The Nominees
Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
The Actual Results
- The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
- Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
- Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
- Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
- Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee
- Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
How I Would Have Voted
- Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
- No Award
- Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
Explanation
The Calculating Stars actually started out pretty good. Mary Robinette Kowal is a very skilled writer, and her main character in this book was both likeable and interesting—something that seems to be increasing rare in Hugo-nominated books. It also didn’t hurt that in the very first chapter, a giant meteor wiped out Washington DC and most of the eastern seaboard. But then it gradually turned into a story about the little woman who roared and her band of misfit minorities who team up to fight Captain Patriarchy, and the super-woke feminism just ruined it for me.
I didn’t read Revenant Gun or Record of a Spaceborn Few because I DNFed both series with the first book. With Yoon Ha Lee’s Machineries of Empire series, I don’t remember much, except that the first book made absolutely no sense to me, with so much meaningless violence that it bordered on the absurd. With Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers series, it started off as an interesting space opera, but the ship quickly turned into a lesbian love boat, with lots of queer and transgender aliens to boot. Wokery ensues.
As for Trail of Lightning, I honestly don’t remember much about that one, other than that it started to give me woke vibes and I didn’t really like any of the characters. I think it also played the Death is Chic and Life is Not Worth Saving trope, which I personally cannot stand. If the main character had struck me as a good and decent person, I probably would have kept reading, but so many books that suffer from wokeness also suffer from having protagonists who are just terrible human beings in general. I don’t think the two are unrelated.
The first chapter of Space Opera was laugh out loud hilarious, and I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. Valente’s gonzo humor is a lot of fun! Then… I don’t know quite how to put this, but the story just started to feel depressing, and I’m not sure why. Also, the gonzo writing style started to grate on me after a while, kind of like Chuck Wendig’s writing does for anything longer than a blog article. It wasn’t a terrible book, but I didn’t end up finishing it.
But I really loved Spinning Silver, much more than I was expecting to. I’m not generally into fairy tell retellings, but this one stirred something primal in my Slavic roots and scratched an itch I didn’t even know that I had. Besides all that, it’s just a damn good story. The villains were genuinely villainous, the peril was genuinely perilous, the good guys all had satisfying growth arcs, and the ending was a crowning moment of awesome that brought everything full circle in the best possible way. Really great book.
I really enjoy this series you’re doing, thank you!
Thanks!
Here’s the thing with Trail of Lightning: I really wanted to love it, because it did initially set up a fascinating premise using Dine mythology, and I love me a good Native American yarn. But you’re right, I lost interest because the main character was just frankly unlikeable. She wallowed in self-pity and her Dark Backstory, and while I did read the second book, I certainly wouldn’t read the third. And it wasn’t the Wokery that got me, it was the poor plot choices and the absolute emotional slog the story turned into.
If you’re looking for a good example of Native American mythology turned into an excellent story, I recommend Joseph Bruchac’s Wabi: A Hero’s Tale, or actually any of his books. They deserve all the accolades: they’re fun and well-written and have lots of awesome action scenes.