Reviewing the 2019 Hugo Nominees: The Hugo Award for Best Series

Hugo Award voting opened at the start of May and continues through the end of July - just next week!  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.
My Picks for Best Short Story: See HERE.
My Picks for The Campbell Award for Best New Writer: See HERE.
My Picks for the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Novel: See HERE.

The Best Series Award is the youngest True Hugo Award (the Lodestar Award doesn't count apparently), having come into existence 2 years ago, with the award going both prior years to Lois McMaster Bujold: first for the Vorkosigan Saga and then for her World of the Five Gods.  This year Bujold isn't on the ballot, so we're definitely going to have a brand new winner.

I admit, I wasn't going to actually make a post on this award, since unlike last year, I didn't expect to actually make much of a dent in reading a significant part of each nominee -  the nominees include 30 (maybe more if I miscounted) novels, multiple novellas, and many many pieces of other short fiction.  But in the end, I managed to read just enough of each nominee to feel comfortable voting for the award....although I have some misgivings about the way this award works that still color my judgment.

More on that and my actual picks below the jump:



Quite a few people have issues with the Best Series category, and i wouldn't be surprised if it goes away after only a little bit.  The general issues are that the award isn't adding anything - with the award so far going to two series that have already earned much Hugo recognition - and requires so much reading to fully evaluate to be near impossible for voters to judge fairly.  I agree with both of those issues and have one other, namely, the award as administrated so far does not seem so far to have a good grasp of what to do with authors who has multiple series within a same universe.  So to use last year as an example, Bujold's World of the Five Gods is actually two different series in a shared universe (the Chalion novels and the Penric Novellas) but was nominated as one while Sanderson's Stormlight Archive is one series that sits in Sanderson's Cosmere universe along with other books...but only the Archive was nominated.  I hope future administrators will have better judgment as what to do with maxiseries and the like, but thankfully, that's not an issue with this year's nominees.

Still, this award is hard to rank, even when I have read a decent amount of each of the nominees.  So a guiding principle to my rankings is as follows:  to me, this award only makes sense as a way to reward authors and works that build upon multiple works to form more fully grown worlds and characters than can be done in single works, with the aim being to continue such buildup over a longer term.  So I'm generally going to favor ongoing series over completed trilogies, or longer series (even if finished) over trilogies in general - the reason being that trilogies will tend to have enough substance in each individual work that they can get recognition for the major Hugo Awards (Best Novel/Best Novella for example) whereas a single volume in a longer series may only be award worthy thanks to the work that's come before.  As always, these rankings are my own judgments and mine alone, so others may of course disagree with my ranking methods.

Anyhow, on to the rankings:

7th on my Ballot: The Centenal Cycle by Malka Older (Tor.com publishing)

Works Read: The First Novel, Informocracy (Review here on Twitter)

Thoughts: I've read the least of this series of any on this list, reading only the first volume in this trilogy which concluded last year.  And I read that first volume as an audiobook, and I distinctly recall the audiobook reader being not very good, so that probably didn't help my opinion.  But still, I didn't like Informocracy and couldn't bring myself - with enough elsewise to read - to give the series a second chance with the second novel.  The series' general premise was definitely promising: that the world has developed microdemocracy, with global elections (except in some parts of the world which reject the premise) taking place to elect representatives from each "Centenal" (small geographic locations based upon populace).  And that to help this system of government, a neutral third party organization called "Information" - basically a superpowered search engine - promotes the truth of events and keeps people informed - is of key importance.

Yet even taking into account my bias from the bad audibook, there was so much here I just didn't like.  First, the characters were more often annoying than interesting, namely the first book's co-protagonist who acts as an operative for Information.  Secondly, Twists and character actions are often either incredibly predictable or so stupidly abrupt as to be laughable (one part that comes to mind is a character waking up in bed with another, seeing a shocking political development which makes her think the lover might have betrayed her somehow - totally irrationally - and just stabbing him abruptly).  And Third, the end result just wasn't satisfying, or even at least tantalizing as a cliffhanger.

It's very possible that the trilogy got better with the subsequent books, but I had little interest in reading those future books from the first, and as noted above, this is a completed trilogy, which garner less interest from me in ranking these nominees.  So I'm actually ranking this series below No Award.

