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 the Award for Best Young Adult SF/F Novel can be found HERE:
My Reviews/Rankings of the Nominees for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer can be found HERE:
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:
My Reviews/Rankings of the Nominees for Best Novel can be found HERE:
Best Series is in its first official year as an official category on the Hugo Ballot, after a trial run last year (in which Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga won the award). Incredibly, most of the series' nominated are included in this year's Hugo Packet in full! I'd managed to read the entirety of two of the nominated series (The Books of the Raksura, which I nominated myself, and inCryptid) prior to the nominations being announced, and had read parts of two of the other four series. Since the nominations were announced, I've managed to read at least two books in each series other than The Stormlight Archive, whose first book is as long as two of the other books in any of the other series (or more).
Best Series.....is a flawed category that I think needs greater exploration by Hugo Administrators in the future, because what exactly corresponds to a series? In the six nominated series alone, there are two series which could arguably be considered either parts of one larger series and one series which could be considered the equivalent of lumping two separate series together. I'll go into this more in depth below, but it's a problem I think should be considered in the future.
Let's get into it after the Jump:
6th Place: The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (Tor US / Gollancz UK)
What I've Read of the Series: The First Book (The Way of Kings)
Quick Overall Plot: Epic Fantasy Series in which a bunch of heroes in a world filled with Relics of magical heroes who legendarily betrayed their people learn that an ancient foe may be returning and strive to avert destruction.
Thoughts: This is the only series I've only read one book of (there are currently three published books), which is mainly due to the fact that each book is over 1000 pages long, making them at least double the size of each of the books in the other series. I liked The Way of Kings....but it never really stood out to me in any way. Each of the protagonists' stories were good, but well, at two of the three protagonists would drop off the face of the book for large stretches at a time (including the only major female character, which was really annoying, as she was the most interesting of the three protagonists). There's a good chance at some point I pick up this series again (maybe when the fourth book is published in a few years), but it requires such a time commitment and didn't earn my love enough to really make me want to put in that commitment yet. Given Sanderson's popularity however, the odds he takes home this award seem rather high.
Also annoying, and illustrating a problem with the Best Series Hugo, is that this book features cameos apparently from other Sanderson works, which all take place in the same "Cosmere" multiverse. So why isn't this nomination for the entire Cosmere Universe given the connection is so blatant - it's one thing if these books simply took place in the same multiverse, but with characters apparently from those other books (which I haven't read) showing up, they're more clearly connected to the point where non-readers of those other books (like myself) are a little lost by those sections. More on this issue with the next series on this list....
5th Place: World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold (Harper Voyager / Spectrum Literary Agency)
What I've Read of the Series: The First Book (The Curse of Chalion) and all six Penric Novellas
Quick Plot Summary: In a fantasy version of Europe, the Five Gods - Father, Mother, Daughter, Son and Bastard, govern matters of the soul, but men need to help them influence the mortal world. In the Penric books, a young man finds himself the host of a demon of the Bastard, with which he attempts to do good in the world.
Thoughts: Yeah, see this is a very weird way for these works to be nominated. Like Sanderson's Cosmere Multiverse, the Penric Novellas and the Chalion books all take place in the same universe (well, multiverse for Sanderson), with elements of each setting being part of both the books and the novellas. But the Penric Novellas take place in a different place on the continent, feature no characters in common (other than the Gods, who are periphery characters at best and more like concepts really) and I think at a different time period than the books. So why are the Penric Novellas grouped with the Chalion books when there's practically no connection, while the other Cosmere novels aren't considered the same series as The Stormlight Archive? This is especially weird because I think it's clear that the readers probably intended to nominate the Penric stories, rather than the older novels.
My complaints about the nomination particulars aside, I've enjoyed what I've read in this series a good bit, if not nearly as much as my top 3 nominations. Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga won this award last year, but I suspect it won't carry the way this time as these are lesser known and less popular stories. The Penric Novellas are all fun diversions, but never really cross over into truly great novellas (Penric's Mission is probably the closest). I really enjoyed The Curse of Chalion, which I'll review next week, and look forward to getting on with its sequel soon. So this is a deserved nomination...even if it's not close to my top 3 - overall the series is fun, but nothing special, and not fun to the point where I want to constantly reread it either. It's very close to my fourth place series though....
