Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2023 – Novelette

Hugo novelettes tend to be long short stories (7500-17500 words). I used to bag on this category as slightly too long short stories, and that’s certainly true for the bulk of nominees, but for the last few rounds I’ve reviewed, the top stories have been really excellent; the best entries are super short stories that benefit from the extra space while still being compact and not overstaying their welcome.
Reviews of the Novelette Nominees.

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Series Review – October Daye by Seanan McGuire

October Daye is an urban fantasy series starring a PI who bridges the gap between fairy and humans.  On its face, there is nothing to distinguish it from any of the other long running series like Dresden/The Hollows (PI), True Blood/Mary Gentry (fairies), etc, except it is a perennial best series nominee for the Hugos.  Indeed, I’ve read and briefly reviewed the October Daye series not once, but twice before, putting them in the middle of my Hugo Series ballot in both 2017 and 2019.  After the last round I praised them as “weapons grade escapism”, but given I enjoyed them enough this year to reread the series, they deserve a bit more than that.  In particular, it misses what is the key strength of the series – a family of characters that I want to hang out with each instalment, the lexical equivalent of a great sitcom or procedural.

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Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2018 – John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

This is the award for best new writer, regardless of output length (or quantity), and year after year it ends up my favourite category by delivering works that I think are better than any of the nominees in the main ballot. This year I will be thwarted however, as the three shorter pieces in this category are all in regular competition. On the upside, this makes this category an easy ask, as I’ve also already read Under the Pendulum Sun, leaving me with just three novels to cover.

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