{"id":22184,"date":"2025-11-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=22184"},"modified":"2025-11-24T22:09:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T05:09:59","slug":"how-i-would-vote-now-2014-hugo-awards-best-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/how-i-would-vote-now-2014-hugo-awards-best-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Would Vote Now: 2014 Hugo Awards (Best Novel)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Warbound<\/em> by Larry Correia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Parasite<\/em> by Mira Grant<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Ancillary Justice<\/em> by Ann Leckie<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Neptune’s Brood<\/em> by Charles Stross<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Actual Results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Ancillary Justice<\/em> by Ann Leckie<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Neptune’s Brood<\/em> by Charles Stross<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Parasite<\/em> by Mira Grant<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Warbound<\/em> by Larry Correia<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    How I Would Vote Now<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. Warbound<\/em> by Larry Correia<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. No Award<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

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

      Technically, the entire Wheel of Time series was also on the ballot this year, but there is no other year in which a complete series (as opposed to the latest book in the series) was ever on the ballot. It seems really weird that they would do that just for Wheel of Time, so I’m going to act as if it never happened. Otherwise, The Wheel of Time would probably get my #2 slot, just above No Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I haven’t read Warbound,<\/em> but I have read enough of Hard Magic,<\/em> the first book in Larry Correia’s Grimnoir Chronicles, to know that I’m going to read the rest. The magic system is a lot more explicitly rules-based than much of his other stuff, but the characters are great, the story is great, the world is fascinating\u2026 it’s definitely up there with the rest of his work. Good stuff. Great writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Ann Leckie holds the record for the author I’ve DNFed the fastest. Ancillary Justice<\/em> is the book that put her on the map. The main character is a sentient spaceship, which sounds like a pretty cool starting concept\u2026 until you realize that the most exciting thing about this spaceship is that it’s transgender, and views every other human as a “she.” Derp. The whole book is obsessed with leftist gender politics, which is why I believe that No Award is more deserving than this garbage. I predict it will not age well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I forget why I DNFed Neptune’s Brood.<\/em> I think it had to do with sex, violence, and drug use that was just too explicit for me. When I was in my 20s, I was willing to do dark and gritty, but these days I have little patience for it. I think this may have been the book that made me decide to skip Charles Stross as an author, so there must have been a lot of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      As for Parasite,<\/em> I think the main thing for that one was that I just felt no interest or connection with any of the characters. Glancing over the book, it doesn’t appear that it had any explicitly terrible content, and I vaguely remember getting bored with the story and deciding that it wasn’t worth continuing. But having read and DNFed several other works by this author, I know she has a tendency to veer into crossing my lines (such as building sexual tension between a brother and sister, or throwing in weird occult stuff, or making her main character a transgender child). And running the book through ChatGPT, it appears that the book has an undercurrent of nihilism, which I absolutely cannot stand in any fiction. Perhaps I picked up on that soon enough to DNF it early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Of the three books from this year that I DNFed, I’d be most willing to give Parasite<\/em> another try, then maybe Neptune’s Brood.<\/em> But I wouldn’t be willing to read Ancillary Justice<\/em> (or anything else by Ann Leckie, for that matter) unless you paid me damn well for it. And even then\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

      The Nominees Warbound by Larry Correia Parasite by Mira Grant Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross The Actual Results How I Would Vote Now Explanation Technically, the entire Wheel of Time series was also on the ballot this year, but there is no other year in which a complete series (as… Continue reading How I Would Vote Now: 2014 Hugo Awards (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":[1508,1750,567,1041,1755],"class_list":["post-22184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ann-leckie","tag-charles-stross","tag-hugo-awards","tag-larry-correia","tag-mira-grant","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-5LO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22184","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=22184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22365,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22184\/revisions\/22365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}