Battle of the Stories – Hugo 2012
Update: I’ve also started a page with this year’s standings. I’ll probably swap the two after the Hugo shortlist is released, IY”H.
Since my goal is to pick stories to nominate for awards, absolute ratings (say, 1-5 stars) aren’t very useful. Hence the battle! The stories are ranked based on how they compare to each other. Winning stories are on top.
Links point to my reviews; my reviews point to the full text of stories where available. So far everything I’ve reviewed has been free – if that changes, I’ll add markers to non-free stories to save you the time of having to click through to the review if you’re only interested in free stories. Have fun!
Note: here is my reviews queue.
WINNING THE BATTLE – SHORT STORY
Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee (Clarkesworld)
The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (F&SF)
Tying Knots by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld)
A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com)
To Follow the Waves by Amal El-Mohtar (Steam-Powered I)
Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son by Tom Crosshill (Lightspeed)
Pataki by Nisi Shawl (Strange Horizons)
All That Touches the Air by An Owomoyela (Lightspeed)
Frozen Voice by An Owomoyela (Clarkesworld)
Shipbirth by Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s)
Tloque Nahuaque by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (Future Lovecraft)
Whose Face This is I Do Not Know by Cat Rambo (Clarkesworld)
The Map by Nazli Eray (Words without Borders)
Pony by Erik Amundsen (Clarkesworld)
At Livia’s Bar by Pierre Mejlak (Words without Borders)
Perfect Lies by Gwendolyn Clare (Clarkesworld)
Semiramis by Genevieve Valentine (Clarkesworld)
Love and Anarchy and Science Fiction by Angela Ambroz (Redstone SF)
This Strange Way of Dying by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (GigaNotoSaurus)
Signals in the Deep by Greg Mellor (Clarkesworld)
Staying Behind by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld)
The Fish of Lijiang by Chen Qiufan (Clarkesworld)
Thirty Seconds from Now by John Chu (Boston Review)
The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld)
Postings from an Amorous Tomorrow by Corey Mariani (Lightspeed)
Join by Liz Coleman (Lightspeed)
Three Oranges by D. Elizabeth Wasden (Clarkesworld)
The Hubbard Continuum by Lavie Tidhar (Redstone SF)
The Sighted Watchmaker by Vylar Kaftan (Lightspeed)
Hello, Moto by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)
iTime by Ferrett Steinmetz (Redstone SF)
The Fox by Malinda Lo (Subterranean Press)
Princess Courage by Nadia Bulkin (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Architect of Heaven by Jason K. Chapman (Clarkesworld)
Grace Immaculate by Gregory Benford (Tor.com)
Transcript of Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor by Grady Hendrix (Lightspeed)
Trois morceaux en forme de mechanika by Gord Sellar (Clarkesworld)
The Axiom of Choice by David W. Goldman (New Haven Review)
In Which Faster-Than-Light Travel Solves All of Our Problems by Chris Stabback (Clarkesworld)
Choose Your Adventure by Kat Howard (Fantasy)
Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue by John Scalzi (Tor.com)
Black Fire by Tanith Lee (Lightspeed)
Her Husband’s Hands by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed)
Long Enough and Just So Long by Cat Rambo (Lightspeed)
Making My Entrance Again with My Usual Flair by Ken Scholes (Tor.com)
Pack by Robert Reed (Clarkesworld)
Matchmaker by Erin M. Hartshorn (Clarkesworld)
Movement by Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s)
Diving After the Moon by Rachel Swirsky (Clarkesworld)
The Rotten Beast by Mary E. Pearson (Tor.com)
Defenders by Will McIntosh (Lightspeed)
LOSING THE BATTLE
*
WINNING THE BATTLE – NOVELETTE
Trickster by Mari Ness (Clarkesworld)
Held Close in Syllables of Light by Rose Lemberg (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Ghostweight by Yoon Ha Lee (Clarkesworld)
Sauerkraut Station by Ferrett Steinmetz (GigaNotoSaurus)
Selin That Has Grown in the Desert by Alex Dally MacFarlane (Steam-Powered 2)
The House of Aunts by Zen Cho (GigaNotoSaurus)
The Fall of Alacan by Tobias S. Buckell (Subterranean Press)
Droplag by Angela Ambroz (GigaNotoSaurus)
