2021 Hugo nominees: Best Novelette
Sep. 3rd, 2021 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonelvisNot quite as good a category as Novella, but still pretty consistently good:
”The Inaccessibility of Heaven,” Aliette de Bodard
I always enjoy de Bodard’s work, and though I haven’t read any of the Dominion of the Fallen universe in which this story is set, I had no problems following along with the concept: a Paris in which angels dwell, fallen and otherwise, and in which they’re now being murdered. It’s quite well-written; it just didn’t grab me as much as the stories in her Xuya universe do.
”The Pill,” Meg Elison
A fat girl, child of a yo-yo dieting fat mother who’s constantly signing up for dodgy weight loss drug trials, is appalled when one of the drugs works, but in the most horrifying way: the fat literally is excreted from people’s bodies, a painful but effective process – at least for most people. For some, the drug simply flat-out kills, but a diet industry based on the drug appears overnight anyway, and eventually, claims the life of the girl’s father.
I am a fat girl, the child of a morbidly obese father who died two years ago, partially due to weight-related complications. This story was hugely triggery, to the point where I didn’t finish it, and while Elison’s points about the diet industry were completely on target, I could not stick around to find out how things ended.
”Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super,” A.T. Greenblatt
I nominated this story, so it’s safe to say I really like it. Superheroes are ordinary people who suddenly develop powers they can barely control, but learn how to in order to save people, and Sam Wells, a gentle, nervous accountant who can spontaneously combust, wants to join a superhero squad. Greenblatt really has a way with character, and Sam comes through clearly: awkward, eager, doubting his capabilities but unwilling to give up on them if he can make a difference.
”Helicopter Story,” Isabel Fall
I skipped this story the first time around because I saw the Twitter drama and decided it was best to stay as far away from it as possible. Many months later, I can read this story and conclude that Fall is a skilled and intriguing writer, but the story doesn’t quite fulfill its stated mission of addressing “the pinkwashing of imperialism and the need for queerness to constantly challenge the powers that want to capture and use us.” Of course, the fact that Fall had to explicitly state that at all is a depressing commentary on what she went through as a result of the story being published — but mostly, this story reads to me like someone questioning her gender, questioning society’s binary and misogynist assumptions about what it means to be a woman, and not fully succeeding at tying military setting and metaphors to the issues she’s exploring.
”Monster,” Naomi Kritzer
A scientist travels to a small town in China in search of a former childhood friend who’s grown up to be a serial killer. Through flashbacks, it becomes clear that while they shared the close bond of kindred, socially awkward nerds, there was something seriously wrong with the friend – enough to terrify a girlfriend even if she was the only one who got to see that side of him. I didn’t fully buy the ending only because I felt like Kritzer was missing a key detail or two to help the final events hang together, but it’s still a compelling portrait of an obvious monster, and the similar, subtler traits we all share.
”Two Truths and a Lie,” Sarah Pinsker
Pinsker’s work isn’t always to my taste, but I really liked this one. At first, it seems like a story completely devoid of SF: a compulsive liar visits an old friend whose hoarder brother has just died, and in the process of cleaning out his house, discovers tapes of an old local-access TV show in which a creepy man tells bizarre stories while children play beside him. Gradually, it becomes clear that all of the stories have come true, each referring to a different child – including the compulsive liar, who finds a fitting end in a story that never originally applied to her.
The final rankings:
”The Inaccessibility of Heaven,” Aliette de Bodard
I always enjoy de Bodard’s work, and though I haven’t read any of the Dominion of the Fallen universe in which this story is set, I had no problems following along with the concept: a Paris in which angels dwell, fallen and otherwise, and in which they’re now being murdered. It’s quite well-written; it just didn’t grab me as much as the stories in her Xuya universe do.
”The Pill,” Meg Elison
A fat girl, child of a yo-yo dieting fat mother who’s constantly signing up for dodgy weight loss drug trials, is appalled when one of the drugs works, but in the most horrifying way: the fat literally is excreted from people’s bodies, a painful but effective process – at least for most people. For some, the drug simply flat-out kills, but a diet industry based on the drug appears overnight anyway, and eventually, claims the life of the girl’s father.
I am a fat girl, the child of a morbidly obese father who died two years ago, partially due to weight-related complications. This story was hugely triggery, to the point where I didn’t finish it, and while Elison’s points about the diet industry were completely on target, I could not stick around to find out how things ended.
”Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super,” A.T. Greenblatt
I nominated this story, so it’s safe to say I really like it. Superheroes are ordinary people who suddenly develop powers they can barely control, but learn how to in order to save people, and Sam Wells, a gentle, nervous accountant who can spontaneously combust, wants to join a superhero squad. Greenblatt really has a way with character, and Sam comes through clearly: awkward, eager, doubting his capabilities but unwilling to give up on them if he can make a difference.
”Helicopter Story,” Isabel Fall
I skipped this story the first time around because I saw the Twitter drama and decided it was best to stay as far away from it as possible. Many months later, I can read this story and conclude that Fall is a skilled and intriguing writer, but the story doesn’t quite fulfill its stated mission of addressing “the pinkwashing of imperialism and the need for queerness to constantly challenge the powers that want to capture and use us.” Of course, the fact that Fall had to explicitly state that at all is a depressing commentary on what she went through as a result of the story being published — but mostly, this story reads to me like someone questioning her gender, questioning society’s binary and misogynist assumptions about what it means to be a woman, and not fully succeeding at tying military setting and metaphors to the issues she’s exploring.
”Monster,” Naomi Kritzer
A scientist travels to a small town in China in search of a former childhood friend who’s grown up to be a serial killer. Through flashbacks, it becomes clear that while they shared the close bond of kindred, socially awkward nerds, there was something seriously wrong with the friend – enough to terrify a girlfriend even if she was the only one who got to see that side of him. I didn’t fully buy the ending only because I felt like Kritzer was missing a key detail or two to help the final events hang together, but it’s still a compelling portrait of an obvious monster, and the similar, subtler traits we all share.
”Two Truths and a Lie,” Sarah Pinsker
Pinsker’s work isn’t always to my taste, but I really liked this one. At first, it seems like a story completely devoid of SF: a compulsive liar visits an old friend whose hoarder brother has just died, and in the process of cleaning out his house, discovers tapes of an old local-access TV show in which a creepy man tells bizarre stories while children play beside him. Gradually, it becomes clear that all of the stories have come true, each referring to a different child – including the compulsive liar, who finds a fitting end in a story that never originally applied to her.
The final rankings:
- ”Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super”
- ”Two Truths and a Lie”
- ”Monster”
- ”The Inaccessibility of Heaven”
- ”Helicopter Story”
- ”The Pill”