REVIEW: Hugo Novella Finalists

written by David Steffen

The Hugo Awards Best Novella category covers stories between 17,500 and 40,000 words. See here for a full list of the nominees this year. I enjoyed all of the novellas this year, I’m glad that the Hugos use instant-runoff voting so I can give some kind of vote for them all instead of just having to pick one!

1. “And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017)

A Sarah Pinsker from an alternate reality has discovered how to travel to alternate realities. One of the first actions this alternate Sarah Pinsker performs is to organize the first SarahCon, attended entirely by Sarah Pinskers of various realities. This Sarah (an insurance adjuster) grudgingly decides to attend, where she meets hundreds of herselves and is just starting to figure out how to navigate the odd social situation of talking to all these other Sarahs, when a dead body is discovered, apparently a murder, and this Sarah Pinsker is the closest Sarah available to one with detective experience while they wait for the authorities to arrive on the island of the convention. The victim is Sarah Pinsker. Pretty much all of the suspects and potential witnesses are Sarah Pinsker. And Sarah Pinsker is on the case.

This story was wonderful and fun and delightful and hilarious. There was plenty of humor inherent in the situation, but the murder mystery is played straight–it has all of the components you expect from a murder mystery, except that the scenario adds a bizarre twist to the situation that both complicates (because it’s hard to even tell the people apart) and simplifies (because Sarah has a better understanding of the suspects than she would if they were entirely separate people) the investigation. This lends itself to the story taking some turns that would only make sense in this very specific situation. Highly recommended, I have been recommending this to anyone who has asked me what I’m reading.

2. River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)

This was previously reviewed at greater length here last year.

Usually alternate history is used to explore the consequences of major political or military events turning out differently. But sometimes, it can just be used as a reason to tell a Western story about hippo-riding cowboys in Louisiana (alt history because there was an early 20th century proposal to import hippos to raise them for meat).

Winslow Houndstooth had been happy as a hippo rancher until his ranch was burned to the ground. Now Houndstooth is a hired hand, and he’s accepted a job from the government to clear all of the feral hippos out of the Mississippi, and he also has revenge on his mind to get back at the one who destroyed his ranch.

This is so much fun, very much a western style story but with the significant added wrinkle that their mounts/cattle can bite them in half. The story is told straight, so the hippos aren’t used for comedy, but that just makes it all the more fun. It has the feel of a heist sort of story, with Winslow as the leader gathering skilled specialists to perform the seemingly impossible mission.

3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)

Jacqueline and Jillian are twin sisters, weighed under the heavy burden of parental expectations. Every aspect of what they do and how they present to the world is defined by their parents who wanted the perfect boy and the perfect girl. Jacqueline is the perfect princess of a girl, never dirty, never impolite, while Jillian is a tomboy who excels at athletics and never does things that might be considered girlish. When they’re thirteen the girls discover a portal into another world in their house and they travel through it, to a land protected and contained by a vampire and a mad doctor who can raise corpses from the dead. Portal visitors are a common occurrence here, and due to a prior arrangement, the girls each go into the custody of one of these powerful men and must make their way in this strange world until they can find a doorway home.

This ties into McGuire’s Wayward Children series, but you don’t need any familiarity with the series to read this–it works just fine as a standalone. It is built largely on the audience expectations of portal stories, so if (like me) those are a particular favorite, you’ll be well-primed for this. The characters are both well-portayed as real people as well as larger than life in some ways because they are constantly being pushed into boundaries that generally do not fit them. It’s a story of what makes each of us different from the others, and how our environments and constraints on our behavior end up defining much of who we are. It’s also a tale of sisterhood coming from a family that didn’t exactly nurture their relationship, thrown into adversity of a strange world. Well worth the read.

4. All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)

The security android (SecBot for short) calls itself Murderbot, but only in the privacy of its own head. It’s part robot part human, property of the Company, on security detail with a group of humans surveying a planet for resources. Unbeknownst to its crew, it has successfully hacked its governor module that is supposed to keep it safe and limit its behavior to only those things necessary for its security duties. But, really, it uses most of that freedom to download and watch entertainment vids in every moment of spare time. Its current crew is disconcertingly friendly, which is bothersome when it really just wants to be left alone to watch its shows. When a series of things go wrong with the surveying mission, it’s not clear if its due to the Company’s cut-rate equipment or if someone is sabotaging them. But Murderbot’s vid-watching has (surprisingly) prepared it for unexpected situations more than its actual functional programming, and if it wants to survive it’s going to have to help its crew get out of this.

