Hugo Awards 2025

I remembered to become a member this year in order to vote, huzzah! Which means I had access to the voting packet (AKA the giant packet of PDF books), which meant I was able to review many more things than I can on my own (given affordability and library waiting times).

Also, ALSO, WorldCon is in Seattle this summer, so I'll theoretically get to be there in person when they announce the winners!

Hugo Awards 2024

Hey-o, the Hugo Awards nominations came out on March 29, 2024. Which was earlier than I expected, but given the scandal of last year's awards, I imagine the procedures for this year's are SPOTLESS.

I totally forgot to become a member for this year's voting, which I only realized three days before ballots were due, so. I did not vote this year, and also did not get the handy voters' packet--which means I didn't get to read some stuff, alas!

In any case, as per usual, media I consumed before the nominations came out on March 29, 2024, are highlighted in blue and stuff I read afterwards is in green. (Purple are those I had already obtained but hadn't read yet.) I've ranked the media in the order I would have voted for them. I did not rank media I didn't consume, and I've included handy snippets from the stuff I did consume.

Since I'm posting this after the winners have been announced, I've opted to bold and underline the actual winners, while preserving how I chose to rank them.

Hugos 2023 Voting!

It's Hugos time again! I became a Hugos voter a few years ago after the whole mess before they adjusted the nomination and voting process. It's actually super-easy to become a voting member--if you pay for your annual membership (it's been about $50-60), you get a packet of most of the books and stories that have been nominated (not all of them--providing copies for voters is not required of the nominees; publishers just happen to be quite generous most of the time). And then you get to vote!

There's also the associated possibility of actually, like ATTENDING Worldcon, but that's an additional cost I haven't taken on as yet. (But if they have it in Seattle in the near future, as some have suggested....)

As the host of Worldcon this year is in China--Chengdu, specifically--there have been some interesting hurdles that I won't really grumble about. It's worth noting, however, that because of the location, there was a slightly different body of voters/nominators than before. (Worldcon, in my recollection, has most often been hosted in English-dominant locations.) Which is neato, in that there are many more folks of Chinese nationality (not just descent, mind you--in recent years, the diversity of nominees has been markedly increasing) nominated. Between that AND a short window for nominees to provide materials (I think a couple of the zine/podcast nominees specifically noted in their packets they only had eleven days), that also meant not everyone was able to get their materials translated in time.

Or: There were several nominees who were only able to share their materials in Chinese and not any translations in English. (And, to be fair, vice versa: Several of the nominees who shared things in English only added apology notes.) Some nominees could only share part of their materials in both languages; some folks who shared translations confessed they had to rely on AI/machine-translation in order to get it done before their deadline. In those cases, you could almost feel the absence of nuance. (In the case of one short story, that's almost the point--in the Astounding category, Maijia Lu's story "Left" is specifically about how the pictographic basis of Chinese language means some elements of physics can be expressed more wholly than in phonetic-based scripts like English.)

I find this interesting and not irritating, though YE GODS, can you imagine how I feel, having multiple stories and books in my possession that I cannot read? My heart, she is breaking. But also, this is a cool problem to have, no? From my perspective, anyway.

Media Consumed 2022

What things have I kept count of this year?

316 Books | 21 Cities Visited | 27 Comics | Two Concerts (ish) | 6 Conferences and Festivals | 77 Movies | 21 Museums and Cultural/Historic Sites | 15 Readings and Talks | 1 Sports Match | 6 Theatre Productions | 801 TV Episodes

Chicon 8 AKA Hugo Awards 2022!

Fun fact: the Hugo award voting is via ranking, which I honestly find pretty satisfying. And I managed to read/watch/listen to all of them! Yay for me!
As with the Oscars, I'm marking texts (in all formats) consumed previously to the nominations in green and those consumed afterwards in blue. I am, however, also going to add in purple to indicate stuff I already owned but hadn't read because, as all book lovers know, at least a third of one's own library is built upon intention. (It's worth distinguishing which ones I owned because one of the nicest perks of being a voting member is getting a packet of most of the texts prior to voting.)

Largely, I've ranked things in terms of my enjoyment. I've tried to explain my rationale for some, but AS IS MY WAY, I've included snippets of the texts to give you a sense of how I feel about them.

Best Novel

1. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

   The thing that held a society together, Roveg had been taught, was shared narrative. A common history, a bedrock of ethics. This was the shell that held the world together, and protected all that was soft and fragile. Turning away from your own story was to open yourself to chaos. This was not academic opinion, his teachers had told him. This was observable fact.

   
   
2. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

   I can't imagine explaining "sleep" to someone who had never heard of it. Hey, I'm going to fall unconscious and hallucinate for a while. By the way, I spend a third of my time doing this. And if I can't do it for a while, I go insane and eventually die. No need for concern.

3. Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

   Lucy was tempted to ask if she'd had a nice date, but she was still Shizuka Satomi, and one does not casually ask the Queen of Hell about her relationship with the donut lady.

4. A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

   "Half-blood. Your sire was djinn."
   "I prefer double-blood. And the djinn who 'sired' me was hardly superior."
   "Still, you are djinn-touched. Even if lesser, you may share in the coming glory."
   "How gracious. But you can keep your glory."

5. A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

   The adjutant, Twenty Cicada, made an entirely remarkable noise, like he'd drowned a laugh and swallowed its corpse.

6. She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
   

   Lady Rui's jaw was tight with the same intensity Zhu had glimpsed earlier: a compressed rage that had as its heart the female desire to survive all that sought to make her nothing.

Bridgerton 1.01: Diamond of the First Water

I decided to rewatch Bridgerton from the beginning again and things kind of got out of hand.

The Whistledown Report
I may be paraphrasing some of this.

• "It has been said that of all bitches, dead or alive, a scribbling woman is the most canine. If that should be true, than this author would like to show you her teeth." That is a KILLER opener, but my god, Whistledown, who the hell actually said that?
  
  
• Featherington has three ladies on the marriage market and their mother has shit taste in clothes and also manners.
  
  
• Violet Bridgerton and her late husband churned out a clutch of ridiculously attractive children, but Lady Whistledown finds their alphabetical naming convention utterly banal.
  
  
  
  This is, for the record, accompanied by a couple of portraits that are hilarious mostly because it's clear they were painted somewhere in the recent past, which means poor Gregory and Hyacinth got shoved into a closet or something for the space of a month or so.

Media Consumed: Quarantined Globetrotter Edition (May/June 2022)

So yeah, I went on a long-planned vacation and spent half of it quarantined in Casablanca! Which was fun in its own right, if extremely repetitive. More soon!

Books: 10
Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall
Give Unto Others, Donna Leon
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Lauren Willig
Boyfriend Material, Alexis Hall
Sea of Tranquility, Emily St John Mandel
The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, Julia Quinn
Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, T Kingfisher
Across the Green Grass Fields, Seanan McGuire
Calculated Risks, Seanan McGuire


Cities Visited: 9 (five countries)
Switzerland: Zurich (airport)
Portugal: Lisbon (including airport), Evora
Spain: Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga (airport)
Morocco: Casablanca (including airport), Fes
Canada: Montreal (airport)

Cities I Missed Due to Quarantine: 6
Morocco: Rabat, Marrakech (including airport)
Spain: Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona (including airport)
Germany: Munich (airport)

Movies: 5
Galaxy Quest (United Airlines)
Ghostbusters Afterlife (United Airlines)
Ron's Gone Wrong (United Airlines)
Dog (Air Canada)
Moneyball (Air Canada)

TV: 30 episodes
The Legend of Vox Machina 1.03-1.12
Nora From Queens 2.01-2.03
Obi-Wan Kenobi 1.01, 1.02
Selena + Chef 1.01-1.04
Take Out with Lisa Ling (HBO) 1.01-1.03
WandaVision 1.01-1.09


I think it's safe to say I wouldn't have read as many books, at least, if I hadn't spent six days confined to one hotel room. But still!

TV Tellings X: 22nd Century Sherlock Edition

Amelia, there are SO MANY versions of Sherlock out there in the world, but this one seemed the most hilarious.

I continue on with my deep dive into 90s kid cartoons because Y'ALL. Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, circa 1990, is on Tubi. (It is also findable on YouTube, if you wish.) I do actually remember watching this show when I was a kid--I distinctly remember the name Moriarty coming up a few times. But, honestly, I was kind of surprised to find out it actually existed and wasn't some nostalgic fever dream.



Whoever came up with this concept is a mad genius. Also, this theme song is going to be stuck in my head for WEEKS.

TV Tellings IX: My So-Called Life

Happy Christmas, Ro! I hope you're in the mood for some teenage shenanigans!

My So-Called Life falls squarely into my 90s kid purview AND YET I never watched it and even further, never really wanted to watch it. Like, what do I care about teenage angst when I could be, like, memorizing the scripts of X-Men: The Animated Series? (Yeah, it's coming.) But I guess IT IS TIME.



This is a lot of flannel, y'all. A LOT.

Logline
Teenagers. Have. So. Many. Feelings.

TV Tellings VIII: Hyrule Edition

Happy Christmas, Jen! I expect this recap will both delight and horrify you!

Does anybody else remember The Legend of Zelda? It was pre-Disney Afternoon I think and was paired with a Super Mario Bros thing of some sort. It turns out I have it ON DVD because I am an 80s/90s kid. (This falls solidly into 1989.) However, friends and fam, you can also watch all the episodes on Tubi because sometimes the universe is okay. (It's also pretty easy to find them on YouTube, btw.)

TV Tellings VII: TNG Season 1 Edition

Happy Christmas, Fernando and Jeff! And if Rowan is, indeed, a Trek fan.

