by Helen Lowe
On 20 July I blogged about my mission to read all the fiction finalists for this year’s Hugo Awards and then on July 30, only 1 day out from the close of voting, I came back to talk about the trends in what I’d read. But I didn’t want to influence anyone else’s selections, so I thought I’d wait until after the 31st before doing a final post on how I made my final choices and a few of the stories that made the greatest impression on me. Except that I booked my air tickets to Worldcon this week, which means I shall actually be at the Hugo Awards ceremony. So I think I’ll have to come back one more time to tell you all about that—and either lament the distance between my picks and the names that come out of the envelope, or crow about being right on the money!
OK, back to not wanting to influence the way others vote. The big thing about any fiction award is that you have to first evaluate and then rank, quite often making fine distinctions between a number of very good stories. So although the first step in evaluation may be to say, “do I like this story?” the last question is quite likely to be: “which one do I like most?” A tough call, but also a very subjective one—and very individual. Also a big part of why I was determined to read every finalist in the four fiction categories of short story, novelette, novella and novel before I voted.
So I read ’em and now I’ve voted. In terms of the “do I like this?” question, the answer to that was “yes”, more times than not—and that meant I had no choice but to take the next evaluation steps.
A first rule of thumb was that if a story stuck in my mind after reading 23 works of fiction in a short space of time, then that was probably a good indicator that I didn’t just like, but really liked. Both Mike Resnick’s short story, The Bride of Frankenstein, and John Scalzi’s The God Engines fell into that category. Bride definitely grew on me as I read. I enjoyed both the characters and the subtle re-working of the Frankenstein story and was left with a feeling of satisfaction. With The God Engines it was the idea of harnessing gods as a source of power that stayed with me, and the implications of that in terms of the consequent need for faith, with all its social, cultural and technological implications.
You’re probably starting to get an idea of my subjective preferences when evaluating story. I really like emotional depth. I also really like interesting ideas. But I’m not so much into clever ideas for their own sake: without characters and a story that engages me, cleverness alone won’t cut it. Something that does really matter though, is continuity/consistency of both characters and plot. It doesn’t matter how much I like the characters or how interesting the idea—if there are plot holes I can drive a bus through, then I’m not going to rate that story.
Unless there’s a lot of humor. I do award extra points for stories that raise a smile—and bonus points again for a read that makes me laugh out loud. (The graphic novel contenders Girl Genius and Schlock Mercenary, both of which I read regularly, always get lots of bonus points for laugh-out-loud moments.)
These are some of my big hits when trying to decide how much I really like a story. Another aspect that I thought very important with the Hugo reading was that the award is being made for excellence in speculative fiction. So while as a reader I needed to consider whether the stories were compelling and well written and engaging, I also needed to give a lot of thought to strength/use of genre when finally deciding how to vote. For example, in the novelette section, I loved Nicola Griffiths’ story, It Takes Two, but I also felt that the genre elements in the story were slender compared to other finalists. Given that this was the category I enjoyed most overall, one where I that felt every finalist had claims to make on the number one ranking, this made the final decision very tough.
The toughest decision though, was in the novel category, where I was left trying to finally decide between two books that met all the yardsticks I have just discussed. I really, really liked both China Mieville’s The City & The City and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl. There was no quibble, however minor, that I could seize on to eliminate either of them from the final running for my number one ranking. So in the end, I was left with the most subjective of decisions: which stripe of story and speculative fiction do I prefer (given that I had to choose.)
We may all love the breadth and depth of stories that the full range of the Science Fiction-Fantasy-Horror genre has to offer, but in the end there will always be a style of storytelling or class of sub-genre that appeals more than others. Personally, I love the grand sweep of story, an array of characters and motivations and storylines woven together. I also love themes of social and cultural interaction and change; environmental themes are right up there, too, and—you’re probably starting to see where I’m heading with this—I have always liked future-dystopian fiction. So when forced to choose between Mieville’s wonderfully realized idea of the two overlapping cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma, and Paolo Bacigalupi’s dystopian future Bangkok of cultural, environmental and scientific-technological conflict, I ended going with The Windup Girl.
So that’s it, my road to the Hugo Awards ceremony at Worldcon, in Melbourne, Australia, on September 5. The reading was definitely a lot of fun and the final evaluation tough, but I’m really going to enjoy finding out how the voting has gone. Just for the record though—and so I can’t fudge it after the 5th—here’s my top two in each of the four fiction categories:
Novel:
Paolo Bacigalupi: The Windup Girl
China Mieville: The City & The City
Novella:
John Scalzi: The God Engines
Nancy Kress: Act One
Novelette
Paul Cornell: One of Our Bastards is Missing
Nicola Griffiths: It Takes Two
Short Story
Mike Resnick: The Bride of Frankenstein
Will McIntosh: Bridesicle
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Helen Lowe is a New Zealand based, speculative fiction writer. Her first novel Thornspell (Knopf, 2008) won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for “Best Novel: Young Adult” 2009, and Helen won the Award for “Best New Talent” in the same year. Helen’s second novel, The Heir of Night (The Wall of Night, Book One) is being published by Eos on 1 October. She also blogs on the first of every month on the Supernatural Underground and every day on her own Helen Lowe on Anything, Really blog.
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