The Hugos: The Case for No Award

Not all of my Hugo reading outside of the novel category* has been deeply disappointing. Just most of it, so far. Beautifully written stories? Yes. Competent? For sure. But most of these finely constructed tales have left me cold. I won't be grabbing friends and begging them to read one or the other. There'll be no lack of sleep, my mind bubbling over with, or disturbed by, alien concepts too large for it to hold.And that's what SF should be about, in my opinion: big ideas. Twist my brain until it goes 'pop!' Broaden my imagination; make me *feel* something, anything at all. I'm going to take it as a given that any story on the shortlist is written in a language I can understand and is clear enough for me to follow what's going on. Apart from that, here are the criteria, in order of importance, that will win my single vote:1) Sensawunda. Blow my mind with your big ideas. Do what Ted Chiang did in The Story of Your Life, or borrow just one drop of the insight that made Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix so great.2) Filter the world. Make it impossible for me to see anything the same way again. Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" infected me at a young age and I've yet to find a cure.3) Make me feel something. Flowers for Algernon, anyone? Silver Metal Lover? The distant, the passionless, need not apply. There's far too much of that about this year.4) Take me somewhere extraordinary. Call it escapism, if you like, except that some of the places aren't so pretty. Ian Watson's "The People of the Precipice" comes to mind. Eugie Foster's Nebula winner from last year, "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest" was brilliant in that regard.If you can do any one of the above, you'll probably get my vote as well as my advocacy of your work for the rest of eternity.** And after all of that? Sure, why not, I'll put it in here for you:5) Literary merit. A nice, finely balanced story. Judging by what I've read so far, most people only have room on their lists for number 5. That makes me sad.

*I was a lot happier with the nominees on the novel shortlist.**Terms and conditions apply.