Sue Burke's Blog, page 41

Worldcon San Jose: the 76th World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention

I attended Worldcon 76 with my husband and had a wonderful time, as always — this was my fourth Worldcon. It was a five day celebration with more than 5,500 of my best friends.

If you’ve never heard of Worldcon, it’s an annual event held in a different place each year that brings together fans of science fiction and fantasy, along with writers, editors, artists, musicians, costumers, scientists, and other creative folk. It’s also where the Hugo Awards are presented.

It’s been described as a gathering of family, a network of friends: old, new, and potential friends. And because we are all in one way or another creative — it is an active fandom — we can cross-fertilize with other countries, other genres, and other ideas. Creativity of all sorts is honored.

Since each Worldcon is in a different location, a lot of its organization depends on the local committee and the venue. Still, each Worldcon typically features opening and closing ceremonies, an art show, a costume contest called the Masquerade, concerts, music, a dealers’ area selling everything from books and games to jewelry and swords, history and science exhibits, films and videos, and dances. Children have their own programming track.

Events such as autograph sessions and literary beers or kaffeeklatsches give fans a chance to meet their favorite writers, artists, and editors. During the day, panels cover topics such as “Introduction to Korean Science Fiction for English Speakers,” “The Art and Craft of Anthology Creation,” and “Philip K. Dick and Reality.”

In the evening, parties of all sorts are held, usually in hotel rooms and suites. At any moment, anywhere, you might walk past someone dressed as an elf or stormtrooper. If all this sounds a bit mind-boggling, it is.

And the whole thing, from top to bottom, beginning to end, is run by passionate volunteers.

Here’s my report about how I had fun at Worldcon 76.

Thursday, August 16

A slight haze veiled the hills around Santa Clara Valley as our airplane from Chicago descended into the San Jose Airport. California has a fire problem, and a little smoke and ash had drifted to the area, also known as Silicon Valley. I’d spent the flight reading Rogue Protocol, the third novella in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. The first novella in the series, All Systems Red , was up for a Hugo at Worldcon 76, which was already underway at the San Jose Convention Center downtown.

My husband and I met some other convention-goers as we took a bus and then light rail to downtown. We checked into our hotel, the Fairmont; I convinced it not to charge me $13.95 a day for internet connection (the swimming pool is free, but not the internet?). We went to the Convention Center two blocks away and waited an hour in line to get our credentials.

By then opening ceremonies were about to start, but I went to the Publications Office because I had volunteered to help with the convention newsletter, The Tower. I did some proofreading, then left with a stack for distribution. That job took me to the Exhibition Hall containing the art show, dealers, gamers, and more. It was an impressive space.

Then I met up with my husband, and we wandered back to our hotel for parties, and a couple of hours later, suddenly it was time to go to bed.

Friday, August 17

The next morning I attended the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America meeting, hoping to get some breakfast there, but by the time I arrived at 8:05 a.m., five minutes after it opened, all that was left was oatmeal, yummy oatmeal. I learned that SFWA was having a good year full of activities. At 10 a.m., I was assigned an hour in the autographs area in the Exhibition Hall and met some fans and signed some books. I was awed to meet them. They liked my book enough to seek me out!

At noon, at a panel, some authors who were part of the Mexicanx Initiative read their works in Spanish. Artist Guest of Honor John Picacio had organized a fundraising drive to sponsor 50 authors, artists, filmmakers, and fans from Mexico to attend the convention. I came to the reading to enjoy the music of the language of Cervantes, and I found an author I want to read more of.

Next I heard Jo Walton read from her next book, Lent, which apparently contains lots of scary demons and sounded worth reading. Then I checked in at the newsletter office and was assigned to distribute more newsletters. I attended some panels, and at 5 p.m. moderated “Exploring a Wider Universe: Beyond the World of Anglophone SF/F.” We had panelists from China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Mexico, and Spain (me). It ended with a story by the Saudi publisher about how he and his author battled censors over the fantasy/magic content of a book.

I attended another panel, got some food at the Art Show opening, and looked at all the exhibits (lots of cats and kittens in the art), then attended room parties at the Fairmont Hotel. Many of the parties were a bit overcrowded. I think that might be because the Fairmont lobby bar had a band playing with its speakers set to 11. Talking was impossible, and we had all come to meet and talk, so we had no alternative social space besides the parties.

