Hugo Awards Review #5: Best Novelette
REVIEW #1 | REVIEW #2 | REVIEW #3 | REVIEW #4
The Hugo Awards voting deadline has unfortunately already passed, but we figured we might as well review the nominees for Best Novelette anyway. We hope that you still find these reviews useful!
As always, we will give each work a “Literary Rating” out of 10 and a “Speculative Rating” out of 10. The Literary Rating will be based on how well the story is written: imagery, sound, and characters, as well as the stylistic ambition of the text. The Speculative Rating will be based on the amount and quality of speculation (societal, technological, and otherwise) in the text and to what degree the story has a “reason for being”. These factors, as well as our overall enjoyment of the text, will be factored into an overall “Holistic Rank” within the category.
Both of us will be using a relatively harsh rating scale— please keep in mind that we are using 5/10 to mean “average” for a published short story, and 7/10 to mean a story that we actively like a good amount, not just feel neutral about. With that in mind, let’s get into the Best Novelette nominees!
There were six stories nominated for Best Novelette this year:
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” by Thomas Ha
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars” by Premee Mohamed
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea” by Naomi Kritzer
“Lake of Souls” by Ann Leckie in Lake of Souls
“Loneliness Universe” by Eugenia Triantafyllou
“Signs of Life” by Sarah Pinsker
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
In the not-so-distant future, a man discovers a rare “dead book” that has not been overwritten to suit audience preferences. He grows quite attached to this possession, as well as the video store from whence it came.
Thomas Ha
G: I liked the general vibe of this story quite a bit. Our narrator comes across a rare “dead” (physical rather than digital) book and must keep it away from those who would like to see all physical media destroyed.
The tone of the story is solemn and contemplative. It follows our protagonist grieving over the recent loss of his mother and in conversation with his girlfriend. In contrast, the world is maximalist and somewhat ridiculous, reminding me of books like Snow Crash. It felt strange to read a story that took itself this seriously in such a world.
Literary Rating: 6/10 | Speculative Rating: 7/10 | Holistic Rank: 3rd
K: I am a sucker for stories that explore the future of media, and this story imagines the dystopian outcome of adaptive literature technology like sakugAI. I liked how the fears of algorithm-driven homogeneity and the impermanence of digital media came together to create a haunting effect. I also liked how the impermanence of the “dead novel” complemented the impermanence of the sentimental video store itself.
The story was also quite well-written— Ha did a good job of defining a dark world that felt reflective and tense at the same time. I especially liked how the story was interspersed with these pensive “forbidden passages” from the novel in question:
The iron-handed sheriff made sure there was no welcome. No respite. Everything Copper Hawk did was done at the sheriff’s instruction, and the rider could feel the town shifting away from him in every direction, no matter where he went.
—Thomas Ha, “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
This gave the story a unique atmosphere. In general, I liked this story significantly more than any of the others. It didn’t necessarily ‘wow’ me, but I thought it struck a really nice balance between literary and speculative ambition.
Literary Rating: 8/10 | Speculative Rating: 8/10 | Holistic Rank: 1st
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
The famed magician Firion reluctantly takes on an apprentice after secretly losing her ability to cast spells. She is unsure how long she will be able to keep this secret.
Premee Mohamed
G: This story was pretty cute and an easy read, but there really wasn’t much here in terms of ideas. It follows a mage who has lost her abilities and takes on an apprentice to perform the duties of protecting the town in her stead, all while attempting to keep her inability to cast magic secret.
The premise is about all there is though, and while it is readable there didn’t really feel to be any central idea justifying its existence. At the end of the story, it does not feel as if the protagonist has meaningfully changed and there doesn’t seem to be a takeaway for the audience either. Events just happen and then the story ends.
Literary Rating: 3/10 | Speculative Rating: 3/10 | Holistic Rank: 5th
K: I didn’t love “By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”, which very much felt like a young adult story. The story follows a reclusive magician named Firion, who has secretly lost her ability to read the ancient tongue. As such, she tries to get out of taking on an apprentice but eventually is forced to take on a very persistent one. The story was readable enough, despite the writing feeling quite simple at times.
I couldn’t really tell this story’s “reason for being”, as its premise has absolutely no payoff. A typical resolution for this story might be 1) after a lifetime of only being appreciated for her magical abilities, Firion finds out that magic is not the only thing she has to offer or 2) Firion must face the consequences of lying to her apprentice about a very serious matter. But in fact, Firion faces no real consequences for her lie and she is pretty much still only valued for her magical abilities (AKA successfully teaching magic, even if her actual ability to cast is hampered).
