Hugo nominees 2018
As you may know, Hugo nominees were announced this past weekend. Passover/Easter weekend seems like an odd and rather inconvenient choice, and I believe there was a certain amount of pushback about that. Certainly I’d think a new tradition of announcing the nominees on, say, the first Monday of April seems like it would be better.
Anyway, finally got a chance to look up the nominees this morning. I’m not going to WorldCon this year and I don’t expect to buy a voting membership, but I’m still somewhat interested and you may be too, so here are the categories that interest me:
Best Novel
The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi
New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson
Provenance, by Ann Leckie
Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee
Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty
The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin
Best Novella
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells
“And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker
Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor
The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang
Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire
River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey
Best Novelette
“Children of Thorns, Children of Water,” by Aliette de Bodard
“Extracurricular Activities,” by Yoon Ha Lee
“The Secret Life of Bots,” by Suzanne Palmer
“A Series of Steaks,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time,” by K.M. Szpara
“Wind Will Rove,” by Sarah Pinsker
Best Short Story
“Carnival Nine,” by Caroline M. Yoachim
“Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” by Fran Wilde
“Fandom for Robots,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“The Martian Obelisk,” by Linda Nagata
“Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon
“Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience
,” by Rebecca Roanhorse
Best Series
The Books of the Raksura, by Martha Wells
The Divine Cities, by Robert Jackson Bennett
InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire
The Memoirs of Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan
The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson
World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Overwhelmingly a Usual Suspects kind of list. Basically all the same names as the last few years. Not completely, obviously, but I’m must admit that I’m not super-keen that so many of the same authors always get nominated over and over. I expect people just pick up Scalzi’s latest with the expectation that of course they will nominate it; same with McGuire; same with some of the others. Yep, not really likely to buy a voting membership this year.
Except! I might, just to vote for Martha Wells in both her categories, especially the novella category. Not that I’ve read the other nominees, and “And Then There Were N-One” is such a great title I would hope to love that story.
For Series, it would be hard to choose between the Raksura series, the Lady Trent series, and the Five Gods series. Tough choices there! Though I believe I would go for the former on the grounds that I’ve always read each Raksura novel the same week it was released and I’ve loved all of them, whereas I’m two years behind now with the Lady Trent series and did not really love the third Five Gods book.
Of course if I do buy a voting membership, I would have to read the nominees in all these categories so I could actually vote knowledgeably. Quite a commitment.
If you’re interested, here is a complete list of all the nominees in all the categories.
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With the proviso that I haven't read a lot of them, I agree with your "same-old, same-old" response. I liked Provenance a lot, but it felt like a diversion, not, you know, Hugo quality. Not being a member, I shouldn't complain, I guess. For the series, if you haven't read the Divine Cities one, you might like it. That was one that actually did blow me away, although it suffered from none of the sequels quite living up to the first one, which was spectacularly good.
I did read the first Divine Cities book, and liked it a lot, but it was one of those that I admired more than loved, if you know what I mean. Not sure why I didn't connect to it emotionally as much as with some.I haven't read Provenance yet, but I'm trying not to expect it to be as fabulous as the Ancillary trilogy since that would be hard.
I read a lot of new-to-me authors every year. I could wish everyone did, and then also carefully thought about whether the new-to-them authors might possibly be more award-worthy than the famous authors that always get nominated for everything. I think people may be nominating certain authors out of sheer habit. But who knows, maybe they all genuinely feel that those authors are the only ones writing award-worthy books...
