Other Novellas

[jack]

The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells

This is a tie-in story telling the back-story of a delusional brutal commander in a tabletop war-game. The story wasn't bad. I liked the intertwining of several time periods of him as a child, as a logger, as a mobster, as a hermit, as a commander, as a prisoner. Some people found it gratuitous, but I find it very natural to build up a picture of his life as a whole. But it wasn't good enough to make up for all the gratuitous killing :( But I don't know how much of that was due to the author and how much was due to the constraints of the tie-in; I've read very good tie-ins and would be interested to see if something else by Wells was better.

Wells was also listed on Correia's slate of proposed nominees, but I couldn't find him saying anything about it one way or the other, or any other link between him and Correia, and some people unrelated to Correia saying they liked some other books by his, so I don't have much of a bias either way.

Equoid by Charles Stross

I would say this was fairly typical of the other laundry stories and novels. I enjoyed it more than the other short stories (which I found were trying a bit too hard), but not as much as the first concrete cows one. It still had some humour which seemed to be trying a bit too hard (the "ruralshire" joke was tiresome the first time but made me smile a bit, but made me want to strangle Bob the tenth time he thought it!)

I completely skimmed over all the Stross-writing-as-lovecraft excerpts; I hear it's a lot more tedious if you don't.

I'm never sure how to rate stories that are good stand-alone, but don't really add anything new to previous books in the series.

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

Pretty good. Exactly what you'd expect from the title, a fairly straight re-telling of Snow White, but in the wild west.

Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages

I liked this a lot. I thought it unambiguously did have supernatural creatures in, but only brief encounters which didn't really affect the story, so I don't get why they were there?

Footnote on voting

When I'm asked to vote for my opinion on something, I always hesitate. I remember the same effect looking at political leaflets asking things like "what do you think should be the priority in your area [list of choices]". Am I supposed to vote for the one *I* enjoy the most? Or the one I think *most* people would enjoy the most? Or some compromise thereof?

Comments

[redbird]

My understanding of things like the Hugo is that you're supposed to vote for the one you enjoyed the most. If your tastes are that unusual, the people with the more common preferences will outvote you.

I'd save the more detailed stuff for book reviews or conversations about "what should I read" and "do you think I would like this book?"

Similarly, with those "what should be the priority in this area?" I figure I'm entitled to take my own needs and preferences into account and speak up about them. It's not as though there's a shortage of other people to argue for funding the police department or highways. That said, if I genuinely think that something important isn't getting enough attention or funding, I can state that as a priority whether or not it has a direct affect on me.

[jack]

Thank you! Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right, but I keep having to repersuade my brain that voting for the one I like is not being biased or naive, it's how it's *supposed* to to work :)

[naath]

You're supposed to vote for what you think should win the Hugo Award. You get to invent your own criteria; other people will disagree (about the criteria, and about how the various works do against it), they will vote differently... that's why it is a vote ;-p

(so you get to pick whether you care that "is a novel" has suddenly become rather more... flexible, or about the question of "is this work SFF", or whether "author is a bigoted dipshit" is relevant, or etc.)