Reading

The Hugo Awards for 2025

Posted by Wobbuffet

https://www.metafilter.com/209995/The-Hugo-Awards-for-2025

2025's Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Award winners have been announced. Video of the awards ceremony is on Youtube. Administrator's report and voting stats PDFs. Seattle Worldcon 2025 previously. In 2026, Worldcon will be held in Anaheim, and in 2027, Worldcon will be held in Montréal.

Results for selected categories ... Best Novel

WINNER: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (Goodreads; Storygraph)
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher (Goodreads; Storygraph)

Best Novella

WINNER: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar (Goodreads; Storygraph)
What Feasts at Night, T. Kingfisher (Goodreads; Storygraph)

Best Novelette

WINNER: "The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea" by Naomi Kritzer (Asimov's)
"The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video" by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld
"By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars" by Premee Mohamed (Strange Horizons)
"Lake of Souls" by Ann Leckie in Lake of Souls (Orbit)
"Loneliness Universe" by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny Magazine)
"Signs of Life" by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine)

Best Short Story

WINNER: "Stitched to Skin Like Family Is" by Nghi Vo (Uncanny Magazine)
"Five Views of the Planet Tartarus" by Rachael K. Jones (Lightspeed Magazine)
"Marginalia" by Mary Robinette Kowal (Uncanny Magazine)
"Three Faces of a Beheading" by Arkady Martine (Uncanny Magazine)
"We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read" by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine)
"Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole" by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld)

Best Series

WINNER: Between Earth and Sky by Rebecca Roanhorse (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Burning Kingdoms by Tasha Suri (Goodreads; Storygraph)
InCryptid by Seanan McGuire (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Southern Reach by Jeff VanderMeer (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Tyrant Philosophers by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Goodreads; Storygraph

Best Graphic Story or Comic

WINNER: Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Hunger and the Dusk: Vol. 1 written by G. Willow Wilson, art by Chris Wildgoose (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Goodreads; Storygraph)
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2 by Emil Ferris (Goodreads; Storygraph)
We Called Them Giants written by Kieron Gillen, art by Stephanie Hans, lettering by Clayton Cowles (Goodreads; Storygraph)

Best Related Work

WINNER: Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll (Goodreads; Storygraph)
"Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics" by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones (File 770, February 22, 2024)
r/Fantasy's 2024 Bingo Reading Challenge (r/Fantasy on Reddit)
"The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel" by Jenny Nicholson
Track Changes by Abigail Nussbaum (Goodreads; Storygraph)
"The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion" by Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

WINNER: Dune: Part Two (Fanfare)
Flow (Fanfare)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Fanfare)
I Saw the TV Glow (Fanfare)
Wicked (Fanfare)
The Wild Robot (Fanfare)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

WINNER: Star Trek: Lower Decks: "The New Next Generation" (Fanfare)
Fallout: "The Beginning" (Fanfare)
Agatha All Along: "Death's Hand in Mine" (Fanfare)
Doctor Who: "Dot and Bubble" (Fanfare)
Star Trek: Lower Decks: "Fissure Quest" (Fanfare)
Doctor Who: "73 Yards" (Fanfare)

Best Game or Interactive Work

WINNER: Caves of Qud (Website)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard (Trailer)
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Trailer)
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (Website)
Tactical Breach Wizards (Trailer)
1000xRESIST (Trailer)

Best Semiprozine

WINNER: Uncanny Magazine
The Deadlands
Escape Pod
FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction
khōréō
Strange Horizons

Best Fanzine

Best Fancast

WINNER: Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones
The Coode Street Podcast
Hugo, Girl!
Hugos There
A Meal of Thorns
Worldbuilding for Masochists

Best Poem

WINNER: "A War of Words" by Marie Brennan (Strange Horizons)
Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead (Goodreads; Storygraph)
"Ever Noir" by Mari Ness (Haven Spec Magazine)
"there are no taxis for the dead" by Angela Liu (Uncanny Magazine)
"We Drink Lava" by Ai Jiang (Uncanny Magazine)
"Your Visiting Dragon" by Devan Barlow (Strange Horizons)

Lodestar Award for Best YA Book

WINNER: Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Feast Makers by H.A. Clarke (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao (Goodreads; Storygraph)
The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko (Goodreads; Storygraph)
Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee Yoon Ha Lee withdrew Moonstorm from consideration (Goodreads; Storygraph)
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole (Goodreads; Storygraph)

https://www.metafilter.com/209995/The-Hugo-Awards-for-2025

"SDGs are speculative fiction."

Posted by clew

https://www.metafilter.com/209994/SDGs-are-speculative-fiction

Applied African SF: scientists, writers, game makers, teachers, government, you? via an excellent Worldcon panel.

https://www.metafilter.com/209994/SDGs-are-speculative-fiction

"There's nothing to watch"

Posted by chavenet

https://www.metafilter.com/209993/Theres-nothing-to-watch

Discover movies through an interactive visualization. Explore tens of thousands of films in a unique force-directed voronoi diagram interface.

https://www.metafilter.com/209993/Theres-nothing-to-watch

Greg Holden

Posted by jeffburdges

https://www.metafilter.com/209992/Greg-Holden

We Didn't Learn a Thing, Off With Their Heads, What Am I Supposed To Say, Fuck It, Humans

I linked only new-ish songs above, since he appeared here previously, but I do recommend his older songs too, so see his his youtube.

https://www.metafilter.com/209992/Greg-Holden

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Blue Lock: Allsagi Fanwork Exchange

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Leverage: Fanfiction: too much twinkle

Title: too much twinkle
Fandom: Leverage
Characters: Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, Parker
Length: 200 words
Rating: Teen
Warnings: none
Summary: Parker’s tree might have a little too much twinkle.

( too much twinkle )

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admin: poll: theme

Round 178 Theme Poll

Poll #33498 round 178 theme poll

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 101

Pick the next theme of fancake:

Food & Cooking
43 (42.6%)

Manners & Etiquette
26 (25.7%)

Whump
32 (31.7%)

Slavery, 21st-Century Style

Posted by rory

https://www.metafilter.com/209991/Slavery-21st-Century-Style

In a decade of many horrors, this has to be among the worst. Hundreds of thousands of people from developing countries have been lured to Thailand with the promise of well-paid IT jobs and then enslaved in scam call centres in the no man's land across the Myanmar border.

The problem grows worse, despite the freeing of several thousand earlier in the year. The victims are tortured if they refuse to work or work too slowly, and are bought and sold by the Chinese criminal gangs running the centres, abetted by the corrupt Myanmar warlords who control the region.

https://www.metafilter.com/209991/Slavery-21st-Century-Style

Current Mood: tired

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Weekly proof of life: mostly media

Reading:

scruloose and I finished listening to Artificial Condition and have started Rogue Protocol (but only barely--we've listened to however much of chapter 1 we could get in over supper on Friday before

scruloose had to be doing something else).

We'll Prescribe You a Cat (Syou Ishida) was a very quick read and hard for me to pin down. It's a story in the vein of "~mysterious~ place provides X [often wishes granted or strange/deadly creatures, as in xxxHOLiC or Pet Shop of Horrors], but the actual cats being prescribed mostly appear to be just ("just") cats. I think this is the first in a series. Alas, I find the prose of the translation awfully flat, and can only hope I would've found the book more engaging in different hands.

I also read The City in Glass, which was my first time reading Nghi Vo. Gorgeous prose, a neat concept, and a great read overall.

Watching: We're six episodes into The Summer Hikaru Died (which is, I suppose unsurprisingly given the premise, touching on a significant existential question from Newsflesh [and from plenty of other places]). It continues to be very good. ^_^

I think we also saw an ep. of Silo sometime last week.

And on Friday I started watching Glass Heart on my own. As so often turns out to be the way, choosing it from my horrifying to-watch list was mostly random. Sometimes the choice is made simply because something is short (ten episodes, in this case) and I've seen several friends talking about it very recently. I'm six episodes in now.

I knew going in that Machida Keita is in it (who I knew only from Cherry Magic). I did not know in advance that Satoh Takeru is one of the leads, and then couldn't place him until I caved and looked up the cast. (He played Kenshin in the live-action Rurouni Kenshin movies [of which I've still only seen the first], and was impossibly good in the role. I keep meaning to rewatch the first and watch the others, despite my feelings about the franchise overall being irrevocably poisoned now by the horrible revelations about the creator. I still need to offload my set of the manga. >.<)

Weathering: The drought continues. Parts of the province are on fire, although the uncomfortably-close-to-me wildfire is under control, last I heard.

Planning: We don't have tickets yet, because there aren't yet showtimes for it, but the plan is to see Dongji Rescue late in the week. *fidgets*

Wind turbine trial sparks hope as small-scale power source

Posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries

https://www.metafilter.com/209990/Wind-turbine-trial-sparks-hope-as-small-scale-power-source

Wind turbine trial sparks hope as small-scale power source. A small-scale wind turbine has been developed in Adelaide in the hope of supplying energy direct to off-grid users, including farms, wineries and construction sites.

https://www.metafilter.com/209990/Wind-turbine-trial-sparks-hope-as-small-scale-power-source

Primed to embrace spirituality in a non-corny way

Posted by chavenet

https://www.metafilter.com/209989/Primed-to-embrace-spirituality-in-a-non-corny-way

Now knowledge is shifting again. Ballooning. As AI eats the world, knowledge feels faster, flatter, streamlined. It's valued differently. The way we obtain it is determined by corporate technocracy. It doesn't belong to us. How does literature respond to the fact that we have created and stored more data—knowledge compressed—since the year 2000 than over the rest of human history? Frankly, how does it compete? Enter igno-fiction: stories that lean into all that humans do not know. from Igno-fiction [Dirt]

This is Part II of Where will the next literary movement come from?

https://www.metafilter.com/209989/Primed-to-embrace-spirituality-in-a-non-corny-way

(no subject)

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250816.html

The camera battery died about 2am local time

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250816.html

It embiggens itself

Posted by Going To Maine

https://www.metafilter.com/209988/It-embiggens-itself

The courtship display of Temminck's Tragopan is a sight to behold.

https://www.metafilter.com/209988/It-embiggens-itself

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Torchwood: Fanfic: When the lights go out

Title: When the lights go out
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,161 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 488 - Twinkle
Summary: Jack sees the stars in a completely different light.

( Read more... )

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Crossworks - Multifandom Crossover/Fusion Exchange

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The human soul shines on in the most absurd way possible

Posted by phooky

https://www.metafilter.com/209987/The-human-soul-shines-on-in-the-most-absurd-way-possible

As the guttering flame of human endeavor on the internet flickers to a close, Every 5x5 Nonogram [previously] confronted us with an opportunity: an opportunity to collaboratively, as a community, perform a task that could be completed in mere minutes by a moderately powerful chromebook. And as a community we rose to that challenge. As of this writing, puzzlers from around the world have come together to solve over 24.3 million of the 24,976,511 possible solvable 5x5 nonograms. Sometime over the next forty-eight hours, it is likely that the monumental task will finally be completed. And in a world in which computation is rapidly replacing thought, and generated content is displacing the human soul itself, is this, in itself, not an act of resistance?

The answer is no. No, it is not. These are really easy puzzles, folks. Anyway, if you want to solve a few, get your last licks in while you can.

https://www.metafilter.com/209987/The-human-soul-shines-on-in-the-most-absurd-way-possible

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Tiny House, Big Fix, by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Of the MANY bait-and-switch books I've been tricked into reading, this takes the prize for the biggest switch. The back cover says it's about a single mom carpenter who builds a tiny house for herself and her daughters to live in. The title is about tiny houses. There is a tiny house on the cover. I read the book because I thought it would be about building a tiny house.

The book is actually about the events leading up to her building the tiny house. She doesn't build the tiny house until the LAST CHAPTER. It takes up about four pages.

A side hustle suggestion

Posted by Brandon Blatcher

https://www.metafilter.com/209986/A-side-hustle-suggestion

Do you enjoy returning your shopping cart, aka that taking of aim and pushing the cart from far away to see if you can get it in the pen? That's called shopping cart archery and it's a thing in Germany.

https://www.metafilter.com/209986/A-side-hustle-suggestion

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movies

Movies: Superman, Kpop Demon Hunters

I mostly went to the cinema to watch Superman today because I wanted to feel like I did anything, but I did have a good time.
I'm so out of ~practice watching superhero movies, I kept getting distracted by logic. But other than that I did enjoy the superhero parts, and the Superman parts. (The romance I was neutral on.)
This is another movie where the villain had a good point somewhere in there originally but left "reasonable" behind several thousand miles ago. Yes having extremely powerful metahumans/aliens that can interfere in any conflict they like apparently without any oversight is very concerning (no matter how "human" they feel) but, uh. Excellent job making this Luthor both very evil and very scary.
(I didn't like Krypto. As a "character" he was fun but I really dislike badly trained exuberant dogs and one with superpowers is so much worse.)

A few weeks ago I organized a movie night with friends to watch Kpop Demon Hunters because I'd heard so much about it and that was a great decision. Here I didn't get distracted by logic once ^^ It was just a fun time. And the songs are very catchy, too. I've already sung one at karaoke (This is what it sounds like) and tried two of them in Beat Saber (Golden was very difficult, Soda Pop on easy was indeed easy.)
I only took a brief look at fandom/fanfic but I'm not feeling that fannish about it. (I was surprised that the common assumption seems to be

spoilers

that Rumi's mother had a secret love affair with a demon - I think it might even be word of god canon - while my first thought was that she was probably raped. Fandom is also very hard on Celine, which on the one hand I understand but she was also in a super shitty position.)

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XMEN100 - a weekly drabble challenge for X-Men

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