The Hugo Award Showcase, 2010 Volume

by Mary Robinette Kowal (Editor), Elizabeth Bear, John Kessel

Each year, members of the World Science Fiction Convention vote for the science fiction and fantasy works they love the most: the Hugo Awards. Now, for the first time in more than a decade, you can find these treasured gems within a single volume. The Hugo Award Showcase collects the stories—by rising stars like Kij Johnson, beloved taleslingers like Michael Swanwick, and literary legends like Nancy Kress—that have captured the hearts and imaginations of some of the genre’s most dedicated readers.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy

443 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 20, 2010

About the author

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winning alternate history novel The Calculating Stars, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series which continues in 2025 with The Martian Contingency. She is also the author of The Glamourist Histories series, Ghost Talkers, The Spare Man and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo awards, the Nebula and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Uncanny, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary Robinette has also worked as a professional puppeteer, is a member of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses, and performs as a voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), recording fiction for authors including Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and Neal Stephenson. She lives in Denver with her husband Robert, their dog Guppy, and their “talking” cat Elsie.

Her novel Calculating Stars is one of only eighteen novels to win the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards in a single year.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It pains me to say it, but I did not enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped. Oh, the stories are all very good at least (though the absence of Ted Chiang's winning short story "Exhalation" from this volume is keenly felt). Unfortunately, the Introduction and forewords to each story were inane and, apparently, not proofread at all. From calling Elizabeth Bear's winning novelette "hoggoths in Bloom" to the double-whammy of "the rich culture that poulates Gehanna" for Michael Swanwick's story set on a world named after Gehenna (the destination of the wicked in Jewish and early Christian writing), every page of the interstitial matter had one or more glaring errors, without adding much insight to the stories themselves by way of compensation.

Skip that stuff and go straight to the stories, which include gems like the aforementioned "Shoggoths in Bloom" by Elizabeth Bear; John Kessel's "Pride and Prometheus"; Robert Reed's "Truth" and Ian McDonald's complex Jack Vancian "The Tear," which ends the volume. It's a nice package, once you get past the wrapping.

[Nathaniel Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the earliest things I noticed was that getting an author to edit an anthology is evidently a poor idea. Ms Kowal, throughout her additions and introductions, deeply needed an editor of her own.

The stories themselves varied. Since it is an anthology, reviewing it en masse seems inappropriate.

Instead, I shall offer brief thoughts on each story:
"Pride and Prometheus" -- original, decently compelling, and certainly reminiscent of Mary Shelley to some degree, though not stylistically (I have read aught of Jane Austen, whence I suspect Mr. Kessel got his stylistic appropriations).

"26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" -- clever; cute, but not in a bad way; kept me reading, kept me interested, but ultimately, the big reveal was less wowing and quite... acceptable.

"The Erdmann Nexus" -- an interesting take on psychological evolution and human nature; yet another story detailing how humanity is different from the rest of the universe due to our barbarism, but offers an intriguing juxtaposition with our capacity for growth.

"From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled" -- engaging; an appropriate, clever, intermediate evolutionary tale of humankind, beyond the immediacy of "The Erdmann Nexus," but not so far as "The Tear," even if the ending is unsatisfying.

"Shoggoths in Bloom" -- interesting enough, I suppose, but I've never really been a Lovecraft fan, so I was not as captured by the story as I'm sure some would be; also, Ms Kowal informing me what an amazing, incredible writer Ms Bear was in her introduction didn't do Ms Bear any favors.

"Truth" -- foreboding and clever, I suppose, but I saw the ending coming from a few miles away and the author's political editorializing took the great potential of this story and trivialized it, turning something that could have been really ingenious into something little more adept than a caricature drawing of a man with a large nose and large ears choking on a pretzel.

"The Ray-Gun: A Love Story" -- fun style, clever plot, appropriate (if a bit overused) comparison between human and alien ideas, and I didn't personally appreciate the sensual elements, but I can understand how others can relate to them, keeping this story among the three best in this anthology, in my opinion.

"Evil Robot Monkey" -- this very short story ultimately seemed pointless; unless there is evidenced here some personal retelling for the author (also the editor of the anthology), I don't see much purpose beyond an explanation that hyperintelligent chimpanzees would fit neither into human nor chimp society. Honestly, I found her introduction to her own work more enjoyable than the story itself.

"The Tear" -- certainly an inventive approach to human evolution, but so far removed from the original article that comparison is relegated to the reader's own task; the author seems content to be imaginative and ethereal; unlike "Babel" above, "The Tear" is so distant from present human nature that I was immediately bored and never found any redeeming qualities in a character study of an utterly alien society.

The TL;DR version: the Skilled: Kessel, Johnson, Kress, Swanwick, Reed, Gardner; the Uninteresting: Bear, Kowal, McDonald; the Pleasant: Johnson, Gardner; the Unsatisfying: Swanwick, Reed, Kowal, McDonald.

[Sheila Soprovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories, novellettes from the 2009 Hugos. Hit and miss with the stories - a few of them require a great deal of thought (mindboggling stretches of language and concept). Lots of variety. I still prefer science fantasy to science fiction.

