The Good Kind of Hugo

[graydown]

The Hugo nomination ballots are out! I've been asked for recommendations, so here's a list of my picks. I could also use some advice on some of these categories -- Novella and Novelette, for example. I mean, there's The Life-Cycle of Software Objects, but it's hardly Ted Chiang's best work... anyway. My picks

Comments

[auroraceleste]

I'm gonna nominate Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler for Novella and Keith Thompson http://www.keiththompsonart.com/ for art. Lou is giving me recs for Best Graphic Story, but I know Ooku's gonna be one of them. For related work I'm thinking CLASH OF THE GEEKS by Wheaton and Scalzi, which I thought was neat since all the money went to the Lupus foundation. I think readings would be fine for best dramatic presentation. It's not like actors are making up what they are saying, after all, on some (very meta) level they're all just reading words someone else wrote for them. If she's turned story reading into as much of an art as serious actors do line reading then she deserves the dramatic presentation category.

[mckitterick]

Oh my gosh, but is Habitation of the Blessed a pretty read. I'm trying to find a way to think of it as SF (alternate history, maybe?) to consider it for the Campbell Award.

[graydown]

Catherynne Valente argues that Habitation of the Blessed is a science fiction novel, and I am inclined to agree with her. I think it asks science fiction questions, and tries to build a plausible world based on the premise, "what if the letter of Prester John were real?"

She says it better than I can, being all talented and stuff. :)

[mckitterick]

I love her video and the book, but am in no way convinced by her argument, which essentially says, "Because the science in lots of old SF turns out to be wrong, and thus fantasy, fantasy can use (say) 19th century ideas and call itself science fiction." Hm. I could set up lots of straw arguments here, but it seems pretty straightforwardly not-thought-through. In fact, I'd argue that she's not being serious with her claim.

The earliest proto-SF was like this particular book, with travels to marvelous, distant lands populated by unlikely creatures, but now we know better. The root word, "science," is all about the process of discarding that which we know to be untrue. So the argument collapses upon itself.

Which, I think, she's kidding about, anyway.