My Hugo votes 2014, part 1, novellas

The all nominees in the novella category were pretty competent. None was bad, but neither none of them was unforgettable good and all had a few failings. It wasn't easy to put them in order. The writing in most of them was very good, but it could be argued that all of them weren’t even speculative fiction - I might have put the Wakulla Springs to the first place, if there would have been even slightly more fantastic content. The Six-gun Snow White was slightly too open. The Butcher of Khardov seemed too connected to its’ franchise. So eventually the Stross’es story was the one which ended to the first place by default. None of the stories was so bad that I should have but it under the “no award”.



“The Chaplain’s Legacy”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)
Continues an earlier story. The advanced aliens, who have already destroyed several other sentient species, have stopped just before they were going to destroy humanity. They want to study a very strange human phenomenon: religion. Now their leaders start to believe that there is nothing new to be learned from humans and what has been paused for a while should soon be finished… The transformation of the alien queen was “slightly” too convenient and the story continues the old pretty stupid convention that humanity is special in some way. A pretty good and exiting story in spite of religious undertones anyway. Very traditional science fiction compared with most of the other nominees. Perhaps too traditional for award.

Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press)
A little more realistic retelling of Snow White fairy tale. This Snow White is a half breed Indian born to a beautiful American-Indian women after a rich prospector falls for her and practically buys her from her parents and tribe. At first orphaned Snow White lives moderately comfortably in a vast mansion and spends her ample free time by learning to shoot and to play cards, but when her step mother arrives, things turn bad. As in the original version she runs away, but there are some slight differences: the snow white in the original fairy tale didn’t support herself by gambling and sharpshooting. The writing style is reminiscent of fairy tales, but the content for most part isn’t. And the ending naturally isn’t clear and unquestionably happy one. A nicely written story, but it felt somewhat overlong. Also, the writing was smooth and enjoyable, but somehow I was left expecting some kind of more meaningful resolution and point for the story.

“Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013)
Story (or stories) about Wakulla Springs, a real fresh water area in Florida, which has been used for filming Tarzan movies and Creature of Black Lagoon, among others. The first segment tells about a black girl who works on the kitchen during the shoot of a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film. The second segment tells about her son and third about the son’s daughter. The last, a very short one, gives a glimpse to the fourth generation of the family. The story is very well written and interesting. The major failing was the (almost - one or two completely throw away sentences really doesn't count) lack of any speculative content. Normally, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but when you are reading a Hugo nominee you keep expecting that something fantastic would happen. That partly spoiled the story, it would probably have better without predispositions. In spite of that, this was a good story - but it is not really science fiction or fantasy.

The Butcher of Khardov, Dan Wells (Privateer Press)
This novella is connected to some sort of game which is apparently played by miniature figures, and which happens in some sort of steampunk world. I never had even heard of the game ever before. The story tells a backstory of a giant axe wielding solder, who ruthlessly kills everyone he even suspects being unloyal. The story is presented in nonlinear manner with short episodes of his life. He is presented as psychotic and unbelievably violent man, but there are logical or almost logical reasons for him being such man. As I was unfamiliar with the world and the backstory there were a lot unfamiliar terms, which somewhat hampered reading the story. There was a glossary of the terms which were used, but that was at the END of the story – not much help there.

“Equoid”, Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
A story about a secret British X-files style government organization. An agent is sent to investigate a possible infestation of unicorns. The unicorns are real, but thankfully rare creatures, with some very "interesting" qualities. They are meat eating, extremely vicious and their reproductive cycle is pretty unique and involves their horn (which actually really isn't a horn...). A pretty good story with pretty unique style with Lovecraftian undertones and even with a dash of tentacle porn. The writing is good, at places bit thick (which is part of the plot - the protagonist is reading Lovecraft's letters and complains that their style is contagious). An enjoyable and entertaining and at places pretty amusing story.


My voting order will be:
1. “Equoid”, Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
2. “Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013)
3. Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press)
4. The Butcher of Khardov, Dan Wells (Privateer Press)
5. “The Chaplain’s Legacy”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)

Seppo Jokinen: Hervantalainen

A police procedural which happen at Tampere, my home town. There appears to be serial murderer at loose in a Tampere suburb, Hervanta. It seems that victims are people who have mistreated their parents. A very good book with believable characters and engaging plot.