6th on my Ballot: No Award

5th On My Ballot: The Laundry Files by Charles Stross (most recently Tor.com publishing/Orbit)

Works Read: The First two books and packaged novellas, The Atrocity Archives (Reviewed Here) and The Jennifer Morgue (Review Forthcoming).

Thoughts: The Laundry Files have a real shot at winning this award if partially due to geography due to nothing else - Stross is a British Author and smartly asked his fans NOT to nominate either of his series (the other being his Merchant Princes series) for last year's awards because he's likely to have more fans able to vote for a Worldcon in, well, Dublin.  And the series is definitely the type of series that I would in theory favor for the award: it's a long running series without a clear end, with characters and the world building up between installments.

And.....I enjoyed the first two books fine, and there's a chance I'll come back to the series later, but at the same time, it didn't quite wow me.  I'm not the biggest fan of Lovecraftian works, and while the Laundry Files is more spy thriller than any sort of horror (along with being occasionally a workplace humor comedy), it never really found me really excited in the characters, even if the plots were excellently crafted.  A little more annoyingly was that the first two books not only try to be clever, but keep trying to hit you (as the reader) over the head to make sure you realize how clever everything is.  I'm told from a friend that after the first four books, which are all written in the styles of various British spy authors (the 2nd being Ian Fleming, which is the only one I would recognize), that the books get better about this with the series being written in its own style from books 5 through 9, but well, I obviously haven't gotten to those books yet and can only judge based upon what I've read.  I'm willing to put this series above No Award, since unlike the above I did like what I read to some extent, but it just doesn't measure up to the other nominees.


4th On My Ballot: The October Daye Series by Seanan McGuire (most recently DAW)

Works Read: All Twelve Novels and every work of short fiction except maybe one recent release that came with a rerelease of the first novel.  (Reviews of the First Ten Books can be found HERE on this blog)

Thoughts:  If there's a reason I'm glad this award exists, the October Daye series might just be it - one of my favorite series that I've read since I got back into SF/F 4 years ago now, and I would've missed it entirely if not for the series first being nominated 2 years ago (and the entire series was in the Hugo Voters Packet!  What a crazy bargain!).  Again, this is a perfect example for me of what this award should be about - none of the books in this series would be anything I'd consider award worthy, and naturally every subsequent book builds upon the character and world development of the others (not necessarily the case with some of the short fiction works, mind you), to the point where the later books are something I devoured and have reread repeatedly because of how good they become thanks to what came before.

So yeah, I love the October Daye series and I suppose I should describe it - the series is an urban fae fantasy series set mainly in San Francisco in which changeling (half-Fae) October Daye, knight and private investigator, along with her growing group of friends, has to first overcome some major trauma when she's forced to investigate a murder of a Fae Countess....an investigation that results in her getting more involved with the world of the Fae once again.  Thereafter, events result in her becoming more intertwined with some of the most epic people and mysteries in all of Faerie, with her actions having major effects through the intersection of the Fae and human worlds.  And all of this is just so so damn good - the first two books are not quite as great as the rest of the series, but by book 3 we're in full form and rolling, with excellent characters, plots, and intriguing mysteries throughout.

So why is this series only 4th if I'm gushing so much?  Mainly only because of the series in front of it being so incredible as well, although I was very tempted to put this series in 3rd place.  But I'd be totally happy with this series taking home a win in this category and it does deserve its second nomination in 3 years.

3rd on my Ballot: Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

Works Read: All Three Novels (Reviews on the blog of the 2nd novel here and of the third novel here ) as well as the short fiction collection Hexarchate Stories (most of which is eligible from their original publications, but a few stories of which were new to the collection are not technically up for consideration since they were published in 2019).

Thoughts: This is a tricky one for me in this category, because I loved this series so so damn much, with me having picked Ninefox Gambit as my choice for the award 2 years ago and Raven Stratagem as my #2 pick last year.  On the other hand, this is very much the type of series which I don't particularly love as a nominee in this category - small amount of short fiction aside, this is a trilogy and not a continuing series, with each novel, despite building upon the characters and actions of the prior ones, being stand alone great on their own.  There's a reason this series picked up best novel nominations 3 straight years!  So I strongly considered putting this behind October Daye just based upon my feelings towards this category.

