Best Short Story
If the novelette category was difficult, this is even worse. There were hundreds of strong stories published during the year, and a good number of them deserve Hugo attention. Still, there can be only five. The best single short story that I read during the year was Margo Lanagan’s completely remarkable “Singing My Sister Down”. Beyond that you come down to personal favorites. I loved the Rickert and Ford stories, and the Kelly and Pratt are excellent. For what it’s worth, I preferred Tim’s story from Lenox Avenue to the more celebrated “Hart and Boot” (which is excellent too).

1. Lanagan, Margo, “Singing My Sister Down”
2. Rickert, M., “Cold Fires”
3. Ford, Jeffrey, “The Annals of Eelin-Ok”
4. Kelly, James Patrick, “The Best Christmas Ever”
5. Pratt, Tim, “Life in Stone”

Best Novelette
This is one of the hardest categories to pick. There were a lot of very fine novelettes published in 2004, and in too many places to mention. I could easily have put together a list of ten or more, but these five are my final choice. Looking back, Chris Rowe’s remarkable “The Voluntary State” still seems like the SF story of the year. It had that dislocating sense of strangeness that makes SF special. Kelly Link’s delightful “The Faery Handbag” was the best fantasy story of the year, though her “Stone Animals” is also remarkable. I loved Jeff VanderMeer’s “Three Days…” from Polyphony – it’s enigmatic, distant and has stayed with me long after reading. The Wolfe is classic Wolfe, which means it’s as good as it gets, and Baxter doesn’t get the Hugo attention he deserves. Any of these would be a worthy winner, should they make the final list. I’m dubious they will, though…

1. Rowe, Christopher, “The Voluntary State”
2. Link, Kelly, “The Faery Handbag”
3. VanderMeer, Jeff, “Three Days in a Border Town”
4. Wolfe, Gene, “The Lost Pilgrim”
5. Baxter, Stephen, “PeriAndry’s Quest”

There are various posts popping up here and there discussing Hugo nominations, and urging people to nominate now before the mid-March deadline comes and goes. Cheryl has a worthwhile piece, and Nial Harrison is doing it too. Because there’s nothing like following a trend, I thought I might post my thoughts and recommendations here, for the 0.00025 of you who might be interested.

Best Novel
The main category, the real deal, what it’s all about, so we might as well start here. I used to have a real prejudice about nominating fantasy for the Hugo – there isn’t really any other award that’s just for SF any more – but I’ve gotten over that. For my money, the best novel of the year was Sean Stewart’s extraordinary tale of perfect pop songs, dysfunctional families and dead people, but I also loved Geoff Ryman’s smart, savvy SF novel Air. Were it solely up to me, I’d have one of those two win. That said, I was also very impressed with Wolfe’s two-volume fantasy, McDonald’s fine novel of near-future India, and Stan Robinson’s uneven but undeniably powerful and passionate attempt to rebuild our world in the face of disaster. That’d be my five for the list, were it not for Harrison’s novel which, as Cheryl points out, is eligible this year. I’d add it at #6, and I think you’d end up with a damn fine list.

1. Perfect Circle, Sean Stewart
2. Air, Geoff Ryman
3. The Wizard Knight, Gene Wolfe
4. River of Gods, Ian McDonald
5. Forty Signs of Rain, Kim Stanley Robinson
6. Light, M. John Harrison

Best Novella
Hmmm. For the purposes of this post, we’re talking a single story of between 17,500 words and 40,000 words (give or take 20%). Having just finished up Best Short Novels for the year, I’ve got some pretty definite ideas about this category. Mainly what struck me was that it wasn’t quite as strong a year as 2003, though it was good. Greg Feeley had two very good novellas, Charlie Stross had three good ones, and Steve Baxter had a bunch. I was very impressed with Bob Silverberg’s Between Worlds which had four strong SF novellas, and was the original SF anthology of the year. Thinking about it, I probably liked Brad Denton’s story the most, but these five were all terrific.

1. Denton, Bradley, “Sergeant Chip”
2. Feeley, Gregory, “Arabian Wine”
3. Baxter, Stephen, Mayflower II
4. Kelly, James Patrick, “The Wreck of the Godspeed”
5. Stross, Charles, “The Concrete Jungle”

more on this soon…

Stephen King was pretty clear that he wasn’t retiring, he just wasn’t going to plan anything. And now comes the news that he’s to have a new crime novel published as a mass market original by Hard Case Crime in October. Called The Colorado Kid, it looks and sounds like lots of fun.