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2013 Hugo Novellas Unbound!
UPDATE: Click here to find the short story nominees, and here for the novelettes.
2nd UPDATE: Aliette de Bodard’s entry, On a Red Station, Drifting, has now been released as an ebook for a much lower price. See details updated in the article, below:
Last year, when we posted the 2012 Hugo nominated novellas, most of them were available for free. One exception was Mira Grant (A.K.A.: Seanan McGuire)’s “Countdown,” which sold for $2.99. I said, at the time:
This, I think, is the beginning of a trend. Shorter stories are starting to sell on Kindle at less-than-novel prices. Even though the other books on this list are free, I think the trend to charge small amounts for novellas, novelettes, and even short stories means that otherwise inaccessible stories will have a longer shelf life, giving us more to read.
Well, it seems Ms. McGuire’s experiment has spurred more of them. No nominee is available for free. Sanderson’s “The Emperor’s Soul” is the second cheapest, selling for $4.99 on Amazon. The rest cost even more, with only a portion of Jay Lake’s story being made available for free. The result of these experiments is relative chaos: prices ranging from $2.99 (and instantly available) to $14.85 (and available via snail-mail only).
Considering Hugo defines a novella as being up to 40,000 words, I don’t mind paying a Mira Grant (or even a Brandon Sanderson) price to read one. Considering we’re used to reading nominated stories for free, transitioning to a much higher price than $5 seems to stretch reason. For that reason, I’m still betting on Seanan McGuire’s strategy being the most sensible. Only time will tell.
Of course, LoneStarCon 3 (Worldcon 71) members get digital copies of all novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories for FREE. Even if you don’t plan on attending Worldcon this year, you can get a supporting membership for only $60, and you’ll be able to vote.
If membership isn’t in the cards this year, here are this year’s novella links:
- “After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall” by Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications) is available on Kindle for $7.69 or in paperback for $11.09.
- “The Emperor’s Soul” by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications) is available on Kindle for $4.99, and paperback for $8.59.
- “On a Red Station, Drifting” by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
appears to be the only nominated novella not to be available electronically (so you’ll have to cough up $14.85 for the hardback),is now available on Kindle for $2.99, by popular demand! Also, an excerpt may be found for free here. - “San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats” by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) (Orbit) is just $2.99 on Kindle, as well as Nook and Google Books.
- “The Stars Do Not Lie” by Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012) can be partially read for free, but you must purchase a copy of Asimov’s to read the conclusion. I know of no way to get an electronic copy of this back issue (only current issues can be purchased digitally).
As always, we rely on you, our readers, to let us know if you find a cheaper way to read any of the above novellas. If that changes, we will update this article and let you know by tweet (@WWEnd). Links to all of the award winning books are, as always, available through BookTrackr.
Now you have no excuse when someone asks you who you think should win. Get to reading!
WoGF Review: Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
Alex Hammel (ahmmel) is an MSc. student in botany at the University of British Columbia. He started reading Tolkien and Lewis as a young nerd, and became an avid reader of all kinds of speculative fiction as an undergraduate when he discovered that it was more fun than studying. He joined WWEnd to participate in the WoGF challenge, and can often be found in the vicinity of a good beer.
I read this book not knowing anything about it except that it contains dragons and flight. As it turns out, it’s a fairly blatant wish-fulfillment story about a plucky heroine who discovers that she is the only person who can save the world, since she a long-lost priestess of sorts with the secret power to communicate with dragons. Flying dragons. Flying, teleporting dragons. Huge, psychic, flying, teleporting, time-travelling, fire-breathing dragons who like to cuddle.
From this, admittedly really awesome, premise, I didn’t find that too much was delivered. The prose was probably the purplest I’ve ever read, and I read this coming off a China Miéville novel. A lot has been said about the misogyny in this novel, and… yeah, it’s bad. It’s usually really easy to cheer for the heroic organization sworn to protect the world from evil (think the Jedi knights or the Avengers), but in this book they’re kind of arrogant, douchey, kidnapping, thieving, jerk-asses. There’s really no getting around the fact that the plot resolution is a deus ex machina.
SF Manga 101: The Voices of a Distant Star & A, A’ (A, A Prime)
Glenn Hough (gallyangel) is a nonpracticing futurist, an anime and manga otaku, and is almost obsessive about finishing several of the lists tracked on WWEnd. In this series on SF Manga Glenn will provide an overview of the medium and the place of science fiction within it.
