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Hugo Nominations and Awards - Now onto 2021 Nominations


lady narcissa

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15 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

Yes, there is that symbol in the Hugo version too but I wish the symbol slightly changed from narrator to narrator.  It is true you can figure out the narrator from reading but I do find it disrupts the reading experience.

While I don't remember it being too confusing, I agree that using a different symbol for different narrators seems like it would have been an easy change to make.

Also, thanks for ranking your Hugo readings.  I think its interesting to see people's rankings.  I'm not going to be able to read everything and seeing people's lists helps me focus on what to read in the time I have left...which is only 30 days now!

I finished the last of the novelettes so I can rank them now as well. I think overall it was slightly stronger than the novella category, there weren't any I didn't like. The consistent quality does make them harder to rank, I could easily reverse 3-5 in the list.

1 - The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections by Tina Connolly - I thought this was the clear stand-out, it's an inventive idea for a story and I thought it was well written

2 - Nine Last Days on Planet Earth by Daryl Gregory

3 - When We Were Starless by Simon Heller

4 - If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho

5 - The Thing About Ghost Stories by Naomi Kritzer

6 - The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander, I felt the more contemporary/futuristic plot threads felt a bit silly compared to the early 20th Century bits.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Spinning Silver started well but then completely fell flat. I think it ended up being at least twice as long as it should have been. A very slight story and premise that got massively padded out, mainly through the addition of utterly useless POV characters. Disappointing.

Next up (after I finish Tad Williams' latest), The Calculating Stars.

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58 minutes ago, Jussi said:

I really hope that Spinning Silver will get Hugo Award. It already won Locus Award. Novik has written a truly amazing novel.

Yeah, my pick as well. I actually thought Uprooted had an issue with its pacing and secondary characters, but Spinning Silver was just right.

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

Yeah, my pick as well. I actually thought Uprooted had an issue with its pacing and secondary characters, but Spinning Silver was just right.

I agree, I did like Uprooted but it felt a bit uneven at times and I thought Spinning Silver was more consistent.

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5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Spinning Silver started well but then completely fell flat. I think it ended up being at least twice as long as it should have been. A very slight story and premise that got massively padded out, mainly through the addition of utterly useless POV characters. Disappointing.

Next up (after I finish Tad Williams' latest), The Calculating Stars.

 

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Of the three I've read so far, it's certainly the best.

Well someone is unimpressed by he nominees this year :lol:

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15 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Well someone is unimpressed by he nominees this year :lol:

I never used to bother with the Hugos much at all, as they were generally such an bizarre, America-centric representation of the state of the genre there wasn't much point (there is no version of reality where the best SF or fantasy novel of 2012 was fucking Redshirts, ever). Then it felt like the Puppy saga actually shook up the awards in a more positive way and we got some very solid and very good winners (the Jemisin trilogy thoroughly deserved it's three-header win). This year feels like a little bit of a lapse backwards again. But I've still got a few more to get through (although in truth I'm unlikely to read more than The Calculating Stars before WorldCon).

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17 hours ago, Werthead said:

I never used to bother with the Hugos much at all, as they were generally such an bizarre, America-centric representation of the state of the genre there wasn't much point (there is no version of reality where the best SF or fantasy novel of 2012 was fucking Redshirts, ever). Then it felt like the Puppy saga actually shook up the awards in a more positive way and we got some very solid and very good winners (the Jemisin trilogy thoroughly deserved it's three-header win). This year feels like a little bit of a lapse backwards again. But I've still got a few more to get through (although in truth I'm unlikely to read more than The Calculating Stars before WorldCon).

I'm wondering whether there was a lack of really outstanding novels last year? There were plenty of books I liked, but not that many I'd say seem like they should be automatic nominees. I did nominate both Spinning Silver and Revenant Gun and felt that Robert Jackson Bennet's Foundryside was maybe unlucky to miss out, but other than that there don't seem any glaring omissions.

Of course, there is a vast number of books I didn't read so there may be some great books I haven't read that have been snubbed.

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Circe by Madeline Miller came out last year and is both an excellent novel and really popular (it was a major bestseller, it has 150,000+ Goodreads ratings and won the Goodreads Best Fantasy Novel of the Year award by a country mile), it really should have been nominated.

