Award Recommendations 2018

written by David Steffen

Here are some recommendations for selected Hugo and Nebula categories. (Note that I’ve listed them in alphabetical order, rather than order of preference, and have listed more than the 5 ballot options when possible). I don’t think I’ve read any eligible novels this year, so that category is not represented.

Best Novella

“Umbernight” by Carolyn Ives Gillman, in Clarkesworld Magazine

Best Novelette

“A Love Story Written On Water” by Ashok K. Banker, in Lightspeed Magazine

“A World To Die For” by Tobias S. Buckell, in Clarkesworld Magazine

“The Last To Matter” by Adam-Troy Castro, in Lightspeed Magazine

“Dead Air” by Nino Cipri, in Nightmare Magazine

“Hapthorn’s Last Case” by Matthew Hughes, in Lightspeed Magazine

“The Fortunate Death of Jonathan Sandelson” by Margaret Killjoy, in Strange Horizons

“To Fly Like a Fallen Angel” by Qi Yue, translated by Elizabeth Hanlon, in Clarkesworld Magazine

“House of Small Spiders” by Weston Ochse, in Nightmare Magazine

“Thirty-Three Percent Joe” by Suzanne Palmer, in Clarkesworld Magazine

“Master Zhao: An Ordinary Time Traveler” by Zhang Ran, translated by Andy Dudak

Best Short Story

“After Midnight at the ZapStop” by Matthew Claxton, in Escape Pod

“A Scrimshaw of Smeerps” by Shannon Fay, in Toasted Cake

“Variations on a Theme From Turandot“ by Ada Hoffman, in Strange Horizons

“Secrets and Things We Don’t Say Out Loud” by José Pablo Iriarte, in Cast of Wonders

“Octo-Heist in Progress” by Rich Larson, in Clarkesworld Magazine

“Hosting the Solstice” by Tim Pratt, in PodCastle

“Marshmallows” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires, in Clarkesworld Magazine

“The Death Knight, the Dragon, and the Damsel” by Melion Traverse, in Cast of Wonders

“Some Personal Arguments in Support of the BetterYou (Based on Early Interactions)” by Debbie Urbanski, in Strange Horizons

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form / Ray Bradbury Award

Ant-Man and the Wasp

The Incredibles 2

Kevin (Probably) Saves the World

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, for Nintendo Switch

A Wrinkle In Time

The Best of Clarkesworld 2016

written by David Steffen

Another great year for Clarkesworld, lots of great stories by authors both familiar and new. Clarkesworld remains the most prolific of the podcasts I listen to, clocking in at 83 stories for the year of 2016, and with a much higher wordcount limit than most of the others, that comes to significantly more words. Neil Clarke continues as editor, and Kate Baker continues to produce, host, and narrate most of the episodes of the podcast.

They continue to publish monthly stories published from Chinese through a relationship with StoryCom. This has had a wonderful result, as I’ve very much enjoyed finding new Chinese authors in translation through Clarkesworld, and you can clearly see the effect on this list.

All of the stories that are eligible for the Nebulas and Hugos are marked with an asterisk (*) if they are Clarkesworld originals, or a double-asterisk (**) if they were first published elsewhere in 2016 and then reprinted in Clarkesworld.

The List

1. “The Snow of Jinyang” by Zhang Ran, translated by Ken Liu and Carmen Yiling Yan*
Alternate history with the city of Jinyang holding many anachronistic technologies (including an internet!). Apparently this is a whole subgenre of Chinese science fiction, and I want to read more of it!

2. “Everybody Loves Charles” by Bao Shu, translated by Ken Liu*
Celebrity racer Charles is one of the most popular people int he world, owing in large part to his live-casting of his whole life, that anyone can come along for the ride. But how can he have any kind of real romance, living like that?

3. “Against the Stream” by A Que, translated by Nick Stember*
There is a rare condition where, after living one’s live normally, one abruptly starts to live it in reverse day by day.

4. “The Calculations of Artificals” by Chi Hui, translated by John Chu*
In a world that appears like ours, but where most of the people are constructs meant only to be convincing for those few real people, the protagonist of this story is in charge of making sure this all runs smoothly.

