Reviewing the 2024 Hugo Award Finalists: Best Novella

THE 2024 HUGO AWARD FINALISTS: NOVELLA

RATED 83% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE = 4.0 OUT OF 5

6 STORIES: 3 GREAT / 2 GOOD / 0 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 1 DNF

In Science Fiction short fiction, the most prestigious awards are the Hugo Awards. Voted by the fans who buy a voting membership and are given out at The World Science Fiction Convention. The 2023 WorldCon will be taking place Glasgow, Scotland - August 8-12, 2024 .

This is the fourth year that I am trying to review and rank all of the short fiction finalists.

• Novella. Stories of between 17,500 and 40,000 words. (Reviewed: 2023 & 2022)

• Novelettes. Stories of between 7,500 and 17,500 words (Reviewed: 2024, 2023, 2022 & 2021)

• Short Stories. Stories of less than 7,500 words. (Reviewed: 2024, 2022 & 2021)

Best Novella

1. Rose/House by Arkady Martine (Subterranean)

   Great. An absolute masterpiece of a science fictional ‘locked-room mystery.’ An architect is given the role of investigating the death (and apparent murder) of an a.i. specialist within a house of their own design. Of course, the house appears to be sentient and highly intelligent. This makes for a brilliant and intense interplay of man vs machine intelligence. Loved every minute of this.

2. The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older (Tordotcom)

   Great. A sapphic cozy sci-fi mystery heavily inspired by Sherlock Holmes. On a habitat made of various platforms surrounding a planet, a man has gone missing. Presumably over the edge. Was he pushed? Did he jump? A brilliant inspector with Holmes’ quirky demenor reconnects with her academic lover (the 1st person Watson narrator.). The mystery is a great way to inspect their world and relationship.

3. “Seeds of Mercury”, Wang Jinkang / 水星播种, 王晋康, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)

   Great. A wealthy man inherits a distant cousins science lab that has created tin-sodium-silicion life. He also inherits the extreme financial burdens that come with it. Starting in a Golden Age laboratory mode, this story quickly kicks open the scope of time and space as the new life is destined to thrive on Mercury. Ends with some great, nonhuman civilizational struggles of religion, science, and politics.

4. “Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet”, He Xi / 人生不相见, 何夕, translated by Alex Woodend (Adventures in Space: New Short stories by Chinese & English Science Fiction Writers)

   Good. Dense Hard Sci-Fi about the sacrifices and hard decisions that have to made in the colonization of the universe by humanity. If we can change human beings to better thrive on foreign worlds, how far before they are no longer human? Full of 1950s-style massive technological info dumps, this felt like a story out of time. Which was quiet refreshing when surrounded by the modern SFF focus on character and literary structure.

5. Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)

   Good. A monk returns to his home to find a mentor dead and a group of people threatening to destroy the complex if the body isn’t turned over to them. This is my favorite of this Wushu series by Nghi Vo, full of talking birds, rich descriptions, and a cozy storytelling scene.

6. Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)

   DNF at 22%. A retelling of Sleeping Beauty that was wildly uninteresting to me. The writing style was very fairy tale and I hate that.

Hugo, Nebula, & Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Awards

• Hugo Awards

  • Anthologies

    • “Hugo and Nebula Award Winners from Asimov's Science Fiction.” edited by Sheila Williams. 97%

    • “The Hugo Winners, Volume One” edited by Isaac Asimov. - 94%

    • “The Hugo Winners, Volume Two” edited by Isaac Asimov. - 82%

  • Story Bundles

    • 2023 Hugo Finalists

      • Best Novellas - 83%

      • Best Novelettes - 90%

    • 2022 Hugo Award Finalists:

      • Best Novellas - 83%

      • Best Novelettes - 83%

      • Best Short Stories - 75%

    • 2021 Hugo Award Finalists:

      • Best Novelettes - 92%

      • Best Short Stories - 83%

• Nebula Awards

  • “Nebula Awards 32” edited by Jack Dann. [1998] - 89%

  • “Nebula Awards Showcase 2001.” edited by Robert Silverberg. - 75%

  • “Nebula Awards Showcase 2010.” edited by Bill Fawcett

  • “Nebula Awards Showcase 2015.” edited by Greg Bear. - 80%

  • “Nebula Awards Showcase 2016.” edited by Mercedes Lackey. - 75%

• Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Awards

  • Reviewing the 35th Annual Reader's Award Finalists from Asimov's Science Fiction. 2021. - 88%

  • Reviewing the 36th Annual Readers’ Award Finalists from Asimov’s Science Fiction. 2022 - 91%

  • Reviewing the 37th Annual Readers’ Award Finalists from Asimov’s Science Fiction 2023 - 90%

  • Reviewing the 38th Annual Readers’ Award Finalists from Asimov’s Science Fiction 2024 - 88%