All except one of the nominees belong to a series. Three of them were very good, the fourth was pretty good, one was “meh,” and I wasn’t able to finish the last one. The overall quality was pretty nice, I believe even better than last year. My voting order wasn’t very hard to decide, though. The one book that told its story without being a part of a series was the clear winner. The Network Effect was a very good and extremely entertaining book, but it was lighter and, as already mentioned, it belongs to a long series and doesn’t stand on its own as well as Piranesi. The last place was extremely easy — I don’t remember having abandoned a nominated book midway through (or not even midway through) ever before. Harrow the Ninth was far too impenetrable, hard to follow, and hard to understand, so it was far too much for me. The City We Became was so “woke” that it used a sledgehammer to present its worldview. I am sympathetic to that kind of thinking, but enough is enough; a subtler approach might have made the book more enjoyable. The two remaining books were both pretty good, but my preference between them was very clear.
My voting order is:
1. Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
2. Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tor.com)
3. Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery / Saga Press / Solaris)
4. The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books / Solaris)
5. The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
6. Harrow The Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com)
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