In the end though, I just couldn't do it - I loved this series so damn much and each book does build upon the themes and developments of the others just enough to fit my criteria for the award - and hell, the latest collection does end with a new novella that potentially could lead to more works in the series (here's hoping!).  The series may start very difficultly to get into, being very math heavy (math rules this world!) in concept and never taking a moment to try and explain to the reader the concepts through a viewpoint character who doesn't know how the world works, but it is incredibly rewarding in the end, with fantastic original characters, a fascinating world, and themes of power, autonomy, and the prices of the same among many many other ideas that Lee twines together brilliantly.

2nd on my Ballot: The Universe of Xuya by Aliette de Bodard (most recently Subterranean Press)

Works Read:  Two Novellas, The Tea Master and the Detective (Review Here) and On a Red Station, Drifting (Review Here), along with various shorter works including the 3 included in the Hugo Voters Packet.

Thoughts:  de Bodard's Xuya Universe is probably the trickiest series to judge here, and is the only series that runs into my problem with this category I mentioned above because well, there is little connection between these works (with a few exceptions) other than them taking place in a shared universe.  Add to the fact that this is in fact a universe near entirely made up of shorter fiction (I'm not sure anything in this universe has ever qualified for the "best novel" category), and it's clearly a different beast than anything else on this list.

Here's the thing: it's also incredibly incredibly good, and the works do share enough common themes that I think considering it as a series works well enough - and unlike the series I have complained about in the past, there aren't really smaller series within this universe that could be nominated instead.  The series is based upon an alternate history in which Vietnamese and Chinese Powers grew prominent in place - or alongside - European ones (with China discovering the Americas before the Europeans), changing history and the future greatly.  A number of stories apparently take place in near modern times, but all of the ones I've read are set in far future after humanity has left Earth and headed out to Space.  But the cultures taken into space are very much Viet and Chinese, and themes from those cultures - the importance of family, of honor and duty - are of major significance, even moreso than anything else at times.  Of course, that doesn't preclude de Bodard from playing with other types of stories, such as her space gender flipped version of Sherlock Holmes in Tea Master, using these themes to change those stories in fascinating ways.

1st on My Ballot: Wayfarers by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)

Works Read: All Three Books (Book 2 Reviewed Here, and Book 3 Reviewed Here)

Thoughts:  It appears I have picked this series to win a double - both for Best Novel and Best Series - though I doubt it'll actually do so.  And it's actually an interesting one to consider given my criteria for this award because unlike every other series (other than Xuya), characters from one novel generally don't return in later novels - at least not in a major way (Book 2 features bit characters from Book 1 becoming prominent, but the major characters from Book 1 basically don't appear).  Still, the universe of this series remains the same throughout and the books do build upon our understanding of that setting from book to book, even if the novels can pretty easily be read as stand-alone.  And this is not a trilogy - despite only three books being out right now with no sign I can see of a next one - but a continuing series without a beginning or ending point.

None of which explains why this is my pick for the win in this category, which is this: the Wayfarers series is a character focused series in which each book is about characters learning more about themselves as they try to deal with the stresses and everyday events of their lives in this scifi universe, with characters being made up of a number of different species (and sometimes AIs).  So the first book deals with an oddball crew of a ship as they go on a journey to a mission in a kind of uncharted space, with the book being broken up into various adventures that take place at each stop, the second book deals with the past and present of a group of characters who were or are trying to figure out their identities and purpose and the third book deals with a group of humans of various ages trying to cope with their own identities and purposes now that humanity is no longer in danger of extinction.  There never really is a central plot to any of these three books - the second book, A Closed and Common Orbit, comes the closest - but the characters are utterly fantastic in their journeys and developments in each of the three books.

And really the distinguishing feature of this series, which makes me love it so much, is how much of it is built upon a future that is optimistic at its core.  Oh bad things happen for sure, but this universe is one in which many people live in harmony, and our characters are figuring out in each book how to find their own harmonies, and by the end they generally find themselves in those situations....at least for the moment.  And it's a wonderful sense of optimism and joy that the books leave you with, which is something we don't get enough of these days.  That's not to say darker books are bad - far from it - but the joy of this series is something that makes every new installment in this series a must buy for me, and I can't recommend it enough.  So that's why it tops my list in this category, despite my love for the three series just below it - and is my pick to win for Best Series.