Myth, the Universe, and Everything

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards were announced last weekend at Mythcon 45, at which I had a fantastic time. (I made my first food sculpture, below, at the Mythcon Banquet, an annual tradition that I find wonderful. I love that the con in Mythcon could equally represent conference and convention; both words accurately describe the atmosphere, which is a mix of scholarly and fannish all at once.)


Shadowchild from Guest of Honor Ursula Vernon's Digger

I've served on the Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards (both adults and children's lists for fiction, but not the scholarly juries) for several years now, and this was the first time I was able to attend the awards ceremony, which I was allowed to livetweet. (I'm @alanajoli.) This year's awards went to:

• Mythopoeic Fantasy Award in Adult Literature: Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni


• Mythopoeic Fantasy Fantasy Award in Children's Literature: Holly Black, Doll Bones


• Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies: Jason Fisher, ed., Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays


• Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth & Fantasy Studies: G. Ronald Murphy, Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North

The full announcement with book jackets and links to purchase is available on the Mythopoeic Society website.

This was my first year voting on the Hugo Awards, which was a very different experience. The MFAs are very much a juried award; the mailing list discusses the merits and flaws in the longlist and finalists throughout the process, and anyone participating in the jury is expected to read each as many on the longlist as they can and each of the finalists at least once. The Hugos, on the other hand, don't have any of that conversation, in part because there are so many voters that such an official mailing list might be ridiculous. There's also no real expectation that voters read anything other than what they want to, and they're free to vote for only their favorites if they like. Given my MFA training, I didn't feel comfortable voting in the novel category (where I'd not read, in full, any of the nominated works), but I did read all the short stories and novelettes and read selections of the writings by all the Campbell nominees. So I was eager to see the results this evening, which--as of this post--I've not been able to find listed anywhere. With the thought of saving others from going through the chat transcript of the live awards coverage (which does have some excellent commentary), I thought I'd list the winners here.

• Campbell Award: Sofia Samatar


• Best Fan Artist: Sarah Webb


• Best Fan Writer: Kameron Hurley


• Best Fancast: SF Signal Podcast


• Best Fanzine: A Dribble of Ink


• Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed


• Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon


• Best Editor, Long Form: Ginjer Buchanan


• Best Editor, Short Form: Ellen Datlow


• Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Game of Thrones, “The Rains of Castamere”


• Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Gravity


• Best Graphic Story: “Time,” Randall Munroe (XKCD)


• Best Related Work: “We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative,” Kameron Hurley


• Best Short Story: “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu


• Best Novelette: “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal


• Best Novella: “Equoid” by Charles Stross


• Best Novel: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

I'm surprised (and occasionally disappointed) by some of these wins, but some of them please me tremendously. I'm especially pleased to see my taste reflected in the Best Short Story and Best Novelette categories; Kowal's novelette had me sobbing as I read it, and Chu's short story, the first of his that I've read, has turned me into a fan seeking out more of his work. I think it's great to see Kameron Hurley win not one but two Hugos; I loved her essay when it first came out, and I've been meaning to seek out her fiction as well. Now seems the time!

I also think the gender balance here is really interesting; for an award that has a reputation for having so many men as nominees and winners, this list has an awful lot of women on it! I didn't even realize the break-down until I was typing it up. I don't have any commentary on that other than just the observation.

Congratulations to all the Hugo, Campbell, and Mythopoeic Winners!

So, the 2014 Hugo finalists came out. And the usual furor ensued about which authors are pushing which agendas--which is always an interesting conversation. Over at Tor.com, Liz Bourke posted "Sleeps with Monsters: How about Those Hugos?," and I found the comments section to be an interesting cross-section of SFF fans. I found one of Liz's responses to a reader, who claimed one author promoted no agenda in his work, telling. She wrote: "You don't see the message, perhaps, because you agree with it. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, nor that it doesn't alienate as many readers as it entertains."




There are a lot of accusations about how nominees for the Hugos are selected because they promote certain PC agendas. These usually come from readers who enjoy traditional SFF elements, in novels which are frequently led by a white-cis-male protagonist. Disclosure: I like a lot of traditional SFF stuff myself, and I'm a fan of shared-world fantasy, which tends to revisit a lot of the old tropes over and over again. (Sometimes in new and interesting ways, but that's a conversation for another post.)

I also like books with female protagonists. I like books that show different cultures and different worldviews, and I like books in which the diversity of opinions and worldviews and ethnicities reflects the same sort of complex world we live in, rather than assuming one unified cultural identity. I have sometimes surprised myself by liking books that stray outside my normal relationship comfort zones. (Triptych by J. M. Frey was one of the novels that most impressed me in 2011. If it hadn't been recommended to me, I might not have read it, as I'd have thought it wasn't my sort of thing--and I'd really have missed out.)

