My Hugo Nomination Ballot for 2018:

The deadline for nominations for the 2018 Hugo Awards - celebrating the best in SciFi/Fantasy works from 2017 - is this Friday, and for the second year in a row, I actually am a WorldCon Supporting Member and eligible to nominate and vote.  It is too late for new voters to join the convention and nominate, but it is not too late to pay the fee and sign up for voting on the awards themselves after the nominations are announced (yeah it costs $50, but the Hugo Packet that is given to all potential voters is well worth that value - more on this when it comes out).

So this post will go into my nominations for this year's Hugo Awards.  I am only nominating in categories that I feel I have read works worthy of consideration and may be gaming some of the nomination spots so as to increase the value of my votes.

My nominations are as follows:



Best Novel:
My Nominations:
1.  Amatka by Karin Tidbeck (Review)
2.  In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan (Review)
3.  The Tiger's Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera (Review)
4.  Phantom Pains by Mishell Baker (Review)
5.  Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee (Review)
Just Missed My List:
1.  An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (Review)
2.  The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (Review)
3.  Blood and Tempest by Jon Skovron (Review)

I had eight books I wanted to nominate but only five spots so some gaming of the list happened here.  The Stone Sky, Amatka, In Other Lands, and The Tiger's Daughter are clearly my favorite books from last year, but The Stone Sky doesn't need my vote to make the list, so I'm leaving it off my list (and in the event that it doesn't make the nominations due to too many people with the same idea, I won't feel bad given it's a bestseller whose two predecessors won the last two awards).  This left me with two spots for four books. 

Blood and Tempest is the next one I took off my ballot - I think I liked it less than the other three books in question, and given that it's the concluding work in a trilogy that seemed to garner no awards (and I don't think sold well), I suspect that a vote for it would be a waste (If I'm wrong here, I'll feel really bad).

The hardest book to leave off was An Unkindness of Ghosts, which is a devastatingly powerful novel and definitely worthy of a nomination.  I see a number of writers campaigning for it, and I would be unsurprised if it makes the list - but I LOVED Raven Strategem and Phantom Pains was just behind, and I really didn't want to leave either off my ballot (both are sequels to nebula nominated books from last year (Raven Stratagem also was a sequel to a Hugo Nominated book as well)).

In short, my ballot is 4 women and 1 man, three Fantasy and two SciFi, includes two books (arguably 3 if you count Amatka) with serious romantic subplots/plots, and contains three original works and two sequels, so I'm really happy with this group of five, although I'd be unsurprised if none of the five actually make the list.

Best Novella:
My Nominations:
All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Review)
The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang (Review)
Passing Strange by Ellen Klages (Review)

I read about 10 Novellas last year, and only 3 piqued my interest as being Hugo Worthy.  Two of these three are on the Nebula list (I only read Passing Strange after seeing it on the Nebula list actually) and the third is the companion novella to another Nebula nominated work (The Black Tides of Heaven).  I liked The Red Threads a lot more than The Black Tides, so it's the only of the two works to get my vote.

All Systems Red is easily my pick to win this category though.

Best Novelette:
My Nominations:
The Mythbuster by Ken Liu (The Legends of Luke Skywalker)
Fishing in the Deluge by Ken Liu (The Legends of Luke Skywalker)

Not sure if either of these is eligible (Liu on twitter suggested he considered Legends to be a novel, but to me it was more an anthology with a framing device) but I admit to being unsure what else I've read qualified as Novelette length.

Best Short Story:
My Nominations:
The Sith of Datawork by Ken Liu (From a Certain Point of View)
Shore to Shore by Seanan McGuire (October Daye Series from McGuire's Patreon)
Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience by Rebecca Roanhouse (Apex Magazine)

The Sith of Datawork was my favorite story from the 50th anniversary Star Wars anthology, so an easy pick there.  I see campaigning for "Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience" and really liked it as well, so I'd be more surprised to see it miss the nominations than make it.  And Shore to Shore has no shot being a Patreon story but just gave me so much joy - it's the first date between two minor characters in the October Daye series and it is so so fantastic and makes me so happy I couldn't leave it off.

Best Series:
My Nominations:
The Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells

If this category has a reason to exist, it's this series - a series of books which in no way are Hugo worthy as individual books but are so fantastic together with such amazing characters that I've reread each of the five books and the short stories repeatedly over the past year. I cannot recommend this series enough.

The John W. Campbell Award For Best New Writer:
My Nominations:
Rivers Solomon (An Unkindness of Ghosts)
K Arsenault Rivera (The Tiger's Daughter)
Sarah Kuhn (Heroine Complex/Heroine Worship)
S.A. Chakraborty (The City of Brass)

No surprise to see Solomon and Rivera here, given their works either made or just missed my best novel list.  Sarah Kuhn is in her second year of eligibility, and her Heroine series is some of the most fun of any works I've read over the past year and a half.  And S.A. Chakraborty's "The City of Brass" is a fascinating first book in a trilogy whose sequels I suspect may be on my list for Best Novel in the future (although the second book in that series will not come out till 2019).