4th Place: The Memoirs of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan (Tor US / Titan UK)
What I've Read of the Series: The First Two Books (A Natural History of Dragons, The Tropic of Serpents)
Quick Plot Summary: The memoirs of an elderly woman, Isabella, Lady Trent, who is renowned as the world's preeminent Dragon Naturalist, and the adventures that led to that fame.
Thoughts: The first of two series I hadn't heard of or read prior to the nominations being announced, I've now read the first two (of five) books in the series as audiobooks and enjoyed them quite a bit. It's also one of only three finished series on this list (the final book came out this year). Featuring an intrepid explorer/researcher of dragons as its main heroine, who constantly gets herself into dangerous situations in her attempts to learn more on expeditions to foreign lands about the beasts she finds herself so fascinated by (and the Dragons are wild beasts in this series, they are simply a majestic animal here at least through 2 books), it's just a lot of fun, with fantastic worldbuilding that shows cultures around dragons in a world like our own, but not quite our own (it also has a variant of Judaism as the dominant religion, which made me smile), in addition to the strange creatures that obviously don't exist in our world. Like the World of the Five Gods, none of the books or the series as a whole is a must-read, so it's a clear step below my top 3 books, but I'm glad to have been introduced to the series via this award.
3rd Place: The Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway)
What I've Read of the Series: All Three Books (City of Stairs, City of Blades, City of Miracles)
Quick Plot Summary: The world used to be ruled by the Continent, which was aided by their Six powerful Primary Divinities. However, a man of the Saypur Islands (essentially India) overthrew their continental masters and killed the Gods. But the Gods and their works - supposedly gone - may not be as gone as commonly thought.
Thoughts: The other series I hadn't heard of prior to its nomination, The Divine Cities marks the first series which I would be happy to see win the Award - it's really really damn good. Featuring a world in which a Continent used the power of six Gods to conquer a colony land, only to see that Colony (based clearly upon India) find a way to kill the gods and conquer the conquered, The Divine Cities reminded me of a bunch of other series I enjoyed (The Inheritance Trilogy, The Craft Sequence) and yet was very different and very much its own thing. It features some fantastic mysteries/thrillers, with some of the best main characters I've read in a while - the first book's heroine and series overall Big Good Ashara Komayd is just an absolutely amazing heroine to read, while the second book's heroine and third book's hero are also excellent. The second book follows a similar path as the first but is great in its own way, while the third book takes a more action-y direction (I compared it to The Kingdom of Gods meeting Jason Bourne), which somehow just works.
What makes this series a worthy winner to me is that I will reread parts of it - and have already done so quite a bit since my first completion of the series - in the future. Even knowing how things end, the books are quite fun to read, and certain aspects of earlier in the books are shown in new lights when you know how things play out. Great dialogue, world, and characters, make The Divine Cities a must-read for anyone interested in the fantasy genre in my opinion.
2nd Place: InCryptid by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
What I've Read of the Series: All Seven Books* (Discount Armageddon, Midnight Blue-Light Special, Half-Off Ragnarok, Pocket Apocalypse, Chaos Choreography, Magic for Nothing, Tricks for Free), All Short Stories Published.
Quick Plot Summary: The Price family once belonged to the Covenant of St. George, an international organization of hunters of anything that isn't "natural" - namely Cryptids, animals and sentient beings that Science can't explain. Now the family is in hiding in the U.S. and seeks to help learn about Cryptid Society as well as to protect them from the Covenant and others who would seek to destroy them.
*Technically the Seventh Book in the series, Tricks for Free, is not included in Hugo Consideration as it came out in 2018. But I've read it anyhow and I can't help but have it color my thoughts, albeit barely.
