Short Business: Reading the Hugo Finalist Novellas

[owlmoose]

Although I never manage to read everything on the Hugo ballot -- especially now that Best Series is a thing -- I try to do my best to read everything in the shorter fiction categories. The past two years, I got a head start on this project by having read all of the novella finalists before they were announced, but this year there were two I hadn't yet read: The Black God's Drums and Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach. Happily, I have now rectified this situation, so I wanted to share my thoughts on these six stories.

In alphabetical order by title:

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So while I didn't love all of these, I found something to appreciate in every one, and that's pretty great. And I did love two and really liked two others, so that's not a bad hit rate. In recent years, I've come to a great appreciation of the novella form. Short stories often feel rushed or underdeveloped to me, but often picking up a long novel seems like a daunting task. Novellas hit the sweet spot for me: long enough to tell a complete story, short enough to read in a day or two. I'm glad to see the format having something of a resurgence, and I hope it continues into the future.

So which of these novellas have you read? Did you enjoy them? What would you have seen on the ballot instead? Let me know, and we'll chat long-form short fiction. :)

Adventures Elsewhere — May 2019

[helloladies]

Adventures Elsewhere collects our reviews, guest posts, articles, and other content we've spread across the Internet recently! See what we've been up in our other projects. :D

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