Hugo awards 2013 winners

[via Twitter]. All stories originally published during 2012.

1. [ss] Ken Liu's "Mono No Aware"; download: A Japanese town reacts in a very orderly manner to news that earth is soon to be destroyed by an asteroid impact.
2. [novelette] Pat Cadigan's "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi".
3. [novella] Brandon Sanderson's "The Emperor's Soul".
4. [novel] John Scalzi's "Redshirts".

And among friends, SF Signal gets it for "Best Fanzine".

For other categories, see the twitter feed.

Related: Past & current nominees & winners.

John Scalzi's "The President's Brain is Missing" (short story, satire, free): Ultimate in VIP security!

Technical idea here is a variant of van Vogt's "The Purpose": technology exists to keep a man's heart far away from body, still letting the man live normally. Here, it's the brain - though it's not "kept away", strictly, in the sense of van Vogt's story.

Story summary.

One morning, the personal physician of the US President finds the President's brain physically missing from his head, though he seems to be physically normal in observable ways! Alex Lipsyte of the Presidential staff will solve the mystery...

Fact sheet.

First published: Tor.com, July 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of  John Scalzi.

John Scalzi's "After the Coup" (short story, sports, humor, free)

I had an impression humor in Scalzi's fiction was intended only for US readers, but this one should be broadly comprehensible. Good stuff - sort of like A Bertram Chandler rewriting Fredric Brown's "Arena" (download), with the twisted rules Ender had to fight with in Card's "Ender's Game".

Story summary.

Diplomacy with aliens called Korbans requires one of the human "CDF soldiers", one who hasn't fought for years, to fight a sort of multi-round wrestling match in an arena with a Korban. And with rules all twisted against him. And he's required to lose, but not by a large margin!

Fun ensues.

Fact sheet.

First published: tor.com, sometime in July 2008.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of John Scalzi.

For authors: John Scalzi is offering some publicity to authors/publishers with upcoming books

Link.

Free fiction: METAtropolis audio anthology (conditions apply!)

Audible is apparently offering it as a free download here, if you can figure out how to download from their page (I cannot)!

There is a sample that can be played & starts some audio. There is an "Add to cart" button that adds it for $0.00. I suppose you need to go through their regular checkout process to do the download - I'm not too keen on this dance. Scalzi mentions registration is required - I guess that might be with reference to this check out process.

This anthology is a Hugo 2009 nominee in "Dramatic Presentation, Long Form" category.

PS: I have an impression Audible audiobooks are DRMed & require some sort of proprietary player - not sure.

[via John Scalzi]

John Scalzi's "Alien Animal Encounters" (short story, humor, free)

A collection of short tales about human encounters with alien animals (plus one of an alien's encounter with an earth animal). Light reading.

Joke in the last one went over my head, & is probably comprehensible to only US folks.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 15 October 2001.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site. [via Mary Anne Mohanraj]
Related: Stories of John Scalzi.

A perspective on watching movies based on a novel

John Scalzi share a tidbit on the subject from his old interview with Michael Crichton: "one of my favorite things to tell people who complain that the movie of their favorite book isn’t as rich or complex, which was that books are 400 pages long while movie scripts are the equivalent of 40 pages long, and you just have to make some choices."

* John Scalzi's "Missives from Possible Futures no 1: Alternate History Search Results" (short story)

First half is a hard selling ad of a future paid search engine! Later half is a collection of several very tiny stories - ostensibly about how history would have been shaped had Hitler died in different ways; to me this felt like arbitrary alternate history scenarios. General mood is humorous, but I'm unfamiliar with some of the situations - those from West can probably enjoy it a little more.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2007.
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

Brief posts: 5 stories, 1 free, none particularly good

Non-download links are to lists containing actual posts.

1. John Scalzi's "Missives from Possible Futures no 1: Alternate History Search Results" (B); download; Subterranean Online, Winter 2007: First half is a hard selling ad of a future paid search engine! Later half is a collection of several very tiny stories - ostensibly about how history would have been shaped had Hitler died in different ways; to me this felt like arbitrary alternate history scenarios. General mood is humorous, but I'm unfamiliar with some of the situations - those from West can probably enjoy it a little more.
2. Playboy, 2007 issues: Stephen King's "Mute" (B); Woody Allen's "This Nib For Hire" (B); Edward Falco's "Winter Storms" (B); Denis Johnson's "The Starlight on Idaho" (C): All are non-genre. Allen's story is humorous, & very slightly scifi - protagonist is a writer with one published story that involves traveling past in time. Other 3 are dark. Falco's is about US presence in Iraq; Johnson's describes a family of criminals; & King's is a story involving embezzlement, extra-marital relations, & murder.
   

John Scalzi's "Pluto Tells All": What Pluto feels - about its "demotion" from the status of a planet!

This very short & somewhat humorous tale is told in the form similar to some school essays (Hindi word is aatmkatha - "self story"; I don't know the English word for this kind of story): own story of Pluto told by itself. There are some references to people that I didn't catch because of lack of familiarity - presumably those in appropriate country will find them humorous.

Readable but not a great story. Full text is available online.

First published: Subterranean magazine, Spring 2007.
Rating: B

John Scalzi's "The Sagan Diary": Cyborg soldier falls in love, & decides to become an ordinary human

While my first Scalzi, this story is apparently part of a larger collection of short stories & novels by Scalzi set in the same "universe".

While nominally science fiction, this is of the softer kind of science fiction. No ghosts etc, but no science either. But great prose, & far too many quotable quotes. I didn't get bored at all, but there is nothing worth remembering either.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

This is a frame story. Main story is narrated in a "diary" - a collection of computer files produced by "BrainPal" dump of the brain of Lt Jane Sagan of Colonial Defense Forces (CDF)! She was created (rather than born, as we all are), & was immediately as competent as an adult human - much like a robot. Narration is at her age 9 years - already a veteran of many wars on different worlds & an efficient killer.

She has fallen in love with Major John Perry, also of CDF, & wants to retire from military. Military rules require a dump of her consciousness before retirement. Because she wants to lead an ordinary life, her brain dump will be transferred to another soldier body!

Frame is in the form of a complaint from one department of military about another to a high official - with the diary attached as a case in point.

Diary offers glimpses of the life of Jane, her violant nature, empathy (but not remorse) she feels for her victims, her discovery of "born" kinds of humans & how she is different, her love affair, etc.

Fact sheet.

"The Sagan Diary", short story, review
First published: "Subterranean" magazine, Fall 2007.
Rating: B