So, like, while The Next Generation was going on while I grew up, I never watched it. (Enterprise was my first Trek, friends. NO REGRETS.) I feel like I've learned much about it through osmosis, but who knows what surprises this watch shall bring?

Logline
A bunch of awkward nerds and a belligerent Frenchman command a spaceship filled with science families into unnecessarily permeable conflict zones.

Dramatis Personae
Starting at the back row, from left to right:

TV Tellings VI: The Mandalorian S2

I did Season 1 of The Mandalorian just a few months ago, if you didn't catch it then. Now we shall continue on! I have watched the Ahsoka episode multiple times, but the rest of these, just the first time around.

Logline
"I've been quested to bring this one back to its kind."

TV Tellings V: Justified Season 1

I actually did a fandom post on Justified a while back, which was pretty fun.

For this watch-through, I was tempted to go straight to the second season, as I didn't want to deal with Boyd Crowder as White Supremacist, but then I thought that would be kind of disingenuous. So here we go with the first season of Justified, which I have only watched once before.



Logline
Raylan Givens of the US Marshals office is a bit too trigger-happy for his superiors. After a pretty public shootout in Miami, he gets transferred to Kentucky--specifically, close to his hometown. Does he get drawn back into the life he used to have, except on the right side of the law instead of the wrong one? Yup. Nobody knows what to make of him.

Fandoms I Have Loved, Part 8: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Given the rather unsurprising news that Joss Whedon is trash, it has felt weird to return to BtVS. Given it was pretty much my first real fandom, though, it also felt weird to not return. It's also been a long, long while since I've done a watch-through. Have I ever done a full watch-through? (I'm 100% positive I haven't rewatched the last three seasons beyond the first time around.) In any case, I wasn't going to do a full watch-through, but then I found a couple of watching-through podcasts, Must Be Tuesday and Buffering the Vampire Slayer, and honestly, there's no better way to get me to rewatch something. But would I still dig the show now, so many years later?

Spoiler alert: Kind of. A lot. With many caveats.

TV Tellings IV: The Chair

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more!"

Sandra Oh playing the chair of an English department at a small liberal arts college? I had read nothing about this--I hadn't even watched a trailer--but even sight unseen, I could almost guarantee, pre-watch, three things:

1. I'm going to spend most of the watch screaming at the screen WRT academic politics and processes
2. They are going to get English, as a field, almost completely wrong
3. At least one professor is going to seem to be having an illicit and gross affair with a student

But Sandra Oh, y'know? Plus, as all my English colleagues know, this is pretty much all non-English academic people will ask about come the winter holidays.

Anyway, this is a first watch reactions sort of post. Spoilers for The Chair may abound. Also, I cuss a lot.

Logline:
Sandra Oh plays the chair of an English department at a small liberal arts college.

TV Tellings III: The Mandalorian Season 1

This is actually my third watch-through of the first season. Guys, it's possible I don't know how to watch TV without writing about it anymore.

Logline
A stranger comes to town;

Or,

An ambivalent bounty hunter discovers his latest quarry is the most adorable magic baby in the galaxy. Ambivalence becomes untenable;

Or,

It's cowboys! In space!

TV Tellings II: Lucifer Season 5

Lucifer season 5! This is my second watch--and the sixth season is here now! Huzzah!

Logline
He's the misunderstood King of Hell. She's a former actress turned police detective. Together, they fight crime!

TV Tellings I: The Queen's Gambit

Here we go: Queen’s Gambit. This is my first watch, but it seemed like this show completely took over the pop cultural conversation for, like, a full eight days or something.

Fandoms I Have Loved, Part 7: Supernatural

This one’s an extremely long one, friends. Supernatural (SPN) went for fifteen glorious seasons! There is SO MUCH. 

Logliney Stuff:
Two brothers. Saving people. Hunting things. They start out with monsters and end up fighting, well, God. It’s a thing.

Fandoms I Have Loved, Part 6: Avatar the Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender is decidedly a kids’ show (it never leaves a snot joke untold), but it’s also a pretty stunning portrayal of generational trauma. The show starts in the 100th year of a war. One hundred years. Then we have a world that seems fully Asian (REPRESENT), some gorgeous fight choreography, and a main cast of tiny worldbreakers. ATLA is a song unto my soul.

Logliney Stuff:
For every generation there is an Avatar, master all four elements. Aang, an Air Nomad and the current Avatar, is barely, barely on the edge of puberty, when he gets caught in a storm and cryo-preserved (think Captain America) for one hundred years. When Katara and Sokka, two teens from the Southern Water Tribe, happen to wake Aang up, shit has gone down. The Fire Nation has spent the past hundred years attacking, conquering, and colonizing as much of the rest of the world as it could, and there was no Avatar to slow them down. Now it’s time for Aang to grow up, master his powers, and save the world.