I could grouse and carp about the Hugos, but I won’t

The Hugo awards were announced last Saturday, while I was sleeping off the effects of my hard work at Blues N Brews. And if you compare the winners to how I cast my ballot, you can probably infer how I feel about the whole process. But I’ll talk about it a little anyway.

My actual votes for the 2011 Hugo

So here’s the vote I cast yesterday morning for this year’s Hugos. I would feel bad about handing out No Awards, but then I remember what I chore a lot of these stories were.

In which I finally enjoy the Hugo-nominated novellas

What are these novellas doing on this year’s Hugo ballot? I feel like a completely different group of people nominated them. They’re all enjoyable in some way, even if I wouldn’t go so far as to call all them science fiction. One of them isn’t even a proper story. Let’s start there.

My Hugo reading is getting too close to the deadline, as usual

I like about two-thirds of what I’ve read for the Hugo novellas so far, but that’s because I’ve read — oh, let’s see — just about one and a half of them. Yes, I actually liked something that was nominated for a Hugo, but I’m going to finish my reading before I tell you which […]

In which I lose interest in the Hugo-nominated novelettes

I am really unhappy with the Hugo ballot this year. The novelettes were so bad, I had to delete an f-load of f-bombs from my original notes. Two of the stories I don’t want to finish, one I wish I hadn’t finished, one I finished but have no idea what was going on, and one, only […]

In which I shrug off the Hugo-nominated short stories

I read all the Hugo-nominated short stories, but only because they were short. And they all got a strong reaction out of me. Which is both good and bad.

In which I declare my liking for the Hugo-nominated graphic novels

I enjoyed the Graphic Novel category of this year’s Hugo nominations, a lot more than the novels. For one thing, I only threw out two of the nominees barely read. For a bigger thing, I liked all three that I fully read, even though one of them requires reading a whole stack to understand the […]

In which I give a big fat raspberry to the Hugo novels

It looks like the latest writing frenzy has dried up for the moment, so this is my chance to sort out what I’ve been reading. I have to say, I don’t have a lot of patience for this year’s Hugo-nominated novels. I finally decided that I’ve read about as much of them as I can […]

Obligatory Hugo musings

Well, here we go: the Hugo nominations have been announced. Time to get reading. Some more. I’ve read one of the books. Of all the unread stories on my iTouch, the two I had most been looking forward to reading are among the nominees. I will admit there’s a couple that I’ve been avoiding. But […]

What to nominate?

It’s time to think about Hugo nominations again. When I look over my notes here, I see three stories from 2010 that I liked: “Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of Her Glory,” “The Red Bride,” and “Iteration.” It’s a while since I’ve really fallen in love with a story, and longer since […]