I wasn’t supposed to start something new until I’d finished all my Hugo reading and I have the most recent Expanse book sitting right there on my Kindle like an avatar of temptation. But, I needed an audio book because I was doing garden stuff and my finger just pressed the ‘buy’ button.
Anyway, so far the book starts in a similar way to Children of Time. Human terraformers, far from an Earth that is descending into political chaos, some inadvisable experiments in cognitive uplift on animals (and what an interesting choice of animal it is…) and some quirky characters. The spiders from the previous book are set to re-appear in the next section.
Meanwhile, in non-auditory mediums I am reading novelettes. Making use of JJ’s “Where to Find the Hugo Finalists…” post, the links to them are
- “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again” by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018) – Status: I haven’t read this.
- “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” by Tina Connolly (Tor.com, 11 July 2018) – Status: Read and reviewed.
- “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth” by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com, 19 September 2018) – Status: Read but not reviewed
- “The Only Harmless Great Thing” by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com publishing) (excerpt) – Status: read and reviewed.
- “The Thing About Ghost Stories” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018) Status: Read but not reviewed
- “When We Were Starless” by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018) – Status: I haven’t read this.
Just on what I’ve read so far, this is a strong field and a tricky one to rank. There are some really interesting stories here in very diverse styles. Brooke Bolander’s radioactive elephants would be what I would bet on but there’s lots to be said about Tina Connolly’s story and Naomi Kritzer’s is quite strong also.
Them fingers is tricksy that way!
I was led astray by the third Foreigner trilogy a coupla weeks ago, but at the moment I’m finishing up my relisten of Ninefox Gambit and will then proceed to Tenfox and Elevenfox. This is getting firmer as my #1 in series, and I mostly enjoy Zeller’s narration. Previous to that I listened to books 7-9 of October Daye — it’s still hard for me to really get into that series having to listen to Kowal’s narration of it (personal pet peeve against her narration style).
After that, who knows? I’ve had a hankering to try some of the de Bodard, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
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Tea Master is encouraging me to dip into Xuya.
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The Hugo Voter Packet contains:
The Dragon that Flew out of the Sun
Ship’s Brother (available for free online)
The Frost on Jade Buds
On A Red Station, Drifting
The Tea Master and the Detective
Other works available online for free include (links are here):
Immersion
The Waiting Stars
The Dragon that Flew out of the Sun
A Hundred and Seventy Storms
A Salvaging of Ghosts
Crossing the Midday Gate
Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight
The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile
The Breath of War
Immersion
Scattered Along the River of Heaven
The Shipmaker
The Weight of a Blessing
The Lost Xuyan Bride
The Waiting Stars
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I purchased On a Red Station, Drifting right before the packet came out, and it’s worth your time. de Bodard has definitely become one of my favorite authors, despite me not actually having read as much of her as other authors.
I uhhhh, pretty much am always reading an audiobook, but thanks to my two libraries having multiple subscriptions (including a Hoopla library subscription) to ebook/audiobook sources, I basically never need to purchase any. Currently listening to The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad, which is on Hoopla.
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I too loved how excellent, and how different from one another, the Novelette category is.
My own summary is over here, if’n anybody’s lacking for Hugo opinions: https://www.facebook.com/notes/ziv-wities/the-hugo-2019-best-novelettes-are-the-best/10156351886819537/
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I doubt I’m going to be able to rank them
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Yes, the novelettes are all fairly close together this year and there is no real standout, at least not for me.
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I just posted my review of When We Starless which was originally the one I was dismissing because I kept bouncing off it but which keeps climbing in my rank.
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Every single one of these nominees should be extra-proud on this ballot, to not only *be on the ballot* but also to totally be *strong* competition to every one of the excellent *other* contenders.
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Novelettes are really strong this year. Even the dark-horse candidate, “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” is an outstanding story.
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Yes, it’s sort of obvious but also really quite lovely and moving
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Yeah. It’s really important to recognize excellent stories that do a fantastic job at being fun and warm and optimistic. That’s *hard*, and it’s so great to find superb exemplars.
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I finished Children of Ruin last week. It really was a superb continuation from the first book. After the afterword in that one where we get a setup for what’s essentially “Spider Trek” I was desperately hoping we’d see their destination and it was everything I was hoping for and more.
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Yeah, it’s got a dash of that Niven/Pournelle vibe as well without being…well Niven/Pournelle
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