{"id":18401,"date":"2024-05-17T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=18401"},"modified":"2024-05-17T12:13:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T18:13:27","slug":"how-i-would-vote-now-2019-hugo-award-best-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-2019-hugo-award-best-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"How I would vote now: 2019 Hugo Award (Best Novel)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Nominees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Record of a Spaceborn Few<\/em> by Becky Chambers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Calculating Stars<\/em> by Mary Robinette Kowal<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Revenant Gun<\/em> by Yoon Ha Lee<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spinning Silver<\/em> by Naomi Novik<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trail of Lightning<\/em> by Rebecca Roanhorse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Space Opera<\/em> by Catherynne M. Valente<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Actual Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. The Calculating Stars<\/em> by Mary Robinette Kowal<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Spinning Silver<\/em> by Naomi Novik<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Record of a Spaceborn Few<\/em> by Becky Chambers<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Trail of Lightning<\/em> by Rebecca Roanhorse<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Revenant Gun<\/em> by Yoon Ha Lee<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Space Opera<\/em> by Catherynne M. Valente<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    How I Would Have Voted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. Spinning Silver<\/em> by Naomi Novik<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. No Award<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Space Opera<\/em> by Catherynne M. Valente<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Explanation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      The Calculating Stars<\/em> actually started out pretty good. Mary Robinette Kowal is a very skilled writer, and her main character in this book was both likeable and interesting\u2014something that seems to be increasing rare in Hugo-nominated books. It also didn’t hurt that in the very first chapter, a giant meteor wiped out Washington DC and most of the eastern seaboard. But then it gradually turned into a story about the little woman who roared and her band of misfit minorities who team up to fight Captain Patriarchy, and the super-woke feminism just ruined it for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I didn’t read Revenant Gun<\/em> or Record of a Spaceborn Few<\/em> because I DNFed both series with the first book. With Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire series, I don’t remember much, except that the first book made absolutely no sense to me, with so much meaningless violence that it bordered on the absurd. With Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers series, it started off as an interesting space opera, but the ship quickly turned into a lesbian love boat, with lots of queer and transgender aliens to boot. Wokery ensues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      As for Trail of Lightning,<\/em> I honestly don’t remember much about that one, other than that it started to give me woke vibes and I didn’t really like any of the characters. I think it also played the Death is Chic and Life is Not Worth Saving trope, which I personally cannot stand. If the main character had struck me as a good and decent person, I probably would have kept reading, but so many books that suffer from wokeness also suffer from having protagonists who are just terrible human beings in general. I don’t think the two are unrelated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The first chapter of Space Opera<\/em> was laugh out loud hilarious, and I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. Valente’s gonzo humor is a lot of fun! Then… I don’t know quite how to put this, but the story just started to feel depressing, and I’m not sure why. Also, the gonzo writing style started to grate on me after a while, kind of like Chuck Wendig’s writing does for anything longer than a blog article. It wasn’t a terrible book, but I didn’t end up finishing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      But I really loved Spinning Silver,<\/em> much more than I was expecting to. I’m not generally into fairy tell retellings, but this one stirred something primal in my Slavic roots and scratched an itch I didn’t even know that I had. Besides all that, it’s just a damn good story. The villains were genuinely villainous, the peril was genuinely perilous, the good guys all had satisfying growth arcs, and the ending was a crowning moment of awesome that brought everything full circle in the best possible way. Really great book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
      How I Would Vote Now: All Years<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Nominees Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente The Actual Results How I Would Have Voted Explanation The Calculating Stars actually started out… Continue reading How I would vote now: 2019 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":[1716,1753,567,339,1558,1724,1752],"class_list":["post-18401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-becky-chambers","tag-catherynne-m-valente","tag-hugo-awards","tag-mary-robinette-kowal","tag-naomi-novik","tag-rebecca-roanhorse","tag-yoon-ha-lee","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-4MN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18401","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=18401"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18968,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18401\/revisions\/18968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}