Most of the nominated stories were fairly good, but forgettable. Finding the best story was very easy as it was the only really excellent novellette. The “Omphalos” can be classified as a real classic which should never be really forgotten, one of the best nominees I have read in years. On the other hand, “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye”, was easy to put at the last place. The setting was nice, but the characters felt hollow, and the ending was very hurried. A bit longer format with a bit more mystery and more gradual reveal might have made the story a lot better. The second place was also easy to decide; “Away With the Wolves” was pretty good, even if it was also somewhat hurried with a bit too fast of an ending. The order of the rest of the stories was harder to decide. “The Archronology of Love”, was fairly satisfying even though there is little that is really new or inventive. And as Emergency Skin had a too heavy political message, I preferred the simple but amusingly written cat story over it.
“The Archronology of Love”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, April 2019)
Destroy Fantasy Special Issue, September/October 2019)
A colony world has failed and everyone there has died. A new expedition tries to find out what happened. As most of the members had friends and family on the planet, they really want to find out why everyone died. There is a way to visit the past, using a machine called “The Chronicle”, but it “smudges” the past world and the more you use it and the more you study the past, the harder it is to make things out. The main researcher who has lost her husband uses the device to observe the past. A well written bittersweet love story, but the tech used went to the realm of fantasy. Also, was it supposed to be a surprise that the plague was caused by nanites? It was very obvious from the start.
“Away With the Wolves”, by Sarah Gailey (Uncanny Magazine: Disabled People
A woman is a werewolf. In human form she suffers from severe pains, but in wolf form she is pain free, agile, and happy. She lives in a small village and has a very good friend who she isn’t ready to abandon. The villagers mostly accept her wolfhood, at least if she pays for chicken and other small animals she has killed. But then a goat is found dead and she has no recollection of killing it. Usually, she has at least some memories of what she does as a wolf. A well written story with a nice mood, but somehow felt a bit lacking, perhaps a little longer form might have made the characters more relatable.
“The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, July-August 2019)
A mystery writer has traveled to a remote cottage to write her latest book and everything is arranged by her very efficient assistant/friend. She starts well, but on the next morning the fuse burns out. She walks down to the village to find the guy they rented the cottage from. She finds him dead, calls for the police, and for her assistant. The assistant seems to know details of the murder she couldn’t know - is she involved somehow? And then everything is explained by a lecture given by the assistant. An entertaining story to read, but the writing wasn’t exceptional and the plot had holes in it. Also, the ending wasn’t “shown” rather it was wrapped down by just a detailed verbal explanation. I don’t really understand why this was nominated.
For He Can Creep”, by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com, 10 July 2019)
A tomcat is protecting the members of a mental asylum from demons. One day the devil himself shows interest in a poet who is confined in the asylum. The devil wants the poet to write a poem - which would be tantamount to giving up his soul to the devil. The devil tempts the cat and even seems to succeed. A nice story with a nice humorous tone - pretty strange background though. Another story that feels just “comfortable” without a real edge.
“Omphalos”, by Ted Chiang (Exhalation [Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf; Picador])
The story happens in a world where there is irrefutable proof of creation: if you go back enough, you can find ancient trees where there are no growth rings, seashells have smooth contours until they start to show seasonal variation, and the oldest mummies there are have no navels and their skeletons show no sign of growth zones. All stars there are have been cataloged, no new ones have been found in centuries, even with better telescopes, and they are all alike. The existence of God is something no one doubts, and everyone knows that the world and humans are something God has planned. But then there is new research, which shows that everything everyone has always "known" isn’t exactly what it has been believed, and it might be that there is no such thing as a God's plan after all - at least not for the Earth and humans. The story is told by letters written by a young female archeologist. The writing was extremely good, and the story was by far the best of the nominees. There were no explanations offered: apparently, the world really functioned that way and was created by a god. Or it was a computer simulation?
Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin (Forward Collection [Amazon])
An explorer returns to Earth with a vital mission. He expects the planet to be dead, as it was dying when the Founders left. It turns out that the planet is thriving, there is no pollution, people are peaceful, and they even help the explorer, who is more of a biological construct than a normal person. All the smart, rich, and resourceful people who were thinking for their own benefit left - the planet should have died out without real competent leadership, so how can it be a near paradise? There is a slight political agenda in this story…. The writing isn’t bad at all.
My voting order will be:
1. “Omphalos”, by Ted Chiang (Exhalation [Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf; Picador])
2. “Away With the Wolves”, by Sarah Gailey (Uncanny Magazine: Disabled People
3. “The Archronology of Love”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, April 2019) Destroy Fantasy Special Issue, September/October 2019)
4. “For He Can Creep”, by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com, 10 July 2019)
5. “Emergency Skin”, by N.K. Jemisin (Forward Collection [Amazon])
6. “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, July-August 2019)
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