Author Topic: EP461: Selkie Stories are for Losers  (Read 16824 times)

eytanz

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ElectricPaladin

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Reply #1 on: September 14, 2014, 08:38:44 PM
On the one hand, I really enjoyed this story. I often get sad feels after stories in which the selkie (or whatever) heroically returns home, leaving her life behind her. The love-lorn but entitled-as-all-hell bastard of her husband (or sometimes just straight-up abusive, depending on the story) I can get as not terribly sympathetic, but when they leave kids behind... it bothers me. I liked that this story approached that theme from the other side.

On the other hand, I couldn't stand this story. I am really bored of this trend in stories that take their perspective from so deep inside the narrative character's head that nothing ever actually seems to happen, just an extended series of thoughts and feelings and reflections, with the occasional abortive mini-conversations and smidgens of action. I've heard exactly one story like that which I really enjoyed, and that was the one with the disappearing monkey magic trick. Every other one of these stories I've experienced has bored me.

The long and the short of it is that I would have liked this story a lot more if it was written in a more traditional dialogue-and-action style, but I appreciated the sentiment and enjoyed the character and her journey.

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Reply #2 on: September 14, 2014, 09:35:11 PM
I think as a child I read a story where the daughter of a selkie had also been born with a seal-skin that was taken and hidden from her?

I thought there was enough of a plot in the story for how short it was. A young woman goes back and forth between a mediocre job and a broken home, occasionally flashing back and dreaming about the future, as she forms a relationship with another young woman whose problems mirror her own. In tone it reminded me a little bit of Ghost World or Daria, maybe just because there's so few stories about cynical teen girls hanging out with each other; still, there are other similarities, like the contrast of the strange and supernatural with the mundanity of life and the future.

The Hugos were heavy on relationship stories this year, weren't they? This one would have had my vote.



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Reply #3 on: September 18, 2014, 04:33:00 AM
This is actually the second time I've heard this story (it was on Starship Sofa in another reading, too).

There's nothing really *wrong* with the story, it just lacks a strong narrative center. It's well written and the characters are well-drawn, but….

I really have no idea what the Hugo committee was thinking this year. I know that Escape Pod and Podcastle don't specialize in the new, and that's ok, but I've heard much better stories on both, and I know that they weren't all Hugo nominated stories.



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Reply #4 on: September 18, 2014, 11:04:24 AM
I think, what I really love about this story, is the way the selkie theme morphs and changes and extends to all the mothers and daughters in this story throughout.

So first, it's the narrator's mother who was the selkie who left when the narrator was a child, after finding the coat in the attic. And then it's Mona's mother, who is trapped in a bad marriage (with all the connotations of isolation and homesickness associated with immigration) and who attempts suicide as her way of "returning to the sea". And finally, the story ends with the narrator herself embarking on an adventure with the woman she loves, and the anxiety that Mona, too, might someday go selkie, that she might feel trapped by love, or not really love her in return, just like the selkie wives and their husbands before.

All these layers made me think about relationships, and how much trust and risk is involved. No matter how well you think you know a person, ultimately it's impossible for us to know for sure what's going on below the surface.

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Reply #5 on: September 18, 2014, 11:20:11 AM
I really have no idea what the Hugo committee was thinking this year. I know that Escape Pod and Podcastle don't specialize in the new, and that's ok, but I've heard much better stories on both, and I know that they weren't all Hugo nominated stories.

There is no "Hugo committee" that picks the stories! They're nominated & voted in by supporting or attending members of Worldcon. There were over 1900 nomination ballots this year, and 3500 people voted on the shortlisted titles.

There is no small committee making weird decisions. There's a large group of people making weird decisions ;-)

Attend Worldcon, or pay up for a supporter vote, and you too can help define what the Hugo's produce next year!

Personally I liked this rather a lot. While there wasn't a lot of plot-driven story arc, there was a heck of a character-driven one. It was a great story about the blooming of friendship & love, the ways that families can screw you up, and that drive some have to escape their small-town lives. Wrapping all that around the Selkie myth metaphor was lovely.