[Loren C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of good stuff in this one, the ray gun one (there is always one amirite) and the nursing home one were my favorites.

[Cybercrone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some not-so-good stories here, some good, and a couple really good.

[Harriet · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories inside were good, though some weren't to my taste. The editing on the other hand....she misspelled the title to her own short story. I think that sums it up.

[Kt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fabulous. All but one of these stories were well worth the read. Each was completely different but I could see why they were up to win the Hugo in their category.

The only story I didn't love was 'Pride and Prometheus' by John Kessel. It's a mashup of Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein and I did not feel it was successful at what it was trying to do. Those 2 books are so completely disparate that I don't feel it's possible to combine their stories and make it work. It uses one of the younger Bennet sisters, Mary and seems to put her in the Frankenstein story during part of Dr Frankenstein's journey through England to create a mate for the monster. The monster makes an appearance, and everything of course goes terribly wrong.
Time for a small rant, I thoroughly enjoyed both Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein. Each is a a fabulous example of the type of style it is written in. Frankenstein is a Gothic horror novel, Pride and Prejudice is a satirical send up of the romantic fiction of the time. Those do not combine well together. It felt as if Mary was thrown in there as a way to attract readers who enjoyed Pride and Prejudice, but there is none of that type of story in there. In trying to have a bit of both it succeeds at neither.

My favorites were 'Truth' by Robert Reed, 'Evil Robot Monkey' by Mary Robinette Kowal and 'The Tear' by Ian Mcdonald.

Robert Reed is wonderful at short stories, each is unique and always surprising. I can never see where he's going to take the story until BAM there you are at the end. Truth is nominally a time travel story that incorporates terrorism, paranoia and the horrors of what humanity can do to itself. For fear of spoilers that's all I can really say about that.

Evil Robot Monkey is only a couple pages long and it's a delicious little vignette. A stellar example of how a story can be contained in just one scene and be complete.

The Tear is the final story in the book and in the introduction that the editor gives before hand they suggest a breather before diving into it. I would second that. The story is complex and requires close reading and undivided attention to wrap your head around what the hell is going on. It starts out with the question of whether or not 2 different kinds of aliens can ever truly understand each other. One race is comprised of people with 8 different personalities, the other is of people with one personality who's bodies are made of nanites that can rearrange themselves to any appearance. From there it's a crazy journey of one being traveling through the universe existing in both forms and yet neither.

I discovered several authors through this book that I plan on investigating further, which is a great side benefit of short story anthologies.

I would say if you like sci-fi and speculative fiction, you will find at least a couple stories in here that you will like.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A selection of the 2009 novella, novelette and short story Hugo nominees and winners.

Includes:

Novella
•“The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)
•“The Tear” by Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires)

Novelette
•“Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel (F&SF Jan 2008)
•“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s Feb 2008)
•“Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)

Short Story
•“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Jul 2008)
•“Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two)


Short stories are hard to review because one's taste is so subjective. I'm actually not that wild about shorts, they don't contain enough substance for me. With that being said, there were a couple in here that really stood out. I particularily liked Kij Johnson's and James Alan Gardner's piece and I'm always a fan of Ian McDonald's work. You will probably laugh at the contradiction, but McDonald's work was about the right length. If you've read his stuff you'll understand.

I had already read Pride and Prometheus in the Nebula Award selection and didn't care for it then. The remainder were just sort of eh.

[Philip Hollenback · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolutely top-notch collection. One thing I particularly liked was the lack of tedious explanatory material (one of my greatest annoyances with the yearly Nebula Award book). There's a one page description for each story then it gets down to business.

This collection also has a good mix of short stories, novelettes, and novellas. The Ian McDonald novella 'The Tear' which finishes the book is a particularly wonderful story.

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2009 Hugo nominees and winners for most of the short-fiction categories. Not exhaustive (apparently they couldn't get rights to some of the nominees and a couple of the winners).

Still, 300+ pages of short-story goodness revolving around three novellas. Honestly, I think Ms Kowal wrote most of her intros half-asleep, and I eventually quit reading them. But, the fiction itself is quite good.

[John Orman · Rating 4 out of 5]

World Science Fiction Society's awards for 2010, selected nominees and winners.
I liked James Alan Gardner's "The Ray-Gun: A Love Story."
The ray-gun was ejected from a passing starship and fell to earth like a meteor.
Hilarity ensues.

Also enjoyed "Evil Robot Monkey," as good as its name, from editor Mary Kowal, who lives in Portland, OR.

[G. Vance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved everyone of this set of stories - except the last one. It just isn't my cup of tea, so much so that I couldn't finish reading it. But every single one of the others just blew my mind; so much good writing, interesting stories, and fun stuff to make you think. Highly recommend this showcase!

[Neeuqdrazil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of Hugo Award nominees and winners in the short fiction categories (short story, novella, and novelette.) Some of them were amazing, some merely good, and some were mind blowing.

I wish they would publish more of these.

[su · Rating 3 out of 5]

"26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson was exquisite.

[Ashlea (plotdriven.com) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection - more of these, please!