I think that what people who talk about "diversity checklists" may not realize is that people don't nominate those books because they promote a certain agenda (though that might be part of it). People nominate those books because they like them. They enjoy reading that type of story. Those books provide the same level of entertainment and emotional arc for readers who like that sort of thing as traditional novels do for readers who like that sort of thing. And for people who are bored of the white-cis-male-led stories, there are still plenty of people who enjoy those books, and there's not anything wrong with that (so long as those books aren't the only thing being published).

People like what they like. As long as the world continues to be a diverse place, we're probably going to keep disagreeing about what we like and what's good. And as long as we can disagree respectfully, I think that's okay.

I've sent in my final nominations for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards jury that I've been serving on for the last few years, and I just got the e-mail that Hugo Award Nominations are open. Exciting stuff! I'm not shy about sharing books I love here, but I'm not always up on what's eligible and what's not. Here are a few highlights of folks and books I think deserve to be recognized (with the note that I have not fully researched their eligibility):

• Fellow Substrater Max Gladstone is in his second (and last) year of eligibility for the Campbell award. His novel Two Serpents Rise is eligible for Best Novel. There is no question in my mind that he's getting nominations for both from me. Go Max!


• I'm not sure if Shana Mlawski is eligible for the Campbell, since her first novel is a YA, but if she is, she's also on my list. I'm a little surprised there's no YA/children's category for the Hugos, but I guess that's what the Nortons are for. Shame I'm not an SFWA member (one day!) and thus can't weigh in on those.


• Mark H. Williams's Sleepless Knights is both brilliant and, I believe, eligible. I'm pretty sure he could be nominated for the Campbell also; it's his debut novel, but he is also a playwright and television writer, and I don't know how that plays out with the Campbell award.

I have to go back through my list and figure out which books I read last year were actually published in 2013 so I can determine what's eligible. I read so much stuff for review before it comes out (and catch up with so many books in the couple of years after they're published) that I always have to go back and look.

Who are your nomination choices this year? Who should I be paying attention to who's eligible for stuff? (And please, don't be shy about recommending your own books!)

This is my last day to post about my experience reading the MFA nominees this year before the winners are announced, so I figured I'd better do a write up quickly!

I have to say that this year's finalist lists were a real joy for me. Usually, there's at least one book in the finalists that I detest, or appreciate but slog through. Sometimes there's one that I just don't get. This year, I'm happy to say that, whether or not I feel they're the best choice for the award, I enjoyed all of the books on the finalist lists for both the adult MFA and children's MFA.

Children's List

The awards finally got me to finish Megan Whelan Turner's "The Queen's Thief" series. I'd started The Thief some time ago and hadn't really enjoyed the style; when I got to the end of that book, however, I realized what all the fuss was about, and why it was an award winner. The rest of the series really won me over, and I'm very glad to have read them. Polly Schulman's The Grimm Legacy was a great discovery, and I thought Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson was a great recasting of a Grimm fairy tale in a non-Western setting.

Adult List

The best discovery on this list for me was, without a doubt, Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord. Based on a Senagalese folk story, this short novel grabbed me and didn't let go, and I was very pleased to see it make it from the long list to the finalists. I was also tremendously excited that Devon Monk's collection A Cup of Normal made the finalists; Devon's been a great inspiration for me a number of times, from both her blog and her fiction, and I'm tickled to see her recognized. Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven is another excellent contender, and definitely shows how the definition of mythopoeic can expand to include epics outside of a Western comfort zone. There's always a lot of conversation on the jury lists about what it means for a book to be mythopoeic; Kay's novel uses a different cultural language, by being set in China, than the usual candidates, and it's not directly tied to a folktale the way Lord's novel is. And yet, magic and the supernatural are always just on the other side of a boundary from Kay's characters -- sometimes crossing over it directly but other times only hinting at the presence of Other nearby. It worked for me not only on the fantasy fiction level, but also on a mythopoeic level, and I'd highly recommend it (lyster, this means you, although I'll be surprised if you hadn't discovered it already *g*).

That said, I'd recommend all of the finalists this year, even the ones I didn't directly point out here. I enjoyed all of them, some of them to my own surprise, and some of them just as I expected. (I can't think of the last time I didn't enjoy one of Terry Pratchett's novels, for example, and it's never a surprise to see him on the finalists list. Speaking of Pratchett, Genreville linked to a cool discussion about gender in Discworld this week, which is worth checking out.) So, if you're looking for something good to read, pop by the MythSoc Awards list and you'll have ten good things to put on your to-be-read pile. The winner will be announced at the Mythcon 42 banquet tonight!

It's been awhile.

I've been involved in sort of a big new project that's been taking up a lot of my time. It's called: being pregnant. It's very exciting for both me and my husband! That said, it's amazing how much your time management skills change when you have to sleep a much larger portion of the day. I should be back to normal in a few weeks, assuming I'm a text book example of how these things are supposed to go. (I suppose this is also practice for learning new time management skills when I have to balance being a writer and being a mother!)