Komisario Koskinen kirja. Taitaa olla aika monta osaa edellisen lukemani ja tämän välissä, kun ihmisten väliset suhteet olivat kehittyneet aika paljon sitten viime näkemän.
Tällä kertaa poliisit tutkivat sarjaa pahoinpitelyjä, jotka vähitellen yltyvät murhien tasolle. Uhreina vaikuttaa olevan omia vanhempiaan kaltoin kohdelleet, jotka nyt joutuvat itse rajun koston kohteiksi. Suurin osa uhreista on elämän kaltoin kohtelemia, mutta ei välttämättä kokonaan ilman omaa syytään. Välillä tapahtumia seurataan vielä anonyymin murhaajan näkökulmasta. Aivan loppu, ja se miten murhaaja sai tietonsa, oli ehkä hiukan kaukaa haettu, mutta omalla tavallaan ymmärrettävä. Kirja on erittäin sujuvasti kirjoitettu ja omaa hiukan yhteiskunnallisemman otteen, kuin aikaisemmin lukemani sarjan teokset. Teksti tuo hiukan mieleen Matti Yrjänä Joensuun kirjat, päähenkilö vain ei ole yhtä ärsyttävän hermoheikko, vaan hahmot ovat sympaattisia, uskottavia, hyvin kuvattuja ja ymmärrettäviä. Tämä oli sen verran positiivinen lukuelämys, parhaasta päästä dekkareita pitkään aikaan, että pitää harkita sarjan aloittamista ihan tosissaan, jos nyt sitten kaiken muun lukulistalla olevan mukaan ahtaa.


330 s.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2014

A large double issue with fairly competent stories. Nothing really excellent, but all at least average or slightly over average.


Mind Locker • shortstory by Juliette Wade
A cyberpunk story with a lot of made up words and made up grammar. Very hard to understand at places. For example, what does this mean: “Nope, what I done’s sure not the Arkive”? Some kids who are trying to find something to eat and communicate by fancy computer text messages of some sort run into trouble. Or something, I really didn’t care (or understand). **
Who Killed Bonnie's Brain? • novelette by Daniel Hatch
A reporter tries to find out why a “brain in a pot” died (or was apparently killed). He meets and interviews several characters and eventually finds out the truth. The world is pretty interesting and well described, and there are some fairly interesting characters. The plot itself wasn’t really unusual or surprising. ***+
The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale • novelette by Rajnar Vajra
A group of some sort of “space cadets” take part in a bar room fight. As a punishment they must join a mission to a planet with apparently intelligent life, which has so far resisted all attempts of communication. Most life forms, especially the plants on the planet are extremely dangerous. One of the cadets claims that he will succeed in something dozens of scientists have failed: he is going to open the communications. Very much reminiscent of Heinlein’s juveniles - not as well and entertainingly written, but not too bad. Not great or unusual in any way, but readable in spite of somewhat irritating characters. ***+
Crimson Sky • shortstory by Eric Choi
A helicopter ambulance driver rescues an explorer in Mars. The patient gets an injection of ringer solution to his arm apparently subcutaneously or inside a muscle in a few seconds and that makes him stabilize. Rotfwl. ( it is infusion solution for intravenous use, and you need 500-1000 ml to have any benefit) The story had some extremely detailed descriptions of technology. Writing ok, but there is little actual plot.***-
The Journeyman: Against the Green • [Journeyman] • novella by Michael F. Flynn
Continues an earlier story. A pair of friends are drafted to an army which fights against green skinned men. The story apparently happens on a planet colonized by humans centuries ago, and some high tech relics might still be around somewhere. For most part the technology is medieval, but the green skinned seem to have muskets and primitive cannons. Little happens in the story. The bulk of the tale is taken by a very detailed description of battle, which at places seems almost like a transcript of a war game, interspaces with light humorous banter. The writing is pretty good, but again: where is the plot? ***+
Journeyer • shortstory by R. Garrett Wilson
An alien runs through a desert to collect an important medical herb which would save lives, especially his niece’s life. He takes a very different approach and strategy anyone has ever taken, and no one believes he will succeed or even survive. Guess what happens? A slightly too short, well written story with pretty strange and interesting aliens. ***
Valued Employee • shortstory by James K. Isaac
A young woman returns to her birth village. She has been living in outside world where everything is controlled by nanotechnology (?). She journeys back to her “luddite” village to turn them to accept technology “by any means necessary”. There are good parts in the story, but there was something in writing and/or plot which somehow irritated me- but I can’t really pinpoint what it was. ***-
Sadness • shortstory by Timons Esaias
Earth has been invaded. The invaders let humans live in peace in degree, but they impose some strange mixes of earlier human religions as mandatory belief systems. Up to and including those with human sacrifice. A sad, well written mood piece. ***
The Half-Toe Bar • shortstory by Andrew Reid
People have contacted a human civilization which has been separated for a long time. A group needs help from a black-smith, but some social norms cause some trouble: apparently it isn’t proper that women discuss such things, but the member of visiting group, who best knows what kind of help is needed is a woman. Nothing really special, an easily forgettable story. ***-
Hot and Cold • shortstory by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
A couple who travels together on a FTL ship has some severe problems with a black hole and an abandoned old space ship with unstable AI. They are forced to some creative measures to survive. A sort of problem solving story. A fairly nice as such. ***
Code Blue Love • novelette by Bill Johnson
The last surviving siblings of a family which suffers from severe cerebral aneurysms create as a last ditch effort intelligent self-modifying intravascular stents. They succeed very well, even though the discovery comes too late to save one of them. Or was it too late? Not bad story, and well written. However, I wonder of people would be _so_ brilliant after several brain surgeries and possible minor subarachnoid bleeds. ***+
Vooorh • novelette by Paula S. Jordan
Continues an earlier story. The background is described very scantily and the style of the story seems somehow to be pretty different from the earlier part which was slightly melancholy mood piece, while this goes more for action.
There are two groups of aliens which fight with each other’s. The evil ones are ugly crab like beings, while the good ones are more graceful looking beings, who apparently are something like a cross of seal and octopus. I wonder how the protagonist was able to be so sure who were the "good" guys - but naturally the ugly ones are always the evil aliens. It was kind of surprising how the rock salt was deadly poisonous for sea creatures. There were also a few things which were explained pretty poorly; I wonder for example, why the bad aliens apparently were able to influence police. The writing was pretty good though and the story was entertaining in spite of a few irritations. ***½