Sure, not a lot happen "outside" of our narrator's head — but she was a very different person at the end of her story than she was at the start.

Very well narrated too. Kudos.



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Reply #6 on: September 19, 2014, 06:16:08 AM

Attend Worldcon, or pay up for a supporter vote, and you too can help define what the Hugo's produce next year!


I know people who voted at Worldcon, and *they* didn't understand why these stories got chosen….



adrianh

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Reply #7 on: September 19, 2014, 09:39:19 AM

I know people who voted at Worldcon, and *they* didn't understand why these stories got chosen….

The rules aren't that complicated http://www.thehugoawards.org/the-voting-system/

Worldcon members nominated up to five stories in each category (865 ballots in the short story category this year). The five stories with the most votes in each category, and at least 5% of the votes, get on the short list. Folk vote on the short list. Winner get award. Simples!

There is no "choosing" beyond what folk nominate. Anybody who is a Worldcon member can nominate. You can pay a supporter membership and nominate. Your friend attended so they can nominate stories for next year.

There is no conspiracy apart from the fact that folks tastes differ. I loved this story. If I was a Worldcon member it may well have been on my nomination ballot ;-)




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Reply #8 on: September 19, 2014, 12:35:43 PM
My review of it in my Hugo short story roundup this year
A girl’s mother leaves her family behind.  The girl thinks the circumstances imply that her mother is a selkie (a mythical shapeshifting creature that could turn into a seal by pulling on her sealskin, but would be trapped in human form if that skin was stolen).

Most of the body of the story is the girl criticizing the tropes of selkie stories, which I wasn’t very interested in, partly because I haven’t seen enough selkie stories to really say whether her tropes are actually accurate or not.  While some of the circumstances of her mother leaving match a selkie story, I didn’t see any really strong evidence that that was the case, so it just seemed to be a story about a neurotic fixation caused by family trauma.  The family trauma, perhaps I should’ve felt moved by, but it happened before the story started, and rather than confront the real situation she spends all of her time obsessing about selkie stories.

Not my thing, I guess.



When I'm voting for the Hugos, since they're a genre award, I really want them to be clearly speculative stories.  I didn't think this one was--the coincidence of the giving of the jacket and the leaving of the mother struck me more as a major coincidental detail that a child might fixate on over years of obsessing.  But apart from that I also just wasn't really that interested in anything that happened, whether in the selkie-summary mode or in the main story.  I didn't find the characters that interesting and it didn't really matter to me what happened to them.



The rules aren't that complicated http://www.thehugoawards.org/the-voting-system/

Worldcon members nominated up to five stories in each category (865 ballots in the short story category this year). The five stories with the most votes in each category, and at least 5% of the votes, get on the short list. Folk vote on the short list. Winner get award. Simples!

There is no "choosing" beyond what folk nominate. Anybody who is a Worldcon member can nominate. You can pay a supporter membership and nominate. Your friend attended so they can nominate stories for next year.

There is no conspiracy apart from the fact that folks tastes differ. I loved this story. If I was a Worldcon member it may well have been on my nomination ballot ;-)

What Adrian said.  I nominate and vote because I think the award is fun.  If you want to contribute, you can, for the price of $50 or so (was $40 this year but $50 last year) to buy a supporting membership.  I don't get why this story was so popular either, but that's okay.  There's nobody to complain against unless you want to complain to voting fandom in general who made the decision. 



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Reply #9 on: September 19, 2014, 12:48:48 PM
When I'm voting for the Hugos, since they're a genre award, I really want them to be clearly speculative stories.  I didn't think this one was--the coincidence of the giving of the jacket and the leaving of the mother struck me more as a major coincidental detail that a child might fixate on over years of obsessing. 

I read it as the author very deliberately riding the line between a mundane and fantastical explanation… but I accept reasonable people could differ on that ;-)



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Reply #10 on: September 19, 2014, 12:51:30 PM
When I'm voting for the Hugos, since they're a genre award, I really want them to be clearly speculative stories.  I didn't think this one was--the coincidence of the giving of the jacket and the leaving of the mother struck me more as a major coincidental detail that a child might fixate on over years of obsessing. 

