Matthew's Journal

I managed to read all of these and get my vote in just before the deadline. All six of these were good stories, and it was hard to rank them.

1. The Inaccessibility of Heaven, Aliette de Bodard; a well put together mystery tale with fallen angels
2. The Pill, Meg Elison; holds an uncomfortable mirror up to how we treat fat people and the pressures we put on them to lose weight
3. Monster, Naomi Kritzer; a well-realized if grim tale of biology, bullying, and betrayal
4. Two Truths and a Lie, Sarah Pinsker; this is a horror story about a children's TV presenter, weird and well-written
5. Helicopter Story, Isabel Fall; it was good to actually get to read this after all the kerfuffle around its publication, it's very angry and has a disappointingly binary view of gender, in my opinion
6. Burn, or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super, A.T. Greenblatt; a superhero with a not very useful power in a world where they are not valued, this is a well-constructed story, and putting it last feels a bit mean

The voting deadline is approaching, and I'm not going to get everything read in time. I have, however, read all the short stories, and will be voting thus:

1. "Open House on Haunted Hill", John Wiswell. A moving story, with humour, and I liked the sideways take on the haunted house trope.
2. "Metal Like Blood in the Dark", T. Kingfisher. I don't want to spoiler this, but I liked the issues raised and it's a pleasing story.
3. "Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse", Rae Carson. An affecting story, and a pleasing change from standard zombie fare.
4. "A Guide for Working Breeds", Vina Jie-Min Prasad. Fun if unsubtle parable about labour and the choices we do and don't have about our work.
5. "The Mermaid Astronaut", Yoon Ha Lee. A nicely constructed tale, takes the little mermaid in not entirely expected directions, but didn't move me.
6. "Little Free Library", Naomi Kritzer. A charming tale, but the plot felt a bit telegraphed.

I've read enough of three of the nominated series to form an opinion on them, so will be voting thus:

1. "The Murderbot Diaries", Martha Wells.
2. "October Daye", Seanan McGuire
3. "The Lady Astronaut Universe", Mary Robinette Kowal.

I've read them all now, so time to vote!

I struggled a bit to rank these, but this is where I ended up:

1. Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse
2. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
3. The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin
4. Network Effect, Martha Wells
5. The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal
6. Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

The voting deadline is 20 November, so I really need to get to the shorter fiction soon!

This is the last of the Hugo novel shortlist.

It's a strange and beautiful book; an enigma. Try and read it without spoilers the first time! The narrator lives in the House, a vast labyrinth of halls filled with statues of things that do not otherwise exist in the House. The upper levels are cloud, and the lower levels filled with water. The only other person in the House is the Other, who calls the narrator Piranesi. The narrator is studying the house, trying to learn of its wonders.

This is a book that will reward a re-read, I think, although I don't know whether I will thereafter like it more or less. There's a lot going on here, and the ending felt like it was fair, too (which isn't universal in mystery stories!)

Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse. This is the first of a series (I don't know of how many; a sequel is due out next year); it's a fantasy novel set somewhere that isn't obviously European (if you see what I mean); there is magic, a conflict between old a new gods, four POV characters, and a lot of flashback. I was a bit worried at the start that I'd not be able to keep all the various elements organised in my head, but that didn't turn out to be an issue. I liked the different voices of the POV characters, the sense of a coherent world (though there was the odd bit of "let me show you how much world-building I've done"), and that the plot had some interesting twists without feeling contrived. It builds nicely to the climactic scenes, too.

The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal. Another prequel novel to "The Lady Astronaut of Mars", this is later than the events of The Calculating Stars. I broadly liked this, and the plot had more tension than The Calculating Stars, although I felt that ( mild spoilers ) were perhaps a bit too contemporary right now!

I just have Piranesi to go from the Novel shortlist now...

Past form suggests if I wait until I've read all of them, I'll have forgotten what I thought about at least some of the first-read novels from the Hugo shortlist, so, in order of reading:

Network Effect, Martha Wells. Another Murderbot story! I really enjoy Murderbot - a page-turny adventure with a whole load of digs at capitalism and reflection on what it means to be human. There's not much new to the formula in this book ( spoilers ). If you've not read Murderbot, start with All Systems Red and read the series in order.

Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir. I really enjoyed Gideon the Ninth, to which this is the sequel and was really looking forward to reading it as a result. I'm afraid to say that while I found myself compelled to keep reading to find out where the book was going, I didn't really enjoy it, which is mostly because I didn't understand it, even having got to the end. ( spoilers for both this book and the previous ) But much of that is really unclear almost throughout, and I had to refer to the plot summary on WP to put some of it together afterwards. It's structurally very clever, but I'm afraid I'm too stupid to "get" it; maybe once I've read the forthcoming final part of the trilogy I will come back and go "wow, that was actually very neat", but at the moment my inclination is more to say "Read Gideon the Ninth, and leave it at that unless you are smarter than me or like being confused".

The City We Became, N. K. Jemisin. I imagine you get more out of this if you know New York well, but I still really enjoyed it. I like the ideas, the social commentary (which never quite crosses over into feeling preachy), the sense of place in the different boroughs, and the way the various characters and their abilities evolve. Another one I had difficulty putting down! I imagine people from one particular of the five boroughs may feel hard-done-by, mind you...

I've now watched (and reviewed!) all of these, so time to rank them:

1. The Old Guard
   
2. Palm Springs
   
3. Tenet
   
4. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
   
5. Soul
   
6. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
   

You may have seen the reviews I've written previously, but I would happily recommend the first two films if you've not seen them yet.

This is the last of the films off this year's Hugo Award shortlist. There is a very complex time-travel plot here, which I think doesn't in fact stand up at all, but there are a series of delightful (and delightfully silly) action sequences (a number of which we see twice) which try and keep you from thinking too hard about the plot. It's trying very hard to do a bunch of clever stuff, but doesn't stick the landing. Also, some of the dialogue is a bit hard to make out, which is an error in a film that is already pretty confusing! ( Some spoilers )

The penultimate short-listed film for the Hugo Award this year, Soul is a Pixar film about Joe Gardner, a jazz pianist and teacher; and 22, a soul who is stuck in the Great Before. It's a beautifully-animated film with a great soundtrack and some very funny moments (and far too much cringe for my liking!). But I found the plot rang hollow (and its ontology(?) was very strange), and it dragged surprisingly for a relatively-short film. ( More review, with spoilers )

Another Hugo shortlist entry. I wasn't really expecting to enjoy this, as romcoms are very much Not My Thing, but I actually thought it was pretty good (and had plenty of laugh-out-loud moments).

The premise is a wedding day that is an infinite time-loop for a few of the characters - one of whom has been looping for ages, another of whom gets stuck in the loop at the start of the film; so we learn about what's going on as they do. Despite Groundhog Day not being explicitly mentioned ever, this is a plot device that's been used before, but I liked the fun (and near-absence of cringe comedy) and humour of this, as well as the hints of darkness (there's a nihilism under the surface that is never lingered on) that made the characters much more sympathetic.

At 90 minutes, it doesn't outstay its welcome, either.