Over the next few days I’ll be working my way through the Hugo finalists for Best Short Story. This is always an interesting category, with hits and misses, stronger years and weaker years but always with interesting gems and names to watch out for. It’s also one of the most accessible categories with stories typically available for free on the web (but please do consider supporting the sources financially through subscriptions or one off purchases.)
I’m shamelessly stealing JJ’s list from here http://file770.com/where-to-find-the-2020-hugo-award-finalists-for-free-online/ for links. I’ve added annotations.
- “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons September 9 2019) <- Nebula finalist, which I reviewed here: https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/nebula-shorts-shiv-ramdas-and-now-his-lordship-is-laughing/
- “As the Last I May Know”, S.L. Huang (Tor.com October 23 2019)
- “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger”, Rivers Solomon (Tor.com July 24 2019)
- “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny January-February 2019) <- Nebula Finalist, which I reviewed here: https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/nebula-shorts-fran-wilde-a-catalog-of-storms/
- “Do Not Look Back, My Lion”, Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies January 2019)
- “Ten excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island”, Nibedita Sen (Nightmare May 2019) <- Nebula Finalist which I reviewed here https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/nebula-shorts-nibedita-sen-ten-excerpts-from-an-annotated-bibliography-on-the-cannibal-women-of-ratnabar-island/
The overlap with the Nebulas is typical but I prefered A.C.Wise’s How the Trick is Done to Fran Wilde’s Catalog of Storms. Having said that, the craft and ambition in Wilde’s story is manifest and I’m not surprised it got a Hugo nod. Ten Excerpts… I really liked but I’m a sucker for playing with non-fiction text forms to tell stories. And Now His Lordship is Laughing sits on the other side of the axis, using simpler structure to let the emotional punch of the story flow unhindered.
Three stories in and it is already a strong field. Tomorrow I’ll post a review of S.L.Huang’s As the Last I May Know and the other two stories in the next few days. Then I’ll sum up my thoughts but I doubt I’ll try a ranking at this point.
“It’s Hugo 2020 Shorts Week”
One of my favorite holidays!
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As with the Nebula short stories, the only one I haven’t read yet is Nibedita Sen’s. I’ll definitely get to it now since she’s also an Astounding finalist. My favorite otherwise is Alix E. Harrow’s. None of them were my own nominees though.
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I read them thanks to JJ’s list and think they’re all anywhere from good to outstanding. Some devastated me in a good way. There are a lot of pleasing gut-punches in them.
In no case did I think “WTF is this doing here?” which is too often my reaction (coughGoodPlacecough).
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With the one still to go, I’ve found them good to very good. All on the dark side though.
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Stay strong, lurkertype. The Good Place has thnkfully ended and we’ll have to endure at most one more year of it clogging up Best Dramatic Presentation Short.
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Hopefully, since two episodes of “Watchmen” showed up on the ballot, one of them will win out.
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I wouldn’t mind seeing “Watchmen” win something (just re-watched the series), but I also enjoyed every episode of “The Good Place.”
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