The 2011 Hugo Awards: Short Story Shortlist

It’s a modest year for the Hugo Awards short story shortlist. There are no major highs or lows on the list this year. Two of the stories are a little disappointing and two are pretty good.

“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010)
“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)
“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010)
“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010)

The stories from weakest to strongest: “Ponies” is a very short, very slight story about mean girls and their talking, flying, unicorn ponies. It distantly recalls Shirley Jackson’s well-known short story “The Lottery.” “Ponies” may be an allegory for something (as was much discussed here). It’s too tiny a wisp of a story to bear any weight at all.

“Amaryllis” is set in a resource-scarce future, which is becoming a popular science fiction setting recently, and revolves around a communal family with a fishing boat who make do with limited circumstances. The setting is well done. The characters are bland and the story is uneventful. The only conflict in the story, with a dishonest weight inspector, is too-easily resolved.

“For Want of a Nail” is another resource-scarce future, set aboard a generation starship where high tech items and repair parts are limited to supplies that were anticipated and packed by great-grandparents. A young woman, Rava, attempts to repair a damaged computer AI and discovers that the AI has been corrupted and that it has been covering for an important member of the community. As the extent of the problem is revealed the story is appropriately tense. The characterizations are solid and the story resolves well.

“The Things” is an inverted retelling of the movie “The Thing,” from the viewpoint of the alien creature. There were two movies: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982) and Howard Hawks’ “The Thing from Another World” (1951) were both based on the often-reprinted 1938 story “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr., about the discovery of an alien spacecraft in the ice in Antarctica and the shape-changing alien survivor. The story was retold, again, in the episode “Ice” in the first season of “The X-Files” (1993). I’ve seen or read all of these prior versions, yet even those who have not will have no problem following the story. A simple inversion of viewpoint isn’t enough to make a successful story and the author does more than that. The first-person alien narrator discovers differences in biology between itself and the humans and goes on a rambling rant about it. It was interesting, even if I wasn’t persuaded by the argument.  The story suffers when compared, inevitably, to the prior year’s story “The Island” by the same author, which was quite a bit stronger. “The Island” also featured unusual alien biology. The story went on to win a well-deserved best novelette Hugo Award at Aussiecon 4, held in Melbourne in 2010.

Rankings for the SF Strangelove Hugo Awards ballot for short story:
1. “The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010) (read the story)
2. “For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010) (read the story in PDF format)
3. “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010) (read the story)
4.  “Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010) (read the story)

This category of the ballot isn’t particularly strong this year. Readers looking for better stories will find them in any of the best of the year anthologies that collected the best short fiction of 2010. Here are the four covering science fiction that I rely on:

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: 28th Annual Collection,
edited by Gardner Dozois (St. Martin’s)
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year:  Volume Four,
edited by Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade Books)
The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2011,
edited by Rich Horton (Prime)
Year’s Best SF 16,
edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (Harper/Voyager)

The  2011 Hugo Awards will be presented August 20, 2011, at Renovation, the World Science Fiction Convention to be held in Reno, Nevada.

Related links:
A brief review of “The Island” by Peter Watts
2011 Hugo Nominees
Reactions to the 2011 Hugo Nominees (best novella category)

2010 Hugo Results and Reactions

2010 Hugo Award winners September 5, at Aussiecon 4, Melbourne, Australia.

BEST NOVEL (TIE)
The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

BEST NOVELLA
“Palimpsest” by Charles Stross (Wireless)

BEST NOVELETTE
“The Island” by Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)

BEST SHORT STORY
“Bridesicle” by Will McIntosh (Asimov’s Jan. 2009)

Two of my four top picks in the fiction categories won. No complaints there. As a bonus none of the really weak stories on the shortlist won. Woot! Short story was the most dicey category in terms of what was on the shortlist. I didn’t expect “Bridesicle” to win, still it’s a respectable result.

A tie is rather rare. This is only the third occurrence in the Hugo novel category. The last one was the 1993 Hugo Awards with the tie between Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Bantam Spectra, 1992) and A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (Tor, 1992).

This year both winners are particularly strong novels and very different from each other. Not flawless novels, if there are such things. Some people may be frustrated by a tie. When the presenter, the writer guest of honor at Aussiecon 4, Kim Stanley Robinson, stalled for time, spoke of statistical improbabilities, and then revealed that there was a tie, it was an electric moment in the convention hall. There were gasps in the audience. When Robinson named the tie winners I thought it was a particularly satisfying result.

