This week’s column will be very short!
The Hugo winners were announced Saturday, October 21, at the Chengdu WorldCon. Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher, was awarded Best Novel for Nettle and Bone. Seanan McGuire’s Where the Drowned Girls Go took the award for best novella. Best novelette was awarded to “The Space-Time Painter” by Hai Ya, and Samantha Mills’s “Rabbit Test” won for best short story.
The Ignyte Awards were also announced. This award acknowledges “the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscape of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts towards inclusivity within the genre.” The Blood Trials by N. E. Davenport won Best Novel; Nghi Vo’s Into the Riverlands won Best Novella, and John Cho took home the Best Novelette award from “When You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God With the Informal You.”
Nerds of a Feather, a site I visit frequently, also won an Ignyte Award.
Experts are saying we’ll have an El Nino year, and this article explains what that will mean for the winter, especially the western coast.
Am I just misremembering that Nerds of a Feather used to be more fiction focused but now seems to be over half video media related reviews and articles? I hope they don’t end up like Wertzone…which has excellent fiction reviews…when Adam posts them. But 98% of its content is about movies, TV, games–none of which I consume.
Off-topic completely, have you ever gotten stuck in a book you know you should like? I’m lumbering very slowly through Labyrinth’s Heart by M. A. Carrick, after enjoying the first two books in the series quite a bit. But this one I can’t seem to make myself read more than a dozen pages at a time in. Not sure why that is happening.
Yes, I noticed Nerds is (are?) doing more videos, series and games. I don’t think it’s just a phase, but I’m hoping books will come back, at least to 50%.
It may not be you with the Carrick book–it might be the book itself. I can’t comment until I read it. I remember the first two being intricate, high-stakes, suspenseful, with two intriguing magic systems (that are probably actually the same magic system). I also remember them having a lot of heart. It might be harder to maintain that, especially if the plot is veering into a more bureaucratic realm. (At this point, I will read it just to know that Vargo manages to clear the water channel!)