Vote Submitted:

Best Novel

2 Among Others Jo Walton Tor
4 A Dance With Dragons George R. R. Martin Bantam Spectra
1 Deadline Mira Grant Orbit
5 Embassytown China Miéville Macmillan / Del Rey
3 Leviathan Wakes James S. A. Corey Orbit

Best Novella

2 Countdown Mira Grant Orbit
1 “Kiss Me Twice” Mary Robinette Kowal Asimov’s, June 2011
3 “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” Kij Johnson Asimov’s, September/October 2011
4 “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” Ken Liu Panverse 3

Best Novelette

2 “The Copenhagen Interpretation” Paul Cornell Asimov’s, July 2011
1 “Ray of Light” Brad R. Torgersen Analog, December 2011

Best Short Story

1 “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” E. Lily Yu Clarkesworld, April 2011
3 “Movement” Nancy Fulda Escape Pod
2 “The Paper Menagerie” Ken Liu The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011

Best Related Work

1 Wicked Girls Seanan McGuire

Best Graphic Story

1 Digger Ursula Vernon Sofawolf Press

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

1 Game of Thrones (Season 1) Created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss,

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

1 “The Doctor’s Wife” (Doctor Who) Written by Neil Gaiman Directed by Richard Clark BBC Wales

Best Editor (Short Form)

1 John Joseph Adams
2 Jonathan Strahan

Best Editor (Long Form)

2 Patrick Nielsen Hayden
1 Betsy Wollheim

Best Professional Artist

2 Michael Komarck
1 John Picacio

Best Fanzine

1 SF Signal John DeNardo

Best Fan Artist

1 Randall Munroe

Best Fancast

3 The Coode Street Podcast Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe
2 SF Signal Podcast John DeNardo and JP Frantz, produced by Patrick Hester
SF Squeecast Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente
1 StarShipSofa Tony C. Smith

The John W. Campbell Award

2 Mur Lafferty 1st year of eligibility
3 Brad R. Torgersen 2nd year of eligibility
1 E. Lily Yu 1st year of eligibility

Rather than review each individually, this is a roundup post, as I didn’t finish them all.
In fact, the only one I finished was “The Unwritten (Volume 4): Leviathan” created by Mike Carey and Peter Gross, although I’m likely to come back to and finish “Digger” by Ursula Vernon.

The biggest problem I had with reading these were that they are all (with the exception of Digger), the middle of a series, and make little sense read on their own.
I also only really liked the artistic style of The Unwritten and Digger. The former was more classic graphic novel, the latter delightfully whimsical and odd; reminding me of early TMNT. While all of Digger appears to be included in the Voters packet, making the reading a lot more comprehensive, it did make my heart sink when I started it, to see there were over 800 pages – even of art that’s a lot of reading! The rest were around 250 pages, although by that time my fatigue had well and truly set in.

I think I’m done with the Hugo’s now; I’ll review the art, but try and assemble my vote for as much as I feel I’m informed on. The Best Related Work category, for example, I’ve only reviewed two items from, but I know I won’t get the time to read the rest and I know I’m going to want to vote for the McGuire Filk, partly because I want to encourage that kind of think into the Voters Packet!

And yes, I was up early today, wasn’t I.. ;-(

by Charlie Jane Anders

Hugo Novelette Nominee 2012

This was an interesting exploration of precognition, but boy was it depressing! I like the setup of two people with different types of precognition meeting up, and how it might work out, even leading into questions of free will vs determinism, as I suppose all good stories dealing with knowledge of the future must.

Ultimately though, I found it so bleak I didn’t enjoy it. I know that makes me shallow, but YMMV as they say.

by Brad R. Torgersen

Hugo Novelette 2012 Nominee

This, on the other hand, sucked me in from the start, and I read it (admittedly short compared to the others so far) in one sitting.
Lots of interesting ideas here, begging to be explored further.
So far this is hands down my recommendation so far for this category.

by Rachel Swirsky

Hugo Novelette 2012 Nominee

This might as well have been subtitled, ‘people I don’t care about and never will’.
I normally like Swirsky’ work, but this left me cold. I just couldn’t see the point; my loss, I guess!

by Paul Cornell

Hugo Novelette 2012 nominee.

I have bad deja vu with this; I swear I read it years ago. The work initially annoyed me in some of the made up words and terms; of course this happens all the time, but it jarred here for some reason I can’t put my finger on. There are definitely points to recommend, but I’m hoping the other stories speak to me more, as this was too space opera-y even for me.

Hopefully onto the home stretch now; I just need to finish the novelettes to be able to put my votes together; I’ll never be able to read all the submissions but I knew that going in!

by Ken Liu

Hugo Novella 2012 Nominee.

This an excellent example of using science fiction to examine the world, the past, and to ask what if questions.
The ‘what if’ question here is more ‘who should own their past’. Its thought provoking in lots of ways, both in terms of the impact of the science but also in terms of the WWII Japanese atrocity which it uses as its real life subject matter. I wasn’t aware of this particular one, and I was deeply shocked to find out, googling after reading it, that it was based on a real event. Its still a horrifying event to think upon.

I can’t decide however if the horror and the shock of the actual atrocity (and hence the author’s own activism in reminding people of it in this way) overwhelms the story for me; if I voted for it, whether I would be voting, in part, in protest at what had happened. Its certain that it will be sticking with me for a long while.

Its certainly not an easy read, especially for someone as interested in the histories of China and Japan as I am.

by Mary Robinette Kowal
Hugo Novella Nominee 2012

I just plain, flat out, enjoyed this. It was everything I expected, I came to realise, from Necropolis. It apperas to have been written before the announcement of Google Glass, but of course references Gibson’s ‘Virtual Light’, not to mention Stross’s Accelerando. It also, for me, references Liz Williams’ ‘Detective Chen’ novels.

I had one minor world building niggle, but that turned out to be a plot point, so, as you were.

I liked the tone of this, the pacing, even the AI characterisation didn’t annoy me, as they often do. I shell be checking out more work by the author, and isn’t that part of the point of the Hugo’s?

On that note, I was feeling quite smug when I thought I had one Novella to go before the voting deadline, and then realised I’d not even started on the Novelette’s! Damnit, I’ve got a backlog building up!

On a related note, I’m going to switch to reading these mostly in PDF format, as the ePub conversions often leave page headers, numbers, etc, scattered within the text (very noticeable in this one), and the annotation features in iBooks are terrible compared to Goodreader’s (which is why there aren’t any in this; it refused to mail them to me..).