2026 Hugo Ballot!

 

The Hugo Award Ceremony is happening next week on Sunday, August 30! Sadly, I won't be traveling to Los Angeles for this year's Worldcon. I did plenty of conference travel in the last year (I maxed out my 25-26 travel budget to go to last year's Worldcon in Seattle and then went through a lot to fund a trip to India in May). Also, this year's Worldcon also happens after school starts, which makes it even trickier for me than usual.

Despite these excuses, I bought a supporting membership, which entitles me to vote. I've been voting for the Hugos since 2017, and it's always a fun experience. I usually discover some things I may not have experienced otherwise, which was especially true this year. 

Back in 2017, I figured out Three Principles of Hugo Voting (riffing on Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics):

1. Works that are more ground breaking in the field in their construction, plot, characters, setting, ideas, etc. are to be preferred as are works that are neither sequels nor works by authors who have won Hugos in recent years.
2. Works that delve more deeply into philosophical content are to be preferred.
3. Works that are just plain fun and enjoyable are to be preferred as long as such preference does not conflict with the first or second principles.

I don't know if I've ever consistently applied these principles any more than Asimov's robots ever consistently apply the three laws (maybe my "zeroth law' is "just have fun with it"). Still, I do have these principles in the back of my mind when I vote. I do find myself leaning more into my general preference for science fiction over fantasy as of late. Is that fair? I don't know, but we do seem to be tipping back toward an ascendance of fantasy the last few years, so maybe I'm trying to maintain a balance in the force of my fellow nerds.

I've already posted reviews of this year's Hugo nominees for Best Novel as well as Best Novella, Novelette, and Short Story. But inquiring minds like yours want to know: how did I vote? See below in my full Hugo ballot! I'll find out if I picked any winners on August 30!

2026 Hugo Novels

 

I have voted for the 2026 Hugo awards! I'll post my full ballot soon, but before that, here's what I thought about the six novels nominated this year. You can find these and other reviews on my Goodreads Hugo Finalists bookshelf. An overall takeaway this year is that one thing I love about reading the Hugo nominees is that it encourages me to read things I may not have otherwise picked up. And sometimes I end up loving those things. Thanks, Hugos, for keeping me an open-minded reader!

2026 Hugo Novellas, Novelettes, and Short Stories

 

I'm not quite done with my Hugo ballot (one more novel to finish...), but I wanted to take a break and make a post about the shorter fiction finalists for this year's Hugo awards. I don't think I'll rank them here. In fact, making this post is part of my process for the rankings. In any case, I'll post my entire Hugo ballot later. Happy Hugos! These and other reviews can also be found on my Goodreads 2026 Hugo shelf.

April 2026 Review of Reviews

 

Here are some reviews of some things I've read recently: The Hounds of Skaith by Leigh Brackett, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, The Children of Men by P. D. James, The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot, and The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente.

Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King, Jr. was a re-read, but I have not reviewed it on the blog before. I also reread (for at least the tenth time) What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula, which I have reviewed before.

You can also see these and other reviews on my Goodreads.

February 2026 Review of Reviews, Part Two

 

At last I am continuing with Part Two of my Review of Reviews for February 2026 (see Part One here). I figured I should post this before February is over. Here are my reviews of Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan, How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn, Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov, A Few Rules for Predicting the Future by Octavia Butler, and Driftglass by Samuel R. Delany.

Iʻm also reading Michael Harriotʻs Black AF History for Black History Month. Iʻm loving it, but alas, Iʻm not quire done, so maybe Iʻll get that in the next batch.

You can find these and other reviews on my Goodreads.

February 2026 Review of Reviews, Part One

 

I have been reading books over the last several weeks, but I haven't been posting reviews. In my defense, the world is a madhouse of suffering and injustice (but also resistance) and the semester started last month. This all makes me kinda tired. 

Nonetheless, out of my desire to serve you, dear readers, and to close some browser tabs I've had open way too long, I'm going to post a review of reviews in a few (two? three?) parts. We'll see where the month takes me. 

Who knows? Maybe reading books and posting reviews and generally continuing to be a person is still important in these times? 

This time I'm covering Deaths' End by Cixin Liu, Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien, and On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Graphic edition with Nora Krug).

If you're into that sort of thing, you can follow me and/or find all these reviews on Goodreads.

Holiday Review of Reviews 2025

 

Dear reader, I haven't been posting book reviews here on the blog as much as I would like the last few months. I've still been writing some reviews over on Goodreads, but I haven't even been keeping up over there. It has been a busy few months, and the energy for blogging has often been elusive.

I could keep castigating myself, or I could just post the reviews! 

After I post this, I have two more reviews to finish of Death's End by Cixin Liu and Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King. I may also return to a holiday tradition from my past: reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings! I may even read A Christmas Carol, which I've been thinking about the last few years in line with my tradition of watching holiday horror movies.