That being said, I will say that I quite liked the ambiguous final paragraph of this story, even if I didn’t like much else:
The kettle began to tick and bubble. She flipped to a spell page, running her fingers across the smooth paper, then hesitating. A trick of the firelight? Of the gulls flicking past the window? Could be both, or neither, perhaps she was imagining it—or perhaps something truly was appearing on the page, striving to rise to the surface, the letters distant but swimming surely out of the depths to meet her sight.
—Premee Mohamed, “By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
Literary Rating: 4/10 | Speculative Rating: 2/10 | Holistic Rank: 5th
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
A struggling academic who consistently feels unappreciated by her husband decides to finally stand up for herself.
Naomi Kritzer
G: This story was reasonably well written, but I wouldn’t call it speculative fiction. The story centers on the relationship between our protagonist and her husband as she realizes he has betrayed her, and the only speculative element involves human-seal creatures, which are not all that important to the story.
I was also annoyed that the protagonist’s husband, Stuart, has literally no redeeming qualities, and it is completely unclear what drew her to him in the first place. I think this story could have hit a lot harder if he was a better father and husband which makes the betrayal hit harder because as it was written it felt like the end of the story was clear from the start.
Literary Rating: 4/10 | Speculative Rating: 1/10 | Holistic Rank: 6th
K: This story didn’t even pretend to be speculative fiction, so I am a bit confused as to why it was nominated. I suppose it frequently references the title myth about selkies, but this myth is pretty clearly fiction in the world of the story. Instead, the story is set in the more mundane world of academia, where the protagonist is frustrated that her frequently efforts to help her husband’s academic career always go unappreciated.
I do think the dilemma of women having to compromise in academic “power couple” situations is interesting and socially relevant, so I was at least curious about how this conflict would be handled and resolved. Unfortunately, the husband Stuart is revealed to be cartoonishly evil: not only does he have no redeeming qualities, but he also is revealed to have intentionally sabotaged her research for personal gain. So what could have been an interesting exploration of the subtle ways in which married women are held back by systemic factors in academia ended up being rather uninspired.
Literary Rating: 3/10 | Speculative Rating: N/A | Holistic Rank: 6th
“Lake of Souls”
An alien “lobster dog” on a quest to discover its origins and the last survivor of a marooned ship briefly cross paths on their very different journeys.
Ann Leckie
G: This was definitely my favorite of these stories. I am sort of a sucker for stories that involve interactions between higher and lower tech characters which was the focus of this story. This story felt like a puzzle in which you are trying to figure out what is actually happening as much of what you learn as the reader is filtered through the perspective of an alien who is ignorant about the world. It struck a good balance though by making the actual events of the plot quite simple so the story was still comprehensible.
While I definitely enjoyed the read and thought it had some interesting ideas I was somehow left with the feeling that it didn’t quite come together as well as it could have. There were a few moments that didn’t hit as hard as they could have and I was left feeling like it was a good story that had the potential to be a great one but didn’t quite get there.
Literary Rating: 7/10 | Speculative Rating: 8/10 | Holistic Rank: 1st
K: “Lake of Souls” was a half-fantasy, half-sci-fi story, evoking certain works by Gene Wolfe and especially “Elder Race” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The lobster dog storyline is genuinely quite novel at times, as it creates this interesting religion based around ensoulment and the true nature of the lobster dog’s convoluted life cycle. The other storyline isn’t as interesting (reminded me of the show Scavengers Reign), but it was entertaining enough. It is cool to read any story where the main character is so alien.
I wanted to like this story a lot more than I did, but I don’t think there was much of a payoff for decoding its rather convoluted setup. Even though I do enjoy this fantasy-but-secretly-sci-fi style of storytelling (“a weirdly wet opening under its eyes, with two ridges of hard, white plates inside it” is such a fun way to describe a mouth), I did not understand why the story was told in the way that it was. I think I would have preferred this as two separate stories, or perhaps a novel. I would, however, highly recommend the aforementioned “Elder Race” (esp if you enjoyed this story)!
Literary Rating: 5/10 | Speculative Rating: 7/10 | Holistic Rank: 3rd
“Loneliness Universe”
While trying to reconnect with her old friend Cara, Nefeli finds out that she lives in a parallel universe that is gradually losing its connection to the real world.
