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caeciliusinhorto) wrote2019-04-04 05:29 pm
caeciliusinhorto) wrote2019-04-04 05:29 pm
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2019 Hugo Awards
So the nominees for the 2019 Hugo Awards were announced the other day – the official list is here. Various people have already posted their thoughts on the nominees (and JJ at File770 has compiled an extremely useful Where to Find the Hugo Award Finalists for Free Online post), but here are mine:
The novel and novella selections are both extremely unsurprising to me. In novel, three nominees are sequels/prequels to previously-nominated works, the other three are all by authors who have previous Hugo fiction nominations. Three are double Nebula/Hugo nominations. Perhaps the most surprising is Valente, whose only previous Hugo fiction nom was way back in 2010, and who doesn't seem to have had Space Opera recognised by any other awards yet. In novella, the main question was which of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries works would be nominated – we now know it is Artificial Condition (I think to some people's surprise, though it's good news for me because it saves me reading 80,000-odd words to catch up to Exit Strategy. The only novella on the shortlist which I have read so far is The Tea Master and the Detective (essentially Sherlock Holmes In Space!), which I highly recommend (and it's nice to see that one of the nominees from that category isn't from Tor.com!)
Like novella, I have read one of the novelettes (Conolly's "Last Banquet of Temporal Confections") and, like Tea Master, it made my nominating ballot. Though almost all of the eligible fiction I read last year is from the short story and novella categories, I believe that Zen Cho and Simone Heller's works have both entirely passed me by – and though I was aware of the other three, I don't believe I have read any of them. On the other hand, I have read and enjoyed all six of the short story nominees, though none of them made my shortlist – again, there were so many good eligible works in the category!
In Related Work, I was very happy to see AO3 nominated, though there will inevitably be debate about how to compare such different things as a fan fiction archive and a non-fiction book like Nevala-Lee's Astounding; I have already seen discussion about whether the changes the Archive has made this year are significant enough for it to be eligible for the award at all. With a documentary in three parts and the Mexicanx Initiative also on the ballot, this is really a grab-bag category even by Best Related's usual standards.
I was slightly surprised The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition was deemed eligible for Best Art Book, but I was pleased to see that the illustrator, Charles Vess, was nominated for Pro Artist.
The novel and novella selections are both extremely unsurprising to me. In novel, three nominees are sequels/prequels to previously-nominated works, the other three are all by authors who have previous Hugo fiction nominations. Three are double Nebula/Hugo nominations. Perhaps the most surprising is Valente, whose only previous Hugo fiction nom was way back in 2010, and who doesn't seem to have had Space Opera recognised by any other awards yet. In novella, the main question was which of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries works would be nominated – we now know it is Artificial Condition (I think to some people's surprise, though it's good news for me because it saves me reading 80,000-odd words to catch up to Exit Strategy. The only novella on the shortlist which I have read so far is The Tea Master and the Detective (essentially Sherlock Holmes In Space!), which I highly recommend (and it's nice to see that one of the nominees from that category isn't from Tor.com!)
Like novella, I have read one of the novelettes (Conolly's "Last Banquet of Temporal Confections") and, like Tea Master, it made my nominating ballot. Though almost all of the eligible fiction I read last year is from the short story and novella categories, I believe that Zen Cho and Simone Heller's works have both entirely passed me by – and though I was aware of the other three, I don't believe I have read any of them. On the other hand, I have read and enjoyed all six of the short story nominees, though none of them made my shortlist – again, there were so many good eligible works in the category!
In Related Work, I was very happy to see AO3 nominated, though there will inevitably be debate about how to compare such different things as a fan fiction archive and a non-fiction book like Nevala-Lee's Astounding; I have already seen discussion about whether the changes the Archive has made this year are significant enough for it to be eligible for the award at all. With a documentary in three parts and the Mexicanx Initiative also on the ballot, this is really a grab-bag category even by Best Related's usual standards.
I was slightly surprised The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition was deemed eligible for Best Art Book, but I was pleased to see that the illustrator, Charles Vess, was nominated for Pro Artist.