Saturday, August 18

I helped proofread and distribute the morning edition of the newsletter, then went to panels. A couple of times, the ones I hoped to attend were full, which was how I found myself in “The Magic of Plotting” presented by Kay Kenyon , which I hadn’t meant to attend, but her ideas helped me enormously with the novel I’m trying to write now.

That afternoon, a group of self-described “patriots” held a rally in front of the convention to protest … something, I’m not sure what, and some of the groups that promised to participate had a worrisome history of violence. So when the rally was underway, I went to a window to see what was happening. “Just a dozen guys are out there,” a man who’d been watching for a while told me, “and I think some of them might actually be waiting for the bus.” We had worried over nothing.

Because I’m bilingual, I was chosen to moderate “Beyond the Border II: Borders, Crossings, and the Lands Beyond.” This was a Spanish-language discussion about the future of Mexican SF. I had little to do besides open the discussion and direct things now and then. The panel had a lot to say, especially about subverting Mexican publishers’ narrow expectations.

At another panel, “Houston, We Have a Problem,” I saw astronaut Kjell Lindgren and other people in the space program describe how they plan for problems. “Failure is not an option, it’s a necessity,” Lindgren said. Things will go wrong, so they rehearse solutions to all kinds of trouble before the mission begins.

Next I took part in the Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading, and I read a little essay about describing how if I were a plant, I would rule the Earth. Broad Universe is an organization that promotes the work of women writers, and often at conventions it hosts a reading featuring a series of authors, in this case 15. Most of us read from one of our books, but I read about a theme related to my book. It was meant to be funny, and people laughed, so I think it worked.

That evening, my agent hosted a dinner for her clients and their guests. She tries to get us to know each other, so it was a dinner of friends.

After that, my husband and I toured a few parties.

Sunday, August 19

After a satisfying breakfast of bagels and lox in the Con Suite, where the convention offers free food, I helped with proofreading and delivery of the morning newsletter, then participated in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association poetry reading, celebrating the association’s 40th anniversary. Then I attended other panels. At “Why Do Writers Kill Characters?” Ada Palmer said a wise thing: It’s not the death of a character that affects the readers, it’s the mourning for that character in the story.

My literary agency sponsored an afternoon reception at a local brewpub — San Jose has lots of them — so I went, and we all did our best to help spend the budget. The beer was good, and the company delightful.

Then everyone got ready for the Hugo Awards. The line to get into the Grand Ballroom was long, but my husband and I headed for the Callahan’s Place bar area of the Exhibition Hall, where the ceremony would be livecast and food and drinks were available. A lot of people had that idea, so chairs from other parts of the hall were commandeered.

The ceremony went well, but halfway through I left to go to the newsletter office. There, behind a locked door, the team was preparing a special Hugo edition listing the winners. I helped with proofreading — and I checked, All Systems Red (Murderbot) had won the novella category. In the other categories, I was satisfied by the winners, but it had been a strong ballot, so my satisfaction was guaranteed. The newsletter was printed, and I was dispatched with copies to distribute when the ceremony was over. As I waited in the Grand Ballroom, papers clutched tight against wandering eyes, I saw Martha Wells try not to cry as she said thank you, and N.K. Jemisin describe how hard she had labored to bring her writing to the world.

I handed out newsletters as people left the auditorium, and they seemed glad to receive them. When those had been distributed, my husband and I had intended to go to a dance, but it was cancelled, so we went instead to parties at the hotel. The Brony Boys (male fans of the My Little Pony television series) turned out to be young men who were fired up by the idea that the world would be a nicer place if we would all just be kind to one another. Hard to argue with that. At another party, I said I had a sore throat, and a San Jose local said that might be due to the smoke in the air.

Monday, August 20

Alas, it was not due to smoke, and I woke up with the start of a “con crud” cold the next morning. The newsletter office wasn’t open, so after more bagels and lox in the Con Suite, I had time for one panel before leaving, “Computer History” by Christopher J. Garcia. I was more interested in seeing Chris Garcia than I was in computer history. He’s a curator at the Computer History Museum and has a famously exuberant personality. His talk was an entertaining hour, at times a little technical, but I understood why some of the jokes were funny.