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

The first of this year’s Hugo-nominees. The first book of a new series by a new author. This was a pretty promising start. The plot is pretty complex and little backstory is explained at the beginning. The main character is an AI from a destroyed space ship, who is “wearing” an “ancillary” body, an “empty” human from a conquered world. She (for most part everyone is referred as “she” as the main language the characters speak doesn’t make the distinction – just like Finnish) rescues a former crew member who doesn’t realize that her savior is not human and her former ship. The ship is a mission to find something really unusual and rare. At the beginning, the chapters alternate with flashbacks. For some reason I much preferred the “current events” to the flashbacks. Even with the flashback only a modest amount of information of the world and its’ workings was presented – a lot was left for the sequels, and it seems the world will change significantly after the events in this book. The writing was pretty nice and enjoyable and the plot was interesting in spite of cold turkey method of exposition. There was surprisingly little about the ethical considerations about using ancillary body driven by AI:s for war fare even though the changing of that practice was one of the plot points. This will probably be pretty high on my ballot. Well, there is at least one, probably two nominees which will be below “no award” even before I have read them, just because I consider their nomination as an abomination.

416 pp.

Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks

The latest book by Oliver Sacks. This time he presents several case studies (or more like anecdotes) about different sorts of hallucinations - visual, auditory and even some other forms of that intriguing phenomenon. However, he is recycling his anecdotes by now, and the book isn’t anywhere as interesting as some of his earlier works - even though many of the stories _are_ familiar from the earlier books. The stories also tend to repeat themselves, there several very similar ones. Many of them weren’t really unusual – at least not for a neurologist. Almost every page has a foot note, which makes reading less smooth it might be. There were some surprising revelations: apparently Oliver Sachs was pretty heavily into the drugs in the sixties, taking about everything he could get in his hands, up to and including antiparkinson medications at extremely high doses. Well, _that_ caused some pretty unusual and very realistic hallucinations… As a whole the book was readable, but probably I will resist the temptation and won’t buy his possible next book: the law of diminishing returns seems to work.

320 pp.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2004

A pretty good issue.

Greater Fleas Have Lesser Fleas • novelette by Grey Rollins
A farmer whose farm can’t compete against giant industrial farming units sells his farm and finds a way to travel to an alien planet as a stowaway on an alien spaceship. The planet seems o be a virgin one. There are a few human settlers, but for some reason no aliens can be seen anywhere. As the farmers apparently are pretty stupid, they only think about that in passing. Then the aliens show up – and they have a small revelation. I can’t imagine why the aliens would reveal their secret to humans – or is there some other goal after all? ***+
Draft Dodger's Rag • novelette by Jeff Hecht
A pot smoking youth wants to escape the Vietnam War. He gets a wonderful offer: time travelers from a very peaceful future want to experience war. Someone takes his place and then he travels a few years to the future and gets his life back. He takes the offer, but doesn’t ask to extremely obvious question: what happens if his counterpart manages to get himself killed? And that is what happens. The writing is pretty good and the story was interesting. The choices to protagonist made weren’t always logical. ***+
Storm Front • [Draco Tavern] • shortstory by Larry Niven
A Draco Tavern story – Being from another sun are apparently asking for a refuge in ours sun. Short, chatty and without much point. **½
Babel • [Silurian Tales] • shortstory by Steven Utley
A talk by creation "scientist" explaining who evolution is wrong events after a discovery of an anomaly leading to the distant past. Far too longer, isn't amusing - rather depressing. **½
Distant Fire • shortstory by Richard A. Lovett
A story about a really long term love affair. An actress and an astronaut fall desperately in love. When the astronaut gets a captaincy on the first interstellar star ship they will never see each other’s ever again. Or will they? The actress goes to suspended animation to wait out for her boyfriend who returns hundreds of years later old a few years older thanks to time dilation. They spend a few years together, until they do it again…A pretty good, fairy tale like story. ***½
The Color of Pain • novelette by James C. Glass
Colonists on a planet have trouble with worm like creatures which spread extremely toxic gas when they are threatened – or even when there are not. Could they be intelligent? Could there be a way to communicate with them? A pretty standard story with pretty standard plot and characters. ***

Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, July 1976

A pretty bad issue. The first story was sort of okay, Schmidt’s story was kind of readable, the other two were bad.