Now that I've finished up a few deadlines that I was trying to balance with my new schedule over the last few weeks, I'm hoping to be back on track to blog here at MtU&E. There's a lot to talk about! We had Substrate today, which always gives me fodder for thought, I got my Callie award in the mail and will post a picture of that soon (along with the first of my weekly contests, until I run out of prizes!), and Maggie Stiefvater (m_stiefvater) has done a brilliant guest entry for this Friday. I'll get to talk about Maggie's new book, Shiver, and I've read a couple of really interesting blog posts from other folks that deserve conversation here. I've also submitted my first blog post to Flames Rising (flamesrising_lj), so I'll make a note when that goes up.

Yes, lots happening in this part of the universe, and there will be much activity here next week. It'll be good to be back.

One of the things I've noticed since I got back from Greece and Turkey is that I'm feeling a detachment from my former favorite Greek deity. The first time I went, I fell in love with Ephesus (I still am a bit), and so it was natural to take Artemis at Ephesus as a patron, in some ways. I've adopted variations on her name, and on the name Kybele (the Anatolian goddess with whom Artemis merged in Ephesus), in screen names since 2001, trying to recapture the feeling of being in a city that was, once, clearly hers. Ephesus is also, notably, a city that belongs to St. John the Apostle, and though Paul preached there, it was John who lived in Ephesus, with the exception of the years he was in exile, and was eventually buried there. Many of my warm feelings about John the Apostle began at that time as well, though I had always felt some kinship with the disciple Jesus loved.

But this time, I feel as though something has shifted, and I think this is in part due to Mycenae, and in part due to Naxos. ( Read more... )

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In other news, Flames Rising has been nominated as best fan product for this year's Ennies! Since I write for them, I'm incredibly tickled, and am wishing Matt and the staff the best of luck!

The Eisners have been announced at the Comic-Con site. I'm starting to recognize more and more names on the list, which is exciting.

( The rest is only interesting if you care about comics. )

The Eisners are making a concerted effort to include more manga to reflect the market. Unfortunately, since that's what I'm really most familiar with, I'm still not seeing the titles I recognize--I didn't see any of the hip new OEL (Original English Language) manga that's trying to expand what it means to be manga.

Which means, I guess, that I need to continue to expand my reading list, so I get more familiar with what they *are* selecting. I am impressed at the addition of web comics to the ballot (though that's probably a few years old at this point), and we glad to see Phil and Kaja Foglio's "Girl Genius" on the list.

And now that I'm done rambling about comics, I should get back to work.

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A big thanks to all the writers who posted their pixilated-technophile-wretch(?) fiction yesterday! Now that I'm aware of it, I'll find a piece to not submit to magazines and instead publish online.

I swear I'm not procrastinating. It just took me a bit to catch up reading everyone's live journal from over the weekend.

From Neil Gaiman's blog:
Thrilled to see that Pan's Labyrinth is now on the Hugo nominations list (http://www.nippon2007.us/hugo_correction_faq.php).

I desperately want to see that movie, but am afraid I've pretty much missed it. So it should come out on DVD soon. Because I declare it so.

If you're looking for a host of recommendations that didn't make the list this year (but, in some opinions, should have), check out this conversation over at coffeeem's blog.

Now I must actually accomplish some work before going to second-job this evening (as the library has just put the sequel to Twilight on hold for me, which means I'll get nothing constructive done when I get home from second-job).

It's that time again. As BoingBoing announced, the Hugos are up and nominated. Naomi Novik and Neil Gaiman are among the nominees (in two different categories).

The last time I truly paid attention to the Hugos was in 2003. I was running the Science Fiction and Fantasy book group for the Barnes and Noble in West Bloomfield, Michigan. That year, we read something like two thirds of the novels, which included winning title Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, with whom I was working on an autobiographical essay at the time, and Kiln People by David Brin. That was the book that made me fall in love with cross-genre private eye noir.

I may try to follow them again this year (as much as I can) and see how many I can read before the voting happens. Not that I'll make it to WorldCon in Japan... but it will be fun to follow.

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Funny that I should mention Sawyer this morning, as I was just thinking about him last night. I started reading King's Peace, by Jo Walton, which begins, in the first chapter, with the main character's rape. One of the problems I had with Hominids, which Sawyer actually dealt with very well and with great sympathy, is that the main female character is raped very early on in the novel. Rape generally bothers me as a fictional device, and I'm astonished how much both rape and attempted rape come up in manga and anime designed for the young female audience.

My friend Lydia Laurenson (whose newest title, The Books of Sorcery: The White and Black Treatises came out in January) has written several very good short essays about the dangers of using rape as a storytelling device in roleplaying games. Sometimes in storytelling, rape is used as a short-hand for how evil the villain is In Hominids or King's Peace, from what I've read of the second so far, as the rapists are mostly nameless and faceless, I suspect that the rape is designed to give the heroine an internal struggle to overcome.

I tend to find almost all uses of rape as a fictional device off-putting at best. In the case of King's Peace, where I had yet to invest in the character, I seriously questioned whether I wanted to continue a book that started with this kind of event. So here's my question: why rape? Is the intention to make the audience uncomfortable (I suspect this is the case in Hominids)? Or have readers in general become desensitized to this type of violence?