Then it was time to go to the airport. On the plane, I read a book I got at a freebie table at the convention, Yaqteenya, by Yassar Bahjatt, Saudi Arabian science fiction and an interesting tale of alternate history. I had lots of time for reading. A storm delayed our arrival by five hours. Eventually we landed in sodden Chicago, and at 2 a.m. I was in bed.

It had been a five-day celebration with more than five thousand best friends. It was intense. And fun. Next year: Dublin, Ireland.

Review of "Rogue Protocol" by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little.”

That sort of observation is why I love Murderbot. I expected to enjoy this novella and I did, even more than the first two in the series. Murderbot is a clever, part-organic robot meant to be a security unit, but a while back it broke free of its corporate owner. In the first novella, it knew it had once killed a lot of people and didn’t know why. In the second novella, it searched to find out why. In this one, it learns even more.

But in the process, sometimes against its better judgement, it keeps having to do its job as a security unit and protect human beings from harm, either through attack by outside forces or from squabbling within a team. And at each step, Murderbot learns a little more about itself. In the third novella, it sees something disturbing about how robots can be treated.

I read this on the airplane on the way to Worldcon 76, the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California. At the convention, Martha Wells won a Hugo Award for the first installment in the series, All Systems Red. She was delighted, and it had faced tough competition. I was delighted because it had been my first choice for the award.

Now I’m eager to read the conclusion, Exit Strategy, but I have to wait until October.

-- Sue Burke

View all my reviews

My Goodreads review: "Children of Time"

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


People who had read my novel, Semiosis, recommended this book to me, so I bought it, and they were right, it’s a good book. Later I learned that Adrian Tchaikovsky had provided the extremely favorable cover blurb for the British edition of my novel. I owe him one for that.

There’s a lot to love aboutChildren of Time. Tchaikovsky probably doesn’t know it, but in the Kindle edition, at the 99% mark (that is, at the very end) this sentence has been highlighted by 686 readers: “Life is not perfect, individuals will always be flawed, but empathy — the sheer inability to see those around them as anything other than people too — conquers all, in the end.”

This assertion is the rocket fuel that propels the book to science fiction’s heights. Our better natures triumph.

Just as I had been told, the book touches on some of the same themes as mine: human beings attempting to colonize other planets, first contact with non-human life forms, and the sad certainty that humans will make at least a few foolish choices. Tchaikovsky approaches those questions from an entirely different angle, though, one that produces a different but very satisfying story.

He also uses some wise storytelling techniques. The narration alternates between the stories of humans and uplifted spiders. He finds a way to follow the same human beings across a long period of time (600 pages and thousands of years). The new masters of humanity’s last refuge, the spiders, go through a great many generations (this is not a spoiler) but they keep the same names. All this helps the reader move easily through a complex and ambitious plot.

In the end, the humans and spiders enter into direct conflict, but they don’t share the same culture or technology, so they don’t want the same outcome from the conflict. This is the ending that inspired so many highlighters.

Permeating both his book and mine is this question: How would intelligence differ in different species? It’s a question with as many right answers as there are species. Tchaikovsky’s book considers what spiders would think if they could think. He works through that question with patience and logic and creates a fascinating alien civilization.

I have only one quibble. The ideal reader for this book would have arachnophobia. I do not, and now I wish I did so I would have enjoyed the book even more as I overcame my fears during the course of the story. Here on Earth, I admire the spiders I encounter, even the ones inside my house — they eat mosquitoes, so I consider them allies. What if we could go to the stars with these clever beings? This book makes me want to do that.

-- Sue Burke


View all my reviews

Why writers hate (some) editors

Every writer needs an editor. Another pair of experienced eyes can strengthen any written work. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to edit.

First, let me clarify that there are several kinds of editing, generally falling into these three categories:

• Developmental, substantive, or structural editing helps give overall shape to the piece: what to include or exclude, how to control the pacing, and how to make sure that the piece flows logically from beginning to end. This kind of editing should be done fairly early in the process, and it’s what a critique group ought to do. It’s “big picture.”

• Copyediting or line editing is what most people who aren’t trained as editors (yes, you can go to school for that) think of when they think of “editor.” Copyediting should fix grammar, usage, tangled syntax, and mistakes, and in general should polish the prose. This is what I’m going to be talking about because this is where wannabe editors get confused and abusive. Copyediting works at the paragraph and sentence level.