I read it as the author very deliberately riding the line between a mundane and fantastical explanation… but I accept reasonable people could differ on that ;-)

How dare you imply that I am reasonable!   ;D



matweller

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Reply #11 on: September 19, 2014, 01:59:52 PM

I know people who voted at Worldcon, and *they* didn't understand why these stories got chosen….

The rules aren't that complicated http://www.thehugoawards.org/the-voting-system/

Worldcon members nominated up to five stories in each category (865 ballots in the short story category this year). The five stories with the most votes in each category, and at least 5% of the votes, get on the short list. Folk vote on the short list. Winner get award. Simples!

There is no "choosing" beyond what folk nominate. Anybody who is a Worldcon member can nominate. You can pay a supporter membership and nominate. Your friend attended so they can nominate stories for next year.

There is no conspiracy apart from the fact that folks tastes differ. I loved this story. If I was a Worldcon member it may well have been on my nomination ballot ;-)

From what I understand, part of the problem is that the field is so vast, that most of the stories get a nomination and a handful of votes. If you can rally fans or family members to vote for you, you'll have a small percentage that will be enough for you to win by a landslide. The only way to change that is more voters. Maybe they need to Kickstart a nominating & voting app that could be promoted within sci-fi communities like ours. Or at least make it possible & simple for more of the public to vote...even a web form that required a $1 donation per vote...could be a great revenue generator and really help cull the herd.



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Reply #12 on: September 19, 2014, 02:44:51 PM
From what I understand, part of the problem is that the field is so vast, that most of the stories get a nomination and a handful of votes. If you can rally fans or family members to vote for you, you'll have a small percentage that will be enough for you to win by a landslide. The only way to change that is more voters. Maybe they need to Kickstart a nominating & voting app that could be promoted within sci-fi communities like ours. Or at least make it possible & simple for more of the public to vote...even a web form that required a $1 donation per vote...could be a great revenue generator and really help cull the herd.

It's kind of a tricky situation with pressures from both sides. 

I pay for the supporting membership in large part because of the Hugo packet, the big electronic package of most of the nominated works.  The providing of the works for the packet is up to the discretion of the publishers.  At this point, most publishers do because, basically, they're giving away a couple thousand possible free versions in exchange for their work having a much better chance of winning because people will have read it instead of just being ignorant of the category.  But if ten times as many people signed up, publishers would be much less likely to participate because that's a lot of people who might've bought the book but no longer need to--if the works weren't available in the packet, then that would make less people sign up.

A $1 donation with packet is an interesting idea, I think it would bring the numbers up.  Maybe if there was still an option to get the packet with a higher donation, maybe that could work.  If there were two levels like that, I'd still pay for the packet level as long as it didn't get too high.



matweller

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Reply #13 on: September 19, 2014, 05:31:59 PM
From what I understand, part of the problem is that the field is so vast, that most of the stories get a nomination and a handful of votes. If you can rally fans or family members to vote for you, you'll have a small percentage that will be enough for you to win by a landslide. The only way to change that is more voters. Maybe they need to Kickstart a nominating & voting app that could be promoted within sci-fi communities like ours. Or at least make it possible & simple for more of the public to vote...even a web form that required a $1 donation per vote...could be a great revenue generator and really help cull the herd.

It's kind of a tricky situation with pressures from both sides.  

I pay for the supporting membership in large part because of the Hugo packet, the big electronic package of most of the nominated works.  The providing of the works for the packet is up to the discretion of the publishers.  At this point, most publishers do because, basically, they're giving away a couple thousand possible free versions in exchange for their work having a much better chance of winning because people will have read it instead of just being ignorant of the category.  But if ten times as many people signed up, publishers would be much less likely to participate because that's a lot of people who might've bought the book but no longer need to--if the works weren't available in the packet, then that would make less people sign up.

A $1 donation with packet is an interesting idea, I think it would bring the numbers up.  Maybe if there was still an option to get the packet with a higher donation, maybe that could work.  If there were two levels like that, I'd still pay for the packet level as long as it didn't get too high.
How does one become a supporting member? Their site says you don't need to attend conventions to participate, but there appears to be no way on any of their sites to become a member, or even to find out how to do so.

