Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion
Hugo/Nebula 2022
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Nebula 2021 Finalists Announced
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I can't remember seeing a contemporary Best Novel slate that interests me as little as this one does.
Martha Wells turned down a nomination for Fugitive Telemetry, which opens up the novella field to a non-Murderbot winner. I bet many of you will be happy about that (I am too, and I'm stanning Psalm).
Kalin wrote: "Very initial thoughts:I can't remember seeing a contemporary Best Novel slate that interests me as little as this one does.
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It gets more and more uninteresting for me each year. But I have to be fair, I haven't read 3 of those yet, so perhaps there is a jewel among them. (even though 2 were on my won't-read list ... ^^')
What a surprising list!I disliked the first three novels on the list. I nearly dnf'd all of them, but pushed through because I had them all on audiobook and was able to power through that way. They are all rambling, awkwardly-paced debut novels. Very much not what I was expecting to see. I bet the Hugo's look very different this year. I bet A Desolation Called Peace will win. I liked it ok. Definitely not a favorite of the year, but liked it enough to not begrudge it a spot on short lists if others liked it better. I hadn't even heard of Plague Birds. Asking my library to buy it now.
The novella list was a surprise too...Psalm not so much, but I felt Fireheart Tiger was really weak. The others I know nothing about. I'm going to make an effort to read through them though. Open to buddy reads if others are also interested.
Gabi wrote: "Kalin wrote: "Very initial thoughts:I can't remember seeing a contemporary Best Novel slate that interests me as little as this one does.
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It gets more and more uninteresting for me each ye..."
Haha, I'm always open to finding hidden gems too. That's basically how I'm approaching the novella list here. (Speaking of which....have any of you read any of these other than the first two?) Which novel is possibly still a hidden gem for you, Gabi?
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That makes 4 of 5 on the novel list debuts? Wow. And the fifth (Desolation) is the sequel to a debut. That's a lot of early career championing SFWA is doing. Which is, I would say, a different project altogether from recognizing the best work of the year...
Like Gabi, the Nebulas are less interesting (also: less credible) to me each year I pay attention.
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Yeah, I'm with you on Fireheart Tiger.
I have an ARC of Sun-Daughters, Sea Daughters, would happily buddy read it (but not until mid-April). Also Premee Mohamed.
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No, not at all: you may be grump, but for good reasons! Thanks for pretty much airing my thoughts.
Novella list is pretty long: seven books! That's uncommon, isn't it?
The positive side of this year's nominations is the influx of new names on the lists. For some years now the Nebulas and the Hugos have mostly been the same couple of dozen authors nominated over and over again. I guess the SFWA has heard this complaint and decided this year to bring in a lot of debut authors.
@Kristenelle: The Jason Sanford one. I already put it on my TBR when it was listed for the PKD awards.
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Uncanny dominates shorter works, surpassing tor.com, while I consider a lot of what they offered in previous years weaker than say Clarkesworld, but maybe more 'woke' even if I dislike this label
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Believe it or not, the Nebulas are historically pretty apt to recognize debut novelists. Last year was a surprising anomaly and all were established authors, but in the five years previous, 2/3 of the novel finalists were debuts. I tend to like the Nebulas better because the Hugos are mostly, as Antti said, the same old authors. The Nebulas do tend to be a little incestuous, though, honoring authors who are prominent and active in the SFWA community/organization itself, as I believe is the case with Sanford and C. L. Clark. Or maybe it’s rude of me to minimize their works.
I just read For Lack of a Bed by John Wiswell and loved it.
The winners were announced:https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announc...
And also, the grand master was removed from the conference for using a 7-letter "C word". (And that is *all* I will say about that.)
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Agreed it hasn't been thought out
Ed wrote: "The winners were announced:."
Several interesting choices, I personally like the fact that Donald Ekpeki got for best novelette because it was published in Galaxy’s Edge magazine - a nice broadening from Uncanny/Clarkeworld in recent years
As for С Word I know it was a racial slur but I don't get which exact word it was... I only can guess Colored, but I know that POC is normal so I guess it is something else
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I was surprised that c-word is a slur, but I ain't from the USA, and there are commentators from the US who were surprised too. My take in general is that if a person says some term is offensive to them, I won't use it and apologize for the usage. However, if a person says some term is offensive to someone else and this worries them (but may or may not worry/offend that someone) I'm a bit more guarded. In this very case, I'm yet to read the exact speech of Mercedes Lackey, but from what I see now:
1. she praised Samuel R. Delany
2. she used an archaic term that was used neutrally in her youth
3. the only black person on a panel (and here I guess lies a greater problem) stressed that the term is an offensive one
4. as I understand (here I may be wrong), that person, namely Jen Brown, posted a tweet after the panel, misspelling Delany's name and offended as part of the group
5. Delany said that he has't seen no problem or offense
As a white person from the US, I can give my perspective. I haven't specifically heard before this that there is anything specifically wrong with the c-word, however, hearing it does cause me to bristle. I think it is because it is an old fashioned word that we don't use any more. It harkens back to a time when overt racism was even more prevalent and the c-word was often spoken couched in contempt. So when someone says the c-word, it makes them sound like an old, racist southener. (The fact that we Northerners like to pretend that we've always been better than Southeners is a whole other thing. The truth is that the North has also been very racist.)
Kristenelle wrote: "I just read For Lack of a Bed by John Wiswell and loved it."I had never before heard of the magazine "Diabolical Plots" that it was in.
(PS: I wish I'd mentioned the controversy in a separate thread, if at all.)
