Hugo 2013 Reviews: Novellas

I enjoy shorter works, but with the novellas I sometimes get the best of both worlds: small enough to be read in a day, or sometimes even half a day, if I have nothing else I need to be doing, but long enough to get some depth and a full plot, sometimes with a couple of subplots.  While they can't do the intricate tie-together of dozens of plot threads that the best epic stories can, they can still pack a wallop at the end.

How did this year's nominated crop do?  In what seems to be a trend this year, many solid pieces and none that jump out at me, forcing me to vote for them.

• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)

Of all the stories here, this was the one that felt the most like a complete novel -- and I could be mistaken, but it might have been the one with the longest wordcount as well.  It certainly sticks in my mind as one of the longest to read.  That said, the story was also one of the most intriguing to me.  I loved the way it wove the three timelines together, raising questions in some just to answer them in the others, only to have those answers reflect back and then cause more questions again.

On the (small) downside, some of the character actions felt a bit undeveloped to me -- that is, they could well have been justified, but what was in the text might have been a touch too sparse.  Also, while I enjoyed the "we did it to ourselves" aspect of the ending, I thought the reference to Gaia specifically protecting herself was odd, and in my mind there was no need to introduce it; one or two catastrophes leading to nuclear armageddon is plausible enough by itself.

Back to the plus side, the Tesslies were never explained, which surprised me but in a good way.  I think including something for them would have been too neatly wrapped up.

• The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)

Brandon offered an electronic version of this to nominating members of Worldcon, and I took him up on it, having otherwise little chance to read the story.  I can't say how much that effort helped in getting him nominated, but I feel it holds its own when laid next to the other selected nominees.  As usual with his fantasy stories, the magic system is both unique and well-thought-out, and is one of the strengths of the story. (I found after reading the story that this was set in the same world as Elantris, which I didn't grasp during the story but after learning this found a couple hints scattered throughout.)

On the negative side, I'm of split minds about the ending -- specifically, the action scenes.  The majority of the story is more along the lines of a mystery or court intrigue, with the various players and factions maneuvering against each other.  The flight and fight to wrap up the story is a good thing for paying off some promises about how the magic system can be used on a person, and yet the fighting in particular seemed off from the tone of the rest of the book.  While I'm being critical, I'll add that I don't recall much of a growth arc to the MC through the story.  Both of these are rather small nits to be picking at, however, and the overall story is quite solid.

• On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)

This story is apparently set in the same world as some others by Aliette de Bodard, including the short story Immersion.  In this particular case, I wonder if the story suffers just a bit for it.  The worldbuilding is comprehensive, and the look into another future culture is fascinating, but despite my general appreciation for this length of story, in this case I think it was the wrong choice.

In a bit more detail, schematically I can see how the story is structured such that the ending matches the beginning, the arc for the main character is there, there are hints of arcs for other characters... but in the end, there is so much happening in the story, and so many references to other things happening, and so much detail that is glossed over, that I thought the story would benefit from more room dedicated to these things.  The threads weren't dangling, necessarily; we were given the information about where they tied up, but not where they went in between, or, from my perspective anyway, sometimes enough information to see how it should impact the rest of the story.

My other complimaint (that's a combination compliment and complaint) is that the characters were realistically drawn, each of the prominent ones with their own goals and troubles, but I really didn't know who to latch on to and none of them elicited that sympathy in me that makes me want to keep reading and see what happened to them.  Probably the closest in that regard is the grandmother AI, who is unfortunately silenced before the end of the story.

• San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, Mira Grant (Orbit)

This is another that ties into other fiction, but in this case I've happened to have read the other fiction.  I can't know for sure, since I haven't approached it from a blank slate, but I believe that having read the novels adds just a bit of resonance to the story, and in particular the framing device.  The interview and look back adds to the suspense, because you know something bad is going to be happening, but without having read the novels I doubt I'd care who is doing the interviewing or want them to be able to succeed in getting the subject to open up.

Likewise, I can't recall if the story explicitly mentioned that this was one of the first giant zombie outbreak problems, or if that information came with the other novels.  That said, I found the portrayal of a zombie attack in an environment set very close to current days to be pretty realistic.  I liked that each of the people presented in the meat of the story had their own reasons for being there, their own behaviors, and their own goals as things started to get bad.  And their own responses to the events that were happening.  Plus, of course, Mira Grant did a wonderful job in getting me to like most of the characters even though I knew they were going to be killed by the end.

An interesting side-note to liking the characters -- she didn't make all of the characters likable, though they almost all had something about them that the reader could identify with, even the ones who made poor choices.  I think this made it feel a lot more realistic, rather than making it feel heavy-handed.  In the same vein, the one character we know survived isn't incredibly likable either.  She's not horrible, but she's a typical teenager who isn't having a good day, and takes it out on people around her.  Rather than make the reader dislike her, though, it actually causes empathy and pity.

• “The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012)

I don't know if the world this story is set in is a larger one populated by Jay Lake in other stories or novels, but this is another with a large amount of worldbuilding evident.  The amount of ideas in the story is impressive, as is the author's ability to convey so much of the setting without bogging down the story.  Part of that is due to playing on some strong parallels to our history -- and playing on a few tropes -- but a lot of it is due to good writing.

Unfortunately, this one fell down more than the rest for me, due mostly to plot.  There is plenty of conflict, and (at least somewhat) sympathetic characters on all sides of the inciting event, but in the end it seems more like a chronicle of events and what the characters did during them than it does a story.  I'm going to take a stab at why with the MICE quotient -- the story starts with a scientist announcing a discovery that upsets the religious teachings of the time.  To me, this indicates a clear event story, since the status quo is upset (and if that's not enough, the later revelation that his evidence will only become more and more obvious to others as well clearly indicates that the status quo will not continue).  However, after a fight in the end, we have an event that doesn't restore the previous status quo (the church's figure running off), and a character-arc resolution for the scientist follows -- where he resolves to not push his discoveries on others, which undermines the idea that a new status quo has been accepted.  I think this ending, as much as anything, leaves a feeling that things are still unresolved, which is what leads to my feeling of stuff-happened rather than story-occurred.

My Opinion
As the discussion of "The Stars Do Not Lie" may indicate, it quickly falls to the bottom of my rankings. For the remaining four, I'm afraid I have to rank On a Red Station, Drifting fourth, followed by The Emperor's Soul third (despite it's magic system creativity, the story didn't strike me as hard as the remaining two).  Finally, between San Diego 2014 and After, Before, During, I have to give the nod to After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall.  This is primarily due to how well it kept me engrossed in the story, and despite my feelings about the Gaia explanation in the end.  San Diego 2014 didn't maintain that level of interest from me, but it did provide a more satisfying ending (IMO), so I may end up swapping before I cast my final ballot, but I doubt it.