Heidi's Hugo Foolishness - Forming a reading plan

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

Heidi's Hugo Foolishness - The Short Stories

Zombies, a haunted house, a fairytale retelling, two different types of robot (one in space) and a transdimensional portal (possibly) in a neighbourhood box of books.

This sums up the short story finalists in a simplified nutshell.

Honestly, there wasn't a dud one in the lot. There were elements of a few of the stories that had me skimming past things (I have a low tolerance for certain forms of violence and harm which means I end up skimming things just in case said violence shows up) but in each case I pushed past my qualms and was glad I did. This is something I can do in a short story that I can't necessarily in a longer piece, which is one of the good things about short stories.

Three of the authors were completely new to me (Carson, Prasad and Wiswell); the other three I'd heard of before, have read some of their work, or have wanted to read their work (Kingfisher, Kritzer and Lee).

I wasn't sure whether to repeat my mini-reviews here, but perhaps I should.

Heidi's Hugo Foolishness 2021 - An Introduction

 A few days ago - possibly on April 13th? I'm not entirely certain - the Hugo ballot for 2021 was announced. I've been voting and nominating for the Hugos since either 2015 or 2016, and if last year hadn't been one ginormous global trashfire, I would have been at my first ever WorldCon last year in Wellington, NZ. (Oh well, I'm not bitter, she says, grumpily.) I kind of hadn't been planning on getting a supporting membership for this year's Worldcon, DisConIII, which is what provides the right to vote - but then the ballot came out, and (in my opinion) it's a good ballot. With the exception of a few items that I have no plan to read (for reasons I may get to later - or may not), a lot of the fiction finalists are books/stories that I had already planned to read someday, some of which I already own, others of which I'm just waiting to get from the library when I have the reading time. Also this year, WorldCon is in December rather than its usual July/August timing, which means that there's a lot more reading time than there usually is. 

And then I discovered that the vast majority of the short stories and novelettes are available online, and all of the novellas and novels and Lodestar (YA, Not a Hugo) nominees are available via my local library, and a grand piece of foolishness was born.

I'm going to try to actually do all my Hugo reading this year. 

There are five main fiction categories that I'm looking at: Short Story, Novelette, Novella, Novel and Lodestar*. There is also the series category, but that involves way more reading than I have time for, as I have other reading goals for the year that do not revolve around SFF! As a supporting member I will eventually have access to the Hugo Packet, which may include full versions of the various stories and books, or may include excerpts, as determined by individual publishers, but as I said, I actually already have access to a surprising amount of the material. (Seriously - I was stunned to find every novella, novel and Lodestar* nominee was available. Someone in the Libraries Victoria consortium knows their stuff!)

Each of those five categories has six nominees, so we're talking 30 items, total. Of course, said 30 items are not all of similar lengths! I've finished the short story nominees already (more whereof in the next post) but of course each of the Big Four categories get progressively longer, and then the Lodestars* are not all short books, either.

That said, I'm not going to be reading all 30 items. Looking at my spreadsheet (yes, I have one) I currently have two items marked as "Will not read", and three as "Not sure", although one of those is about to get shifted back to neutral which is, essentially, "at least give it a go". I have a tracking category for "Abandoned" as there will be some, I'm sure, that are simply not to my taste, and while you can persevere with a short story (and I did so in at least one case), life's too short to do that with a novel you know you don't want to read.

However even with exceptions that's still at least 25 items, of varying lengths, to be read between now and the closing date for voting, which is 19 November, US time. Thankfully, I've already finished six.

I'm also scrapbooking this project, and posting mini-reviews to my Instagram account, should you be interested. I'm very bad at writing reviews, so mini ones are basically the best I'm ever going to manage. I'm also counting everything - including the short stories - as "books" for the purpose of my yearly reading goal, which I think I'm going to have to increase as a result of this project.

So, wish me luck, should anyone actually be reading this screed. My intention is to post wrapups of each category when complete, and you can expect my wrapup of the short stories fairly soon.

Saturday Reads - 11/4/20

So, that was a bit of an unintended hiatus. It's not actually that I haven't been reading, although the first week of April I finished absolutely nothing and read less. But I just got distracted by all the chaos and never got around to posting. So this is a three week or so wrap up, I think?

What I’ve finished reading since I last posted:

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn - I read this for three reasons: because the Netflix series is coming later this year, because Twitter-friend and now colleague Adele Walsh is doing a podcast about the Bridgerton series, and because my wife asked about them (in re the Netflix series) but reading Regency romance is really not her thing, especially not the cliched stuff. Okay, so holy consent issues, Batman, even if they’re not the ones you might expect. On the other hand, so much of it was so delightful… until I ran into the consent issues and some of the treatment of stuttering-as-disability. I’m really conflicted on this, and I think I gave it three stars on Goodreads because of that. I loved so much of this book, but, but, but…

Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen, by Alison Weir. I think Weir made some really interesting choices in this one, and justified them well in her afterword. She didn’t exactly change my mind on Jane, but I didn’t find this book the chore that I was kind of expecting to. Again, well done to Weir, and I definitely appreciate her current fiction more than her earliest attempts.

