So - where to now? I've read the short stories, and I have put a library hold on at least one of the Lodestar* finalists, but I'm still kind of waiting for the Hugo packet to see what I'll need to get from the library and what I won't?
For anyone who doesn't know - in the past ten years or so, the "Hugo Packet" has been a collection of the nominated items across pretty much all the categories (except for Dramatic Presentation) or links thereto that is made available to the Hugo voters. For the fiction and related work categories this can often include full books in electronic form. (The year that Tor included all 14 extant Wheel of Time books is the stuff of legend.) Therefore, I know that some of this material will be available to me through the Hugo packet. I just don't know which material, and I don't know when it will be released (although I'm hoping for mid- to late-May.) If I'm not to waste my reading time between now and when the packet is released, I need to come up with a reading plan.
(Additional considerations: I have other books on loan from the library that will need to go back sooner rather than later, plus I don't want to entirely abandon previous reading intentions.)
I also have two challenge-adjacent items to read: the third and fourth Murderbot novellas. I want to read those before I read Network Effect (which is up for best novel) but this will also mean I will have read one of the series nominees in full. (I will have finished a second series nominee when I finish The Relentless Moon, which is also up for Best Novel.) Note to self, a blog post re Best Series may be needed. As I think I noted in my last post, I've started reading Rogue Protocol, which is Murderbot 3. For the moment I'll probably intersperse novelettes with Murderbot, and hopefully by then Elatsoe - one of the Lodestar* finalists that I've already put on hold - will have arrived at the library.
The novelette finalists are mostly available, fully legitimately, online. Two are only via archived links and one of those is a story that I haven't yet decided whether or not I will read, for reasons that probably need a blogpost of their own but can also wait until I feel like I've made an actual decision.
After that, I guess I work out a priority list of what I suspect will be in the packet vs what might not be (some publishers have an established track record of which way they tend to decide - are there any Orbit finalists? Yes, okay, I'd better get on the hold list for the Jemesin NOW, even if there are 18 copies across the system.) Tor is pretty good about full inclusion in the packet (just wait, that statement will come back to bite me this year!) so I'm fairly confident about packet access to the novellas. I'm hoping quite hard for A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking to be in the packet because that is the one item of the novel, novella and Lodestar finalists that I can't get through the library. And I already own one of the novel finalists in paperback, having lost patience with its lack of availability in Australia in ePub, despite the fact that I have every other part of said series in ePub through a legal Australian distribution. Do NOT get me started on eBook licensing.
Finally, to note here for the record 1) I changed my Goodreads Reading Challenge for the year by 10 today, basically to cover the 10 shorter stories from the Hugos. I could probably have changed it by 20, but we'll see how I go. 2) Also today, I paid my Supporting Membership for DisCon III, thus becoming eligible to vote in the Hugo Awards.
* Still not a Hugo
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