Reviewing the 2019 Hugo Nominees: Best Short Story

Hugo Award voting just opened at the start of May and continues through the end of July.  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last two years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

Other Hugo Award Looks:
My Picks for Best Novel:  See HERE.
My Picks for Best Novella:  See HERE.
My Picks for Best Novelette:  See HERE.

This post will be looking at the nominees for Best Short Story, for stories in the genre written in 2018 up to 7500 words long.  Last year's Short Story field was incredibly strong, but I came out of it feeling like there were a few clear tiers, with two short stories being my clear favorites.  This year's field is again incredibly strong, but I've had a much harder time really ranking them.  There are two stories that are fun, two are sad looks at horrid situations in our current (or near-future version) real world, one which is a fantasy look at past horrors of our world and one which is just a plain fantasy tragic story.  It's a wide variety of works that all have different tones, and it's kind of hard to measure them against each other.  But I'm going to try, and this is what I have so far.




6th Place On My Ballot:.  “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by P. Djèlí Clark (Fireside Magazine, February 2018)

This Story can be found HERE.

Thoughts:  This story won the Nebula Award, and I don't think it's a bad pick for the award, which is a testament to the strength of this ballot.  It's a fantasy story about nine slaves' lives and hopes, with the teeth taken from them as the gateway to their stories (and the effects of those teeth on George Washington) - with those slaves' lives having various degrees of fantasy elements, all fitting the themes of those realistic slave-lives.  Still, I think it probably works the least of these six as a cohesive whole, even if the individual parts of this story are excellently done (with the final part reclaiming the supposedly noble action of Washington to free his slaves on his deathbed, in a really nice touch).

5th Place On My Ballot:  “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat” by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine 23, July-August 2018)

This Story can be found HERE.

Thoughts: The first of two fun stories on the ballot, yet still with the usual Bolander style (as described in the novelette post, as having a "Burn Down Everything" attitude) - in this case, this is a fun story of three raptor sisters who encounter a privileged and oblivious prince, and the way too wise magic princess who feels trapped as his bride.  It is well worth your time, as while the princess part of the story is kind of predictable, it's done exceptionally well, with some absolutely fantastic dialogue that will make you laugh out loud.  I'm very close to moving this to fourth on my ballot, but for now, it's behind the other four stories.

4th Place On My Ballot:  “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, February 2018)

This Story can be found HERE.

Thoughts:  The first of our truly sad/tragic stories on this shortlist, this story tells the tale of a librarian - who may be more than she appears - and her struggles as she watches a distressed, possibly abused, child come in repeatedly, with the librarian feeling like the right book could be the key to helping that child....if only she was allowed to provide it.   Stories about the magic and power of libraries are pretty common in this genre, but they're usually lighter or more hopeful than this - although the story ends in a strong way in pointing out the importance of libraries helping and the value of escape.  This is another story that also made the Nebula ballot, and it definitely was worth the nomination there as well as here.

3rd Place On My Ballot:  “The Court Magician” by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, January 2018)

This Story can be found HERE.

Thoughts:  The Court Magician is the second tragic story on this shortlist, and it's a really well done subversion of a classical story - which is probably why it also made the Nebula shortlist.  It's a story, told from a mysterious narrator, of a young boy/man whose search for the trick behind magic - first stage, then real - leads him to become the Court Magician of an evil king, using magic to make things and people disappear....at the cost of parts and objects precious to the boy/man.  The subversion of the boy being picked to learn magic finding something good is really well done, with the story ending on a depressing but pretty appropriate note.

2nd Place On My Ballot:  “The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society” by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)

This Story can be found HERE.

Thoughts:  Our second fun story comes of course from classic author T Kingfisher - aka Ursula Vernon.  It's the story of a bunch of Fae of varying types telling their stories of how THEY were tricked and used - yes in that way - by young woman Rose MacGregor.  You wouldn't think such a concept could make a story, but the story is absolutely lovely and just so much fun, with a really charming ending.  The idea of the woman turning the tides on the Fae is truly great and again it's just so much fun all the way through, bringing a smile to my face.

First Place On My Ballot: “STET” by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)

This Story can be found HERE.

Thoughts:  The final tragic story, STET is also the most original in its form, and I think it's truly my pick for the award for that use of the form to tell the story in a truly really impactful way.  Ostensibly the story looks like a paragraph long journal "note" using jargon to give a thesis about the danger of AI in auto-driving cars.  But really the story is in the footnotes, in which the author evokes her real thesis based upon a terrible tragedy that happened to her and her family - and constantly asserts "Stet" (Keep it) to her editor's attempts to depersonalize the footnotes.  The form works perfectly here to focus the brutal hurt the author is trying to describe, and the very real near-future (maybe even present?) world that resulted in that tragedy.  Just tremendous.