Aaron's Take on the 2014 Hugo Nominees for Fiction

Today is the day to cast your ballots for the Hugo Award. Since this seems to be the year for block voting, if you don't know how to vote, I will gladly tell you . . .

Aaron's Ballot for Best Short Story
1. Sofia Samatar - Selkie Stories Are for Losers
2. John Chu - The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere
3. Rachel Swirsky - If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love
4. Thomas Olde Heuvelt - The Ink Readers of Doi Saket

To me, this is a group of three well-crafted stories and one brilliant one. Selkie Stories Are for Losers is elegantly written and in only a few pages creates a memorable main character, a young woman who is hurt and fearful after being abandoned by her mother but who is brave enough not to give up on love. At the same time, the story is an insightful commentary on an entire sub-genre of fantasy stories. This is the kind of piece the Hugo Awards were created to recognize.

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novelette
1. Aliette de Bodard - The Waiting Stars
2. Ted Chiang - The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling
3. Mary Robinette Kowal - The Lady Astronaut of Mars
4. Brad R. Torgersen - The Exchange Officers
5. NO AWARD
6. Vox Day - Opera Vita Aeterna

In the novelette category, my vote goes to Aliette de Bodard, one of the finest young writers in the field. The Waiting Stars exemplifies her work's excellent craft and striking empathy. The other nominees are all good, until you get to the last one.

It would perhaps be more fun if Opera Vita Aeterna were more amusingly bad than it is. Instead, it reads like a lot of stories sent round for critiques in writers' groups: an amateurish effort by an author with some ability who doesn't seem to know yet how to construct an actual story. Opera Vita Aeterna could not have sold to any professional market in the field, and it's doubtful it could have sold even to a semipro, because it's dry and dull and simply does not tell a story. Only one real event takes place in the entire piece and, incredibly, it takes place offstage, even though the primary viewpoint character is there when it happens. Shame on the block of voters who stuffed this turkey onto the ballot. I suspect few of them even read it, yet they nominated it for reasons that have nothing to do with what the Hugo Awards should be about. (And because I do respect what the awards are supposed to be about, my reasons for rating it below "No Award" are unrelated to the author's political views or the offensive way he expresses them.)

The good news is Opera Vite Aeterna is the only one of the Correia slate of nominees that is not written at a professional level, so the embarrassment is not so deep as it might have been. The Brad Torgersen story in this category, for example, is a solid example of the Analog style of writing, even if that style isn't much to my tastes. (Brad, by the way, can transcend that style when he chooses, for instance in his brilliant novelette "Ray of Light.")

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novella
1. Catherynne M. Valente - Six-Gun Snow White
2. Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages - Wakulla Springs
3. Brad R. Torgersen - The Chaplain's Legacy
4. Dan Wells - The Butcher of Khardov
5. Charles Stross - Equoid

Snow White as a Western is a great concept, and no doubt many authors could have done it credit. But could anyone else have turned it into something as striking and captivating as Six-Gun Snow White? Catherynne Valente is a marvel.

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novel
1. Ann Leckie - Ancillary Justice
2. Charles Stross - Neptune's Brood
3. Larry Correia - Warbound
4. Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire) - Parasite
5. NO AWARD
6. Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson - The Wheel of Time

I hate to say it, but this strikes me as a lackluster group of best novel nominees. Ancillary Justice is by far my favorite, the most original, the best written, and the most thought-provoking of the group. But then, if we're using thought-provoking as a criterion, Neptune's Brood is the only other nominee to try. The Correia and Grant novels are entertaining but have little to say. I choose Correia over Grant because of the writing quirks in Parasite that annoy me: multiple passages that don't advance the story (minor character drove me home and told me about her dog for five pages), and the fact that the main character's dialogue and the same person's first-person narration are in markedly different voices.

I rate The Wheel of Time below No Award, because it was a terrible precedent to allow that entire series on the ballot at once. I already feel badly for whichever friend of mine writes a brilliant novel in the near future and gets stuck on the Hugo ballot opposite the entire Discworld series. Here's hoping the rule gets clarified to keep multi-volume series off the ballot in future.

Aaron's Take on the 2012 Hugo Nominees :: NOVELETTES

To my tastes, the novelette category consists of four good stories and one great one.

