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“Children of Thorns, Children of Water“, by Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny, Jul-Aug 2017) This was…not great. The writing was frankly not Hugo-worthy, and it felt like there were three potentially meaty, interesting ideas, any one of which would have made for an interesting novelette or novella, all wodged into one story that just didn’t have the proper space for that many. Then I hit the end of the story and it kinda sounds like an excerpt of an actual novel *makes face*. Or at least something produced as a preview of a novel. I wish they wouldn’t do that, or at least that someone would nix the piece before it made the nomination cut – it does a disservice to the actual novel work. …Apparently I have Opinions about this. I’m not sure I’d go as harsh as to actively ‘no award’ this, but I suspect I’ll be politely leaving it off my ballot.
“The Secret Life of Bots“, by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, Sep 2017) A relatively charming story of a cleaner bot under orders to hunt out an infestation while the ship and its crew all have a Very Bad Day. The writing could be tighter, and I was left feeling vaguely like I’d read it somewhere before (possibly in the form of Wall-E for all I can remember). Wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t standout, either. *shrug*
“A Series of Steaks“, by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Clarkesworld, Jan 2017) Hah! A tight, original, well-done (…fine, pun intended) look at what organ and flesh printing might be like. I loved both main characters, and their predicament, and it had excellent pacing and structure and voice. Loving the bit where we have so many nbd queer characters this year. That all sounds very dry, but I’m not kidding when I say it’s battling it out for first place, I just read two more pieces before I got to sit down and write this up.
“Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time“, by K.M. Szpara (Uncanny, May-Jun 2017) A trans guy gets turned in a future where the existence of vampires and the transmission of vampirism are both known and regulated. This was really solid and pleasing, and had some heart-squeezing moments of reality of being a vampire – by the time he’ll be able to digest his family’s favourite meals again, they’ll all be centuries dead, for example. Also a great touch on what transitioning to being a vampire does to a body that has already transitioned gender.
“Wind Will Rove“, by Sarah Pinsker (Asimov’s, Sep-Oct 2017) So this was glorious? I was dubious about the manuscript layout, because I’m a judgey shit like that, and then I read the first page very late last night, and I just kind of inhaled with pleasure, and proceeded to read all 66 pages in one go, waaay after my lights out. This is the story of a generation ship, and what it’s like to just plain live on the ship, generation after generation of people, and what they try and remember (the touch about Titanic having both of them survive was a great detail), and what each generation does and feels differently and what it might be like to be one of the generations who will live and die on the ship, and if there’s any point to living that existence, and I fucking loved it, the end. (Also another little flag wave for nbd non-straight characters, seriously, this year has been amazing.)
Ballot. Gah, so hard, again.
1. Wind will rove
2. A series of steaks
3. Extracurricular activities
4. Small changes over a long period of time
5. The secret life of bots
Up next: jumping over the novellas because those are currently just samples and are often free in the voters packet come mid-May. Heading straight for the novel samples from Amazon or wherever (which I read as a way of winnowing down the to-read list into a manageable size).
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Ooh! I wasn't planning on buying the main novels unless the more interesting ones weren't in the voters packet or they were badly watermarked etc, but I was leaning towards buying at least some of the YA novels, esp the Philip Pullman. Does that interest you as a trade? I didn't get around to reading the second broken earth, so the third is lower on my priority list, but I'd love a copy of Six Wakes.
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Of the YA: I have Summer in Orcus; I keep meaning to get In Other Lands (or I might have already ordered it); I have Skinful of Shadows. I wasn't planning on getting the Pullman, so yes, please I would like to borrow.
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Awesome! Thank you so much! I'll let you know when I get my hands on the Pullman :D
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I really enjoyed her first novel.
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(Long belated reply, sorry!) But yes! I nearly wonder if writing short vs writing long are different skillsets. I wonder this out loud because Mary Robinette Kowal wrote one of my favourite short stories not that long ago about an old woman getting the chance to space travel off Mars. It was phenomenal, and I was so excited to see she had a book coming out...and I didn't make it through all of the amazon sample, even. So while I knew intellectually (same way that 100m swimming sprints vs 10km swims are different trainable things) that they require different pacing and characterisation and etc, it's kinda neat to have to so tidily demonstrated, even if I couldn't put my finger on either of the poor showings except to vaguely say they were wooden and stilted? :)
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To a lesser extent, that is also true for novellas and novelettes. Some writers are awesome at one size but not others.
Of course, I am not a writer myself.