2015 Not A Hugo Award Nominees

So here I am, cranking up the handle on the long-disused blog. The 2015 Hugo Awards are freshly awarded (and, frequently, not awarded). That means the nominating stats are available. And that means we can reconstruct what the ballot would have looked like* if the two Puppies slates had not been involved. Tobias Buckell has already done the hard work there; you should check out his blog post.

All of that means it's time for the 2015 Not A Hugo Awards.

This is my plan: I'm going to read the works that would have been nominated in the four fiction categories. I'm going to pick my favourites. If anyone else wants to read along with me, I'm happy to collate votes**, and award the winners completely-unofficial, in-no-way-affiliated Not A Hugo Awards. So, on with the nominees:

Best Novel

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
Lock In, John Scalzi (Tor Books)
City of Stairs, Robert Jackson Bennet (Broadway Books/Jo Fletcher Books)

Three of the five Not A Hugo novels were also nominated for Hugo Awards, so hopefully this one should be easy for Hugo voters.

Best Novella

The Slow Regard of Silent Things, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW)
The Regular, Ken Liu (Upgraded, Wyrm Publishing)
Yesterday's Kin, Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)
Grand Jete, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Press)
The Mothers of Voorheesville, Mary Rickert (Tor.com)

Two of the nominated works are available to read free online at the links provided: Grand Jete by Rachel Swirsky, and The Mothers of Voorheesville by Mary Rickert. In the remaining three cases, I've linked to the publisher's websites, where you can find lots of places to buy. None of these stories were nominated for Hugo Awards.

Best Novelette

The Day the World Turned Upside Down, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Lia Belt translator (Lightspeed)
Each to Each, Seanan McGuire (Lightspeed)
The Devil in America, Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com)
The Litany of Earth, Ruthann Emrys (Tor.com)
The Magician and Laplace's Demon, Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld)

Happily, all five of these stories can be read online for free, at the links provided. Only one--The Day the World Turned Upside Down by Thomas Olde Heuvelt--was also nominated for a Hugo Award.

Best Short Story

The Jackalope Wives, Ursula Vernon (Apex)
The Breath of War, Aliette de Bodard (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
The Truth About Owls, Amal el-Mohtar (Kaleidoscope, Twelfth Planet Press/Strange Horizons)
When it Ends, He Catches Her, Eugie Foster (Daily Science Fiction)
A Kiss with Teeth, Max Gladstone (Tor.com)

Again, all five nominees can be read for free at the links provided. None of these stories were nominated for Hugo Awards.

At some point I'll come back and set a deadline for the 2015 Not A Hugo votes. In the meantime, suggestions welcome!



* There are caveats, of course. Tobias Buckell points out that two of the short stories--the Eugie Foster and the Max Gladstone--may not have received enough votes to climb above the 5% threshold required for nomination. Like him, I'm including them anyway. Also, without digging carefully through the numbers I can't say with 100% confidence that none of the Puppies' nominees would've made it under their own steam. I'm excluding them anyway.

** If I do receive any votes, I'm totally using the official Hugo Awards voting system.