Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the August 11, 2022. 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 five (wow, 5!) 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.
This is the fifth part of this series. You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.
In this post, we're going to take a step away from the traditional categories and move to one of the "Not-A-Hugo" awards, the awards that aren't officially Hugos but are voted on alongside them and might as well be. I'm talking this time about the Astounding Award, which celebrates the best new writers in SciFi & Fantasy, those who have published their first genre works in the last two years (and thus can have two years of eligibility).
This year we have two repeat nominees from last year, one other second-year eligible writer, and then three writers who are in their first year of eligibility. And I really loved five of these six writers, so it's another great ballot, and if you haven't tried any of these authors before, I highly highly recommend them.
One note for this ballot - in the case of ties, I rank authors in their last year of eligibility higher than those who get another shot. Doesn't affect this ballot much, but it's something to keep in mind for close calls, such as between my #3 and #2 on my ballot.
Tier Four:
6. Everina Maxwell (1st year of eligibility)
Works Considered: Winter's Orbit (Review Here)
Maxwell is the sole member of my ballot whose work I didn't love. Winter's Orbit is a M/M Space Opera Romance novel that got a lot of hype from people I usually trust, although a fellow reviewer on twitter didn't quite love it when they got to it before me. The romance is still enjoyable, but the book tries to deal in the end with themes of abusive past relationships that it kind of tries to treat as a reveal and that really doesn't work, and the book also has a setup that invites themes of Empire that it....again just handwaves away in the end.
None of this makes it an unenjoyable novel, but these are shortcomings that I expect better of these days in my award-winning works, so this very much is in a tier at the bottom of my ballot.
Tier Three:
5. A.K. Larkwood (2nd year of eligibility)
Works Considered: The Unspoken Name (Review Here)*
*Larkwood has actually written a second novel (The Thousand Eyes), but it was published in 2022 and is not counted.*
I very much liked The Unspoken Name, an epic fantasy featuring an orc girl saved by an elf wizard and the mage girl she comes to love, as well as the disaster fellow thieving elf in a multiverse of worlds with a variety of cultures and gods. It's a really great book and I'm happy to see Larkwood pick up two straight nominations for this award....she just doesn't come up the level of the other nominees.
Tier Two:
4. Xiran Jay Zhao (1st year of eligibility)
Works Considered: Iron Widow (Review Here)
I talked about Iron Widow as well on the Lodestar page, where it's my pick to win, so you should already tell how much I really loved this powerful feminist dystopian novel, dealing with Pacific-Rim esque mecha, and a setting based upon the only female Chinese Emperor. It's probably a notch below my #3 on this list, but it's close enough to be in the same tier for me.
There's a good shot that Zhao is higher on my ballot next year, but this year she is just at the bottom of tier two.
3. Shelley Parker-Chan (1st year of eligibility)
Works Considered: She Who Became the Sun (Review Here)
She Who Became the Sun is high on my Best Novel ballot for this year (which you'll see in a future post) and is just phenomenal - a Queer retelling of the rise of the first Ming Emperor, doing fascinating things with queerness, gender, and destiny along the way. See my review for more details.
This novel is so good it threatens to break into Tier One, even though I scored it a 9.5 and scored the works of the Tier One authors 10 out of 10. But since Parker-Chan will be eligible again next year, so they would be at this spot on my ballot in any event....
Tier One:
2. Tracy Deonn (2nd year of eligibility)
Works Considered: Legendborn (Review Here)
1. Micaiah Johnson (2nd year of eligibility)
Works Considered: The Space Between Worlds (Review Here)
Both the works of these authors were among my favorites of 2020, with them both earning 10 out of 10s from me and my #1 vote in various categories. Deonn somehow wasn't nominated for this award last year, but that's been corrected now, while Johnson actually had the most votes for first place on the first pass of voting last year only to lose when ranked choice voting was factored in. If Johnson isn't handicapped by not putting out a new work this year, she is likely to win (if not, Parker-Chan will).
But both of these writers are just well well deserving of this award, and if you haven't read either work, you really need to like NOW. Both deal with serious themes through fantasy (Legendborn) or science fiction (The Space Between Worlds), have incredible characters, and have really great resolutions - even though Legendborn is the first in a series (book 2 coming out later this year). I am so so happy both of these writers made the shortlist and really hope one of them takes the award this year.
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