Obviously the companion category to Long Form, Short form here means shorter than 90 minutes. Unlike its longer cousin, this category often has a diverse range of media beyond tv and short film, and as such is the more interesting non textural category. Unfortunately this is also the category that, as I predicted at the beginning of the Hugo season, I couldn’t get to all of the entries in.
Tag: Space Opera
Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2019 – Best Series
Of all the Hugo categories, this is both the strangest, and the hardest to prepare for. Basically it is the best series over 240,000 words (about 500 pages), that hasn’t won this award yet, and had an entry come out in the previous year (no matter how small).
Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2019 -Graphic Story
This is a pretty self explanatory category typically composed of graphic novels and trade paperbacks. The big story of 2019 is how stagnant the selection is; half of the Graphic Story slate has been locked in since 2017, in the form of Saga (six time nominee), Monstress (two time winner), and Paper Girls. Fortunately two of the repeats (Monstress and Saga) were my top picks of last year, so it is hard to begrudge them their perennial status.
Hugo Nominees for 2019
I did not read a lot of 2018 books, in 2018 or now. Given my ignorance, I tend to nominate things that might not get attention otherwise, that stood out for some reason, or that are so good, they would have gotten nominated anyway. I also don’t usually write about my nominations unless they are really off the beaten track, but I haven’t posted in a while, so with that out of the way
Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2017 – Best Series
Now we get to the category where I can actually seem vaguely competent because I’ve read most of them before. As you would hope, this is an extremely strong category, and my only regret is that I didn’t have time to read more books in these series.
Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2017 -Graphic Story
What happens when SFF fans nominate comic books for an award? Usually I would say you get fewer superhero titles and more SFF, but this year fully half the titles contain avengers, though not the avengers you are thinking of. Also, I love comic books, but I have no knack for visual criticism, so I apologise in advance to both readers and artists if my art criticism boils down to “it looked pretty”.
Review – The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi
I loved Old Man’s War, became increasingly disillusioned as the series went on, then jumped off the Scalzi train with Redshirts, which was a great idea of a book that I just hated. Still, my residual goodwill for that first book was enough to get me to try his new space opera, and while not an instant classic like Old Man’s War, this was a thoroughly enjoyable book.