#I'd already read the Wiswell and Mills and read through the rest of them yesterday

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

Short thoughts on the 2023 Hugo Short Stories Finalists

On the Razor's Edge by Jiang Bo: Caveat that it's noted that due to the short time frame the work is AI translated.

Chinese astronauts launch a rescue mission. Feels somewhat reminiscent of golden age SF - men saving lives with their technical knowledge and sheer gumption. A feel good message about how space is for all mankind.

I've only read one other story by this author Face Changing which I enjoyed a lot more. I think the machine translation probably hurt this one but even beside that the characters felt rather simplistic.

D.I.Y. by John Wiswell: The Youth™ find a solution to a drought whern the magical establishment have failed to.

Two years running of Wiswell getting nominated for something that isn't even the best thing he wrote that year. If anything by Wiswell got nominated this year it should have been The Coward who Stole God's name.

I read this when it came out and instantly thought it would get a bunch of award nominations which was accurate. It was too pollyannaish for me but lots of people loved it.

The White Cliff by Lu Ban: SF short story where the central SF conceit is used to explore grief and death. I liked this one!

The translation is awkward in places (I'm not certain whether it's machine translated or just done in a rush) but it's an enjoyable story and the relationship between Yanli and An was compelling enough to keep me interested.

Zhurong on Mars by Regina Kanyu Wan: An AI alone on Mars after humans have abandoned their physical forms.

I appreciated the translators note explaining the choice of pronouns/the Chinese mythology the story is inspired by/scientific background (complete with a footnote linking to a relevant Nature paper).

It's a really engaging story - the type of one you keep reading because you want to find out what happens next. I would have liked to have seen the conflicting viewpoints of Zhurong and Gonggong explored in more depth and I would have liked a little more detail on the new life at the end but other than that it was great.

Resurrection by Ren Qing: Another story using technology to explore grief and death but while The White Cliff was focused exclusively on those Resurrection has a broader scope - war, trauma, politics, societal prejudice.

It's great at quickly establishing characters. We get a sense of the personality of even briefly appearing characters. There's only so much complexity you can build even for the main characters in the small page count but the story makes good use of the space it has to develop them,

It's the only story included which had a line that made me laugh out loud even though it's not in any sense a comedic story which has to count for something.

The ending is haunting and feels as if it is the inevitable conclusion to the story.

Good characters, interesting themes, a sprinkling of humor and a fitting ending. What more could you ask for?

Rabbit Test by Samantha Mills: A story about abortion rights in the USA. Unsurprisingly it resonated in a post Dobbs landscape and has already won a Locus and Nebula. I wouldn't rate it among the best short stories I read in 2022 but it's a solid timely story.

I'm personally tried with SF about American politics which probably makes my judgement a a little harsh. I'd probably have appreciated it more if it was about abortion rights in literally any other country.

My ranking:

Resurrection

Zhurong on Mars

The White Cliff

Rabbit Test

D.I.Y.

On the Razor's Edge

First and second could flip as could third and fourth but otherwise I don't expect these to change much.

It's a reasonably solid list of stories with nothing quite outstandingly good or bad. Most recent years had stories that were worse than everything on the list but also stories that were better than all of them.