Monday, January 30, 2017

2017 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Award Longlist, Part 1: Fiction Categories

In the midst of last year's slate voting controversy, our erstwhile founding editor The G asked the flock here at Nerds of a Feather if we would come together to put out a longlist of works we would recommend for Hugo consideration. Flock Together we did.

The rules for inclusion were simple--just: (a) meet the eligibility criteria; and (b) be "award worthy" (i.e. good). Given the subjectivity of the latter, it should come as no surprise that the selections on our longlist reflect the spectrum of tastes, tendencies and predilections found among our group of writers. You'll find selections ranging from the obscure and literary to the unabashedly popular and commercial, and from all corners and subdivisions of the genresphere.

That said, this is not nor intends to be a comprehensive survey of the field. Some books that are undoubtedly "award worthy," for example, are absent for the simple reason that we haven't read them yet. Thus we encourage you to think of this as a list of candidates to consider--alongside others. 

Given the vast number of Hugo categories, we've also made the decision to split the longlist up into multiple posts. Today we look at the fiction categories (Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Novelette and Best Short Story). For fiction that is available free of charge, we've embedded a direct link to the story. For novels and works of short fiction that are not available for free, the embedded link redirects to a review. 

In the interest of being transparent, it is worth noting that several of our writers have published fiction in 2016. Because it would be a conflict of interest, we are not including them on our longlist, but would still invite anyone interested to take a look at their work. Charles has a list of his eligible fiction here and Chloe has her list of fiction here.









Novel

Anders,  Charlie Jane. All the Birds in the Sky [Tor, 2016]

Bennett, Robert Jackson. City of Blades [Broadway Books, 2016]

Elliott, Kate. Poisoned Blade [Little Brown for Young Readers, 2016]

Gonzalez, Manuel. The Regional Office is Under Attack! [Riverhead, 2016]

Hatton, Jackie. Flesh and Wires [Aqueduct Press, 2016]

Hutchinson, Dave. Europe In Winter [Solaris, 2016]

Jemisin, N.K. The Obelisk Gate [Orbit, 2016]

Older, Malka. Infomocracy [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]

Sapkowski, Andrzej. The Tower of the Swallow [Orbit/Gollancz, 2016]

Squailia, Gabriel. Viscera [Talos, 2016]

Tilahun, Na'amen Gobert. The Root [Night Shade, 2016]

Thompson, Tade. Rosewater [Apex, 2016]

Whitehead, Colson. Underground Railroad [Doubleday, 2016]

Yap, Isabel. Hurricane Heels [Book Smugglers, 2016]







Novella

Cade, Octavia. The Convergence of Fairy Tales [Book Smugglers, 2016]

Foster, Emily. The Drowning Eyes [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]

Lavalle, Victor. The Ballad of Black Tom [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]

McGuire, Seanan. Every Heart a Doorway [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]

Penny, Laurie. Everything Belongs to the Future [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]

Shi, Gu (translated by S. Qiouyi Lu and Ken Liu). "Chimera" [Clarkesworld, 2016]

Wallace, Matt. Pride's Spell [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]

Wallace, Matt. Lustlocked [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]

Wilson, Kai Ashante. A Taste of Honey [Tor.com Publishing, 2016]



Novelette

Debonnaire, Meredith. "The Life and Times of Angel Evans" [The Book Smugglers, 2016]

Hoffmann, Ada. "The Scrape of Tooth and Bone" [GigaNotoSaurus, 2016]

Lemberg, Rose. "The Book of How to Live" [Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 2016]

Miller, Sam. "Angel, Monster, Man" [Nightmare, 2016]

Owomoyela, An. "Unauthorized Access" [Lightspeed, 2016]

Takács, Bogi. "Standing on the Floodbanks" [GigaNotoSaurus, 2016]

Vernon, Ursula. "The Tomato Thief" [Apex, 2016]

Wong, Alyssa. "You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay" [Uncanny, 2016]

Wallace, Matt. "Small Wars" [Tor.com]



Short Story

Bolander, Brooke "Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies" [Uncanny, Issue 13]

Bulkin, Nadia. "The House That Jessica Built" [The Dark, 2016]

Cox, Stephen. "1957" [Apex, 2016]

Harris, Nin. "Butter-Daughters" [Sockdolager, 2016]

Iriarte, José Pablo. "Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic" [Strange Horizons, 2016]

Jemisin, N.K. "The City Born Great" [Tor.com, 2016]

Killjoy, Margaret. "Everything that Isn’t Winter" [Tor, 2016]

Little Badger, Darcie. "Black, Their Regalia" [Fantasy, 2016]

Moher, Aidan. "The Penelope Qingdom" [Mothership Zeta, 2016]

Nichols, Russell. "u wont remember dying" [Terraform, 2016]

Onyebuchi, Tochi. "Screamers" [Omenana, 2016]

Rustad, A. Merc. "The Gentleman of Chaos" [Apex, 2016]

Tidbeck, Karin. "Listen" [Tor.com, 2016]



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Writer / Editor at Adventures in Reading since 2004. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2015, editor since 2016. Minnesotan.