Brimstone, by Kelly Gardiner. First book in the Fire Watcher Chronicles. I have the second to go on with straight away (the night I finished Brimstone my wife was powering through the second, Phoenix, so that she could give it to me.) It took me a while to get through this but that wasn’t at all because of the book itself, just the world in which I was trying to read. I’ve found it harder to read the last couple weeks but I’m making a conscious effort to get back into it again. Brimstone was good - although I did find myself yelling at Christopher to stop telling people all about the future and hadn’t he ever read any timeslip books before! (Definitely lack of genre awareness, there, Christopher! This is an in-joke and not a criticism of the book!) Looking forward to the second.

What I’m reading now:
The Countess Conspiracy by Courtenay Milan. Time for some more Milan :-) I need light, fluffy escapism right now, I really do.

What’s catching my eye on the TBR:
Evaristo’s Blonde Roots is still beckoning me, as is the second Fire Watcher Chronicle, Phoenix. I’ve also got that Zen Cho novella, The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo that I really ought to read.

 Also the Hugo Award finalists are now out, so there's a bit of a reading list for me. (I was going to be at WorldCon this year! I'm so upset!)

Saturday Reads - 21/3/20

What I’ve just finished reading:
Nothing. I’ve been reading way too much Twitter this week and not escaping nearly enough into fiction.

What I’m reading now: Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir. I think I’m close to halfway through at this point. It’s good. I’m actually liking this Jane more than I was expecting to. I really like the explanation for Jane’s meekness that Weir has posited.

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. Which the cat spilled tea all over on Thursday (it's a library book). I’d love to finish this one off this weekend.

The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo, by Zen Cho. Cho is currently offering this one for free (check her Twitter feed if you’re interested.) It’s a historical novella set in the 1920s.

What’s catching my eye on the TBR:
In the current climate, Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo may end up being a form of escapism, bizarrely enough. Also, I started American Royals, but it’s kind of drifted to the wayside in the last few weeks.

Saturday reads (on Sunday, 15/3/20)

I completely forgot yesterday. Completely.

What I’ve just finished reading:
Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession by Alison Weir. Okay, I really liked this. Weir’s fiction has definitely improved since her early attempts (The Lady Elizabeth was dire,) and I don’t just think that’s because I like Weir’s interpretation of Anne better than I liked her interpretation of Anne’s daughter. I mean, I liked The Other Boleyn Girl while disagreeing vehemently with its interpretation of history. … The Author’s Note at the end is also really good, mentioning the reasoning behind some of Weir’s choices, which I really appreciate.

What I’m reading now:
Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir. I know. I blame Six and the fact that Anne of Cleves and Katherine Parr are my favourites and Six made me more sympathetic towards … well, all of them except Seymour, and I feel like once I’m through this book I’ll be “over the hump” so to speak… and who knows, maybe Weir will make Seymour less of a wimp? Anyway, I’m actually enjoying it so far. The thing with this series is that you can end up seeing the same thing from multiple points of view, and (for example) the panic over the sweating sickness is suddenly reading very differently than it did when I read it the first time long before Novel Coronavirus was a thing...

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. Because The Bridgertons is turning into a Netflix series, and a friend and colleague is part of a Bridgertons podcast, and because my wife asked about it. So far it’s delightful. I’m just.. Not reading it steadily. It’s not because I don’t like it - honestly I think it’s mostly because, well, the apocalypse.

What’s catching my eye on the TBR: I need to start Blonde Roots (by Bernardine Evaristo). I also just received The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite from the public library (I thought I’d suspended that hold, but apparently not.)

Saturday Reads - 7th March 2020

I am bowing to the inevitable. Clearly, I am hardly ever going to manage to post on a Wednesday, so from now on, this is Saturday Reads.

What I’ve just finished reading:
Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms by Anita Heiss. Such a quiet book! It suits the story, but I was still startled by it. Lovely in its way, although simultaneously difficult to get through the various attitudes of the time, and the experiences of pretty much all the characters other than the whites (except Raymond). I really enjoyed this. It has a different tone to the other Heiss novels I’ve read, although I haven’t read Tiddas yet and that may well be similar to this. Less snark (not surprisingly). A really good read and I’m so glad I finally got there.

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan. I loved Jane. And Emily. And Anjan. Even Oliver got there eventually. (His certainty that he couldn’t marry Jane frustrated me no end.) Milan’s heroines are clearly not your average Regency heroines. (They’re Victorian, for starters, I’m pretty sure.) But the thing I love about Stephanie Laurens’ heroines - their feistiness and their refusal to do anything they don’t want to do is doubled and tripled in Milan’s books. I’m so glad I started reading her, and I’m going to have to read the Worth saga once I’ve finished the Brothers Sinister. And maybe even her contemporaries…

Craft a Life you Love by Amy Tangerine. This was definitely a good choice for a self-development read. It’s bitsy, and my copy is already full of highlighting and scribbles and it will get more of that on later re-reads.

What I’m reading now: I need to put some effort into finishing Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession. It went way onto the backburner during February.

Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff is my latest Self-Development read. It was a recommendation via Brene Brown’s books, but I’m currently finding it VERY confronting.

What’s catching my eye on the TBR:

Publicity is ramping up for the latest Sulari Gentil (number 10), which makes me feel like I need to read the next in the series (number six). Only I don’t own it yet, dammit…

And The Duke and I by Julia Quinn has arrived from the public library. Hoping to dig into that one later today.