Tricentennial • shortstory by Joe Haldeman
A story about space exploration and human history. A ship is sent for a test drive, but the passengers hijack it and aim for starts. A lot of political wrangling is needed even before the ship is sent. I wonder why a space ship in 2076 would be named to honor people important from the perspective of 1976? Not everything goes smoothly – not on the ship, and not on earth. Somewhat "outline style" of story where things are mainly described. ***+
Fly • shortstory by Mal Warwick
A story that aims for beautiful and poetic language and succeeds so well, that I didn’t really understand much. The story deals with a church, spaceship and love - apparently. **-
His Loyal Opposition • novelette by Stanley Schmidt
Continues an earlier story (which I haven’t read). Aliens (or space faring humans) have apparently visited a medieval planet and left behind a floating ship. A violent tribe might soon attack, and those ships just might save the day. Then a member of the enemy tribe apparently defects. Could he be trusted? There wasn’t much real sf content in this story. It was readable, but not really anything special. ***-
Dolls' Demise • shortstory by George Guthridge
A short shaggy dog style of story with a stupid "point". Unfunny and really, really stupid. *

Hanna Jensen: 940 päivää isäni muistina

A story about a father with dementia. An interesting and fascinating view how a disease which causes cognitive problems is seen prom the perspective of an adult child, who is forced to take care of her parent.

Monella tasolla mielenkiintoinen kirja dementiasta omaisen näkökulmasta katsottuna. Omalla omaisellani on nopeasti pahentunut muistihäiriö ja oman työni tiimoilla muistiasiat ovat enemmän kuin tuttuja. Kirjassa toimittajatytär kertoo isänsä tarinan. Aikaisemmin hiukan särmikkään persoonan omannut, hyvin aktiivinen ja ulkonäöstään tarkkaa huolta pitänyt mies muuttuu passiiviseksi, tahraisissa olohousuissa sujuvasti liikkuvaksi mutta aikaisempaa sävyisämmäksi ihmiseksi. Isän muistihäiriö oli päässyt jo varsin vaikeaksi siinä vaiheessa kun omaiset asian huomasivat. Usein käytännössäkin käy näin, vähitellen ja hitaasti tapahtuvia muutoksia on vaikea huomata. Kirjassa puhutaan Alzheimerista, mutta oireiden, niiden etenemisen ja muiden tekijöiden perusteella arvioiden vaikuttaa täysin selvältä, että kyseessä on ollut sekamuotoinen dementia, jossa on ollut mukana verenkiertoperäisistä syistä johtuvaa oireistoa ja erittäin todennäköisesti myös alkoholin käytöstä johtuvaa oireistoa. Tuota alkoholiasiaa ihmettelin suuresti, miten ihmeessä jo kohtalaisen pahasti muistihäiriöiselle alkoholin suurkuluttajalle tytär kantaa tolkuttomia määriä alkoholia kotiin? Minkälainen sokeus tai asioiden kieltäminen tuollaisessa toiminnassa mahtaa olla taustalla? Mahtoivatko hoitavat lääkärit olla käyttömääristä tietoisia? Mielenkiintoista oli myös se, että lääkäri joka väheksyi muistioireita ja piti jo ilmeisen vähintään keskivaikeasti dementoituneen oireita ihan lievinä oli ”hyvä lääkäri”. Etenkin, kun on oletettavaa, että katastrofaalinen sairaalasta kotiutusyritys on jossain määrin laitettava tuon huonosti kokonaistilannetta kuvanneen sairaalalähetteen piikkiin. (Jos lähetteen mukaan kyseessä on vain lievästi dementoitunut ja täysin omatoiminen henkilö, niin sairaalassa akuuttiosastolla lähtökohtaisesti oletetaan, että tämä pitää paikkaansa ja akuutin oireen hoidon jälkeen henkilö on taas kotikuntoinen). Ajattelemisen aihetta kirja antoi runsaasti ja se on kirjoitettu erittäin luettavasti ja vetävällä tyylillä. Loppupuoli kirjasta meni väsyneenäkin yötä myöten loppuun asti yhdellä kertaa.


289 s.