Reviewing the 2018 Hugo Award Nominees: The Campbell Award for Best New Author

Hugo Award voting opened last month 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 last year, 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.  As I mentioned in my Hugo Packet post, all of the short fiction nominees are available in the Hugo Packet, though many of these pieces are also available for free online already - if they are, I will link those stories in the post.

My Reviews/Rankings of the Nominees for Best Short Story can be found HERE:
My Reviews/Rankings of the Nominees for Best Novelette can be found HERE:
My Reviews/Rankings of the Nominees for Best Novella can be found HERE:

The Campbell Award is an award for the Best New Science Fiction or Fantasy Writer over the past two years.  It is technically not considered a "Hugo," but it's part of the Hugo Awards Ceremony and awarded by the same group so everyone basically treats it as one and I will as well.  The Award commemorates the best new writer in the genre over the past two years, so unlike all of the other awards, covers both works from 2017 AND 2016, and writers remain eligible to be nominated for the first two years of their genre careers (unless they win in their first year).

I didn't love last year's Campbell ballot, where I begrudgingly voted for eventual winner Ada Palmer mainly because I loved her second book which wasn't even in the eligibility period.  This year's Campbell Award ballot however is incredible - three novelists with a Novel I rated at least 9 out of 10, two short fiction writers with at least one work elsewhere on the Hugo Ballot, and a fourth novelist whose book was pretty popular.  With the exception of that last one, that's an incredibly hard ballot to sort out, so I had to give myself some rules to help me do so, though these may differ for every voter.  My Rules: 

1.  I will count Novelists ahead of Short Fiction writers, not because the former is a greater form than the latter, but because I read more novels and they take up more of my time and give me more long term enjoyment.
2.  If I have a tie, I will break the tie in favor of the candidate whose eligibility is running out, if possible.






6th Place Vote:  Katherine Arden (1st year of eligibility, The Bear and the Nightingale - Review Here)

My Thoughts:  Katherine Arden is probably one of the favorites to win this award due to her book's popularity, but she just comes above No Award for me since her work is the only one I didn't love of this year's nominees.  The Bear and the Nightingale (Review linked above) has some lovely worldbuilding, but leads up to a final part which just did not satisfy in any way whatsoever.  It's a very solid first book, but not Campbell worthy.  I actually currently have the book's sequel out from the library (which is not technically in this year's awards consideration, but that's kind of an unclear distinction for the Campbell) but I'm not sure I'm going to get to it before it auto-returns to my e-library.

5th Place Vote.  Vina Jie-Min Prasad (1st year of eligibility, A Series of Steaks, Fandom for Robots)

My Thoughts:  Vina Jie-Min Prasad is on the ballot for two works of short fiction which both made the Hugo Ballot this year - one for the award for Best Novelette and one for the award for Best Short Story.  Both stories are excellent, although neither was my pick to win the award - those categories have some excellent competition.  As I noted above, I tend to rank short fiction writers in this category lower than the novelists due to my own personal preferences - I'd be very fine with Prasad winning this award, despite having her 5th - and the fact that I didn't actually pick either of her stories to win either of her award categories puts her blow the other short fiction writer on this ballot.

4th Place Vote.  Rebecca Roanhorse (1st year of eligiblity, Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience)

My Thoughts: Rebecca Roanhorse is the other short fiction writer on the Campbell ballot this year, and like Prasad, her work is also nominated for one of the Hugo categories - in this case, Best Short Story.  And while she only has one eligible work that I know of, it's also my pick for the winner in this category (and the likely favorite to win the award after winning the Nebula).  So winning Best Short Story is definitely worth a 4th place vote for the Campbell Award.  Roanhorse's first novel just came out on the 26th and I already have it out from the library, so she will definitely be eligible for the award next year as well, and probably a favorite if the book is great, but given my bias towards long fiction, she comes in 4th for me now.

3rd Place Vote.  Jeannette Ng (1st year of eligibility, Under the Pendulum Sun - Review HERE)

My Thoughts:  The Next Three spots on my ballot are almost interchangeable - I loved all four books produced by each of these three authors, and they're all very different, so comparing them is incredibly hard.  But well, I have no choice, so here we go.

Coming in third place on my ballot is Jeannette Ng, who wrote the phenomenal gothic fae fantasy/horror novel, Under the Pendulum Sun.  It's telling that I absolutely loved this book, despite it featuring a good amount of Christian Theological references that I (being not Christian) definitely missed.  If the book has a fault, its a slow beginning, but otherwise it is a fantastic example of great worldbuilding and a twisty plot that will leave you guessing until the end.  If this is Ng's first novel, I can't wait to read more from her, as her plotting is absolutely pristine.

2nd Place Vote.  Rivers Solomon (1st year of eligibility, An Unkindness of Ghosts - Review HERE)

My Thoughts:  Rivers Solomon is probably the favorite for this award (her or Katherine Arden, honestly), and her book, An Unkindness of Ghosts is my highest rated book for any author on this ballot (I gave it a 9.5 out of 10, whereas the other two top novelists both only hit 9 out of 10).  It's a terrific novel - never mind first novel - but a powerfully depressing one - the basic setup for the book is that the story takes place on a Generation Ship which is structured like a Plantation, with the lower class (and more colored) individuals on the lower levels of the ship oppressed by those on the higher levels. It is not a fun book in any way - our main heroine and her friends endure horrific abuse - and the ending is hardly one that gives off much hope, although it avoids being grimdark at the same time.  Especially in today's world - where those in power are espousing racism more openly than in years (not that said racism ever went away mind you), it's a book that probably should be more well-read than one would've thought two years ago.

1st Place Vote.  Sarah Kuhn (2nd year of eligibility, Heroine Complex - Review HERE, Heroine Worship - Review HERE)

My Thoughts: Sarah Kuhn is the only Campbell Award Candidate whose eligibility is over after this year, and thus my personal tiebreaker puts her in first place on my ballot over two other equally deserving novelists.  It also helps that she put forth two novels during this period, so she wrote more than any of the other nominees (a third novel is coming out next week, but is out of the Campbell eligibility period by any definition so it's irrelevant).

And both of these books are just so absolutely fun.  The Heroine Complex series (Book 1, Heroine Complex, and Book 2, Heroine Worship), follow a pair of Asian-American superheroes, Evie Tanaka and Aveda Jupiter, in an alternate modern San Francisco that suffers from periodic demon invasions.  But this isn't a dark superhero story (in either book) but an incredibly light and fun one - the first book features the demons taking the forms of every day items (Demon Cupcakes!) and the second book features Demon-Infested Wedding Dresses.  Both books also feature some really fun romances (and sex scenes!) and just some great dialogue.  The first book - Heroine Complex - is probably the stronger book, but I enjoyed the second book - Heroine Worship - quite a bit as well, with the predictable plot more than saved by the excellent characters, romance and great great dialogue.

I loved these so much and they deserve a lot more readers.  As such, I'm happy to put Sarah Kuhn first on my ballot for the Campbell Award (although I doubt she'll win).