{"id":18400,"date":"2024-04-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=18400"},"modified":"2024-04-06T09:52:43","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T15:52:43","slug":"how-i-would-vote-now-2020-hugo-award-best-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-2020-hugo-award-best-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"How I would vote now: 2020 Hugo Award (Best Novel)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Nominees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51Y%2BJwhPFqL.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The City in the Middle of the Night<\/em> by Charlie Jane Anders<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51UTMs5ZZXL.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Ten Thousand Doors of January<\/em> by Alix E. Harrow<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51yn7X506HL.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Light Brigade<\/em> by Kameron Hurley<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51dP%2BmINk2L.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>A Memory Called Empire<\/em> by Arkady Martine<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/41eKonIAV5L.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Middlegame<\/em> by Seanan McGuire<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51EouKph8NL.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Gideon the Ninth<\/em> by Tamsyn Muir<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Actual Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>A Memory Called Empire<\/em> by Arkady Martine<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Middlegame<\/em> by Seanan McGuire<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Gideon the Ninth<\/em> by Tamsyn Muir<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Light Brigade<\/em> by Kameron Hurley<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The City in the Middle of the Night<\/em> by Charlie Jane Anders<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Ten Thousand Doors of January<\/em> by Alix E. Harrow<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How I Would Have Voted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>No Award<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Explanation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The wokery was strong this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a list of tropes that I cannot stand anymore, to the point that I will usually DNF any book that uses them. All of the nominated books this year fell fell into at least one of those tropes, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>All true love is LGBTQ love<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A profane and vulgar childhood<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Death is chic<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Life is not worth saving<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Badass woman warrior, slay!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>One of these days, I&#8217;ll write a blog post describing all of these tropes. If they weren&#8217;t so common in fiction these days, I would have more tolerance for them, but I&#8217;ve seen them all so much that they get an immediate &#8220;nope&#8221; whenever I see them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The City in the Middle of the Night<\/em> was like something written by a mental patient, and not in a good way. If I wrote a parody of a book written by a leftist, it would read no differently than this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I forget why I DNFed <em>The Ten Thousand Doors of January,<\/em> but I think it was because of the trope I call &#8220;a profane and vulgar childhood,&#8221; where children lose (or are never really allowed to experience) their innocence before they grow up, and the author doesn&#8217;t treat this like the tragedy it truly is. There may have also been an anti-racist \/ anti-colonialist bent that turned me off, if I remember correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wanted to like <em>The Dark Brigade,<\/em> because I enjoy reading Kameron Hurley&#8217;s op-eds in <em>Locus Magazine,<\/em> but the book was way too dark and profane. Also, it suffered from &#8220;all true love is LGBTQ love&#8221; and &#8220;badass woman warrior, slay!&#8221; which I am just so tired of reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>A Memory Called Empire<\/em> is one of those sprawling space operas about a massive galactic empire, but it read too much like something written by an English major with little to no understanding of how geopolitics actually works. Also, the &#8220;all true love is LGBTQ love&#8221; was strong with this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, <em>Middlegame<\/em> and <em>Gideon the Ninth<\/em> are both prime examples of &#8220;death is chic,&#8221; a trope which plays right into the death cult that currently dominates our culture. But even if the macabre obsession with death is just an aesthetic, it&#8217;s one that I personally cannot stand. With that said, though, I think it goes beyond the aesthetic for both of these books\u2014but I didn&#8217;t stick around long enough to find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For all of these books, the characters fell completely flat for me. One of the things I need in order to connect with a character is to get a sense right off the bat that they&#8217;re a good person\u2014or, if they&#8217;re a bad person, that needs to be lampshaded clearly as a flaw. But in so many books that are published these days, the characters are just downright awful people who care only for themselves, and rarely is this pointed out as a flaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Increasingly, it seems that we live in a world where the culture tells us that nothing is true and everything is permitted. Screw that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nominees The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine Middlegame by Seanan McGuire Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir The Actual Results How I Would Have Voted&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-2020-hugo-award-best-novel\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How I would vote now: 2020 Hugo Award (Best Novel)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1730,1726,1729,1509,1734,1506,1731,567,1727,1732,1728,1723],"class_list":["post-18400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-profane-and-vulgar-childhood","tag-alix-e-harrow","tag-all-true-love-is-lgbtq-love","tag-arkady-martine","tag-badass-woman-warrior-slay","tag-charlie-jane-anders","tag-death-is-chic","tag-hugo-awards","tag-kameron-hurley","tag-life-is-not-worth-saving","tag-seanan-mcguire","tag-tamsyn-muir","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-4MM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18400"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18812,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18400\/revisions\/18812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}