2012 Novella Hugo Nominees

This was a difficult group to rank due to the diversity of the novellas and the world and character building in each.  For myself, it came down to personal preference and what *I* like to read in a shorter work.   As of typing this out (middle of July) I only have the Cambell Award Nominees yet to read.  Making progress and looking forward to just being done with them all. 


In order of my preference:

“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov's, September/October 2011)
I knew this one was going to be good. Kij's short story "Ponies" from 2011 Hugo Nominees elicited a very strong Ewww response. If a writer can pull an emotion out of the reader like that, they know how to write. Kij had demonstrated she knows how to write well.  Man/Bridged had a fascinating world setting and was an interesting look at how a large scale project can be looked at in so many different ways. Well done.

“Kiss Me Twice” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov's, June 2011)
Rather interesting futuristic world with different 'levels' of Artificial Intelligence.  Metta, our police AI, has found herself kidnapped and her Beta must help Detective Huang figure out where her Prime is.  Nicely convoluted with good concepts. Could have been fleshed out just a bit more in my opinion.  My main complaint was the endless May West quotes.  Not a fan.

“The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)

A historical-fictional look at atrocities committed against the Chinese in WWII. Interesting from a historical perspective, had the science and physics with the time machine, add those together and the whole story came across as heavy handed. Personally, I like my history and fiction kept separate, so I was less than thrilled with this selection. However, you could tell the author was very passionate about the topic and that I could appreciate.

“The Ice Owl” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2011)

A young girl learns that responsibility for ones actions has ramifications across time and space.  Despite an interesting world/universe setting and a solid plot, I thought the ending was lacking.

Countdown by Mira Grant (Orbit)

The background story for how the Zombie virus came into existence for the Feed and Deadline books.  Interesting enough if you are into Mira's books, but overall sort of just "Meh, that was nice."  

Silently and Very Fast" by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld / WSFA)
I could not get into this selection.  In my opinion, which really means nothing in the grand scheme of things, I found this to be a very tedious read.  How to describe?  Here is the blurb from Goodreads.com:  Neva is dreaming. But she is not alone. A mysterious machine entity called Elefsis haunts her and the members of her family, back through the generations to her great-great-grandmother -- a gifted computer programmer who changed the world. Together Neva and Elefsis navigate their history and their future, an uneasy, unwilling symbiote.   But what they discover in their dreamworld might change them forever...

Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to care at the  halfway point.  I tried to keep going, but ultimately said to heck with it.  And that was while I was stuck waiting in the Doctor's office.  You know the wait...when they shut the door and disappear for like half an hour?  Yeah, like that.