Announcing the 2012 Hugo Award Nominees

Best Novellete “What We Found” by Geoff Ryman appears in the issue of September/October

Congratulations to all the winners, including those whose work I didn’t really like. Hope people have fun reading unfamiliar things on the shortlist, reacting to the links and nominees, and engaging in discussion.

A couple categories in reaction:
I think Best Novel is particularly weak this year. A Dance With Dragons is very much the fifth volume in an endless series, padded out for the sake of money, and mistaking grimness for literary skill. Beyond that, on the most routine measure of plot momentum it falls flat, hundreds of pages of travel to get key characters to almost meet, too many viewpoint characters period, and an insultingly slow pace. I love slow books when they’re doing something with the pace, this is just Scenery Porn and revelling in slow-moving plot complications. Plus, it becomes more and more clear that the series has no real political or moral complexity to speak of, we have the breakdown of Honourable Tough Leaders, Bad People and Wackjob Sadists.
Among Others has only slightly more novelty, and focused on an overly self-indulgent, self-contratulatory, smugly meta view of SF written primarily to praise SF works and SF fandom. It’s not at all surprising that it’s the kind of thing that would win awards (fans, like many people, like to be complimented) but there’s no real substance here.
Deadline is an improvement to Feed since the politics aren’t nearly as innane, but it’s driven by contrivance, character stupidity and melts down spectacularly in the final forty pages, destroying many of the invented rules of the series and pulling out a resurrection (excuse me, a cloning) out of nowhere. It’s also incredibly depressing to see people puke up affection automatically for a sequel.

Embassytown is a good book, essentially the token work of quality and imagination on the shortlist. (Disclaimer, haven’t read Leviathon Waits yet, could be a future classic though from everything I’ve heard I doubt it). Even there, though, it seems a case of fandom having Mieville somewhat in their radar. I’d have been more imprssed if a genuinely excellent book got in on its own merits purely, like The Islanders, Sensation or Osama. As is it seems that there’s not likely to be a move away from the cult of personality and friendship circles that drives the Hugo, I suppose I should be greatful that at least one person there actually is writing experimental stuff.

For Best Dramatic Presentation Short form, it’s a sign of diminished expectations that I’m glad there were *only* three out of the five slots for Doctor Who, and two of those weren’t insultingly-terrible. (The one that isn’t protected by this claim, IMO, is “A Good Man Goes to War”.) And I’m very pleased that Community got on, it’s a better piece of writing than most things on this year’s ballot and absolutely is SF. (which is more than you can say for Hugo).

#17:
No, silly, don’t you know that it’s Adam Roberts who criticizes the Hugos, Priest takes Clarkes, as part of their hatred of all life. Clearly I’m more likely to be Roberts. Plus I expressed an opposite view towards Embassytown, so, yeah.

Or, just possibly, I haven’t written anything of speculative fiction nature, and am just a fan (and Hugo voter) whose taste runs differently than the mass of voters, and who thinks that this is an unambitious, low-quality shortlist focused on nostalgia rather than anything (one book a sequel to last year’s nominated novel, another the fifth volume in a series where all works have been nominated, another whose entire story is about commenting on and praising old SF classics, two other ‘fresh’ works which are revivals of old school space exploits. How could *anyone* be so crazy as to think this is a conservative and backward looking list?)

Seriously, why is fandom so pathologically quick to embrace mediocrity in its awards, and so quick to scream at anyone that’s disapointed and expresses a belief that there are better works out there? There are different periods that evoke different reactions–there wasn’t the same degree of criticism for Hugo 2010 shortlist or the Clarke 2011, because those seen as being as bad. Honestly if fandom is going to insist on being nice to everyone in lieu of real criticism it deserves every bit of contempt that the mainstream hurls on nerds and the scifi ghetto.

#24 – Agreed!
Possibly worst editing ever.

Some thoughts on the Best Novel nominees:

1. A Dance with Dragons. It seems as if a lot of the fans of the series are down on this book and A Feast for Crows. I like all five books, though I do think A Storm of Swords is easily the high point of the series so far. Yes, the books meander a bit, and perhaps GRRM has bitten off more than he can chew (though we don’t know that yet!). Still, this is powerful stuff.

2. Among Others. It seems a bit slight. Lots of space is taken up by discussions of books the heroine is reading (Silverberg! Le Guin! Delany! Zelazny!). But it manages to build momentum. Enjoyable, if not quite powerful.

3. Deadline. This was the last of the Hugo-nominated novels I read. Going in, I was convinced it was going to be my least favorite of the nominated novels because I really hadn’t liked Feed. The worldbuilding seemed a bit sketchy and difficult to believe. They must have had a lot of factories churning out blood testing units 24/7. Nobody ever seemed to run out of them. We also never got much of a sense of how the zombie apocalypse impoverished society (it would have to, wouldn’t it?). But this book manages to have some moments, and I think it’s significantly better than Feed. Still, I don’t plan to read Blackout unless it gets nominated for a Hugo.

4. Embassytown. I appreciate that there’s some originality here and that the author has created some truly alien aliens. But the book doesn’t manage to be interesting…much. There were also about 5 or 6 sentences that I couldn’t make any sense out of. “Difficult but rewarding” seems to be what some are saying of this book. I didn’t find it all that rewarding.

5. Leviathan Wakes. The wild west in space. That’s what it feels like to me. The authors labor mightily to keep up the suspense, and with some success. But it eventually gets tediously repetitive with the acceleration couches and space battles, and I was tired of it long before I finished it. It doesn’t manage to…fascinate.

Some thoughts on the nominated novelettes:

“Fields of Gold” A man dies and finds himself at a party populated by (dead) people he knew, strangers, and celebrities. Eventually we get to learn about his life. If the story doesn’t quite gel, it has some propulsion as there are vivid characters here. It tops a weak category.

“What We Found” As the story opens, the narrator is about to get married. We get lots of recollections about his life. It’s well written and captured my interest, but various elements in the story don’t dovetail in any way that I can see. The story finishes with some philosophical summing up that didn’t bring it together for me.

“Ray of Light” Aliens arrive and block sunlight from reaching Earth. The last remnants of humanity live in submarines along the bottoms of oceans. The premise has promise, but the story is bland in the telling.

“Six Months, Three Days” A romance between two people who see the future (in different ways). I was put off by the way point-of-view was handled. One moment we’re in one character’s head, and the next moment we’re in another’s. The narration occasionally lapses into a sort of valley-girl speak. On the whole, I found the story unconvincing.

“The Copenhagen Interpretation” I’m not saying the author made it up as he went along, but it reads that way. Rather van Vogtian.