• Proofreading or mechanical editing checks for typos and makes sure that a style sheet is applied (whether you abbreviate months, spell out numbers, and so on). This is sometimes confused with copyediting by wannabe editors who are tasked to proofread but who get over-ambitious. Proofreading should look at the individual words and punctuation marks.

How do you copyedit correctly? Here is the rule: Only suggest changes to correct an objective error or problem. “Objective” means you should be able to explain the precise reason for the change. “In this sentence, the antecedent is separated from its pronoun.” “There might be too many short sentences in a row in this passage.” “The reader would be helped if the attribution were moved up in the quote.” “This paragraph isn’t in chronological order and is confusing.” “Bullet points and parallel construction could work well here.”

Any piece of writing can be changed in an almost infinite number of ways, however. Just because something can be changed, that doesn’t mean it should be changed. You are not a good editor because you can see all the possible changes. You are a good editor because you can see all the necessary changes. If the meaning is easy to understand, the writing won’t need much changing at all.

Bad editors want to change things that don’t need to be changed. They tip their hand in their explanation for their edits because they can cite no objective reason. They say something like, “I made it sound better.” “It reads smoother.” Why? “It just does.”

Usually it doesn’t sound better or read smoother — not objectively. “Sounds better” is a subjective judgement. The wannabe editors believe it sounds better because it does — to their ears. This is what these wannabe editors actually mean but don’t realize that they mean: “It sounds more like I wrote it.” Their changes sound better to their ears because we all love the sound of our own voice. My voice is uniquely beautiful to me. You have a voice, too. It’s not like mine, yet it should be respected.

When bad editors change your writing “to sound better,” they make it sound like their own voice, not like yours. In the process, they silence your voice. This may infuriate you, and it should.

You have a right to be yourself. Your writing ought to reflect your voice, and it should sound like you wrote it, not like someone else did. Good editors, if they fiddle with the voice at all, try to make the writing sound even more distinctively like the writer’s own unique, beautiful voice.

Good editors respect and celebrate the writer. They do not impose their own voice. They only change what needs to be changed. Writers love editors like that.

— Sue Burke

Where to find me at Worldcon

I’ll be at Worldcon 76, the World Science Fiction Convention, from August 16 to 20 in San Jose, California. Here’s my official schedule. I’ll also be working as staff of the Worldcon newsletter, The Tower.

Autographs, Friday, August 17, 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., in the Convention Center Autograph Area
Also signing during that hour will be Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, Richard Hescox, G. David Nordley, and JY Yang. This is a good time to come say hi, no autograph request necessary. I don’t expect long lines.

Exploring a Wider Universe: Beyond the World of Anglophone SFF, a panel on Friday, August 17, 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., in 210B
A tremendous amount of high-quality science fiction and fantasy is being published around the world. In XB-1 in Czechia, in Nowa Fantastyka in Poland, in Hayakawa SF in Japan. In countries like Mexico, Spain, Nigeria, France, Italy, Hungary, South Korea, and many more. What is being published? Join us as we chart this universe of stories that English readers may not be familiar with, but should be!
I will be moderating. Panelists: Rani Graff, Yasser Bahjatt, Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, Crystal Huff, Yao Haijun.

Beyond The Border II: Borders, Crossings, and The Lands Beyond, a panel on Saturday, August 18, 2:00 to 3:00 p.m., in 210B
Some of the first SF books were written in Spanish. Some of the most prominent speculative films of the last few decades have a Mexican as a director. Speculative fiction has taken many shapes in Spanish throughout history, and now we want to talk beyond the past and the present and into the future. We want to think about the ways SF written in Spanish might be evolving and the routes it is taking. What have the borders done? What are the similarities and differences with English and between Spanish countries? Have geography and language created something different on the other side? Where do we imagine it may be going? Panelists will discuss in Spanish with an English translator for non-Spanish-speaking audience members.
I will be moderating and translating. Panelists: Gabriela Damián Miravete, Gerardo Horacio Porcayo, José Luis Zárate, Andrea Chapela Saavedra.