Thoughts: InCryptid is one of two of the series on this list which to me emphasizes what this award should be for. What do I mean by that? Well I don't think any of the books in the series come close to being worthy of an individual Hugo Nomination (some of the short stories might come close). But as a whole, it is an incredibly fun series with fantastic characters who become better as the series goes on, with the whole world constantly expanding into fun and interesting directions. After loving October Daye after it got nominated last year, I devoured this series (short stories first, then novels) pretty quickly thereafter, taking out each book from my eLibrary in succession, and taking out anthologies from inter-library loan so I could get the few short stories that weren't available online (and now I have them thanks to the Hugo Packet, awesome).
Again, none of the books on their own stand out as must-read, but as a whole the series is more than the sum of their parts. Midnight Blue-Light Special - the second book following the Series' first heroine Verity - follows up on its predecessor to become a riveting novel with high stakes (and still a lot of fun due to its witty as hell heroine). Similarly, Magic for Nothing - my favorite of the series - follows up on everything that comes before and really turns around what we knew about its heroine - youngest sibling Antimony Price - from the perspective of her siblings and the book is far better as a result of it. Oh and then there's the Aeslin Mice, talking mice that worship the main characters' family and make every little thing they do part of a religious ritual. They are absolutely amazing.
McGuire's dialogue and characters are incredibly sharp and fun, so I'll never tire of rereading these books. I don't expect it to win - October Daye didn't come close despite being McGuire's more popular series, so this doesn't really stand a shot - but I'd be very happy with it doing so.
(Incidentally, this series is another one showing the problem with this award that I highlighted above - the author's Ghost Roads stories, featuring Rose Marshall, are not considered as being part of the series for this award apparently, despite taking place in the same world with their protagonist cameoing in a few of the stories. Not sure how that differs from Chalion).
1st Place: The Books of the Raksura by Martha Wells (Night Shade)
What I've Read of the Series: All Five Novels (The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths, The Edge of Worlds, The Harbor of the Sun) and Both Short Story Collections, Plus All Stories Published on the Patreon
Quick Plot Summary: Moon, an orphan in the Three Worlds, is a being who can shapeshift between a bipedal form and a winged form, but he doesn't know what he is. However, he soon learns he is a Raksura - a type of matriarchal bisexual polyamorous flying shapeshifting lizard-lion-bee people (the author's own words) - and joins the Indigo Cloud court, as they struggle to survive and establish themselves once again in the world.
Thoughts: The Books of the Raksura was my sole nomination for this category and obviously I'm thrilled to see it make the shortlist as a result. Like inCryptid, it's an example of what this category should be about - a series of books and shorter stories which individually might not be worthy of a Hugo Award but combine to make something much more enjoyable. All Five of the Novels were rated by me as being either 8 or 8.5 out of 10 stars - lower than The Divine Cities novels for example. And yet combined they form a series which is one of my favorites in the past few years, and I have been a supporter of Wells' Patreon since devouring them, simply because she posts one new short story a month with the characters there.
Why is the series like this? Well, none of the series' plots are particularly special in any way - don't get me wrong they're perfectly solid, and each book expands its scope significantly - but as you read on the characters don't only grow on you, they become characters you absolutely cannot help but feel for. And if it was 1-2, or even 3-5 characters like this, it would just be like many other good series, but this is a series with (as TVTropes calls it) Lots and Lots of Characters, and the reader will wind up caring so much about so many of them, each of them with their own distinct personalities and traits.
There's Moon, Jade, Stone, and Chime, probably the most important four characters in the books, but then there's also Balm, River, Flower, Ember and Pearl (introduced as well in the first book except for Ember), the little kids Frost, Thorn and Bitter (first book), as well as the members of another group of Raksura - Malachite, Celadon, Shade, Umber, and Lithe (third book) and a bunch of others I'm not going to mention here. And again each of these characters are distinct, and I managed to love almost every one of them. That's an incredible achievement, and while the series is essentially done outside of the short stories on Patreon, it is still something I will reread quite a bit. Wells is one of my favorite authors, and in this series she has created something great, often pulling at my heartstrings with ease, in a world filled with very different things and again characters who will stay with you and make you love them and want the best for them.
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