Starting with the good, Paul Cornell's "The Copenhagen Interpretation" is a fun romp through a distinctive alternate history with some interesting speculations. It's the same setting as his prior Hugo nominee "One of Our Bastards Is Missing." Neither story struck me as having the depth I look for in a Hugo winner, but it also doesn't strike me that Cornell was shooting for that. He was just telling an entertaining story, and I can hardly blame him if people responded well enough to put it on the Hugo ballot.

Geoff Ryman's "What We Found" and Rachel Swirsky's "Fields of Gold" each ran into the same unfair problem——the authors have set my expectations unreasonably high. "What We Found" and "Fields of Gold" are both very nicely written, but I couldn't help feeling disappointed that they weren't quite so amazing as "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter" or "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window." Serves them both right for being so bloody good.

"Six Months, Three Days" by Charlie Jane Anders is a very clever piece. I love the interplay between the two main characters, with their two opposing forms of clairvoyance. Even if the romance aspect of the tale didn't pull me in quite as much as I might have liked, it's still a memorable story.

My hands-down choice for best novelette of 2011 (from the day I first read it) is "Ray of Light" by Brad R. Torgersen. (And I'm not saying that just because Brad was so nice to all us new Writers of the Future kids last year.) "Ray of Light" is an engaging story with an emotionally charged ending. At the same time, it's a wonderful counterpoint to the dismal tone of so much of the current science fiction and fantasy field. Brad takes a bleak premise and turns it into an uplifting reading experience. Great work!

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novelette
1. Brad R. Torgersen - Ray of Light
2. Charlie Jane Anders - Six Months, Three Days
3. Rachel Swirsky - Fields of Gold
4. Geoff Ryman - What We Found
5. Paul Cornell - The Copenhagen Interpretation

Aaron's 2011 Hugo Recommendations :: Best Short Story & Best Novelette

I like to make recommendations for Hugo nominations in all the fiction categories, but this year I don't feel I've read enough novels and novellas to make recommendations. For what it's worth, however, so far my favorite novel from 2011 is Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (aka Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck), and my favorite novella is "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson.

On the other hand, I've read over 150 short stories and novelettes from 2011, so I'm very happy to make recommendations in those categories.

MY FIVE FAVORITE SHORT STORIES OF 2011:
Aliette de Bodard, Shipbirth (Asimov's, Feb '11)
Nancy Fulda, Movement (Asimov's, March '11)
Jeffrey Lyman, The Hanged Poet (IGMS, June '11)
Patrick O'Sullivan, Maddy Dune's First and Only Spelling Bee (Writers of the Future Vol. 27)
Ferrett Steinmetz, "Run," Bakri Says (Asimov's, Dec '11)

MY FIVE FAVORITE NOVELETTES OF 2011:
Ian Creasey, "I Was Nearly Your Mother" (Asimov's, March '11)
R.P.L. Johnson, In Apprehension, How Like a God (Writers of the Future Vol. 27)
Adam Perin, Medic! (Writers of the Future Vol. 27)
Matthew Sanborn Smith, Beauty Belongs to the Flowers (Tor.com, Jan '11)
Brad R. Torgersen, Ray of Light (Analog, Dec '11)

The fact that four of my fellow 2011 Writers of the Future winners appear on the list may reflect unconscious bias, but not conscious manipulation -- they really were four of my very favorite stories of the year.

I've listed these in alphabetical order, but out of all of them, my single favorite novelette of 2011 was "Ray of Light" by Brad R. Torgersen, and my single favorite short story was "Movement" by Nancy Fulda.

For more excellent short fiction from last year, click on the "Story Recommendations" label below.

Aaron's 2012 Hugo Recommendations :: Campbell Award for Best New Author

While technically not a Hugo Award, I encourage every Hugo voter to nominate for the Campbell Award for best new author. A great many excellent writers have joined the science fiction and fantasy field in the past two years. You can see a list of many of them over at the Writertopia Campbell page.