Murderbot is a fun and charming character in its own way. While some parts of its personality are far from mine (a casual attitude toward violence, but that’s inherent in its programming) I think its character is particularly appealing for introverts who may find friendliness from others alarming at times. Murderbot is a very competent character and it’s a solid action story, but the biggest charm of it for me was just enjoying the kind of odd personality traits, different from most human characters in stories but also different from most robot characters in stories. Fun, and the first of a series.

5. Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)

The original Binti was reviewed here as part of the Hugo Novella Review in 2016. Binti: Home is the second story in the series.

Binti is the first human from the Himba culture to travel to the stars where she is attending Oomza University, where she is learning to refine her skill for mentally manipulating magical formulas. The first story told of the tragic happenings of her trip where she was the sole survivor of an attack by the jellyfish-like Meduse and went on to help forge a peace between humans and Meduse, and in the process was physically changed so that her braids became like a Meduse’s tentacles, able to move of their own volition. Now she is returning home to Earth to her family to go on a pilgrimage during her break in her schooling, and she’s bringing her Meduse friend Okwu with her. With the truce with the Meduse still fresh and tentative, and with Binti changed dramatically by her new experiences since leaving home, she doesn’t know how her family and culture will receive her.

Solid story, and I like following Binti as much as the first time. The first book took place mostly off-Earth so you didn’t get to see much of Binti’s home or her culture directly. This story takes place almost entirely here, we get to know her family and her background better. This story is the second in what I think will be a trilogy and it does feel like that–it is clearly building FROM something, and clearly building TO something where it will go next, but as itself I wanted to get the rest of the story–I will be excited to read the third story. I would recommend not starting the series with this book–I don’t think you’ll get everything out of it if you haven’t seen Binti’s path so far, and the previous conflict with the Meduse and the beginning of the truce.

6. The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)

Mokoya and Akeha are the twin children of the Protector, sold to the Monastery at birth. Mokoya is plagued by visions of the future that can’t be changed, and Akeha is drawn to political revolution. The Machinist rebellion is growing, the power of technology growing quickly and threatening the iron rule of the Protectorate and their soldiers, and both of the siblings see the terrible things their mother does to maintain her rule. They must make decisions about where their loyalties lie and where their abilities are best used.

This story ties into the author’s Tensorate series, and was dual-released with another novella in the same universe The Red Threads of Fortune, but it works as a standalone–you don’t need any prior knowledge of the characters or universe to be able to follow the story. I haven’t read the related novella or the other books in the series, but I enjoyed getting to know the twins and their relationship with each other. What I found particularly interesting was some of the cultural details, especially how children are not considered a specific gender until they’re old enough to decide their gender for themselves, and how Tensorate magic is used to facilitate this process–although parts of living under Protectorate rule seem oppressive, this particular aspect was positive and interesting.

Hugo Novella Review 2016

written by David Steffen

The Hugo Awards Best Novella category covers stories between 17,500 and 40,000 words. See here for a full list of the nominees this year.

1. Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson (Dragonsteel Entertainment)

Kairominas is God-Emperor, who has defeated every foe and united the world under his rule. He has lived for hundreds of years and has become powerful in Lancing, an arcane power drawn from the sky. Of course, everyone else in the world is a simulation, all of it designed specifically to keep him engaged and interested and satisfied with his life. Knowing this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel a sense of responsibility for the simulated people he rules–EVERY natural person is the most important person in their own custom-designed simulated world. Kai tries to forget, as often as he can, but he has been called upon by the Wode, the makers of these worlds, to fulfill his obligation by going on a date with the ruler of another world in a neutral world.