I do wonder, though, if there was a $5 or $10 eBook of the nominees with a ballot at the end of it, they could sell it for a limited time on every online bookseller. Then, Worldcon gets its money; it can kick royalties back to the pubs to encourage them to continue; the voting pool is larger, giving more legitimacy to the award; and becoming a voter is as easy as buying and downloading a book.

I'm just spitballing, I have no authority in the matter and no stake in the game. They will do what they want to do for reasons important to them, and that's totally legit. It just seems that every year there is a significant outcry and there are ways to alleviate it where everybody involves wins. Maybe I just need to start my own award... :P



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Reply #14 on: September 19, 2014, 07:47:56 PM
How does one become a supporting member? Their site says you don't need to attend conventions to participate, but there appears to be no way on any of their sites to become a member, or even to find out how to do so.

Right, you don't need to actually go to the convention.  A "supporting" membership means you get the Hugo packet and the right to nominate and vote, as well as the right to nominate in the following year.  The actual weblink to register varies from year to year because "WorldCon" moves from place and place and has new convention name and website along with it.  This year's WorldCon is over and done so you can't register for that anymore, but you can register for WorldCon 2015 Sasquan which is in Spokane Washington here for $40:
https://sasquan.swoc.us/sasquan/reg.php

It just seems that every year there is a significant outcry

I don't know that I'd call it significant when people who haven't taken a few minutes to research how the award is decided criticize a nonexistent committee for their nonexistent horrible choice.

Not that there hasn't been plenty of controversy in different years of the award, this year included, but usually that kind of controversy actually spawns more members (as it did this year) because some people go all gungho about anything if they think they have a cause to support no matter what side they're on.

there are ways to alleviate it where everybody involves wins.

I would like to see that happen.  Many people in the SF community recognize "Hugo" as a big important reward, but it's kind of ludicrous how small a portion of SF fandom actually determines it, despite it being a fandom award.  I would like to see a lot more people involved to better represent the whole of fandom.

Maybe I just need to start my own award... :P

Every award started as an idea in some person's head at some point, right?  :)



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Reply #15 on: September 19, 2014, 08:27:21 PM
Maybe I just need to start my own award... :P

Every award started as an idea in some person's head at some point, right?  :)

My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner". ;)

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Reply #16 on: September 19, 2014, 08:44:38 PM
My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner". ;)

You and me both.  :)



matweller

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Reply #17 on: September 19, 2014, 11:45:42 PM
My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner". ;)

You and me both.  :)
Then let me go on record now about how much I don't think the stories you haven't submitted yet didn't deserve to win some future Hugo. <3



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Reply #18 on: September 19, 2014, 11:59:13 PM
My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner". ;)

You and me both.  :)
Then let me go on record now about how much I don't think the stories you haven't submitted yet didn't deserve to win some future Hugo. <3


Awwwwwww!  That's the nicest thing anyone will have said to me!  :)



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Reply #19 on: September 20, 2014, 12:10:39 AM
My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner". ;)

You and me both.  :)
Then let me go on record now about how much I don't think the stories you haven't submitted yet didn't deserve to win some future Hugo. <3

D'awww, thanks Mat! :D

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adrianh

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Reply #20 on: September 20, 2014, 10:08:45 AM

From what I understand, part of the problem is that the field is so vast, that most of the stories get a nomination and a handful of votes. If you can rally fans or family members to vote for you, you'll have a small percentage that will be enough for you to win by a landslide. The only way to change that is more voters. Maybe they need to Kickstart a nominating & voting app that could be promoted within sci-fi communities like ours. Or at least make it possible & simple for more of the public to vote...even a web form that required a $1 donation per vote...could be a great revenue generator and really help cull the herd.

I think it much more likely that the "problem" (if such a thing even exists — I personally don't think it does) is that the slightly unusual stories stand out a bit more. For example there were numerous SF shorts that I enjoyed  this year — but John Chu's "The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere" really stuck in my head because it was so different. If I'd been a Worldcon member it would have been on my nominations, and I might well have voted for it. Because as well as being a good read, it really stood out as "different" from the other stuff I've read this year.