Here in alphabetical order are the new authors I am planning to nominate. Yes, I am crass enough to nominate myself, not because I think I have any chance of making the ballot, but because even seeing myself on the list of nominated authors would be a thrill. For each author, I'm listing one or two works to start with, if you're interested in giving these authors a try:

Monica Byrne ("Nine Bodies of Water," Fantasy; "Five Letters from New Laverne," Shimmer)
Van Aaron Hughes ("The Dualist," Writers of the Future Vol. 27; "Random Fire," Abyss & Apex)
Stina Leicht (Of Blood and Honey; And Blue Skies from Pain)
Patrick O'Sullivan ("Maddy Dune's First and Only Spelling Bee," Writers of the Future Vol. 27)
Brad R. Torgersen ("Ray of Light," Analog; "Exanastasis," Writers of the Future Vol. 26)

Monica Byrne and Brad Torgersen are in their second year of eligibility, while the others will get another chance next year. From this list, I think Stina Leicht and Brad Torgersen are the most likely to make the ballot. Nominations are due March 11.

Good luck to all the eligible new writers!

Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: Ray of Light by Brad R. Torgersen

An alarming trend over the past few years has been the dismal tone of most new science fiction. Gene Roddenberry credited the success of Star Trek to the fact that it offered viewers hope for the future. While there is plenty of excellent new science fiction today, not much of it is very hopeful. It's as if a few years' economic slowdown has defeated our collective abilities to imagine a better future.

My story recommendation of the week is for "Ray of Light" by Brad R. Torgersen, from the December 2011 issue of Analog (cover art by Bob Eggleton), which lives up to its title, a ray of light in the gloominess of 21st Century science fiction.

"Ray of Light" starts out well within the parameters of the dark style currently in vogue. The story is set some twenty years after aliens entered our solar system and scattered a cloud of small mirrors inside the Earth's orbit, depriving our world of most of the sun's light. Max Leighton and his teenage daughter Jenna are two of the small group of remaining humans, struggling to survive at the bottom of the frozen oceans. Early on, Max flashes back to when Jenna was four and asked why they didn't live where it's dry and sunny like the characters on Chloe and Joey, her favorite pre-catastophe kids' show:

People were dying all over the world when NASA and the Navy began deploying the deepwater stations. The Russians and Chinese, the Indians, all began doing the same. There was heat at the boundaries between tectonic plates. Life had learned to survive without the Sun near hydrothermal vents. Humans would have to learn to live there too.

And we did, after a fashion.

I explained this as best as I could to my daughter.

She grew very sad, a tiny, perplexed frown on her face.

"I don't want to watch Chloe and Joey anymore," she said softly.

Max and the other adults in this deep-water society work hard to keep everyone alive, but in their hearts they have lost hope for the future. Jenna and her young friends will need to teach them (and us) a lesson about maintaining the determination to reach for a better tomorrow. It makes for a moving reading experience.

I had the pleasure of meeting Brad Torgersen at the Writers of the Future workshop -- he was a winner the year before with his excellent story "Exanastasis," which you can find in Writers of the Future, Vol. XXVI. Brad is a Chief Warrant Officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, and looked sharp in his dress uniform at the WOTF ceremony. Since winning WOTF, he has become a regular in Analog. His story "Outbound" was the AnLab winner as Analog readers' favorite novelette of 2010, and I certainly won't be surprised if "Ray of Light" makes him a repeat winner.

Aaron's 2011 Hugo Recommendations :: Campbell Award for Best New Author

Technically the Campbell Award is not a Hugo Award, although I couldn't tell you why that is. It's voted on alongside all the other Hugos, and I've actually read enough excellent new authors recently to make Campbell recommendations this year.

Here in alphabetical order are the new authors I am planning to nominate. I'm also listing in parentheses a story I particularly enjoyed by each one, to give you a place to start if you care to check out their work:

Gwendolyn Clare ("Iron Oxide Red," Daily SF)
Keffy R.M. Kehrli ("Advertising at the End of the World," Apex)
Malinda Lo (Ash)
Ferrett Steinmetz ("As Below, So Above," Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Brad R. Torgersen ("Exanastasis," Writers of the Future, Vol. 26)

Except for Malinda Lo, all of these authors have to date focused on short fiction -- I confess I haven't read some of the new novelists who have been getting a lot of buzz, such as Lauren Beukes and Dexter Palmer -- and they all do it so well I would love to see some of them on the ballot.


UPDATE: I was poking around other folks' recommendations on the web, one of which suggested Malinda Lo for the Campbell. She is not on the Writertopia list of Campbell-eligible authors, but I can't figure why not -- I believe her first genre publication was Ash in 2009. Ash was an outstanding novel, so I'm adding her to my Campbell list. Unfortunately, that means someone else has to be bumped, so apologies to Monica Byrne, who still has a great future ahead of her.