Brandon Sanderson continues to be consistently one of my favorite writers from year to year, in large part because I love his worldbuilding, especially his magic system worldbuilding. In this case the magic that the protagonist wields is a simulated magic, part of a computer program, and the protagonist knows this, but it still ends up giving the story as a whole a magic parallel worlds story even though it is actually a science fictional simulated worlds story. I like science fantasy, and enjoy that mixed feel. As ever, Sanderson provides stellar worldbuilding with interesting and relatable characters, and manages to convey all this at the perfect pace so that it is never bogged down with excess explanation nor confusing in its brevity. Solid read from beginning to end.

2. Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)

Binti is the first of the Himba people (of Namibia) to ever be offered a place at Oomza University, the seat of learning in the galaxy. To accept the offer, she leaves her family behind and travels far away from the place where her family is so deeply rooted. Her fellow travelers do not respect her cultures or traditions, and she has a long and frustrating (if enlightening) road ahead of her. But before they even arrive at their destination planet, their ship is attacked by the Meduse, a deadly alien race at war with the world she is joining.

Great epic story from a point of view not usually portrayed in speculative fiction. Before reading this story I was entirely unfamiliar with the Himba people, and I enjoyed it in large part as an opportunity to learn something about a real-life culture, as well as to see wider representation in fiction. Besides those factors, Binti is also a protagonist that I loved to root for–smart, capable, and brave. I’ve been hearing people talk about this story all year as a possible award nominee, and I can see why. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

3. Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold (Spectrum)

Lord Penric is riding on the way to his betrothal when he comes upon a riding accident with an old woman injured on the ground. She turns out to a Temple divine, the servant of the Bastard, one of the five gods that rule over the world. In her dying breath she bestows upon him the demon that possesses her as part of her role, which now resides in Penric’s body. While demons are expected to pass to another person after the death of their hosting divine, normally it is all prearranged with a specific chosen person, rather than a random passerby. What, exactly, this means for Penric or for the demon, no one seems willing to say, apart from the fact that he now must change plans in order to speak to the people who can tell him.

This story is billed as taking place in the same world as three of Bujold’s novels, but I never would’ve suspected from only reading the story itself. The story is self-contained, so you can read this story (as I did) with no prior knowledge of the world or people in it, and expect to be able to follow the story. It’s possible that you may have a greater appreciation for events if you have more familiarity, but it could all be followed very easily.

Not long after his possession Penric learns that the demon can speak to him using his own mouth, so much of the book envelops as part of Penric (sort of) talking to himself in private, learning about the demon and what it is capable of, and more about their uncertain future together. This was a clever way to convey the world to the reader, and was fun to read as well, because the demon is an interesting character in its own right and there is a great deal of chemistry between Penric and the demon. Since Penric is entirely unfamiliar with demons apart from rumors, and knows little about the inner workings of the temple, he has to learn on the road as he’s traveling with the demon, and so does the reader. He is taken out of his familiar but unremarkable town out into the wider world. This story was a great deal of fun and it was quite interesting to see the demon’s abilities unfold as it established a rapport with Penric.

4. Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds (Tachyon)

Scur is a soldier in a vast interstellar war spanning hundreds of solar systems. That war is finally nearing an end, and she is beginning to allow herself to contemplate the life that may come after when she is taken prisoner by a war criminal and left for dead. She wakes up on a prisoner transport where everything seems to be going wrong–the passengers are all thawing out at once, war criminals and prisoners from both sides of the war lines. Their slow bullets (implanted devices that both store their soldier’s history, and can be set to kill them if they turn rebel) are their only links to their past. Not only that, but there is something seriously wrong with the ship.

Lots of action and difficult decisions in this story, as soldiers from opposite sides of a long and gruesome conflict wake up in a closed system with each other. Scur takes on the responsibility of being an impromptu leader to try to keep everyone from each other’s throats long enough to understand how they all ended up there, how to best salvage as much functionality out of the malfunctioning ship as possible, and where to go from there. A solid science fictional tale about a group of opposing soldiers trying to unite in a post-war environment to try to survive.

5. The Builders by Daniel Polansky (Tor.com)

The Captain, a mouse, sets out to reunite the old gang of thieves and scoundrels of various species (stoat, owl, mole, salamander, and others) who had all scattered after the last job went disastrously wrong. As he seeks each one out and recruits them anew on this mission to right what has gone wrong, we learn about each of them and their background before they reach their destination and carry out The Captain’s revenge.

