Being a Participant

[melannen]

1. I keep scrolling through network and suddenly seeing a locked post on a journal I've been reading in network for awhile and being like huh? since when did they grant me access? And follow me apparently? I am not cool enough for them to follow me! So, here is your periodic reminder that if I suddenly add you back after ignoring you for ages, it's because I am bad at noticing stuff apparently, and also if you want me to add you, you should talk to me, because I am probably PRETTY SURE you are way too cool for me to be the first one to speak up.

2. Speaking of social incompetence, subset mine, anyone else going to con.txt this summer? Anyone else want someone to share a hotel room? It feels much less like I am a loser with no friends if I have a roommate. If splitting the cost is an problem, we can working something out, because as Jamie Kincaid said, I have income now. If you're thinking about going but not sure because you've never been, I promise to be your Native Guide and let you hang around with me if you feel alone.

(...I am bad at finding roommates.)

Also they have put out the call for panel suggestions already, as long as they are ones you want to mod, and for once... I got nothin'? I am still mostly in the same primary fandom as last time (?? how did that happen??) but it's not a huge fandom at this point, and after four con.txts I've done most of the ones I can do, so all that's left is stuff other people would have to mod (like HJOw TO REVISE THE THING).

Anyway if you've been to con.txt and can think of a panel you'd like to see me mod, feel free to suggest something, no guarantees... <_<

3. Hugos? Here is a list I have made, mostly by compiling all the stuff I had bookmarked on Pinboard, of fiction I would kind of like to read before nominating. I share it here just in case anyone cares, and also so I can find it later. I'll be adding star ratings as I read stuff and may be adding new stuff too. I will not be getting through all of it before the end of March.

Warnings: I don't endorse these, they're just things I've seen recs of. Also I don't promise they're in the right length category, I'm just going by what was on the recs.

Novel

Aurora, Kim Stanley Robinson
Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente
The Scorpion Rules, by Erin Bow
X The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson - could not get through this. :/
*****Seraphina and Shadow-Scale, by
>The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - my library could not find a copy of this on loan anywhere in the USA. :(
****Updraft by Fran Wilde
****Darkness on his Bones, by Barbara Hambly
*****Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
****Dark Orbit, by Carolyn Gilman
*****Sorceror to the Crown, by Zen Cho
*****Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
*****Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon
*****Cuckoo Song, by Francis Hardinge
The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins
The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu
The Just City, by Jo Walton
*****Shadowshaper

1940:
*****The Ill-Made Knight, by T.H. White
Gray Lensman, by E.E. Smith
****Slan, by A.E. Van Vogt
Kallocain, by Karin Boye
Captain Future and the Space Emperor by Edmond Hamilton


Novella

Wings of Sorrow and Bone, Beth Cato (Harper Voyager Impulse)
‘The Bone Swans of Amandale’, C.S.E. Cooney (Bone Swans)
****The New Mother, Eugene Fischer (Asimov’s 4-5/15)
***‘The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn’, Usman T. Malik (Tor.com 4/22/15)
****Sorceror of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson
****'Binti', Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com) (only partial available online)
****'Waters of Versailles’, Kelly Robson (Tor.com 6/10/15)
The Green Year (18000 words) by Selden This would be 5/5 as fanfic, but it really does work only as fanfic: it presupposes that the reader knows and loves the Green Knight story already, and is missing large gaps of story without that.
****Quarter Days (Iona Sharma)


1940:
****"The Roaring Trumpet" by Pratt and de Camp
****"The Mathematics of Magic" by Pratt and de Camp (this is fanfic of "Faerie Queene" which is fanfic of both Arthurian legend and "Orlando Furioso" which is fanfic of "Orlando Inammorata" which is fanfic of the Carolingian legend, so it's at least five level deep in fanfic, and therefore you know it's good.)


Novelette

‘Rattlesnakes and Men', Michael Bishop (Asimov’s 2/15)
***'And You Shall Know Her by the Trail of Dead', Brooke Bolander (Lightspeed 2/15)
*****‘Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds', Rose Lemberg (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 6/11/15)
**‘The Ladies’ Aquatic Gardening Society', Henry Lien (Asimov’s 6/15)
‘The Deepwater Bride', Tamsyn Muir (F&SF 7-8/15)
****‘Our Lady of the Open Road', Sarah Pinsker (Asimov’s 6/15)
****Ambiguity Machines: An Examination (Vandana Singh)
****Morrigan in Shadow (Seth Dickinson)
*****The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild by Catherynne M. Valente
****Botanica Veneris by Ian McDonald (in "Old Venus")
*****So Much Cooking (Naomi Kritzer)