Broad Universe Rapid-Fire Reading, Saturday, August 19, 210G
Broad Universe is a nonprofit international organization of women and men dedicated to celebrating and promoting the work of women writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror. In our Rapid-Fire Reading, members will read a few minutes of their works: just enough to whet your appetite. Come see how many genres we can jam into one group reading. I’ll tell you what would happen if I were a plant.
Loren Rhoads moderator, and quite a few of us presenting scrupulously timed four-minute-max readings.

Poetry Reading, Sunday, August 19, 11:00 a.m. to Noon, 212C
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) was created in 1978 to bring together poets and readers interested in speculative poetry. Some of its members will share their favorite speculative poems in this reading.
G.O. Clark, moderator, Mary Soon Lee, John Philip Johnson, Sue Burke, Alan Stewart, Denise Clemons, Andrea Blythe.

— Sue Burke

“Semiosis” is now available in Great Britain and Australia

HarperCollins has just published a paperback, ebook, and audiobook edition of Semiosis in Great Britain available today, August 9, and in Australia.

The cover art, similar to the American cover art, features the leaves of a sundew plant ( Drosera ). The dew-like drops on the hairs of its leaves are actually a kind of glue that attracts and traps insects. Then the hairs and tentacle wrap around the victim and excrete digestive fluid. The leaves are also sometimes referred to as “tentacles.” The idea of motile, flesh-eating tentacles on plants is creepy. I’m glad sundews are small, because they grow in many areas of the Earth, including the American Midwest, where I live.

The text hasn’t been adapted to British English, which disappoints me a bit. I would have enjoyed seeing the word “color” with an extra U.

British author Stephen Baxter was given an advance copy, and he said this: “Semiosis combines the world-building of Avatar with the alien wonder of Arrival, and the sheer humanity of Atwood. An essential work for our time.”

I am blushing.

— Sue Burke

The weight of human life on Earth

If you weighed every living thing on Earth, what kinds of things would weigh the most?

Scientists Yinon M. Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo tried to answer that question. They estimated the amount of carbon stored in organisms — that is, our planet’s biomass: wild birds, viruses, fish, plants, fungi, etc. Overall, it amounts to roughly 550 gigatons of carbon. Their paper, “The biomass distribution on Earth,” was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America on May 21, 2018.

The numbers are rough but revealing. The authors come to several conclusions, including “the mass of humans is an order of magnitude higher than that of all wild mammals combined.”

You can see it in the chart. Humans amount to 0.06 gigatons. We outweigh wild mammals, which are a mere 0.007 gigatons; our livestock outweighs us both together at 0.11 gigatons. Wild birds amount to 0.002 gigatons, while domesticated poultry weigh three times more.

Plants rule the planet at 450 gigatons of life, but the authors of the study estimate that since the start of human civilization, the total biomass of plants has fallen to half its previous level.

You can read the six-page article at PNAS or reports about the article at The Economist and Vox. Vox has created an especially easy-to-understand chart. The Economist explains briefly but carefully the enormous impact that human beings have had on the planet.

We rule the Earth and have changed it in ways we don’t notice day to day. The big picture is instructive. It tells us how a single species can entirely reshape the structure of life on a planet.

— Sue Burke

P.S. On a related note, this article at Bloomberg shows how land in the United States is used: pastures, forests, crops, urbanizations, and special uses like parks, roads, and golf courses. Most land is used as livestock pasture/range. Considering the weight of livestock, this comes as no surprise.

The Hugo Awards: my thoughts on the novella nominees

The Hugo Best Novella Award goes to a work of science fiction or fantasy between 17,500 and 40,000 words — a fine length for speculative fiction. I’ve read all the nominees, and these are my votes. The Hugo Award uses instant run-off voting, so voters can rank their preferences: it’s all explained here.

I’m a little harsh because I have to rank these. They’re all good stories and well worth reading, no matter what else I say.

6. Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)
This is #2 in the Binti series. A young woman named Binti, who in novella #1 had gone off to study at a university and in the process ended a war and became a hero, must now return home. As in the first novella, there are complications with her family, with her culture, and with the larger galaxy — and she must also find out more about her identity. It’s a coming-of-age story with interesting details, but the narration rambles and the plot twists are few and not always surprising. The novella is also clearly part of a series and doesn’t quite stand alone. Although Binti is charming, the storytelling about her is a bit less so. Binti #1 won the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

5. The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)
In a Asian-like culture with two moons and fluid genders, twins are driven apart as children by their tyrannical mother, the country’s dictator, who rules with a bloodstained iron hand. Technology is managed by those gifted with the control of a sort of elements-based magic, and the tyrant and her family are among those gifted. But a rebellion against the dictator, using mechanical technology, brings the twins, now adults, back together. At times, the writing seems a little cliche and approaches purple prose, and some characters, including the evil mother, get little development. The story doesn’t quite end, either, instead setting up a sequel. This novella was a finalist for a Nebula Award.

4. River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)
The Wild, Wild West with hippos. A man of few scruples and a thirst for revenge assembles a crew with even fewer scruples and a variety of essential skills to clear the fierce, feral hippos out of a Louisiana swamp. (The prologue explains how they got there.) Repeatedly, the man denies that his plan is a caper, but it is: a predictable story right down to the many reversals, much like a matinee movie except that this story has a lot of savage murders. Despite the bloodshed, this is a fun farce of an old-fashioned Western — with hippos! — but I was hoping for something a little more solid and original. A Nebula Award finalist.

3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com)
At age 12, twin sisters, Jacqueline and Jillian, or Jack and Jill, find a portal in the attic that leads to a fantasyland. They’re glad to go. Their parents aren’t abusive, just self-centered and clueless in a way that makes both girls miserable and emotionally stunted, one a tomboy and the other a princess. In fantasyland, their roles are reversed, and they change. After a few years, they have to escape back to reality, which is where the story ends. I wish it had gone on just a bit longer. I would have loved to see how the parents reacted to their now older, wiser, and different daughters, one of them blood-spattered upon her arrival (not her own blood, either). Although the story was in some ways predictable, the plot twists sometimes felt more like knife twists and kept the story surprising. A worthy contender for a Hugo, and it’s already won the 2018 ALA Alex Award.

2. “And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 3-4/17)
Sarah Pinsker (not the author) gets an invitation to a Sarah Pinsker convention being organized by Sarah Pinsker, the quantologist, who has found a way to connect alternate realities. More than two hundred Sarahs come from a wide variety of divergence points, some very similar to other Sarahs, a few quite different, and from similar or different Earths. In one, for example, Seattle has been destroyed by an earthquake. Then a Sarah Pinsker is murdered. Which one? By which one? Why? Sarah (the author) does a good job of showing the weirdness of being surrounded by people almost just like yourself. This novella was also nominated for the Nebula, Locus, and Sturgeon Awards.

1. All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
I was among those who nominated this, a straight-up science fiction adventure. The narrator’s mordant attitude makes the story outstanding: a robot who has killed in the past, who is sure everyone hates it because of that, and who hates itself, too. It’s possibly clinically depressed and spends its time trying to lose itself in its favorite video series, secretly dreaming of not being a slave to a brutal, profiteering corporation. But it does its job to protect people on a dangerous mission, even risking its own life, in a way that those people didn’t expect. This story won the ALA Alex Award and the Nebula, and it was also my vote for the Nebula.

— Sue Burke

My votes for the Hugo novelette nominees

What a fine choice! This year all the Hugo nominees in all the categories seem pretty strong. This includes the novelettes.

The Hugos, of course, are the awards presented at Worldcon — this year in San Jose on Sunday evening, August 19. I’ll be at Worldcon, ready to cheer the winner.

Many of the Hugo nominations were also Nebula nominations, so I’ve repeated what I had to say about them. In order from sixth to first place, these are my votes. If my comments sometimes seem harsh, remember that I’m looking for reasons not to rank them all as number one, and I’m ranking them all above “No Award.” That means that whoever wins, I’ll be satisfied.

6. “Extracurricular Activities,” Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com, 2/15/17)
A special ops agent gets sent on a secret mission to rescue a fellow agent. Our agent is supremely confident, and the story tries to be both tense and humorous. It felt like a caper, and obviously some people liked it more than I did. Apparently it’s part of a larger series, and it might have helped to know that setting. Still, to me the jokes seemed tired and the violence was not funny. I also don’t see what’s cute about sexual harassment just because it’s between two men. #MeToo

5. “Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time,” K.M. Szpara (Uncanny 5-6/17)
A man in the process of transitioning from female to male gets turned into a vampire. The difficulties of his human-to-vampire transition become more complex due to his gender transition, and he struggles. There are hot sex scenes. Beyond the transitional complications, which echo the transition from human to vampire, though, there’s not much of a new take on vampirism in this story.

