Hugos 2019: Related Works

Since it's October and I am showing no plans to clean up my Hugo reading comments, it's "post and run" time. I will leave my comments from, er, July, as the historical relics they are.

- Jo Walton's An Informal History of the Hugos is the nominee to beat, in my mind. A collection of columns about previous Hugo nominees and winners, with comments extracted from the original online discussions? It's also Jo Walton talking about SF/F; Walton talks about the genre in a way that's one of my standards for How To Talk About Genre. Slam dunk. [October annotation: ...well, it's a good thing I don't bet for money.]

- Hobbit documentary: I most liked the parts which discuss the movies' artistic / narrative / etc failings, and some of the behind-the-scenes studio notes. The parts about the narrator trying to reconnect with her personal joy in the canon and fandom wasn't as compelling to me.

- Astounding (Alec Nevala-Lee): going down to the Walton. Sorry, author.

- Mexicanx Initiative: it's unclear to me how "we had a great time at Worldcon" is a related work. The bilingual fiction collection might be, maybe.

- Le Guin: a meh Le Guin is still worth reading, but Related Works has a lot of strong nominees this year!

- AO3 will live to be nominated again. Sorry, AO3; your proponents will get my vote in a year with a weaker field. 

Hugos 2019: Novelettes

Additional incomplete Hugo commentary!

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander: Combining two things that are terrible -  humans being terrible to other humans in the name of capitalism, humans tormenting non-humans for passing entertainment - in one nightmarish "why?" of fiction. What is the purpose of radium elephants? What storytelling achievement was aimed for here? I do not understand.

"If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again" by Zen Cho: An imugi fails to become a dragon, lives with a human, figures out this dragon thing. I'm sort of hung up on the imugi failing to pass as human, or a celestial being, or as anyone other than the imugi the human saw before the relationship, and the human in this relationship repeatedly saying, "oh, I knew the whole time, I figured you'd tell me when you were ready." That... it's weird.

"The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections" by Tina Connolly: Interesting conceit. Not 100% sold on the execution, but an interesting idea!

"Nine Last Days on Planet Earth" by Daryl Gregory: Humans will adapt? I guess?

"When We Were Starless" by Simone Heller: I keep trying to say something that isn't, "this reads like someone's postapocalyptic Cybertron AU" and failing. It's not bad, it's... middle of the road genfic.

"The Thing About Ghost Stories" by Naomi Kritzer: Ghost story! Daughter who studies ghost stories gets her mom's ring because ghosts! That's it, that's the story. Nice smooth writing, no pain to read.

Hugos 2019: Short Stories

Last of the Hugo notes! After this I gave up, because I was out of time and out of mental energy to deal with a less-than-stellar year (in my mind).

"The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat" by Brooke Bolander: Skip! Maybe I am making assumptions based on past works, but the title suggests where this is going, and it's nowhere I'm interested in going.

"The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" by P. Djèlí Clark: Skip. I am sure this would be good, if I could get past my "ew, teeth" issue.

"STET" by Sarah Gailey: Structure is too much work, too late at night, too close to deadline. Skip.

"A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies" by Alix E. Harrow: This isn't how librarians work. This isn't how any of this works! Except for filling in the pool instead of integrating, because the South. That sounds like genuine America.

"The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society" by T. Kingfisher: An author I have faith I will enjoy! I will save this until the end of my Hugo reading! [October update: still haven't read it].

"The Court Magician" by Sarah Pinsker: Stories like this are such a poignant reminder I am a cold-blooded individualist, who asks, "what's in it for me," and doesn't trust anyone's retirement plan.

Movies on Airplanes

To my mild irritation, I've been over the wings for several long flights this summer. (I don't care where on the airplane I sit, so long as I get a window seat and an unblocked view out, up, and down.) So, instead of enjoying my usual cloud-watching, I did some catch-up on movies and documentaries. 

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019): a tidy condemnation of Elizabeth Holmes. Focuses more on the scamming than the science she scammed around. I'd like to see more context on the black box of lab medicine, which isn't so much unknowable as neglected by the public, until something like Theranos happens.

Free Solo: In case there were any chance I thought free climbing was a thing I might be interested in, believe me, I have been warned off for life. Fascinating and nail-biting.

Avengers: Endgame: those were some, uh, interesting storytelling and editing choices! Particularly the choice to make a 182 minute movie with no intermission, by the last hour I was checking my watching and wondering how they'd fill the time.
 
Tolkien: "Based on a true story" style biopic of Tolkein up to WWI-ish. Young men on Wagner: "it shouldn't take six hours to tell a story of a magic ring." Well, someone's making a meta commentary!