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My daughter's friend lives with us - a 24-year-old African-American young lady. I asked her if she would be offended by someone calling her "colored" as opposed to a "person of color". She had exactly the same perspective as what Kristinelle describes; "colored" is an archaic form that carries negative racial connotations. She said that if she were with a Hispanic person & an Asian person, and someone said "people of color", it would refer to all of them, where if they said "colored", she'd know they were talking about her specifically. I would not use it myself but I could see where someone less exposed to sensitivity could make that mistake. Delany, I'm sure, has been called everything in the book, and in this case overlooked it, realizing that it was not intended maliciously.
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Another C-word that stands out to me: "Chip". Samuel R. Delany is reportedly called "Chip" by his friends, but he doesn't sign his work that way, so it feels weird to me to see people who have never met him calling him that in comments sections.
100% agree with Kristenelle. Re the awards themselves, I was surprised that A Master of Djinn won, I really liked the book but a lot of my enjoyment was due to my love of the world and time frame and magic system, rather than the actual storyline. It didn't seem like an "award winner" when I read it, even though I may have given it 4.5⭐️. I though Desolation would win, I quite enjoyed the book and thought it was a very well done second novel. The world building was lots of fun and the ending was top notch. Machinehood got me thinking but it fell a bit flat, I couldn't get excited about the story. Haven't read Unbroken or Plague, so can't comment.
Very surprised by And What Can We Offer You Tonight, I didn't like it much, it was a new view of an old profession in a depressing setting, but maybe it spoke to people this year?
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The one on this list I definitely agree with is "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" by Sarah Pinsker. I just read it a few days ago and thought the idea behind the narrative structure was really cool.
I’m a little surprised that Master of Djinn won. I only heard middling reviews of it from other people. I thought the world building was great, but the story was long and rambling. I got bored. But also, I don’t tend to enjoy detective stories much. My pick would have been Desolation, but none of my favorites even made the shortlist. 🤷🏻♀️ So I don’t really have strong feelings one way or the other.
Machine hood was long and boring. I felt it just wasn’t terribly well written but had some interesting ideas I would have liked to have seen developed better.
The Unbroken didn’t work for me. It was also long and dragged out and I felt uncomfortable with the way colonization was handled. I didn’t like the characters, but I know other people who really liked this one.
Haven’t read Plague Birds yet.
I’m happy So What Can We Do For You Tonight won. I think
Premee Mohamed is an interesting author I want to explore more from.
I liked the prose and world building. I don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard Thirsty Sword Lesbians is amazing.
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I highly recommend checking The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War for insights
I'm also surprised that Djinn has won - maybe it is a new trend (now we have only two points, so highly speculative) - voters like series. Last year Murderbot won. Both had award-winning novellas before novels.
With the c-word, thanks for the clarification. I think that Mercedes Lackey hurt people but her speech inadvertently (but this still hurts). I am sure that if pointed out during the discussion she'd apologized, for at least I too guessed that POC and colored people are synonyms with the first just used more often. And after the apologizes (which I'm sure would be quick and sincere) there wouldn't be any need to take her off panel.
Oleksandr wrote: "With the c-word, thanks for the clarification. I think that Mercedes Lackey hurt people but her speech inadvertently (but this still hurts). I am sure that if pointed out during the discussion she'd apologized, for at least I too guessed that POC and colored people are synonyms with the first just used more often. And after the apologizes (which I'm sure would be quick and sincere) there wouldn't be any need to take her off panel."I agree. Sounds like the moderator should have addressed it. A quick, "Hey, that's inappropriate language" and apology and move on.
And yeah, I have no idea how SFWA thinks. Like I said, none of my favorites made the shortlists for Nebula or Hugo's this year. Best is so subjective when it comes to art of any kind. At least Master of Djinn was fairly original. I've never read a story set in a steam punk Cairo before. Maybe they just wanted to recognize the originality.
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Yes, at least partially that should be the case - they guessed that it'll be good for the writer to get Nebula for while A Desolation Called Peace is better, it got Hugo already
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Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels
Books mentioned in this topic
A Desolation Called Peace (other topics)The Complete Debarkle: Saga of a Culture War (other topics)
A Master of Djinn (other topics)
And What Can We Offer You Tonight (other topics)
A Desolation Called Peace (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Mercedes Lackey (other topics)Mercedes Lackey (other topics)
Samuel R. Delany (other topics)
Jen Brown (other topics)
https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announc...
The fiction categories are:
Nebula Award for Novel
The Unbroken, C.L. Clark (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
A Master of Djinn, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom; Orbit UK)
Machinehood, S.B. Divya (Saga)
A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK)
Plague Birds, Jason Sanford (Apex)
Nebula Award for Novella
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers (Tordotcom)
Fireheart Tiger, Aliette de Bodard (Tordotcom)
And What Can We Offer You Tonight, Premee Mohamed (Neon Hemlock)
Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters, Aimee Ogden (Tordotcom)
Flowers for the Sea, Zin E. Rocklyn (Tordotcom)
The Necessity of Stars, E. Catherine Tobler (Neon Hemlock)
“The Giants of the Violet Sea”, Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 9–10/21)
Nebula Award for Novelette
“O2 Arena”, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Galaxy’s Edge 11/21)
“Just Enough Rain”, PH Lee (Giganotosaurus 5/21)
“(emet)”, Lauren Ring (F&SF 7–8/21)
“That Story Isn’t the Story”, John Wiswell (Uncanny 11–12/21)
“Colors of the Immortal Palette”, Caroline M. Yoachim (Uncanny 3–4/21)
Nebula Award for Short Story
“Mr. Death”, Alix E. Harrow (Apex 2/21)
“Proof by Induction”, José Pablo Iriarte (Uncanny 5–6/21)
“Let All the Children Boogie”, Sam J. Miller (Tor.com 1/6/21)
“Laughter Among the Trees”, Suzan Palumbo (The Dark 2/21)
“Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”, Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 3–4/21)
“For Lack of a Bed”, John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots 4/21)