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16 minutes ago, David Selig said:

Circe by Madeline Miller came out last year and is both an excellent novel and really popular (it was a major bestseller, it has 150,000+ Goodreads ratings and won the Goodreads Best Fantasy Novel of the Year award by a country mile), it really should have been nominated.

Yep, it's stunningly well written, absolutely fantastical, should have been there. Kind of absurd it wasn't.

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2 hours ago, David Selig said:

Circe by Madeline Miller came out last year and is both an excellent novel and really popular (it was a major bestseller, it has 150,000+ Goodreads ratings and won the Goodreads Best Fantasy Novel of the Year award by a country mile), it really should have been nominated.

I think it was unavailable as in ebook for some time. I remember trying to buy it on amazon.de and not finding it. 

I dunno if that hurt its visibility in some circles. 

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I'm not going to finish Tess of the Road before the deadline. Is there anything in the second half of the book that's likely to drastically alter my opinion of it? I've read and enjoyed Seraphina.

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Yikes votes are due tomorrow!  I had great hopes of reading more than I have but at this point I'll have to go with what I have.

Anyone care to share what they are voting for?  Besides Peadar for the Lodestar Award for YA Novel that is...

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4 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

Yikes votes are due tomorrow!  I had great hopes of reading more than I have but at this point I'll have to go with what I have.

Anyone care to share what they are voting for?  Besides Peadar for the Lodestar Award for YA Novel that is...

Revenant Gun for  best novel.

Artificial Condition for best novella. 

Machineries of Empire for best series. 

I did not find the time to read to novelettes and the short stories so no votes there. 

Avengers Infinity War and The Good Place: “Jeremy Bearimy” in the Best Dramatic Presentation categories. 

 

That is more or less it as I do know next to nothing about the other categories.

Who is this Peadar you are speaking of? 

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4 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

Yikes votes are due tomorrow!  I had great hopes of reading more than I have but at this point I'll have to go with what I have.

Anyone care to share what they are voting for?  Besides Peadar for the Lodestar Award for YA Novel that is...

My first preference votes were:

Novel - "Spinning Silver"

Novella - "The Black God's Drums"

Novelette - “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections”

Short Story - "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington"

Dramatic Long Form - "Black Panther"

Dramatic Short Form - "Demons of the Punjab"

Series - "Machineries of Empire"

Lodestar - "The Invasion"

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My first preferences:

Novel - Spinning Silver

Novella - "The Black God's Drums"

Short Story - "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington"

Editor (Long) - Anne Groell

Editor (Short) - Gardner Dozois

Related work - Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing

Dramatic Long Form - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Dramatic Short Form - Dirty Computer

 Art book - The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition

Artist - Charless Vess

Series - Machineries of Empire

Campbell - Jeanette Ng

Lodestar - The Invasion

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On 7/29/2019 at 4:32 PM, David Selig said:

Circe by Madeline Miller came out last year and is both an excellent novel and really popular (it was a major bestseller, it has 150,000+ Goodreads ratings and won the Goodreads Best Fantasy Novel of the Year award by a country mile), it really should have been nominated.

Random, but today the news is out that HBO Max has ordered an 8 episode series based on Circe. Jaw dropped. I have no idea if it will be any good -- chances are high it won't be as good as the novel, lets be serious -- but if they make an effort to capture the gods as she describes them.... that would at least be visually pretty spectacular.

Fingers crossed.

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Novel: Spinning Silver (Revenant Gun felt a bit epiloguey after Raven Stratagem, my favourite in the series)

Novella: Artificial Condition

Novelette: When We Were Starless (a bit of a tossup with Last Banquet)

Short: STET

Series: October Daye

Related: AO3

Graphic: Monstress (I also enjoyed Abbott a lot, but found Black Panther underwhelming)

Long Form: Into the Spider-Verse

Short Form: The Expanse (I haven't actually seen that episode yet, but it seems a safe bet based on the first 26 episodes of the series)

Art Book: Dungeons & Dragons

Lodestar: Children of Blood and Bone (Invasion is second! Belles I thought was more setup than a complete story, and Dread Nation suffered in comparison to Black God's Drums, which was a more interesting alternate late 19th Century Amercia)

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