My notes and rankings for the 2015 Hugo Novelette category.
- No Award
Number one in large part because none of these holds a candle to last year’s crop and that’s the only one I have experience with. Seriously, the only good Puppy nomination has been Skin Game and that was number 15 in a series. WTF? - Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium, Gray Rinehart
Not bad, I think it’s the best of the RP slate so far, which isn’t saying much. An interesting form of “resistance”. - The Day the World Turned Upside Down, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Lia Belt translator
This author had a really good short work last year but this year’s entry falls short. I loved the idea of the breakup literally turning his world upside down but I thought the story went on too long and the protagonist never really got a clue. - The Journeyman: In the Stone House, Michael F. Flynn
Okay story about some pseudo-Indians who do Tonto-speak except when they call the only woman in the story “babe”. Yes, they really do. Author really needs to re-think how he writes fight scenes as the one in the story was overdone and boring. I neither know, nor care what the position is called so stop wasting my time and get on with it. That’s another common theme with the RP slate, they’re all desperately in need of editors to tell them their story is buried in crap and they need to excavate. The one good thing here was that some of the dialog was amusing. I’m a sucker for smart-ass. - The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale, Rajnar Vajra
You know, I’m just now twigging to “A Golden Age Tale”. So this was intended to read like it came of the 1950s. In that case, kudos, you succeeded. Unfortunately if I want to read something from the 1950s there’s lots of much better stuff to choose from. - Championship B’tok, Edward M. Lerner
Holy shit this was boring. Part of a longer work, because the Puppies apparently don’t understand what “short” means.