My Hugo award votes 2019 part 2: Novelettes

The novella category was also pretty good, but perhaps not as fine as the short stories. None of the stories were bad, however the best stories were very obvious and so was their order. Also, the last story was easy to select: glowing intelligent elephants warning about the dangers of radiation is a pretty stupid plotline.


“Nine Last Days on Planet Earth,” by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com, 19 September 2018)
There was a heavy meteor storm in 1975 that brought dozens of different alien plants with it. The plants are competing with the Earth's plants for the living space and seem to almost be winning. The story is told in short segments separated by years, from the viewpoint of a man who is just a young boy in the first stories and grows to a man. The novelette tells more about the life of the protagonist than about the plants. A well-written story anyway and it ends nicely.

“The Thing About Ghost Stories,” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine 25, November- December 2018)
A folklore researcher collects ghost stories from people. She has created a system to categorize them and seeks people with good tales to tell. Then one of the people she is interviewing tells her that her recently deceased mother is beside her and has something to say. A pretty good story, but the actual ghost stories which were featured were pretty boring. The other parts were excellent.

“If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018)
An "inugi" wants to ascend and to be a real dragon. She tries several times and fails repeatedly. Eventually, she changes her form to human and meets a teacher. They fall in love and live a human lifetime together. A very good story which is well written and moving.

“The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections,” by Tina Connolly (Tor.com, 11 July 2018)
A baker has learned to make pastries which are able to awaken memories and feelings. A tyrant has kidnapped him to use the baker’s talents for his amusement. The baker’s wife works as a taster to test the pastries so that no unwelcome feelings get through (and for more traditional poisons, too). An interesting story which for a large part consist of memories awoken by a series of pastries. A well-written and wonderful tale.

“When We Were Starless,” by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018)
Some sort of creatures, possibly reptilian, live at some sort of apocalyptic world, possible something which humans have abandoned (or where humans have died out). There are old domes which may be dangerous and often contain “ghosts” which might talk or be a threat. The creatures use “weavers” (abandoned 3D printers?), which need raw materials to produce essential equipment. One dome seems to contain a ghost which seems to be very helpful. A good story which was well written, but the background was pretty sketchy and was left for the reader to imagine.

The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
The story happens in an alternate world where elephants are somehow a universally recognized symbol of radiation. Apparently, they somehow worked at the radium factory where women got radiation poisoning on early 20th century and Disney made a movie out of them, which caused everyone to think that elephants = radioactivity. And the elephants are intelligent, possibly due to the radiation? A researcher is trying to find a way to protect the radioactive waste dump so that no one will enter there in millennia to come. Naturally (?) elephants come to her mind. Elephants genes modified to glow. You might get a nice parody out of this starting point, but the story was written with a serious attempt - very serious - with very complicated sentences with several different characters' viewpoints at different time periods. I found it pretty stupid, confusing and implausible. And would it really kill authors who write stories that switch between different viewpoints, locales and even time periods to include a description of where and when the next chapter happens in the chapter heading? I am sure it might feel like torture to write clearly while attempting a literary style, but please...



1. “The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections,” by Tina Connolly (Tor.com, 11 July 2018)
2. “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,” by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018)
3. “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth,” by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com, 19 September 2018)
4. “The Thing About Ghost Stories,” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine 25, November- December 2018)
5. “When We Were Starless,” by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018)
6. The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)