Best Novelette Shortlist
“Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09)
“The Island” by Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)
“It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
“One of Our Bastards is Missing” by Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three)
“Overtime” by Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
“Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)
Three of these stories (the Foster, Griffith, and Swirsky) are about romantic, sexual relationships that are revealed to be false and artificial. The strongest and most intriguing of the three is “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast,” which is a cross between the Jack Vance classic "The Moon Moth" (1961) and Joss Whedon's recent, short-lived Dollhouse television series. Vance describes a society where status and wealth are dependent on choosing a mask and a musical instrument. Foster offers a society where individuals are blank slates and the mask they choose programs them with a role to play, as with Whedon's programmed dolls. Foster takes the further step of making her protagonists non-human, possibly insectoid, possibly hermaphroditic. Unexplained is why the masks create such human-seeming tableaus as a male-female marriages, torture scenes, etc. The plot concerns an effort to subvert the control of the masks.
I have already discussed “It Takes Two” (follow here). Among the three it has the most compelling description of human sexuality.
“Eros, Philia, Agape” works through the emotional issues the most thoroughly of the three stories. It concerns a woman who purchases a robot lover and falls in love with him. It's well done, if a little staid.
The best of the remaining stories is “The Island,” a taut and layered story set on board a spaceship, which I have previously discussed (follow here). It easily has the most hard science fiction content of the novelettes on the shortlist.
“One of Our Bastards is Missing” is handicapped by clearly being a fragment of a larger story, leaving loose ends and missing context. The story is set in a class-stratified British Empire, circa 1800s, with space-folding technology.
Stross' “Overtime” is a one-joke Christmas-Cthulhu story that goes on too long. It is part of Stross' series of stories concerning Bob Howard and the secret agency called The Laundry. I've enjoyed previous stories in the series. This is a weak addition.
“The Island” by Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)
“It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
“One of Our Bastards is Missing” by Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three)
“Overtime” by Charles Stross (Tor.com 12/09)
“Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)
Three of these stories (the Foster, Griffith, and Swirsky) are about romantic, sexual relationships that are revealed to be false and artificial. The strongest and most intriguing of the three is “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast,” which is a cross between the Jack Vance classic "The Moon Moth" (1961) and Joss Whedon's recent, short-lived Dollhouse television series. Vance describes a society where status and wealth are dependent on choosing a mask and a musical instrument. Foster offers a society where individuals are blank slates and the mask they choose programs them with a role to play, as with Whedon's programmed dolls. Foster takes the further step of making her protagonists non-human, possibly insectoid, possibly hermaphroditic. Unexplained is why the masks create such human-seeming tableaus as a male-female marriages, torture scenes, etc. The plot concerns an effort to subvert the control of the masks.
I have already discussed “It Takes Two” (follow here). Among the three it has the most compelling description of human sexuality.
“Eros, Philia, Agape” works through the emotional issues the most thoroughly of the three stories. It concerns a woman who purchases a robot lover and falls in love with him. It's well done, if a little staid.
The best of the remaining stories is “The Island,” a taut and layered story set on board a spaceship, which I have previously discussed (follow here). It easily has the most hard science fiction content of the novelettes on the shortlist.
“One of Our Bastards is Missing” is handicapped by clearly being a fragment of a larger story, leaving loose ends and missing context. The story is set in a class-stratified British Empire, circa 1800s, with space-folding technology.
Stross' “Overtime” is a one-joke Christmas-Cthulhu story that goes on too long. It is part of Stross' series of stories concerning Bob Howard and the secret agency called The Laundry. I've enjoyed previous stories in the series. This is a weak addition.
SF Strangelove's Hugo ballot
1. “The Island” by Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)
2. “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster (Interzone 2/09)
3. “It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
4. “Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 3/09)
5. “One of Our Bastards is Missing” by Paul Cornell
6. “Overtime” by Charles Stross
The novelette shortlist has more quality work than the 2010 Hugo short story shortlist. Still, it would be a stretch to say that these are the six strongest novelettes of the year.
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