Short Story

****‘Madeleine', Amal El-Mohtar (Lightspeed 6/15)
***‘Cat Pictures Please', Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld 1/15)
‘Damage', David D. Levine (Tor.com 1/21/15)
‘When Your Child Strays From God', Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld 7/15)
‘Today I Am Paul', Martin L. Shoemaker (Clarkesworld 8/15)
****‘Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers', Alyssa Wong (Nightmare 10/15)
*****'Pocosin', Ursula Vernon, Apex
A Universal Elegy, by Tang Fei
***** Three Cups of Grief, with Starlight, by Aliette de Bodard
The 3 Resurrections of Jessica Churchill, by Kelly Robson
"Tractate Metim 28A" by Benjamin Rosenbaum, in Jews vs. Zombies
First Do No Harm, by Jonathan Edelstein
The Pieces, Teresa Milbrodt, Strange Horizons
What We're Having, Nathaniel Lee, Strange Horizons
***Glaciers Made You, Gabby Reed, Strange Horizons
****The Wives of Azhar, Roshani Chokshi, Strange Horizons
The Game of Smash and Recovery, Kelly Link, Strange Horizons
Artemis, with Wildflowers, Ani King, Strange Horizons
Needle on Bone, Helena Bell, Strange Horizons
Tigerskin, Kurt Hunt, Strange Horizons
****Telling the Bees, T. Kingfisher, Strange Horizons
*****Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams by Sunny Moraine
****A Dozen Frogs, a Bakery, and a Thing that Didn't Happenby Laura Pearlman
Solder and Seam by Maria Dahvana Headley
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
How to Survive the Apocalypse by Rhiannon R.S.
Werewolf Loves Mermaid by Heather Lindsley
***By Degrees and Dilatory Time by S.L. Huang
****The Guardian's Head by Tamara Vardomskaya
****Wooden Feathers by Ursula Vernon
***Monkey King, Faerie Queen (Zen Cho)
*****Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood (Julia August)
Things You Can Buy for a Penny (Will Kaufman)
The Lamps Thereof Are Fire and Flames (Rosamund Hodge)
Court Bindings (Karalynn Lee)
Please Undo This Hurt (Seth Dickinson)
Drinking with the Elfin Knight (Ginger Weil)
Acrobatic Duality (Tamara Vardomskaya)
Night of the Salamander (Michael Swanwick)
***The Practical Witch's Guide to Acquiring Real Estate
****Cloth Mother by Sarah Pauling (Strange Horizons)
Game of Smash and Recovery (Kelly Link)
Remembery Day (Sarah Pinsker)

1941
"Fog" by Robert Willey

Other Compilations
A Crowdsourced Googledoc
fail-fandomanon hugo noms club (search DW for the thread title for more)
Rocket Stack Rank - website for rating and listing possible huog noms
1941 Retro Hugos compilations, also omnibus and Novelette Edition
Retro-Hugo eligibl

Comments

[ceb]

*****Cuckoo Song, by Francis Hardinge

(Unless I'm being an idiot) Cuckoo Song was eligible last year; The Lie Tree is eligible this year.

[melannen]

..I could swear I saw Cuckoo Song on a 2015 list but apparently not, or else that list was wrong. Thanks!

[jain]

You're not being an idiot, but Cuckoo Song is eligible this year. From the Hugo website:

"The members of WSFS have been concerned that works published in English outside of the USA are not getting sufficient exposure to the voting public (the largest group of whom are Americans even when Worldcon is in another country). Frequently US publishers will pick up on successful British, Canadian or Australian books (amongst others) a year or two after their initial publication. American voters want to nominate them, but by then it is too late because the eligibility year is passed. So effective with the 2015 Hugo Awards, WSFS granted an additional year of eligibility for such works when they are first published in the USA. This extension only applies to works that did not make the final ballot in their initial publication."

Cuckoo Song was published in the UK in 2014 and the USA in 2015, and it wasn't a finalist last year, so it qualifies for the extension.

[melannen]

Ah! So we were both right. OK, it goes back on the list!

And yay, that means the Becky Chambers book might have a chance next year...(the library told me to try again if it gets a US publisher.)

(Cuckoo Song is on there because I'd read it before I started the Hugos, but I don't think I have time for another Hardinge by the end of March, since I already know she's good.)

[jain]

Unfortunately, Chambers's book has already been published as an ebook in the US, so there's no way it could get an eligibility extension next year. In fact, I believe (but don't know for certain) that the self-pubbed ebook edition from 2014 means that it's not even eligible for this year's Best Novel. On the plus side, Chambers is eligible for the Campbell this year.

[melannen]

They really need an extension for selfpub books that get mainstream distribution too. :/

[ceb]

Ooh, cool. Thanks for enlightening me :-)

[hannah]

I plan on going to Con.txt and would be happy to share a room.

[melannen]

Cool! Should we take it to email? I don't really know how to do this. I'm this-username@yahoo

[cyprinella]

I'll be at con.txt but I'm already roomied up. Will have to swing by and say hi though!

[melannen]

Hurrah, see you there!

[fairestcat]

I will be at con.txt. I'm not sure who I'm rooming with yet, but I see above you've already found a roomie!

[melannen]

The twin rooms all come with a foldout couch, so we could do three, actually, if you wanted! Let me know.

[melannen]

*poke*

[fairestcat]

Sorry I didn't reply sooner! That would be lovely. I'll happily take a fold-out couch.

[melannen]

Okay, I finally got off my butt and booked a room (I am bad at this can you tell) and it looks like all the rooms in the con block with two beds + couch are booked. It looks like we can get a rollaway bed but you might want to look for someone who can actually get you a real bed, given the room rates...

[fairestcat]

Yeah, I think I'll pass on the rollaway and get another room instead.

Thanks, though!

[zlabya]

Two each by Cat Valente and Ursula Vernon? I'm going to get reading! Also, clearly I should be attentive to Strange Horizons

I wish con.txt had more for anime & manga fans, then I'd go. It's a great community, but I feel a bit like a soft-SF woman fan at an old-school SF con there.

[melannen]

There's also at least one T. Kingfisher-who-is-also-Ursula-Vernon story in there!

[cahn]

"The New Mother" is available online. I liked it!

I also am liking at least one of the stories in Future Visions, which is free from amazon.

[melannen]

Oh, thanks for the link!

Future Visions... worries me. In that it seems like it's the kind of thing that ought to be in some corporate-controlled SF dystopia.

[untonuggan]

hi i am one of those people, but i snuck in because i thought you were obviously much too cool so i would just quietly observe and like maybe we could be friends or something somehow via lack of communication...

yes

*waves*

[melannen]

You are wrong! You are definitely too cool for me.

[untonuggan]

♥

it's a draw, then