Related posts:
Reviews of The City & The City and The Windup Girl.
The 2010 Hugo Awards: More on the Shortlist
The 2010 Hugo Awards: Novelette Shortlist
The 2010 Hugo Awards: Short Story Shortlist

The Island by Peter Watts

There is a struggle for survival both inside and outside the starship. Inside the ship the human crew contends with Chimp, the artificial intelligence that runs the ship. Outside, a vast alien "island" must negotiate for its own existence. Watts story is rigorous and bleak and easily one of the best science fiction novelettes of the year. It is a finalist for the upcoming Hugo awards.

Coincidentally, I was listening today to the Notes from Coode Street podcast, Episode 6: Live with Gary K. Wolfe, where Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan were discussing "The Island." They were drawing a distinction between the kinds of stories that work and don't work as good introductions to the genre for non-science fiction readers, and they both agreed that "The Island" was an example of a story that would not be easily understood by non-science fiction readers. I can see their point, to an extent. I think "The Island" asks a lot of a reader who is not familiar with standard tropes of science fiction. Still, this is exactly the challenging material that I would want a non-sf reader to engage with. This is science fiction at its best and its most rewarding.

"The Island" by Peter Watts first appeared in The New Space Opera 2 (Eos-HarperCollins, 2009) edited by Gardner Dozois and Strahan.

Related post: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Four, table of contents

Awards and Other Verdicts

Hugo nominees

Best Novel published in 2009:

 -- Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (Tor)

 -- The City & The City by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan UK)

 -- Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)

 -- Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)

 -- Wake by Robert J. Sawyer (Analog 11/08-3/09; Ace; Gollancz)

 -- The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Night Shade)

Having read three of the six novel nominees so far the nominees seem strong this year. I will have more to say about the fiction nominees at a later date. Locus Online's complete list of the nominees. Abigail Nussbaum's commentary at Asking the Wrong Questions.

BSFA awards
The 2009 British Science Fiction Association awards have been announced. Best novel was The City & The City by China Miéville. For a list of nominees and winners: Locus Online and the BSFA website.

Philip K. Dick award

The winner for the distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during 2009 in the U.S. is Bitter Angels by C.L. Anderson (Ballantine Spectra). A special citation was given to: Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald (Pyr). Locus Online article and Philip K. Dick Award website.

John Clute on American Fantastic Tales
John Clute essays the two-volume overview of American fantasy, American Fantastic Tales (The Library of America), edited by Peter Straub. Along the way we learn: "That a fully shaped self is a mask for amnesia. That a root task of fantastika is to shame the self." John Clute part one and part two.


Peter Watts court case

Science fiction author Peter Watts was convicted of obstructing a U.S. border officer, a felony. Sentencing is scheduled for April 26. 

 -- an earlier Strangelove for Science Fiction post on the subject.

 -- a brief news item about the verdict from Locus Online.

 -- Avram Grumer at Making Light writes, "Peter Watts has been found guilty of being assaulted by a border guard." Full article.

 -- Peter Watts's blog entry about the court's verdict.

Jonathan McCalmont on The Shadow of the Torturer

With astonishing logic, McCalmont decides to treat the first volume of a four-volume novel as self-contained and then faults it for not answering all his questions: “. . . this is a book that is strangely free from meaning. It is a series of puzzles with no solutions.” The fault, dear critic, lies not in the text but in your premise.

McCalmont's review.

Peter Watts beaten, arrested at U.S. border

Canadian science fiction writer Peter Watts was stopped, beaten and arrested by U.S. border guards on Tuesday, December 8.

According to Watts’ friend, sf writer David Nickle (via Boing Boing):

“He (Watts) was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan by U.S. border police for a search of his rental vehicle. When Peter got out of the car and questioned the nature of the search, the gang of border guards subjected him to a beating, restrained him and pepper sprayed him. At the end of it, local police laid a felony charge of assault against a federal officer against Peter. On Wednesday, he posted bond and walked across the border to Canada in shirtsleeves (he was released by Port Huron officials with his car and possessions locked in impound, into a winter storm that evening). He's home safe. For now. But he has to go back to Michigan to face the charge brought against him. The charge is spurious. But it's also very serious. It could mean two years in prison in the United States, and a ban on travel in that country for the rest of Peter's life.”

There’s more on the story at Boing Boing and Peter Watts’ own account at his website.

For a little context, Peter Watts has a graduate degree in marine mammal biology and has written several highly regarded science fiction novels. Blindsight (Tor, 2006) was short listed for the Hugo Award for best novel. Donations to the legal defense fund can be made via Paypal to donate@rifters.com.

UPDATE:
Peter Watts' second post about the incident at his website
The Times-Herald (Port Huron, Michigan) article on the incident Friday, December 11
The Times-Herald (Port Huron, Michigan) article on the incident Saturday, December 12