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My choice for Best Novelette
Five choices: and, this time, it’s hard to choose. “The Copenhagen Interpretation,” “Fields of Gold,” “Six Months, Three Days,” “What We Found,” or “Ray of Light”? One possible test is: Is there any chance I’ll want to re-read any of these stories? (I have actually read each story twice already, because I think it’s the second…
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Hugo Awards: Best Novelette (5th contender)
Last of the novelettes up for a Hugo is Brad Torgersen’s “Ray of Light,” from Analog. Only a partial extract is free online, but you can buy it for a song (or almost) on Barnes and Noble here, or on Amazon here. On the ocean floor, a few thousand people, perhaps the last remnants of…
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Hugo Awards: Best Novelette (4th contender)
We come to Geoff Ryman’s “What We Found” from F&SF (Sept-Oct 2011). It has not been posted online. The story is set in Nigeria, in something like present day. Patrick is the narrator, and he is sleepless at 3:30 AM on the day he is to be married. He is dreading marriage. He is writing…
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Hugo Awards: Best Novelette (3rd contender)
Next is Charlie Jane Anders’s “Six Months, Three Days,” from Tor.com. It’s here. The title refers to the length of time from when two clairvoyants meet and fall in love (they have, of course, foreseen this) until they break up (yep, foreseen this, too). Doug can see the future; Judy sees many possible futures. Judy…
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Hugo Awards: Best Novelette (2nd contender)
Next in the novelette category is “Fields of Gold” by Rachel Swirsky, published in Eclipse Four (Night Shade Books). Read it here. Imagining an afterlife as a story device has a long — very long — history. What do the dead do, what should they do, what can they do? Simply exist as sad shades? Endure…
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Hugo Awards: Best Novelette (1st contender)
Turning to the Novelette category, we come to Paul Cornell’s “The Copenhagen Interpretation,” published in Asimov’s. How do you do, Mr. Bond–er, Mr. Hamilton, isn’t it? There is a cold war on, and secret agents work covertly on behalf of their respective countries, with the aim of maintaining the balance between the great powers.