This story was cleverly told, with a feel that I found reminiscient of Ocean’s Eleven or other heist films, about gathering a group of elite specialists and then facing down insurmountable odds (though here there is more direct confrontational action rather than sneakery in general). My favorite character was probably Bonsoir the stoat, whose blustery mannerisms were fun to witness. The story was laid out so that you gradually find out more and more about the job that went wrong as each character appears and plays their own part.

I enjoyed the story best when it bordered on the comedic, often in Bonsoir’s dialog, or in some of the amusing chapter titles. The action was well written and convincing as well, and there was no pulling punches with the deadly consequences of the whole quest. I enjoyed the read, but I guess for me I was hoping to be able to relate to some degree to the purpose of the quest, and I just didn’t find it at all compelling. I was interested in the characters, their histories, and what they wanted from their futures, and I cared enough about them that it just seemed a waste to send them into this situation to quite likely die for a reason that I didn’t find that compelling. That’s a testament to the portrayal of the characters that I cared enough about them to care about the potential waste of their lives, I suppose.

Review: Hugo Novella Nominees 2013

written by David Steffen

And here’s the last of the short (ish) prose fiction categories, the almost-a-novel aka Novella, which covers fiction from 17,500-40,000 words. This was a tough category to pick my favorite in, so for this one I’m glad that the Hugo awards use an instant runoff voting system so that if your favorite doesn’t win your lower votes can count towards the result.

Hugo Award for Best Novella

1. The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)
The Emperor’s wife has been killed and the Emperor has been injured in an attack by assassins, via a crossbow bolt to the head. The best magic of the legal variety can heal his flesh, but cannot heal his mind, leaving him catatonic. The Emperor’s highest ranking officials are the only ones who know of the outcome of the attack. The official mourning period for the Emperor’s wife is one hundred days, at which the Emperor will be expected to speak in public. If he cannot, the Empire will be thrown into chaos. They have but one chance to salvage the situation with the recent capture of the criminal Forger Wan ShaiLu. Various legal branches of the art of Forgery, which can rewrite the history of an object, can be practiced in the Empire. Shai, however, practices the forbidden branch of art which allows even a person’s soul to be Forged into something else. This criminal, this blasphemer, is their only hope, if she can reforge the Emperor’s soul using only journal entries and interviews with his counsel.

Brandon Sanderson is great at inventing new magic systems. I enjoyed Warbreaker, and I enjoyed this. The details are intricate, but logical, so that the magic is more of an alternate-world-science, something which appeals to my engineer mind. Shai is an expert in certain areas of her craft, and she goes at the work with the zeal and skill of an expert craftsman, all while contemplating how to escape before she is inevitably killed to silence her. The situation maintains constant tension while maintaining intellectual curiosity and emotional depth. The art of Forging depends upon understanding the history of a person or thing completely and then creating a manmade branching point to change that history, so to pull of this most difficult of all Forgeries she has to exercise her powers of empathy like she never has before.

Great story, well written. One of my new favorites. Well done!

2. After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)
An apocalypse hits the Earth in 2014, killing most people and rendering most of the planet unliveable. Very few people survived, and those were saved from certain death by boxlike tentacled figures (nicknamed Tesslies) that would appear in a shower of golden sparks, grab the person, and take them somewhere else. These survivors wake up in a building with no doors to the outside, with machinery meant to serve their basic food and sanitation needs. The Tesslies never told them what was happening, but their best interpretation is that aliens have attacked earth and kept some humans as specimens. Many years later a new piece of machinery they call the Grab machine appears in the Shell which periodically makes a window through time to the years before the apocalypse. Whoever goes through, the Grab machine yanks them back to the future with whatever they’re touching, so they use it to grab supplies and to grab children to help repopulate the future (adults die when they pass through). This part of the story follows Pete, a fifteen year old boy who is a child of some of the original survivors.

Meanwhile, back in 2013, mathematician Julie Kahn is working with a police task force trying to determine a pattern to the robberies and kidnappings.