Eugenia Triantafyllou
G: The premise of the story is that the protagonist falls into a world where she is unable to interact with anyone she cares about, but the world continues as usual otherwise. I liked the emotion in the story and I think it was able to successfully convey the feeling of being all alone yet surrounded by people in a more literal sense.
This story wasn’t very ambitious though. The story doesn’t lead anywhere it sort of just ends, and it doesn’t feel like it attempts to speculate on much outside of describing a situation that sucks. On the other hand, the central relationship between the protagonist and her long-lost childhood best friend is quite well done.
Literary Rating: 6/10 | Speculative Rating: 5/10 | Holistic Rank: 4th
K: I thought this story had a pretty good concept but not amazing execution. The idea of people living in universes that are slowly drifting apart is romantic and haunting, and it gives a lot of opportunity for strong emotional beats. But I felt like this story was another case of the story not really suiting the medium. I felt like the mixing of emails and text messages and chat logs and prose was really disjointed, and I much would have preferred a straight up conventional prose style OR an experimental one.
I will say that this story had some of my favorite characterization on the slate, and I did enjoy reading about these characters’ inner worlds. But I thought the story just didn’t have enough room to breathe due to length constraints. I think this concept could have worked a lot better in a Ministry of Time-style novel or epistolary novel, which would give the reader more time to process both the emotional beats and the technical details of the premise (which kinda just comes out all in a rush at the end).
I have to dock this story for its egregious “Internet appropriation”; that is, unrealistic use of the online medium to serve a story. Not only every text message but also every message in live game chat are all written in perfectly grammatical English sentences. I really wish online writers would stop doing this, which I wrote about in my article “The Problem with ‘Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather’”. In the end, I thought this story was just okay, but I’d still be somewhat interested in reading more from this author.
Literary Rating: 5/10 | Speculative Rating: 4/10 | Holistic Rank: 4th
“Signs of Life”
Veronica reunites with her sister Violet after forty years of separation, but it turns out that things are not as they seem.
Sarah Pinsker
G: I liked this story quite a bit. It follows a middle-aged woman who goes to reconnect and apologize to her sister, who she left to go to the city after high school. The story relies on a very well-executed twist that was quite surprising but made a lot of sense in retrospect. And while the speculative idea here was not particularly novel, the way in which it arose felt quite unique.
My only issue with this story is the amount of time spent in our protagonist’s head as she builds up the courage to apologize for something her sister has already forgiven her for. It ends up taking up a good portion of the time, and the protagonist comes across as unnecessarily pathetic without adding much to the story.
Literary Rating: 7/10 | Speculative Rating: 6/10 | Holistic Rank: 2nd
“Signs of Life” was… an odd story. It took me a couple of reads to figure out what was going on. Essentially, the main characters Violet and Veronica have reconnected after forty years of separation. You learn about what drove them apart, what has happened in the interim, and eventually the true fantastical nature of the situation itself.
I’ve actually read quite a few Sarah Pinsker stories, and while I don’t necessarily vibe with her writing style that hard (it leans into sensory realism a bit too much for me), I do really enjoy how she writes about childhood. I don’t know exactly how to articulate it, but she treats childhood with a certain gravity that I relate to. Like… things don’t matter at all, but then also they mean everything. Something like that.
Anyway, I didn’t really like this story at first, but I have since come to appreciate it. The dynamic between the two main characters and the ultimate reveal of what is actually going on are both well done. (Also, “Pareidollywood” is a great pun.)
Literary Rating: 7/10 | Speculative Rating: 6/10 | Holistic Rank: 2nd
Conclusion
Overall, we ended up with almost the same ordering, with just “Lake of Souls” and “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” swapped:
“Lake of Souls” by Ann Leckie / “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” by Thomas Ha
“Signs of Life” by Sarah Pinsker
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” by Thomas Ha / “Lake of Souls” by Ann Leckie
“Loneliness Universe” by Eugenia Triantafyllou
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars” by Premee Mohamed
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea” by Naomi Kritzer
We thought that this slate was a bit weaker than the Best Short Story slate, but there were still some good moments among these novelettes. “Lake of Souls” and “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” in particular had some interesting speculative ideas. But we’d love to hear your thoughts on these stories in the comments!
In the end, we hope you have enjoyed our Hugo Awards review series this year, and for now we are planning to make this a recurring thing! We will be back with another set of reviews next year. Thanks for reading!