The Book of Phoenix (Excerpted from the Great Book) by Nnedi Okorafor (Clarkesworld)
A Prince of Thirteen Days by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Fantasy)
A Militant Peace by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell (Clarkesworld)
Fields of Gold by Rachel Swirsky (Eclipse 4)
The Migratory Pattern of Dancers by Katherine Sparrow (GigaNotoSaurus)
The Gardens of Landler Abbey by Megan Arkenberg (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Old Equations by Jake Kerr (Lightspeed)
Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com)
LOSING THE BATTLE
*
WINNING THE BATTLE – NOVELLA
Shtetl Days by Harry Turtledove (Tor.com)
The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary by Ken Liu (Panverse 3)
Dancing the Warrior by Marie Brennan (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld) – Only reviewed the first part so far
Kiss Me Twice by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s)
The Night Children by Alexander Gordon Smith (Tor.com)
Hence the King from Kagehana by Michael Anthony Ashley (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
LOSING THE BATTLE
*
WINNING THE BATTLE – FLASH FICTION (under 1000 words)
I’m not nominating flash stories – I think they’re too different from short stories and they should have their own category. Presently, they are eligible in the short story category of most awards.
The Death Collector by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (AEscifi.ca)
Swallowing Ghosts by Cat Rambo (Daily Science Fiction)
The English Cemetery by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Coffinmouth)
…And A Bottle Of Rum by Melissa Mead (Daily Science Fiction)
Ascension by Su-Yee Lin (Ideomancer)
Futures by Cat Rambo (The Dream People)
The Apocalypse Artist by Claire Light (See|Saw)
Orkish Cornbread by Ranko Trifković (Words without Borders)
Selfless by Kenneth S. Kao (Daily Science Fiction)
The Universe reef by Tobias Buckell (Nature Futures)
Spidersong by Alex Shvartsman (Daily Science Fiction)
Safe Empathy by Ken Liu (Daily Science Fiction)
To the stars by Ken Liu and Shelly Li (Nature Futures)
Every girl dreams of falling in love by Shelly Li (Nature Futures)
Jade Dragon by Shelly Li (Daily Science Fiction)
A good time by Shelly Li (Nature Futures)
LOSING THE BATTLE
2 Comments »
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Hello! It’s fantastic that you’re doing this!
I saw via your LJ post that you’re asking for recommendations, but wasn’t sure where to put them; I apologise if this is not the place. But if you’re looking for stories featuring under-represented protagonists, I highly recommend both Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories anthologies, edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft, as sources of fiction featuring lesbian, PoC, and disabled protagonists in a very diverse array of settings. I could send you a PDF of the first one, if you’d like.
I also have a story from the first anthology online via PodCastle, but I don’t know if you’d count a reading of the story as “available for free online.” It’s a gorgeous reading, though, by Marguerite Croft.
Thank you again so much for doing this. I’m really looking forward to perusing this list!
This is totally the place.
The anthologies sound great and I’d love to have the PDF if possible! I’m sending you an email. Thanks a bunch!
I’ve wondered about audiobooks myself, especially since Cory Doctorow has a sizable amount of eligible stories this year which are only available as podcasts. I came to the conclusion that yes, these would qualify as “available for free”, but since my reading speed is much faster than my… uh, listening speed? (that doesn’t really sound right!
), these will inevitably end up on the back burner. Which, knowing me, means I’ll end up not listening to them at all. :X
Maybe I should encourage people who have free podcasts to send the stories over in email, that way I’d certainly review them faster… Judging from comments at Clarkesworld etc., I have a vague suspicion that there are more people listening to SF story podcasts than people who are reading stories as ebooks! So this sort of content would definitely be of interest to my readership.
Thank you for taking the time to comment