/05/14/the-litany-of-earth-ruthanna-emrys/
  
• 'The Magician and LaPlace's Demon', by Tom Crossbill: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/crosshill_12_14/
  

Best Short Story:

• 'Jackalope Wives', by Ursula Vernon: http://www.apex-magazine.com/jackalope-wives/
  
• 'The Breath of War', by Aliette de Bodard: http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-breath-of-war/
  
• 'The Truth About Owls', by Amal El-Mohtar: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2015/20150126/1owls-f.shtml
  
• 'When It Ends, He Catches Her', by Eugie Foster: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/fairy-tales/eugie-foster/when-it-ends-he-catches-her
  
• 'A Kiss With Teeth', by Max Gladstone: http://www.tor.com/2014/10/29/a-kiss-with-teeth-max-gladstone/
  
• 'Goodnight Stars', by Annie Bellet: http://www.johnjosephadams.com/apocalypse-triptych/free-reads/goodnight-stars-annie-bellet/
  

Best Related Work:

• What Makes This Book So Great, by Jo Walton: composed of some of her older posts from http://www.tor.com/author/jo-walton/
  
• Chicks Dig Gaming, ed. Jennifer Brozek, Robert Smith, and Lars Pearson
  
• Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology, ed. Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Taylor: what a cool idea! description here: http://brandonsanderson.com/introducing-the-writing-excuses-anthology/
  
• Invisible: Personal Essays on Representation in SF, ed. Jim C. Hines: http://jimhines.livejournal.com/723324.html
  
• 'Tropes Vs. Women: Women as Background Decoration', by Anita Sarkeesian: http://feministfrequency.com/tag/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games/ (video series, many with content warnings)
  

Another list here, with amazon &c. links for the things not freely available online in their entirity: http://alas-a-blog-feed.dreamwidth.org/

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If you want to vote in the Hugos, remember the deadline is the end of this month (Friday July 31, 11:59PM PDT, aka Saturday August 1, 7:59AM BST). As last year, you can fill out your ballot in several stages, and they'll take its state at the deadline as your vote, so no reason not to start filling it in now. Vote here: http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting/

Site selection votes have a longer deadline but are more faff. The deadline for emailed votes is Monday August 10, 24:00 PDT (aka Tuesday August 11 08:00 BST if I've converted it right). Step-by-step instructions are here: http://ceb.dreamwidth.org/222659.html

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Recently read:
* VE Schwab - A Darker Shade of Magic
- Fantasy set in several alternative versions of London of varying degrees of magic-ness. There was a giant war in the past which led to the Londons being mostly sealed off from each other, and the protagonist is one of the few people who can still move between them, a kind of wizard messenger. He meets up with a rather hectic female sidekick and there is a mystery and lots of adventures. This book is well paced and exciting, and while it's not the most memorable thing I've ever read, I will certainly be looking forward to more from this author.

* Be-Papas - Utena
- the manga version of the amazing Utena. (If you haven't seen it, oh you must. It is beautiful and weird and magic and ambiguous.) The ending is different to the anime ending in some ways, and similar in others, and just as weird and allegorical.

* Thomas Olde Heuvelt - The Day The World Turned Upside Down
- an interesting thing happens (the direction of gravity reverses) but this is unexplored and unexplained because the author would rather instead expound solely on the protagonist's massive MANPAIN on being dumped. Spare me.

* G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, Jake Wyatt - Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal
- superhero comics are not generally my thing but oh, I do like this. There's a bit of a hand-wavey event and Kamala Khan, ordinary Muslim teenager, develops super-powers (specifically, the power to change shape - become large or small, look like someone else, extend limbs, etc. - and super-healing). Kamala's quite a closeted teenager; she's the weird Muslim one at school and her family are quite stifling. There are obvious and nicely-addressed parallels between teenage rebelliousness/growing up and coming to grip with her new powers, and an overall theme of working out who the hell you want to be. I'll be putting this second on my ballot - Saga has more story; this is very much a character introduction, albeit a great one. I will be looking out for more of this!

* Kurtis J. Weibe & Roc Upchurch - Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery
A party of kick-ass female adventurers in a D&D-alike setting. The characters are a nice mix of shapes/sizes/backgrounds/etc., and well characterised, and there's lots of hints of interesting back-story. However the whole thing feels very "look at my comic with cool stuff in it! see how cool it is!" and there are lots of not-in-universe jokes (e.g. a character is summoned by her summoning stone and says "one sec, gotta take this") which jarred for me. OTOH there's an interesting mystery brewing by the end of the volume, so if I find it coming to mind again then I may seek out more. We shall see.

Currently reading: Jo's What Makes This Book So Great, which I am savouring because it is lovely.

Coming soon: something from the endless expanses of my to-read pile, who can say what?

Also!
Ann Leckie is sending me a packet of ducks :-D
http://ann-leckie.dreamwidth.org/230350.html

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Lo: http://bookatorium.dreamwidth.org/ (thanks Simon :-)

(I picked DW as I tried OpenID logins in both directions and OpenID into LJ is much more annoying.)

Yell if you think of anything I could improve...

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http://drplokta.livejournal.com/166650.html

An interesting post from drplokta with a possible fix for the Hugo nominee lists. Nominators don't have to do anything different; the suggested mechanism expands the nominee lists when there's heavy slate voting so that other things aren't driven off the ballot. (I was agreeing with rmc28 yesterday that complex rules changes aren't the answer, but I feel this suggestion is refreshingly simple and easy to understand.)

http://drplokta.livejournal.com/166760.html

And a worked example of what would have happened to last year's ballot, if this were implemented.

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So, it seems we are not going to need to set aside much time for the reading of Hugo nominees this year (the short version, for people who haven't heard, is that last year's unpleasant bastards have gamed the nomination system to pretty much sweep the board).

One of the things I really enjoyed last year was the way that several friends were reading and posting about the same books. I would be delighted to do this with _Ancillary Sword_ and _The Goblin Emperor_ and the four excellent graphic novel nominees; however, that's not a lot of books. To make up the rest, does anyone want to join me in reading one of the other award lists? e.g. this year's extremely strong BSFA shortlist: http://www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-2014-shortlist-announced/ (but let's skip Benjanun Sriduangkaew, eh?) or the Tiptree award winners and recommended list: http://tiptree.org/

Thoughts? Enthusiasm?

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