The 2024 Hugo Award ceremony is about to start, and I am watching the livestream, so this post is nothing if not timely. Maybe even by the time I have finished it, I will know how my choices compared with those of the other voters. Here are briefish notes on each finalist, in ascending order …
Tag: Hugo Finalist
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/08/11/hugo-awards-2024-best-novelette/
Jul 28 2024
Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo
In the first two novellas of Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills series — The Empress of Salt and Fortune, and When the Tiger Came Down from the Mountain — violent conflict is kept at a distance, and much of the tension in the stories arises from the question of whether it can continue to be kept from …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/28/mammoths-at-the-gates-by-nghi-vo-2/
Jul 27 2024
Hugo Awards 2024: General and Some Novellas
This is the fifth year that I have been a reader and a voter for the Hugo Award, a practice I began when I fulfilled a long-time dream and attended a World Science Fiction Convention. Finances and geography, among other things, have conspired to keep me away in the years since, but maybe I will …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/27/hugo-awards-2024-general-and-some-novellas/
Jul 19 2024
The Mimicking Of Known Successes by Malka Older
On the plus side, with this I’ve finally read all the nominees for Best Novella for the 2024 Hugos! That said, what a strange set of entries for this year. As Doug has opined elsewhere, this was not a good year for the category Jo Walton considers an excellent barometer of the speculative fiction zeitgeist. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/19/the-mimicking-of-known-successes-by-malka-older/
Jul 18 2024
Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed
And with this I’ve completed the reading for the 2024 Hugos nominees for Best Graphic Story! And what a way to round out the category! It won’t topple Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons from the chokehold that book has on first place, but it sure comes close. Shubeik Lubeik is the Arabic for, essentially, “your …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/18/shubeik-lubeik-by-deena-mohamed/
Jul 17 2024
Life Does Not Allow Us To Meet by He Xi
translated into English by Alex Woodward. I guess I should start by attempting to summarize this story, but it’s just so weirdly — if not outright poorly — written (or perhaps translated? I’m sorry for throwing you under the bus here Mr Woodward but this story was just so bafflingly not good) that I don’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/17/life-does-not-allow-us-to-meet-by-he-xi/
Jul 15 2024
Thornhedge by T Kingfisher
God, reading this book was such a relief. After struggling through three of the other Best Novella nominees for the Hugo Awards 2024, it was nice to finally read a book that felt like it was written by a professional who gives a shit about her audience. Now I’m a sucker for fairytale retellings, so …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/15/thornhedge-by-t-kingfisher/
Jul 11 2024
Rose/House by Arkady Martine
Once upon a time, I used to give authors 900 pages before I decided whether I was done with them, probably forever. That, ofc, was before I became a professional book critic and found myself inundated with more books than I have time for. In the before times, I might have extended that courtesy towards …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/11/rose-house-by-arkady-martine/
Jul 10 2024
Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons Vol 1 by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha & Nicola Scott
OKAY, I am still inordinately pissed at the absurd, regressive, anti-feminist retcon that DC Comics gave Wonder Woman’s origins with the New 52. I know that people say that comic book back stories are like changeable weather: if you don’t like it, wait a short period of time and it’ll change again. But between the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/10/wonder-woman-historia-the-amazons-vol-1-by-kelly-sue-deconnick-phil-jimenez-gene-ha-nicola-scott/
Jul 09 2024
Mammoths At The Gates by Nghi Vo
For all that each novella in this series is touted as a standalone, I do very much think that readers would benefit from reading at least a few of the earlier books first. I was struck with Nghi Vo’s propensity for giving almost no backstory to readers in Book One, preferring to immerse us directly …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/07/09/mammoths-at-the-gates-by-nghi-vo/
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