Further Hugo reading, and a Lodestar rant

[lizbee]

I am done with the novels!

To cover the ones I haven't already discussed:

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

This was engrossing and original, but lacked the punch-you-in-the-face brilliance of A Memory Called Empire, or the compelling rawness of The Light Brigade. I enjoyed it very much in its own right, but it's not a top-ranker for the award.

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

I DNFd at 25%. It wasn't bad. It just didn't grab me. 

So here's what my Best Novel ballot will look like: 

1. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
2. The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
3. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

No Award: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The rest: not balloted.

Figuring that I'm not really a short fiction person to start with, I decided my next step would be the nominees for the Lodestar, the new not-a-Hugo for YA fiction. 

I will admit here that I have never regarded the Lodestar as a particularly credible award for YA, on account of the vast gap between The Speculative Fiction Teens Actually Read and The Speculative Fiction That Hugo Nominators And Voters Have Heard Of. Like, the first winner was Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor -- a brilliant novel, but one for middle grade readers. 

So I'm looking at the current nominees, and, well...

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee: middle grade.

Riverland by Fran Wilde: middle grade.

Minor Mage by T Kingfisher: middle grade

That's fifty percent of the shortlist. 

The bit I realised I need to say: Not that there's anything wrong with middle grade! I love middle grade! I'm revising and preparing to submit a middle grade space opera, and in the extremely unlikely event that it gets nominated for a Lodestar, I guess I'll have an awkward situation on my hands! 

But middle grade is not YA. They have different audiences and tell different types of stories. There's overlap, of course, because these are sales categories not strict rules, but they're not interchangeable. 

I did some checking to see if maybe the definition of "young adult reader" in the WSFS constitution encompassed middle grader, but there's no definition at all. The YA Award subcommittee's report was largely about naming the award (we dodged a bullet in the form of the JK Rowling Award, guys!), but referred to "teens". 

So I'm sticking with my gut instinct that, as an award for young adult speculative fiction, the Lodestar is useless. But I've also saved myself some reading, which is handy when your TBR pile is teetering. 

Comments

[starlady]

It's a shame about the Lodestar, because MG can be great and really inventive and worthy of serious recognition. But it's not a MG award and I'm not going to vote for MG books to get the YA Hugo.

[nonelvis]

Aw, I wish you'd liked the Anders book as much as I did, but oh well. I'm glad you liked The Ten Thousand Doors of January, though!

[musesfool]

I should have noped out of The City in the Middle of the Night and I didn't, and I regret it because I really did not like that book or the fact that it took up time in my life I could have used to read something else.

[jain]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you're intending to vote:

1) A Memory Called Empire
2) The Light Brigade
3) The Ten Thousand Doors of January
4) No Award
5) Gideon the Ninth

If so, you may not be aware that that means the voting system will treat Middlegame and The City in the Middle of the Night as being ranked below No Award on your ballot (which might be what you want) and that it will treat both those books as being ranked below Gideon the Ninth on your ballot (which I strongly suspect you don't want, based on your review posts).

If you want to place Gideon the Ninth in last place on your ballot and also vote it below No Award, you have a few voting options:

1) A Memory Called Empire
2) The Light Brigade
3) The Ten Thousand Doors of January
4) No Award

This option would put the three unlisted books in a three-way tie for last place on your ballot.

1) A Memory Called Empire
2) The Light Brigade
3) The Ten Thousand Doors of January
4) [either The City in the Middle of the Night or Middlegame]
5) [either Middlegame or The City in the Middle of the Night]
6) No Award
7) Gideon the Ninth

For if you want Gideon the Ninth to be the only work you vote below No Award.

1) A Memory Called Empire
2) The Light Brigade
3) The Ten Thousand Doors of January
4) No Award
5) [either The City in the Middle of the Night or Middlegame]
6) [either Middlegame or The City in the Middle of the Night]
7) Gideon the Ninth

For if you don't want to vote The City in the Middle of the Night and Middlegame above No Award, but you want Gideon the Ninth to be in very last place.


(Sorry about the pedantically long comment. I've found that not giving very detailed examples can lead to unnecessary confusion when discussing Hugo ballots.)

[jain]

Separate comment for this because my previous comment was long enough already. I nominated Minor Mage for the Lodestar because I felt (and continue to feel) that it's an edge case more than it is unquestionably MG.

First, it's not marketed as MG. The author originally intended it to be MG, but her publisher rejected the book on the grounds that it was adult fiction, and the author ended up publishing it under her adult fiction pseud, with an author's note that basically threw her hands in the air and invited readers to make their own assessment. Second, it reads as a coming-of-age narrative more than a children's adventure narrative to me, which pushed me towards thinking of it as YA. And I've seen reviews from other Hugo voters in which they came to a similar conclusion as I did regarding the book's categorization.

I totally understand why you and others think Minor Mage shouldn't be on the ballot, and I'm not trying to change your mind on that. I just wanted to let you know that at least some of us who nominated it were doing so with intentionality rather than because we were shoving any juvenile fiction into the Lodestar category.

[grav_ity]

WELCOME TO MY FEELINGS RE: THE LODESTAR.

we all knew it would happen.

[lizbee]

I KNOW. I'm not surprised, I'm just disappointed.