4. “The Secret Life of Bots,” by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, 9/17)
A brave little robot, Bot 9, must exterminate a sort of rat through the bowels of a spaceship. As it happens, the future of humanity depends on the success of Bot 9, which in turn needs the help of other robots to catch the ratbug, and a few protocols are broken in the making of that improvised rescue. This story is very cute. I’m not a big fan of cute, but I will give recognition to a job well done. If you like cute, read this story. You’ll be glad you did.

3. “Children of Thorns,” Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny 7-8/17)
In disguise, a pair of spies from the dragon kingdom under the Seine try to infiltrate the House of the Fallen Angels. The setting is a magically dystopic Paris, and the House is about to have its own magical crisis. It meets Bodard’s usual standards of tight writing, characterization, and plotting, with wonderful details slipped in. My only problem is that it feels like an opening chapter to a novel — a fine opening chapter, but there should be more. For me, that diminishes what is in every other way an excellent work.

2. “Wind Will Rove,” Sarah Pinsker (Asimov’s 9-10/17)
On a multi-generational ship, the older generations cling to what they recall from Earth or have learned about it. For the narrator, this means music. Younger generations grow rebellious, eager to create their own music and arts or to forget Earth’s culture and history altogether. These children know they will grow up in a static society on a voyage that seemed romantic to their elders but is confining to them. Despite the skill in storytelling, the focus seemed a bit off to me. I learned a lot about the narrator’s family and music, especially one particular song, but not as much about what is going on in the ship. The need to change and adapt became symbolized by that song, but the story got stuck on the symbol rather than a resolution of the on-board problems.

1. “A Series of Steaks,” Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Clarkesworld 1/17)
This was one of five finalists for Clarkesworld magazine’s Reader’s Poll. My story “Who Won the Battle of Arsia Mons?” was also a finalist. As soon as I read “A Series of Steaks,” I knew I was likely to lose. A woman in China agrees to make counterfeit beefsteaks for a client, then the deal starts to go sour. Three things impressed me: the quiet desperation of the main character, the philosophical musings about the art of forgery, and the thoroughly satisfying ending.

— Sue Burke

How I sort of ate lunch with the FIFA World Cup trophy

In 1994, the United States hosted the World Cup soccer (football) competition, and before the games, the World Cup trophy went on tour across the country to try to whip up enthusiasm for the sport.

I was living in Milwaukee at the time, and a friend and I happened to go to a shopping mall where it was on display, so we paused to look at it. We weren’t big soccer fans, but how often would we get to see something that famous?

So we stood there admiring it on a stand near the central garden. A man in a suit who was obviously a security guard observed us impassively. I felt a little disappointed that we were the only shoppers who seemed interested. So much for whipping up enthusiasm. If it were on display in much of the world, a long line would be waiting just to get close. But back then Milwaukee wasn’t a big soccer town. Things might be different now.

The trophy itself is a big chunk of solid gold with a pair of green malachite rings around the bottom. I didn’t like the design much, which seemed a little knobby to me, but it was big and shiny – about 36 cm/14 inches tall, weighing 5 kilos/11 pounds. That much gold is worth around US$200,000.

To help with perspective, here’s a detail of a photo that shows the trophy being presented by then Vice President Al Gore to the Brazilian team, which won the 1994 World Cup. That’s what $200,000 looks like, to say nothing of the cost of everything else surrounding the tournament, which would be a number with a metric shit-load of zeros.

After we had stood enraptured for long enough, we went on to buy whatever it was that had brought us to the mall, and later stopped for lunch at a fast food restaurant. As we sat down, the trophy’s guard came in with a trophy-sized briefcase handcuffed to one of his wrists, and we guessed what was inside. He bought lunch and sat at a nearby table.

My friend and I speculated about the security. There couldn’t be just one guy protecting that much gold, right? Without a doubt, we decided, someone was guarding the guard, but we couldn’t figure out who.

And that’s as close as I’ll ever get to the World Cup trophy. I sort of ate lunch with it once.

— Sue Burke