As the lights dim and the previews end, it’s time to settle back with a favorite snack for a double feature. Since these two mangas are far shorter than normal, we won’t be here as long.
The Voices of a Distant Star was initially created by Makoto Shinkai who is one of those people anime otaku pay attention to. He’s not a newcomer anymore. Voices, as an anime, was one of the works which cemented his status in Japan and around the world as someone to watch. Mizu Sahara, which is just one of several pen names that Sumomo Yumeka uses, adapted the anime to manga. And finally, on my ninth blog, the gender bias in SF manga cracks. Yumeka is our first women.
I’m afraid we must acknowledge a gender bias here. Lady mangaka seem to write infrequently in the pure SF manga genre. If I was writing about magical realism, fantasy or high fantasy, I already would’ve talked about several efforts by both manga gods Rumiko Takahashi and the CLAMP quartet. But I’m doing SF. The ladies own other genres in Japan and seem to make infrequent forays into SF. And then, of course, the publishing houses here only want the best, or what will sell the best (that’s really the key) so this shrinks the available pool of possible SF by women even more. Add my own biases and lack of funds, and that shrinks the pool further. So, I’m neither dismayed nor surprised that it’s taken until the 9th blog to get to two female voices in SF manga. It’s really a matter of knowing that the bias is there, so specifically seeking out the exceptions, is the only real way to counter it.
Hell is Adaptations: The Hobbit Cartoon
What has a running time of 77 minutes, was once called “execrable” in the introduction to The Annotated Hobbit, and received a Hugo nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation but lost to Star Wars? That’s right, it’s the Rankin/Bass 1977 animated adaptation of The Hobbit! Loved by children and tolerated by critics, The Hobbit is a mix of cheesiness, hasty storytelling, and hippy ballads. And lest you think I’m exaggerating when I say hippy ballads, I give you this:
Many people might look back on this cartoon with fond childhood memories. They remember the dwarfs’ unexpected party, the sudden and electric appearances of Gandalf, the riddle game beneath the mountains, the trip down the river in barrels, the monstrous worm Smaug, the massive battle of the five armies, and think, “That sure was a great movie.” These people are wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong.
Time to suck your childhood memories dry, kiddos!
What makes this movie so bad? Let’s make a list.
The Coming Future of Sci-Fi in Prose and Film
Flux capacitor, check. Cathode tubes, check. Smoking jacket and smokes, che– they passed WHAT laws in the future?!
There were two very interesting articles in recent weeks about the future of science fiction in novels and in movies. The first piece about novels is largely speculative. It’s from The Irish Times, an article titled “The new future of sci-fi” by sci-fi novelist Gareth L. Powell:
Unlike previous movements in genre fiction, this nameless assemblage [of writers] doesn’t appear to be reacting against anything. In fact, their work displays a genuine love for what has gone before, and an appreciation of the roots and peculiarities of genre fiction.
Recently, it’s become fashionable to agonise about the Death of Science Fiction, and hardly a week passes without some commentator declaring its demise. But rather than bemoaning the moribund state of fantastic fiction, or trying to distance themselves from the old guard, these new authors are instead building on the achievements of the past, and warping them into new and unexpected shapes – producing unique, individual works which can only breathe fresh strength and vitality into science fiction and fantasy.
Another piece that caught my attention is Alex Billington’s editorial “A New Era of Sci-Fi is Upon Us – Looking Ahead to Worlds That Await,” which includes an opinion section on the best sci-fi movies of the last five years, and a look ahead at scheduled or in-production films coming soon. An excerpt:
Over the last few years, movies like Cloud Atlas, Chronicle, Moon and District 9 have proven to audiences and other filmmakers that taking a risk with bold, unique ideas can pay off. Maybe not pay off financially, but cinematically at least. The fact that films like Looper and Attack the Block were even made, got released in theaters, built substantial buzz, and nurtured large fan-bases shows that love for intellectual, entertaining sci-fi is still rampant. Audiences are ready to embrace science fiction that is challenging and exciting and not just another remake. Yes, we’ve got more Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers and even Godzilla on the way, but for each of those we’ve also got original ideas like Gravity, Pacific Rim, Oblivion and Elysium, too.
The future of sci-fi storytelling may not be as weird as some of the stories themselves, but things are surely looking good for the ol’ genre.
This is the End – Red Band Trailer 2
Yes, this is a science fiction movie… and I can’t wait!
2013 Hugo Novelettes, Unveiled!
Last week, we told you where to read the Hugo nominated short stories for free, and we felt a little down about it, because there were only three of them. At least the authors each have a 1 in 3 chance of winning, right? Still, it couldn’t have taken you long to read those stories, so we wrote this follow up on all of the novelettes that were recently nominated for the 2013 Hugos.
