Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete731
I can't help wondering how much the Hugo's have changed since the internet came about. The discussion about nomination campaigns and suchlike sort of triggered it. Would that have been possible pre-internet? Or just much harder? Anyway, the next category for me was the Best Novella, my ranking was
Equoid - 1
The Chaplain's Legacy - 2
Wakulla Springs - 3
Six Gun Snow White - 4
The Butcher of Khardov - 5
Equoid gets the top spot largely because this was just straight out the most entertaining selection. While I'm not a fan of his hard far future writing (i.e. Neptune's Brood), I quite like his Laundry Files.
IMO Chaplain and Wakulla are both interesting fictional looks at social issuses, (religion for the one, race for the other), and tied for 2nd. I ultimately ranked the way I did since Chaplain has more science in it's fiction, and this is a sci-fi/fantasy award.
Six Gun was....different. Not necessarily bad, but not her best, and very difficult to follow. I really like Catherynne M. Valente's writing, but not really this example.
Butcher was the weakest here IMO. As far as I could tell it was basically Fan Fiction. Not that there's anything wrong with fan fic, but not for this award.
|
I like the Laundry books but I thought Equoid was weak. And most of the jokes were old if you have read everything else in the Laundry Universe.
I thought The Chaplain's Legacy was terrible. Like it was written in the 30-ies and not a good example of old fashioned sf. I will not vote on that at all.
Wakulla Spring and Six Gun Snowwhite was the ones that was best written. Unfortunately the science fiction aspects of them were pretty weak.
The Butcher... was readable but not good.
I think my voting will be:
1. Wakulla Springs
2. Six Gun Snow White
3. Equoid
4. No Award