Matthew's Journal

I've read all of these, and propose to vote thus:

1) The Chaplain's Legacy (Brad Torgersen) [not as clever as some, but the most affecting]
2) Six-Gun Snow White (Catherynne M. Valente) [beautifully-crafted re-telling, but didn't draw me in]
3) Equoid (Charles Stross) [clever, silly, entertaining]
4) No Award
Wakulla Springs (Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages) [interesting, but not SF]
The Butcher of Khardov (Dan Wells) [Poor]

I wasn't as sure in my ordered with these as I was with the novels.

The Chaplain's Legacy is about a chaplain's assistant who once saved humanity by persuading an alien professor that religion was interesting (the aliens are atheist, and completely bemused by the idea of faith); the aliens have now decided that religion has ceased to be interesting enough to justify letting humanity live. So the chaplain's assistant is brought in again to try and get a stay of execution, but then it all goes south. Two humans and two mantes (including the Queen Mother, evicted from her technological disk) are marooned on an empty planet, left to walk in search of shelter and rescue. The plot has a couple of twists (though nothing particularly off-piste), but I found the chaplain dealing with everyone's expectations of his ministry and how those contrast with his own lack of faith very moving. I suspect it won't appeal to less religiously-minded folk as much.

Six-Gun Snow White is a re-telling of the fairy tale, as you might expect. It's set in the early USA, and there's a fair dose of magical realism. This is a beautifully-crafted novella, which I think would reward re-reading. It's certainly technically better than the Torgersen, but somehow it didn't move me; I didn't find myself really caring about the protagonist. Maybe I'll read it again before the voting deadline, and might move it up a place.

Equoid is a Laundry book; I've only read one other of these, but the basic premise is that there's a government department that's responsible for handling the paranormal. In this case, it's My Little Pony meets Cthulhu. The result is great fun, tightly paced, and very silly. I found the Lovecraft-purple-prose bits a little too tedious in places, but this is a minor quibble.

Wakulla Springs is set in the obvious place; it tells a tale of generations of people of colour, and their interactions with the film industry who used the springs as a location to film in. It's an interesting, politically charged story that's well worth reading, but I can't quite bring myself to vote for it in an SF award, as I don't think it's SF.

The Butcher of Khardov is wargame fan-fiction: Warmachine is a wargame based on an RPG setting, and The Butcher of Khardov is about a Warcaster, the key character type in the game: able to control war machines by magic, and also adept strategists and spell-casters. The titular character is a warcaster (and, I gather, a powerful playing piece in the game), and this book describes some events in his life. I guess if you're a fan of the game, this backstory for a significant character might be interesting, but I didn't like it, and it's a bit too "man goes mad because he cannot protect his women".