Before we go there, let us (yet again) remind you that a LoneStarCon 3 (A.K.A. Worldcon 2013) membership will grant you digital copies of most or all of the five novels, five novellas, five novelettes, and three short stories. We highly recommend you attend the con, of course (mainly so you can visit our booth!), but even if you can’t make it to San Antonio, you can get a supporting membership for only $60… far less than the cost of buying all those stories and books. Plus, you get to vote (hence allowing you to say “I didn’t vote for *that* one!” if don’t like who won).
Still, it’s possible that you don’t care to vote, or can’t afford the cash, or (as is the case with me) can’t wait for the Worldcon committee to release the reader packets. Well, at least for novelettes (and short stories) you need wait no longer. We looked far and wide to find the nominated novelettes, and while they are not all free, most of them are. They are as follows:
- The Boy Who Cast No Shadow, by Thomas Olde is available (for free!) in both .epub and .mobi formats (both formats are DRM free, too).
- Fade to White, by Catherynne Valente can be read on the Clarkesworld web site for free. If you want it on your eReader, you’ll have to copy and paste it into a .txt file and transfer it. You can download the audiobook here.
- The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi, by Pat Cadigan, does not seem to be available anywhere for free. It is part of an anthology entitled Edge of Infinity, which costs $8.09 in dead tree format, and $6.29 digitally. At least you can read it right away (and have a bunch more stories to boot).
- In Sea-Salt Tears, by the terribly popular Seanan McGuire, is available for free in PDF, Mobi, and ePub formats, which makes her the author who did the best job of giving us all the (DRM free) formats we want. Thanks, Ms. McGuire!
- Rat-Catcher, also by Seanan McGuire is the one story that isn’t immediately available. The anthology in which it appears doesn’t seem to be online at all, even at cost. You get get it in dead tree format for $13.60, which is a little steep if you only want the one story. We’ll keep our eye out for a sign that this story might be released online.
If there are any updates on these novelettes, I will redact this blog post, and I’ll tweet that I have done so (@wwend). If any of YOU know where The Girl-Thing or Rat-Catcher can be had for a lower cost, please tell us in the comments sections, so I can update this list.
Next up: Novellas!
2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist!
The 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist has been announced:
- NOD – Adrian Barnes (Bluemoose)
- Dark Eden – Chris Beckett (Corvus)
- Angelmaker – Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann)
- The Dog Stars – Peter Heller (Headline)
- Intrusion – Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
- 2312 – Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
The winner will be announced on Wednesday May 1st at an exclusive award ceremony hosted by the Royal Society, London, and taking place as part of the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival. The winner will receive a check for £2013.00 and a commemorative engraved bookend trophy.
So what do you think of this lineup? Any surprises in there? Are you concerned that there are no women on the list? This is the fourth nomination for Kim Stanley Robinson‘s 2312. I suspect there may be more to come as well. Congrats to all the nominees!
An Incredible Shrinking Price
Today’s Amazon “Deal of the Day” is the Kindle edition of Richard Matheson‘s classic, The Shrinking Man (you may know it as The Incredible Shrinking Man, as it was later redubbed). Here is your opportunity to tick this one off of your Genre Lit-Flicks list (see what we did there?). The movie version can be found (as can all Genre Lit-Flicks) listed in the corresponding novel page.
The Old Weird 3: Occult Detectives 2: Dr. Martin Hesselius
Rhonda Knight is a frequent contributor to WWEnd through her many reviews and her excellent blog series Automata 101 and Outside the Norm. Ronda is an Associate Professor of English at Coker College in Hartsville, SC. She teaches Medieval and Renaissance literature as well as composition courses.
Many sources will say that Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Dr. Martin Hesselius was the first occult detective. Yet, he was created retroactively. In other words, the three stories and two novellas that Le Fanu attributed to Dr. Hesselius were written earlier and published separately in different periodicals. When Le Fanu published them in the book In a Glass Darkly (1872), he created Dr. Hesselius as a way to suture these disparate stories together. Dr. Hesselius only appears as a character in the first story, and the framing lessens with each intervening text. In this analysis, I’m going to discuss the stories themselves first and then examine the frame and draw some conclusions about this occult detective.
The Stories
Each of the five stories represents some type of Gothic horror, containing demons, vampires, premature burials, doppelgängers, and haunted hotel rooms.
