Now that you've read them all, what are your Hugo rankings?
Oh excellent question! Hmm
Novella
The Butcher of the Forest - I am a sucker for dark fairy tales played straight, and this delivered in spades. Accomplishes what it's trying to with aplomb, wonderful imagery, limited and compelling cast.
The Tusks of Extinction - Big Idea Sci Fi of a kind I can't help but be endeared to, combination of incredibly wacky bullshit and quite grounded cli-fi. Naylar working through their ambivalence towards conservation work remains interesting.
The Brides of High Hill - A very fun campfire/ghost story, Cleric Chih remains a very fun POV. Return to form after the last two Singing Hills novellas, though the further we get from Salt and Fortune the more I miss when it had real literary aspirations.
What Feasts at Night - Another fun campfire/ghost story, though honestly comparing with Brides does it no favors at all. Rather strictly lesser than what it's a sequel of, sadly.
Navigational Entanglements - it was fine? Well done YA with a mildly evocative setting. Paces and written like it would make a very good movie. de Bodard just doesn't agree with me, I think. [No Award]
The Practice, The Horizon and the Chain - A sharp, affecting short story bloated and burdened down with extraneous details and the need for a euphoric happy ending until it became an incoherent mess.
Novel
The Tainted Cup - Absolutely charming fantastical fair play mystery, excellent characters and evocative setting, only moderately muddled politics. Just a delight to read.
Alien Clay - Very classic sci-fi Book About Ideas, and well-done. Wore its influences firmly on its sleeve, but not really a bad thing. The ending could have been more, but taken on its merits an excellent piece of work. Service Model - I refuse out of principle to give two books by the same author separate rankings for the same award, but it was fun! Decent satire.
A Sorceress Comes to Call - Amazingly realized main cast and fun setting, but I do rather wish there was any real surprise or moral ambiguity whatsoever (or, for that matter, a level of social critique that at least approached the Austen novels it was so clearly inspired by)
The Ministry of Time - An exceptionally sharp short story, or above-average Torchwood plot, that was inexplicably a 300 page novel instead. [No Award]
Someone You Can Build A Nest In - bad.
