Hugo Awards – Page 2 – Wis[s]e Words

Sex Criminals: Best Graphic Story Hugo

Published on July 21, 2015Leave a comment

Suzie discovers her time stopping orgasm powers

Meh.

Matt Fraction is a writer who’s made his reputation doing clever work for hire series for Marvel, most recently Hawkeye, not to mention his own Casanova for Image. Sex Criminals, co-created with Chip Zdarsky on the artwork, is his latest hit series, having been optioned for television already. It has had significant online buzz and of course was nominated for the Best Graphic Story Hugo. Like Rat Queens it’s a series I was thinking of buying myself, so pleased to be able to sample it this way.

Sex ed the US high school way

And I don’t really like it. Not raunchy enough, not weird enough, basically just another clever twist on the superhero story. Not bad, just a bit meh. It’s not as funny as the hype led me to believe (though the sequence the above panels are extracted from are hilarious) nor nearly as edgy. For some reason though Sex Criminals got a reputation as being a feminist comic, arguably because it’s so rare to see female sexuality be treated so positive and non-exploitative as it is here. Which is a sad goddamn state of affairs.

Suzie and jon meet cute

The story is simple. Suzie discovers she freezes time when she orgasms, thinks she’s the only one until she meets Jon at a party, they have sex and both are shocked to discover they’re not alone. They both tell each other their origins, or how they discovered their particular gift, then they team up to save Suzie’s library, in the process discovering they’re not alone and in fact there’s a police force patrolling their orgasmic pocket universe…

Sex police

Like Ms. Marvel this is basically an one issue origin story spread out over five, with a few neat storytelling tricks to liven things up. It’s well done, a neat idea but in the end I still think it’s meh more than awesome.

Rat Queens: Best Graphic Story Hugo

Published on July 19, 2015Leave a comment

the Rat Queens: Betty, Hannah, Dee and Violet

I was thinking about buying Rat Queens: Sass and Sorcery anyway, so I was glad it was part of the Hugo Voters Packet. It’s been having a bit of buzz in online comics circles last year, winning an Eisner Award for best new series, but sadly also for less positive reasons as artist Roc Upchurch was arrested on domestic violence charges, which resulted in him leaving the series. This volume however still has him on art. Very nice art it is too, cartooney but with a computerised, photo-realistic sheen too it.

best of friends

Storywise this is neither a fantasy story, nor quite a D&D parody, but rather a fantasy that takes D&D tropes and uses them semi-seriously, something I haven’t seen done much before. Combine that with a bunch of cynical, sex and drugs obsessed bad girls and you got the start of something decent. Each of the protagonists has just enough of a personality to be memorable, though it’s very much broad strokes here.

dissing an assassin

Being very much antisocial types, the Rat Queens, as well as the other adventurers of Palisade, are targeted for assassination by somebody, getting sent on very D&Desque quests to clear out the sort of low level enemies you’d encounter at the start of a campaign. Things escalate quickly and Upchurch is an adherent of the Robert Kirkman school of showing graphic violence. Lots of blood, lots of broken bones and almost snapped off arms…

dissing an assassin

On the whole this is an enjoyable romp but in hindsight not something I’d want to spent money on to read. It’s not that this is a bad comic, but rather that it’s a bit on the formulaic side. There are hints of something better here though.

Best Novel Hugo vote 2015

Published on July 6, 20151 Comment

I don’t have to telly you I won’t be voting for any Puppy candidates, right, so the question becomes which of the three non-Puppy candidates will get my vote. Even diminished, this is a great shortlist:

The Goblin Emperor — Katherine Addison.

The Goblin Emperor at heart is a very traditional power fantasy, about the boy of humble origins who becomes emperor by happenstance and now has to very quickly learn how to survive in a world of political intrigue he’s completely unprepared for, filled with people who either want to manipulate him or replace him with a better figurehead. It’s one of those fantasy scenarios other writers can write multiple trilogies about to get to that point, but Katherine Addison has her goblin hero confirmed as the emperor within five pages, the rest of the novel being about him getting to grips with his new job, woefully inadequate though he feels.

The Three-Body Problem — Cixin Liu

What makes The Three-Body Problem almost missing out on the Hugo shortlist deeply ironic, is that it’s exactly the kind of oldfashioned hard science fiction the people behind this year’s vote rigging were supposed to be all in favour of. It revolves around the mystery of why all those physicists are killing themselves, the answer to which seems to be that fundamental principles of physics are broken… There are some great moments of sense of wonder, of conceptual breakthrough in it, as well as some characters Asimov would think were a bit two-dimensional.

Ancillary Sword — Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie’s debut novel, Ancillary Justice, won about every major science fiction award going: the BSFA, the Clarke, The Nebula and the Hugo, the first time any author won the four most important awards in the field with the same book, let alone with their debut novel. Anticipation has therefore been high for the sequel, not least on my part. Would Leckie been able to keep up the high standard of her debut? Would Ancillary Sword build up on it or be more of the same? Is Ann Leckie really the major new sf talent she seems to be or just a flash in the pan?

I will be happy to see any of these three novels win, but this will be my voting order. Ann Leckie has had such a good year already I’d rather see either Addison or Liu win, but Addison slightly more just because how much fun The Goblin Emperor was.

Cry little Puppy, cry

Published on July 1, 20151 Comment

Some little shit keen to ride a neonazi’s coattails to imagined Hugo success whinges about being called dishonest:

I did nothing dishonest. The puppies did nothing dishonest. They played by the rules. You know, I get that you object to the fact that they participated. But you have no grounds for saying that I or anyone else did anything dishonest here.

What you’re doing is ugly. It’s just plain ugly. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

For all the internet hard mannery eminating from the Pups, boy are they thin skinned. That seems to be a rightwing trait: not only wanting to win, honestly or otherwise, but wanting their enemies to admire them for doing so, rolling over on cue. But that’s something puppies do, isn’t it?

Puppy persecution complex

Published on July 1, 2015Leave a comment

Only in Puppy land is being nominated for the John W. Campbell Award, arguably the highest honour a new SFF writer can get, evidence for a massive conspiracy against and persecution of, Mormon writers:

Both were nominated for the Campbell Award for Best new writer in their first year of eligibility. They didn’t win. Now, that award allows you two years of eligibility, and over the years many writers have has two shots at winning – but neither Larry nor Brad were even nominated in their second years of eligibility.

Reality check: in 2011, Larry was one of five Cambell nominees out of a field of at least 107 candidates; in 2012, while Brad had slightly less competition when he was nominated, only 104. In other words, you have roughly a ten percent change of even getting one nomination during that two year window.

There’s no need to invent conspiracies to “explain” why neither Brad nor Larry won a second nomination; they should be glad they got even one when most of their peers didn’t.