Anyway, here are my reviews of The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, Books of Blood, Vol. 3 by Clive Barker, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, Speculative Whiteness by Jordan S. Carroll, The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, The Fall of Gilead (graphic novel inspired by Stephen King's Dark Tower), and The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.

Happy Holidays to you and all sentient beings! May all beings be jolly!

2025 Hugo Novels, Part 1: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

It's that time of year again: I'm reading the Hugo nominees! This year I'm lucky to be once again attending Worldcon (this year in Seattle), so I will not only be voting, but I plan to attend the ceremony in person.

As has become tradition, I've waited way too long to get started, but the good news is that I'm halfway through the novels. So, here's what I thought so far about The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. I will review the other three novels soon in Part 2, and, of course, there are novellas and many more categories as well. Stay tuned!

Double Review: The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter/The Orphaned Worlds by Michael Cobley

I have gotten behind on my reviews again. D'oh! Part of the blame is a trip I took last month, a trip on which I read these two books! So, maybe this is a good excuse for a double review post for The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter and The Orphaned Worlds by Michael Cobley.

Meanwhile, my annual reading of the Hugo finalists has begun, so look for those reviews soon! (I also will be at Worldcon again this year!)

Review of Reviews, May 2025: Andor, Sinners, and Books by Okorafor, Maas, King, Harvey, Hannah-Jones, Pargin, and Stanley

 

I have gotten behind on posting book reviews lately (I did get one last month), so I thought I should get around to that now that the spring semester is over and grades are entered.

And today just happens to be May the 4th, aka Star Wars Day (as observed recently based on the pun on the date), so I figured I would add a little bit about the latest season of the Star Wars show, Andor. Also, like many other people, I saw and had a lot of thoughts about Ryan Coogler's Sinners.

Books reviewed here: She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, The Waste Lands by Stephen King, The 1619 Project, edited by Nikole Hannh-Jones, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, John Dies at The End by Jason Pargin, and How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley.

There is also a super secret Star Wars day review hidden in here...

Let the reviews commence!

First Contact Day, Hands Off, and the Fruitfully Inscrutable Effects of Protest

 

A shot of the Hands Off Protest in Chattanooga, TN, April 5, 2025.
You can see me in the street on duty as a crossing guard. (Credit: Sophia Cowan)

Yesterday, April 5, 2025, saw the the confluence of two events. For Star Trek fans, it was First Contact Day, a day that celebrates first contact between humans and Vulcans, which in most Star Trek timelines will take place on April 5, 2063 (a mere 38 years from now!). Yesterday was also a Hands-Off protest with over 1000 individual events around the US, including here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Millions of Americans nationwide protested the recent dramatic actions of the Trump administration and his ally Elon Musk.

How on Earth (or any other planet) could these two events be connected?

MLK Day 2025: We Do We Go From Here?

 

MLK Day Parade, Chattanooga, TN, Jan. 20, 2025

Today the United States simultaneously observes two things: 1. A holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 2. The inauguration of Donald Trump for his second, non-consecutive term as US President. This coincidence offers as succinct a summary of where my country is morally and politically as anything I could imagine: many of my fellow Americans both claim to admire Martin Luther King, Jr. and voted for Donald Trump. 

How did we get here? And drawing on the title of King’ s most challenging book, where do we go from here?

MLK Day Parade Photos 2025

The Chattanooga MLK Day Parade wraps up with the Howard High School Marching Band near the mural at the corner of MLK Blvd. and Peeples St. (Jan. 20, 2025)

 

It's a chilly afternoon here in Chattanooga, TN, and I went down to watch our local MLK Day Parade. It's in the low 20's Fahrenheit (around -5 Celsius), which is considerably colder than usual for this part of the world, so the turnout was lower than usual. In the past, I've participated in the parade with my local chapter of United Campus Workers, but we didn't get organized in time this year. Since MLK Day is my favorite holiday and there's a weirdness this year as it coincides with a Presidential Inauguration, I figured I'd just go down by myself.

I took some pictures! And here they are, along with a bit of commentary. I will have a lot more commentary on the day and the state of US politics in another post, coming soon.

It has often amused me that we have a King and King intersection along the parade route.

Lookout Mountain (mentioned in the "I Have a Dream" speech from the parking lot of the church that did not hire King as pastor in the mid-1950's. Don't worry, he went down to Montgomery and down in history afterwards.

The Bessie Smith Center (the parade goes right by it)

The parade begins!

A good MLK quote for the parade

Another mural on the parade route

Obligatory selfie (I only break out the warm hat and scarf a couple days around these parts, but today was one of those days)

I also took a video of the Howard High School Marching Band's performance, but apparently Blogger is not cooperating with video uploads today. Oh, well.

So there you have it! Happy MLK Day!

