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 fourth 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 dealing with the nominees for Best Novella, which includes works of between 17,500 and 40,000 words. In essence, these are stories that are longer than most people will usually read in one sitting (although I still do so usually) but are shorter than that of a full length novel. This format has had a resurgence in the last 5-7 years in genre publishing, led by Tor's Tordotcom imprint, which used to publish such novellas exclusively.
And yes, this year we do indeed get another Tordotcom sweep of the novella category, for the second year in a row, after it seemed we were seeing some other publishers breakthrough for once in 2020. That said, the publisher sweep does not mean we don't have a diverse group of nominees, with the stories including one fairy tale subversion, one tale of romantic, parental, and colonial abuse, one SF/Fantasy mix-up, one ecological dystopian sci-fi novella, one extremely optimistic character driven story, and one coming of age finding yourself in a portal fantasy world story - six very different stories centering very different but all valid perspectives. On the other hand, all six of these nominees are well known authors in the field with at least five of them having prior Hugo Noms and possibly wins. So I guess it's a mixed bag in that way.
I've reviewed all six of these works in individual posts, so I'll link them next to my rankings below, but yeah all six of these were scored by me between 8 out of 10 and 9.5 out of 10, so this is another hard ballot to rank.
I score every novella and novel out of 10 when I post reviews, and these six works featured two novellas scored 8 out of 10, three scored 8.5 out of 10, and one scored 9.5 out of 10. So that works out quite neatly into three tiers of novellas, with only one standing out to me - not coincidentally, one that was on my nomination ballot. As I mentioned in my prior posts, works within a tier are so close as to be interchangeable, so the rankings within such a tier are just for my ballot, since I can't have ties on my actual ballot.
Note again that 8 out of 10s for me are what I score works that are pretty good and definite recommends that just don't hit the level of must reads, so all of these works are well worth your reads and nomination worthy. Also since I've reviewed each of these in separate posts, I'll be brief in my explanations, and you can find full reviews linked next to each work listed below:
Tier Three:
6. Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (My Review is here)
5. A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E. Harrow (My Review is Here)
Elder Race and A Spindle Splintered are two novella that are both built around concepts and execute them pretty well, even if they're just a bit below the next three works on my ballot.
Elder Race takes the concept of a SciFi/Fantasy mashup, where every other chapter is told from a different perspective - one from a native of the world for whom technology is magic and sees the story as a fantasy quest and one from a high tech human society (seen by the fantasy princess as a wizard) who sees everything through a science-y lens, as he struggles with his solitude and his mission not to intervene.
A Spindle Splintered takes the concept of the feminist/queer fairy tale subversion, featuring a multiverse filled with various forms of Sleeping Beauty, as a young woman from our world finds herself in a fantasy take on Sleeping Beauty where she is determined to give the story a better ending.
Both have real chances to win this award here, but just don't hit that next level for me. But they're both highly enjoyable and well done, and I think I liked A Spindle Splintered a bit more, as that type of fairy tale take was a bit fresher to me than Elder Race's mashup, which I thought got kind of tired by the end.
Tier Two:
4. A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers (My Review is here)
3. Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire (My Review is here)
2. The Past Is Red, by Catherynne M. Valente (My Review is here)
These three (as well as the Harrow work above) novellas are from Hugo favorite authors who have other works on the ballot (McGuire and Valente in two other categories, Chambers in one). They're a trio of really good works, each with their own things to appeal to people. All three also continue ideas, writing styles, and trends that these authors have developed elsewhere.
So A Psalm for the Wild Built is a hopeful science fiction novel like you might have expected from Chambers' Wayfarer series, as it features a monk helping people but finding it unsatisfied interacting with a robot trying to figure out what humans need. It's a highly enjoyable positive character novel without much plot.
Across the Green Grass Fields is the sixth in McGuire's Wayward Children series, featuring an intersex girl Regan who escapes bullying by supposed girl friends to find what it really means to be friends or family in a horse-based fantasy world. Again, highly enjoyable as it deals with a struggling girl trying to find acceptance after a harsh kids world of enforced femininity.
The Past is Red is probably the best of these (but again they're all close) as it tells the story of a ecological dystopian future where the Earth is largely sunk and a girl named Tetley lives in Garbagetown....and sees the best in how everything currently is for her in a world ruined by Fuckwits. It's a Candide-like Sci-Fi satire, and it works really well at showing the ridiculousness that we'll all be left with on our current course and how people will refuse to see it.
Three really great novellas here, but just not up to the level of my top spot.
Tier One:
1. Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard (My Review is here)
Fireheart Tiger is a tremendous novella dealing with a number of serious themes - most notably abusive relationships of all stripes, whether that be romantic, familial, or cultural (as the result of Colonization). It's a story ostensibly with a F-F-F love triangle, but really is the story of a Princess Thanh of a Vietnam-esque land dealing with an abusive Princess from a Colonial power (Ostensibly France) who wants to have not only her back romantically, but also her country in its entirety. Meanwhile Thanh also struggles with her mother, the Empress, who disregards her ideas and worth constantly and makes her feel lesser.
Without spoiling anything, the key in the story is for Thanh to find a third path, one where she finds a healthy relationship and rejects the allures of a relationship where she will be the object rather than someone mutually loved, where her people will be colonized and oppressed, and where her mother will continue to be able to make her miserable. And de Bodard tells this story beautifully and magically and makes clear how the only way to find happiness and security is through healthy relationships.
Just really powerful and a clear favorite, and my clear choice.
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