5. “Rusties” by Nnedi Okorafor and Wanuri Kahiu*
A girl befriends a rusty, one of the automated traffic control bots, known for their rusty appearance.

6. “Chimera” by Gu Shi, translated by S. Qiouyi Lu and Ken Liu*
A young boy is horribly hurt in a car accident, and his scientistmother uses her developing research to save his life.

7. “The Dark City Luminous” by Tom Crosshill**
One of the world’s best Augmented Reality developers, who has helped change the world to a complete AR experience to reskin the world however you like, and they soon won’t be able to use the AR themselves.

8. “The Next Scene” by Robert Reed*
The aliens have come, and they’ve remade the economy and social order of the world to reward citizens for making entertaining drama for them.

Honorable Mentions

“Reef” by Paul McAuley

“Afrofuturist 419” by Nnedi Okorafor

“The Fixer” by Paul McAuley

“The Governess With the Artificial Womb” by Leena Likitalo

The Best of Clarkesworld 2015

written by David Steffen

Clarkesworld Magazine has had an incredible year. As I wrote these lists I was considering my own Nebula and Hugo nomination ballots and much of my short fiction ballot come from Clarkesworld. This year they’ve been publishing a monthly story translated from Chinese as part of an ongoing initiative to share more Chinese author’s works with the English reading fandom. These stories have been a wonderful change of pace, different in some ways from what I’m used to in works written in English, something new and fresh.

The magazine continues to be edited and published by Neil Clarke and the podcast is hosted and most-often narrated by Kate Baker of the excellent voice.

Clarkesworld published 78 stories in 2015

The List

1. “Today I am Paul” by Martin L. Shoemaker
This is my top story pick for 2015 across all publications. It is told from the point of view of a personal caretaker android designed to empathize and to emulate family members of an Alzheimer’s patient so that she can live at home. Solid emotional story with lots of good stuff to think about.

2. “When Your Child Strays From God” by Sam J. Miller
This story chronicles the journey of a mother and pastor’s wife to find her son who has disappeared, leaving traces of a popular telepathic drug behind. She takes some of the drug, which links her telepathically to her son, and she goes to find him… knowing full well that while the drug’s effect last she is vulnerable to her son’s personable boogeyman. A great story of empathy and bravery and doing everything for family.

3. “So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer
Formatted as a cooking blog, at first I thought I wouldn’t like this story. But the format proved very effective for this story of a spreading pandemic as a food blogger tries to take care of her family and still keep her blog going while supplies and travel are severely limited.

4. “Summer at Grandma’s House” by Hao Jingfang, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan
I like this one especially for its discussion of fate. As it says right in the beginning of the story, when fate is discussed it is generally understood to be a script that we follow or that it doesn’t exist at all. I find the explanation of fate given by this story to be much more interesting and also practical.

5. “Ether” by Zhang Ran, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan and Ken Liu
This one might begin a little slow for those used to a “hook me immediately” attitude in publishing, this one was a bit of a slow boil but I thought it was well worth it in the end, and looking back the slow boil made total sense and wouldn’t have worked any other way. It’s a kind of a dystopia story, though it doesn’t immediately seem that way.

6. “An Evolutionary Myth” by Bo-Young Kim, translated by Gord Sellar and Jihyun Park
A world where individual creatures can adapt to changing conditions in the world to become something wholly unique (yes I realize that’s not evolution by the scientific term, but this is a fun and interesting fantasy story not a hard SF tale).

7. “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer
Really interesting story about an AI interacting with people by influencing their web search results. The title is a playful poke at the premise, and there is plenty of that in the story, but I also found it very heartfelt.

8. “Technarion” by Sean McMullen
Shortly after the discovery of radio, humans discover signals seemingly coming from the ether explaining how to build more and more complex computing machines.

Honorable Mentions

“Cassandra” by Ken Liu

“Mrs. Griffin Prepares to Commit Suicide Tonight” by A Que, translated by John Chu

“Daddy’s World” by Walter Jon Williams

“War, Ice, Egg, Universe” by G. David Nordley