Slasher Logic: Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

 

Don't Fear the Reaper is Stephen Graham Jones's sequel to My Heart is a Chainsaw. As with the first one, I'm not sure I'm quite a big enough slasher fan to fully appreciate this and the characters other than Jade/Jennifer aren't as memorable for me, but Don't Fear the Reaper is still a really fun and interesting book overall. 

Divine Identity: Gods and Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 

I meant to review Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Gods of Jade and Shadow soon after finishing it, but alas, here I am over a month later, so I'll have to keep it short. This was a lot of fun. I love the Mayan gods and the setting in early 20th century Mexico. 

Thanksgiving Horror 2024: Black Friday Edition

 

In recent years (see here and here) I've made a tradition of watching Thanksgiving horror movies around US Thanksgiving. As with other holiday horror, this is a fun way to process my complex thoughts and feelings about this horrific, delicious holiday. And this year I discovered a film about that most uniquely American of holidays, Black Friday, in which we trample each other to buy stuff we don't need immediately after a holiday about giving thanks for what we already have.

I'll start and end with the movies I watched for the first time with a nice leftover sandwich of movies I've watched in the past. And for some reason, lighting in the films seems to be on my mind lately. Go figure.

I should acknowledge that today is also Native American Heritage Day, which in a peak American contrast, is always also the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Random Thoughts, Part 24: Opinions, Generations, AI, Ambition, 666, Doppelgängers, Noticing the Beauty of the Universe, etc.

 

My long-running Random Thoughts series has continued, randomly. Here we are at Part 24, which I'm happy to announce includes Random Thought 666! And there are also memes, because why not? Enjoy!

Zones of Dogs: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

 

My initial reaction to Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep: a lot of really cool ideas, but something in the execution failed to grab me.

The cool ideas: 

The zones of thought are really interesting, although I'm not quite sure I completely understood the concept. In certain zones of the galaxy, some types of consciousness and technology are possible, while in other zones they are not. And "possible" in the sense of physically or scientifically possible. Logical possibility remains the terrain of science fiction, after all! And the borders between the zones can and have shifted, and nobody knows if they are natural or artificially created by mysterious aliens eons ago (perhaps as a way to keep the riff-raff in line?).

The main aliens, the Tines, are dog-like creatures who form "packs" of several individuals to form something like hive minds, which is a cool way to think about intelligence. Is this personal fusion? Or is each pack an individual person in some sense? You'd think this would give them an ability to work together in a way lonely individually-minded humans cannot, but the conglomerations can't get close to each other due to interference of the (maybe sonic?) methods they use to bind together. 

There are some cool ideas there about how we individuate minds, maybe even somewhat along the lines of the Buddhist philosopher Ratnakīrti's exploration of the coherence (or lack thereof) of the very concept of a single discrete mind separate from the rest of existence.

There are also some plant-like aliens who get around with technological assistance from a shadowy group of other aliens in the distant past. Very cool!

There's also something like a galactic internet discussion board that shows how such a system is vulnerable to misinformation, which is especially prescient for a book published in 1992.

What didn't work as well for me:

The plot starts with children being stranded on an alien planet. We learn about their struggles to survive among the Tines and the adults who embark upon a rescue mission. This is all cool. 

But then we spend A LOT of time in something approaching a Game of Thrones level of political intrigue among the Tine societies, which is interesting to a point. It also suffers from the science fiction writer's Eurocentric fallacy of assuming that the particular history of one small part of Earth (Western Europe) somehow determines the parameters of technological and social development for the entire galaxy (you also see this frequently on Star Trek, for example).

Anyway, all this intrigue became a bit too much for me, and I wanted more time exploring the cool ideas and less on all the quasi-Medieval European drama. In general, I feel like more could have been done with the cool ideas (like at one point an alien on the message board wonders whether the zones of thought have a moral meaning... and then this idea is dropped). Maybe more was done with the ideas in the other books in the series that I haven't read yet.

But your zone of thought may vary!

See also my Goodreads review.

Your Own Personal Dittos: Kiln People by David Brin

 

I met David Brin (the author of Kiln People and many other novels) at a signing about a decade ago. In our small talk (awkward for me; natural for him), I mentioned that I was a philosopher and he recommended Kiln People, which I soon picked up ... and somehow didn't read until now. (If only I had some dittos to get through my to-read pile!)

The idea is really fun and philosophically interesting when it comes to the issue of personal identity (What makes you you? What is a person?). But the plot never really engaged me, and the novel falls into a common SF problem where the societal changes of time and technology are under-explored, which made it hard for me to really buy into the whole concept of dittos.

Happy (?) Fourth Pandemiversary

 

For the last few years, I've made posts on the pandemic anniversary, or "pandemiversary," days. Here is one for March 11, 2024.

It’s our fourth pandemiversary. It was four years ago today that the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic.