psocoptera

Two last novellas:

"Seeds of Mercury", Wang Jinkang, transl. Alex Woodend. This is very Hal Clement/Robert L. Forward (except some magical/handwavey science regarding durability of human engineering). I sometimes find SFF in translation more interesting as a chance to see what kind of things non-Anglosphere people are writing than interesting in themselves as fiction, and this was a case of that. (My favorite part was trying to remember my favorite scene from _Dragon's Egg_, where the one alien, like, spends a huge part of its life holding still so that it can streak by the window and just barely be seen by the human astronaut, do I have that right?) Some neat moments about how and why people make the choices to dedicate themselves to this creation of life on Mercury project, but I was bored by the anti-religion stuff at the end, and put off by how one character's disability was addressed. (Obviously I am not Chinese and am not going to understand the cultural context/cultural values Wang Jinkang is coming from here, just, for me as a USian reader, it felt ableist in a way I found uncomfortable.)

"Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet", He Xi, transl. Alex Woodend. I found this very clunky and confusing for awhile, possibly from translation problems, but it eventually coughed up some neat imagery and a vaguely Star-Trekkian ethical dilemma. I kind of think the whole doomed-romance angle must have been being carried in poetic language or literary references that didn't come across in the translation.

Ballot behind cut.

Well, blah. I don't love this being the ballot in a year when we also had Last Dragoners of Bowbazar, Iron Children, and Untethered Sky, but I guess at least I didn't have to read a Wayward Children, so huzzah for this ballot after all. I don't think Mammoths was the best Singing Hills installment, but I did like it (see here). (Although we already gave Salt and Fortune the novella Hugo.) Mimicking was fun (and I have reminded myself here that I liked it quite a bit more than its sequel which I read more recently). Vernon is always a good read but the plot of Thornhedge felt a little forced (here). I have no idea how to rank Rose/House against the Chinese works - Martine doesn't have the excuse of being in translation. But I think this is more or less my ballot.

1 - Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo
2 - The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
3 - Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
4 - Rose/House by Arkady Martine
5 - “Seeds of Mercury” by Wang Jinkang
6 - “Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet” by He Xi