The original plan was to review the first of the Hugo-nominated novels this week. However, I’ve been enjoying the book so much that I want to take another few days to read it (check back later week for a review of that). Therefore I’m changing course and reviewing three of the Hugo-nominated novelettes instead. This
If there are two words that can describe this year’s nominees for Best Short Story, it would be “triumphant” and “bleak”. Every one of them features someone overcoming a trial, whether it’s living life on their own terms, or making the hard decision to sacrifice their life for others. These are all lyrical and fierce,
The Hugo Award finalists for 2020 have been announced! The convention (July 29 – August 2) will be online only, for obvious reasons. So there’s less than three months before the award ceremony, and between this year and the retro 1945 awards there are 186 separate finalists and I’ve read…two of the novellas, and a
By an odd coincidence, all three of the Hugo-nominated novelettes I saved for last are about memory and death. Hard-hitting stuff here. They’re also about the stories we tell and why we tell them: to remember the past, to link us to each other, and to make us reach for something more than just survival.
“Dr. York. What does the upturn on that chart represent?” “That…that is when the oceans begin to boil.” Mary Robinette Kowal’s Hugo-nominated novel starts in a 1952 America that’s just slightly different from ours. Thomas E. Dewey defeated Harry S. Truman, and then gave famous rocket scientist (and former Nazi) Wernher von Braun the leeway
This last flood, the one you call the Big Water, ended the Fifth World and began the Sixth. It opened the passage for those like myself to return to the world. The climate disaster that left a lot of the world underwater also left the Navajo reservation mostly untouched. Not that the Dinétah is an
I’m going to space out the Hugo Award Best Novelette entries a little this year to try to make them last. Click the jump for a brief review of three stories of invasion, transformation, and memory.
“So the fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice. We should put them in a room together and let them make us both widows.” Naomi Novik’s Hugo-nominated novel is a Russian-themed fairy tale that starts with three women: a moneylender, a poor farmer’s daughter, and
Memorial Day weekend is the perfect time to sit back, relax, and finish reading one of the longer novels I’ve got in my to-be-read pile. …so of course I decided to skip that plan and read a bunch of short stories instead. Click the jump for a look at this year’s Hugo Award nominees for