I related completely to both Pete and Julie, even when they did things I didn’t agree with or when their actions were in direct opposition to each other. This story had me interested from beginning to end and it felt neither too long nor too short. Well done, Ms Kress, well done. Unfortunately, I hadn’t finished reading this before the Nebula voting period ended, and Sanderson’s story squeaked past this one for my top vote, but with the instant-runoff system I can still show my love.

3. San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The first outbreak of the zombie epidemic happens during the overcrowded opening night of San Diego Comic-Con 2014. This story is the chronicle of that chilling event, told as a 30-year retrospective.

This story is well-written with believable characters and a strong emotional core. The main reason why this didn’t rank higher on my list is that I didn’t feel that it trod any new ground. Zompocalypse stories have been too common in recent years, probably only second to sexy vampires as overused tropes. I’d rather see an original speculative element, an original setting, or both. This story didn’t vary from the familiar zompocalypse rules, at least not in any significant way, so it’s not an original speculative element. I don’t recall seeing a zombie story set at a convention before, and I suspect that’s why it’s been popular enough to get nominated. But, personally, it just strikes me as lazy, trying to keep the writing in a comfort zone rather than trying something different. Kind of like a Stephen King story about a writer that takes place in a sleepy town in Maine.

Also, the story is formatted as though it’s a documentary, but the story itself admits that much of it is conjecture based on known facts. This in itself wouldn’t be problematic, except that by my reckoning, probably 80% or more of the events have to be either pure speculation on the part of the media because the deathtoll was high enough to make after-the-fact compilation of stories problematic. The story would’ve been better if it had just discarded the idea of using a framing story and just told it as a standard narrative.

4. The Stars Do Not Lie by Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012)
Morgan Abutti, 4th degree Thalassocrete, member of the Planetary Society, has discovered something new in the stars that violates the truths taught by both the Lateran and the Thalassojustity belief systems that rule the world. He has arranged for a public discussion of his findings, which could shake the world. Bilious Quinx, master of the Consistatory Office (aka Inquisition) must find Abutti before he makes his heresy public. Eraster Goins, head Thalossocrete, has very different motives for finding Abutti.

As you might be able to tell from this brief explanation, there are several religious factions which at least to my mind were never clearly differentiated. Maybe that’s an intentional statement about religious schisms, maybe it could’ve been made clearer, or maybe I just don’t get it. I generally liked the Morgan Abutti character who did not consider his findings a heresy but only wanted to share his findings of the universe to expand their understanding of it, a scientist trying to work within a religious government system. But I just didn’t find the stakes all that riveting. Whether or not Abutti’s announcement becomes public, some other scientist will discover the truth anyway (as the story itself points out), so the events of the story feel pretty moot to me. It doesn’t help that the grand discovery has implications for major future changes, which don’t make it into the space of this story. Those major future changes are what I’m really interested in. If Jay writes a story about the events after this story I will read it eagerly.

5. On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
Cousin Linh has arrived on Prosper Station, seeking refuge from the Emperor, whom she has rebelled against in a token fashion. Quyen, magistrate of the station, allows her refuge grudgingly. Linh’s visit causes no end of trouble.

The world of the story takes traditional beliefs and uses futuristic technology to reinforce them. In particular, people in this society are not only expected to honor their ancestors, they also have memchips implanted in their brains that allow their ancestors to give them advice on everything that is happening around them. Very cool idea. The station’s systems are run by the Honoured Ancestress, a being that is sort of a metahuman, with an altered version of a human mind that allows it to run all of the day-to-day affairs of Prosper, and allowing residents of the station to interact with this mind by entering the trance. There’s something wrong with the Honoured Ancestress of Prosper.

I loved the worldbuilding in the story, but I just wasn’t that interested in the main events that took up the bulk of the story. Linh and Quyen’s conflicts didn’t really interest me. I didn’t particularly relate to either one, and it didn’t matter to me which one succeeded or failed in their goals. The state of the Honoured Ancestress was, to me, my biggest interest in terms of plot, but it did not have as much text devoted to it as I would’ve liked, and the solution to the problem was presented without a lot of interesting development to get there.

So this story just wasn’t for me. It was just too long to justify the parts of it I was actually interested in. It didn’t help that the length was such, and my free time segmented enough, that it took a dozen sittings to get through it.