Works in the Hugo Novella category are almost always short novels (17500-40000 words).I feel like this category has undergone a bit of a renaissance with digital publishing…
Category: Book Review
Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2019 – Novelette
Hugo novelettes tend to be long short stories (7500-17500 words). The little bit of extra space gives more flexibility and can lead to greatness (last year’s Wind Will Rove, or two years ago’s Tomato Thief spring to mind), but far to often they fall into the uncanny valley where the length makes them flabby without gaining the depth of a longer work.
Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2019 – Short Story
I like short stories to be self-contained: a good idea or a complete story. As such I often gravitate to stories that are focused on doing one thing well. It also means that I tend to prefer vignettes, where Hugo short stories can be surprisingly long (7500 words or less).
Review – The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden
I understand that Historical 14th Century Russian Folk Fantasy might not be the selling point for others that it is for me, but regardless, the Winternight Trilogy is something special. I can’t speak to the accuracy of Arden’s Rus, but the verisimilitude is impressive, from the frozen rural hold where the book starts, through to the proto-city of Moscow, all under the yoke of absent Tartar rulers. It is a land of hard work, resilient people, and of course magic.
Review – Hullmetal Girls
Sometimes I just want the literary equivalent of junk food. Hullmetal Girls has a cover of an earnest women in space armor, the dedication is to the kung fu panda 2 soundtrack, and the blurb is about a girl in a lost fleet who agrees to become a robocop for the government, only to find that all is not well (and it’s obvious both what is not going well and where it is going to go).
Review – Trail of Lightning
I put Trail of Lightning into the urban fantasy box from a look at the cover, and, to be fair, it feels like an urban fantasy book…
Review – The Invisible Library Series by Genevieve Cogman
If the idea of an infinitely sprawling library, filled with unique books salvaged from across the multiverse, where time doesn’t pass for you while you are within its walls doesn’t appeal to you, I don’t know why you would read fantasy books at all.
Review – Just One Damn Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor
Being a historian should be easier when you have a time machine and lots of tea…
It’s easy to set to set a single tone – juggling tones is a lot harder. The title and the start of One Damn Thing suggest a particular style that I love, wry British comedy, and when operating in the mode of hard work, punishing bureaucracy, farcical romance and endless tea, it’s a very enjoyable book. Unfortunately…
Review – Artemis by Andy Weir
The Martian is the ultimate science fiction beach read; a book that was almost impossible to put down. Artemis is a good book, but suffers for not being the Martian.
Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2018 – John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
This is the award for best new writer, regardless of output length (or quantity), and year after year it ends up my favourite category by delivering works that I think are better than any of the nominees in the main ballot. This year I will be thwarted however, as the three shorter pieces in this category are all in regular competition. On the upside, this makes this category an easy ask, as I’ve also already read Under the Pendulum Sun, leaving me with just three novels to cover.