Matthew's Journal

This was the last of the Hugo Novels, which the library system finally got to sending me an ebook of.

I feel like a bad SF fan for saying this, given all the rave reviews, but I hated this. While I did like the final section, it felt a bit inevitable, and the journey to get there was a complete slog. I understand that it was meant to be a slog for the characters, but it was also a slog for me. I found the narrator's habit of adding "of course, it was about to get much worse" all the time extremely grating, and I guess I couldn't suspend disbelief enough that ( spoiler ), so there was a lot of "oh just get on with it already".

Similarly, whilst it's a cool idea to have sections narrated by the Shrouded, somehow the sections where both parties narrated the same events from their different points of view ended up reminding me of the romance trope where you just want both parties to have a grown-up conversation already. Or at least, I ended up feeling that way.

Shroud has things to say about colonization, capitalism, and how systems feel inevitable if you've grown up within them; and the final section of the book was more enjoyable. But I can't recommend it at all.

This is the latest Murderbot novella, in which Murderbot is on a rescue mission along with Three. As you would expect from this series, things do not go entirely to plan.

This is a lot of fun, and I still really enjoy Murderbot's narrative voice. It doesn't really do anything new, though.

I imagine this will be on the 2027 Hugo Shortlist, hence my writing my brief thoughts down now :)

I've reviewed the novels, novellas, and films, but didn't get round to ranking them until yesterday, the day before the voting deadline. So, here's how I voted:

Best Novel

1. A Drop of Corruption
2. The Everlasting
3. The Incandescent
4. The Raven Scholar
5. Death of the Author

Best Novella

1. The River Has Roots
2. Cinder House
3. What Stalks the Deep
4. The Summer War
5. Automatic Noodle
6. Murder by Memory

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

1. Sinners
2. KPop Demon Hunters
3. Frankenstein
4. Superman
5. Mickey 17

I think this is the last category I'm going to be able to read before the voting deadline; again I'll try and say something non-spoilery about them all.

1. Six People to Revise You by J.R. Dawson. I read this when it came out on a recommendation, and I still think it's great - about how we see ourselves and how others see us.
2. 10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days by Samantha Mills. As end-of-the-world stories go, this one manages to be somewhat hopeful.
3. Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything by Effie Seiberg. A rightfully-angry comment on accessibility.
4. Wire Mother by Isabel J. Kim. In the future, not being able to relate to AIs could be a problem…
5. In My Country by Thomas Ha. An odd tale of authoritarianism and how it might be resisted.
6. Missing Helen by Tia Tashiro. A very human story.

I've read these; it's hard to say much about them without spoilers, so here's a voting order and a brief note about each:

1. When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente. A nice blend of a song and a horror genre.
2. Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy by Martha Wells. I love a Murderbot story, although this one's a bit pedestrian.
3. Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak. A generation ship has gone awry in a corporate dystopia.
4. The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker. I see why the illusion isn't revealed, but that leaves this a bit unsatisfactory.
5. The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed. I wanted to like this, but it felt a bit heavy-handed.
6. Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch. Even more heavy-handed than the titular Kaiju.

I found these a difficult set to rank, without any stand-out winners.

Again, in order of reading:

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz is a post-apocalyptic story where some robots are trying to survive after the restaurant that they worked for went bust. It's a pleasant read despite the setting, and while the comments about capitalism and prejudice are well-aimed, it's quite cozy in tone. Enjoyable, but not one to write home about.

The Summer War by Naomi Novik. I've really enjoyed some of Novik's fairy-tale retellings, but this one took a while to get going. While I really enjoyed the final third or so, I somehow didn't find myself especially caring about the fates of many of the characters.

Cinder House by Freya Marske. This is another fair-tale reworking, but it would be quite a spoiler to say which. This goes in a couple of directions I wasn't entirely expecting, and I liked our protagonist. I also felt the final quarter or so was the strongest part of this, and it had a very satisfactory ending.

[I'm still hoping to get through the rest of the short fiction before the voting deadline...]

First in reading order, What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher. This is a follow-on from What Moves the Dead and What Feasts at Night, and is loosely inspired by Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. Alex Easton (the same narrator as before) is summoned to West Virginia, where someone has vanished, and there are reports of weird goings-on in an abandoned coal mine. I liked how past trauma informs the actions of the protagonists in different ways, the genuinely creepy things that are found, and how those are handled, and the sense of mystery.

Second, I read The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar. I wasn't initially sure I was going to like it, with the grammar/magic system seeming a little abstract, but actually it really drew me in, and this is a beautiful and tragic story (I cried a lot in places), based in part on a folk song but taking it in a new and interesting directions. A stand-out story for me, and I'd highly recommend it.

Third, Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite. This is a murder mystery set on a generation ship. It's a cozy mystery and nicely put together. I really enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it's award-winning material.

I seem to have read a few books recently with ( a particular plot device ), all of which have to deal with ( an issue with that plot device ). I think The Everlasting does this pretty well. That combined with a pleasing narrative voice (or two) made this a very enjoyable read for me.

Thematically, it talks about how we tell stories about ourselves and others, and how those stories get changed or distorted for noble or malign reasons. A plus point is a canonically bisexual character (where their sexuality isn't a big deal) :)

I don't currently have access to a copy of Shroud, the final novel on the shortlist; I've not much got on with Adrian Tchaikovsky's books before, so I'm not sure if I'm going to try and get to it before the voting deadline (e.g. the local library's ebook version isn't available until after the deadline)...

I've been meaning to write these for a couple of weeks, so they're going to be a bit short and rubbish now. Better late than never...

I've watched the last of the films, which was Superman. It's fun in a mostly-standard-superhero film kind of way, but I thought the way it raised the "hang on, is having powerful vigilantes beating people up without any sort of due process of law actually good?" question and didn't satisfactorily resolve it was a bit poor - part of the suspension of disbelief in this genre is that you don't question that Superman beating the baddies is a good thing. And the plot-critical rift was left open for a very long time...

Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor was an unusual book for me in that I liked where it ended up but found it a bit of a struggle to get there. I did like the interleaved narratives, and the ideas about story and AI, as well as what it's like to be well-known and on the internet. But I found Zelunjo Onyenezi-Onyedele too vexing a character to spend so much time with. So while it's an interesting book with a satisfying conclusion, I'm not sure I'd entirely recommend it as a fun read.

Mickey Barnes and Timo join an expedition to the planet Niflheim, hoping to outrun a murderous loan-shark. The hapless Mickey signs up as an "Expendable", not realising this means he will have his memories uploaded to a computer and then be made to do all sorts of hazardous work, getting cloned/printed afresh every time he dies. He rapidly makes his way up to Mickey 17 before being abandoned in an ice ravine...

The expedition is led by a feeble but egotistical white supremacist whose followers (who make up a sizeable chunk of the expedition crew) wear red hats; and that is about as subtle as the politics of this film gets. It has a number of Points To Make, and it does so with some vigour.

A bunch of the plot doesn't hold up if you look at it hard ( spoilers ), and sometimes the plot was deeply predictable ( spoilers ). There were bits that were too cringey for me, but I have abnormally low tolerance for cringe.

But I think my main problem with Mickey 17 was that I didn't find myself caring about the plot very much - something about the whole thing kept breaking my suspension of disbelief, and I found myself thinking "this is a very silly movie" rather than getting caught up in what was happening. Possibly because too many of the characters' choices seemed inexplicable? Anyhow, my least liked of the Hugo films this year so far (and there's only 1 left).