I think that the supposed problems with rigged votes were put to the test this year with the online campaign by some fans for The Wheel of Time & the whole weird Larry Correia and Vox Day thing (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2014/04/20/no-the-hugo-nominations-were-not-rigged/). The former didn't win. The latter campaign got very few stories onto the short list, and they were all soundly not voted for by the vast majority.

Making nominations and voting cheaper would, in all likelihood, exacerbate the problem of rigged nominations & voting because the barrier to entry would become much, much lower. How many SparklyVampire or StarJourney fans would be willing to lay down a couple of dollars to vote for their favourite novel ever?

I know my tastes are much closer to "folk who attend Worldcon" than it is to "everybody in the world who likes anything that could be given a spec-fic label".

But, like I said, I personally don't see a problem that needs addressing. People's tastes differ. There's never a public voted award ceremony that maps onto my tastes in fiction at 100%. In fact I'd say that this year's Hugo's are probably a better match for my tastes than most years.

In fact, now that I think of it, I like awards that don't always map onto my tastes well. Coz that way I get my definitions of what is 'good' poked at a bit, and maybe try something new.



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Reply #21 on: September 20, 2014, 06:10:09 PM


I do wonder, though, if there was a $5 or $10 eBook of the nominees with a ballot at the end of it, they could sell it for a limited time on every online bookseller. Then, Worldcon gets its money; it can kick royalties back to the pubs to encourage them to continue; the voting pool is larger, giving more legitimacy to the award; and becoming a voter is as easy as buying and downloading a book.


So, for reasons that may or may not be immediately obvious, this was a question I asked quite directly of my publisher this year: Could Worldcon sell the voters packet at a token price to members only, thus generating some kind of revenue but keeping the work easily accessible for voters? And basically, the answer is no. The way that contracts are structured--not only publishers' contracts with writers but also their contracts with various booksellers--makes this extremely difficult, if not impossible.

On the other hand, while Orbit only included excerpts of its nominated novels, they did discount their nominees significantly (for everyone who bought them as ebooks, not just Worldcon members) in the month leading up to Hugo voting closing. Which I did appreciate.

I'm going to predict that as far as novels go, we're going to see a lot more of publishers only including a sample in the packet, and then discounting the book through regular channels, now Orbit has set that precedent.

And your basic idea of an award voted on by all of the purchasers of a particular ebook compilation is an interesting one, but could not be the Hugos without a tremendous change to the Hugo rules, not to mention its nature and purpose. And anyone who's attended a business meeting of the World Science Fiction Society will tell you how much work even the smallest change is! But it might be an interesting new award, if someone could manage to set it up. (I suspect contractual issues would nix it out of the gate, but there's no reason not to investigate it, if someone wants to.)

Incidentally, let me join in the chorus encouraging anyone who's interested in the Hugos to become a Hugo voter if they can afford it. Yes, even if your taste is radically different from mine!

Quote from: Varda
My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner".  ;)

I'm not gonna lie, that is very nearly the most fun ever.

Oh, I'm way off topic. I love this story. So much. I'm so glad she won the Campbell.




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Reply #22 on: September 20, 2014, 08:29:15 PM
Wow. I'm pretty sure that there was a story here, and not just ramblings about the Hugo process...
(Mods, maybe you can split the thread...?)

On the other hand, if that's all people want to talk about in the story thread, that says something about the story. (And nothing good...)
It took me a few minutes to remember what a Selkie was, and then I lost interest. Because it wasn't so much a story as a stream of consciousness... thing. I dunno, I don't like stream of consciousness and never have. I found it hard to follow, impossible to connect with any of the characters, and completely lacking in the normal parts of a story (plot, background, climax, resolution, multi-dimensional characters, killer robots and brain slugs).

I usually don't like the Hugo stories (and I'm clearly not alone here). The Nebula stories though... maybe we could have Nebula Month in April\May?

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Reply #23 on: September 22, 2014, 02:11:27 PM
So, for reasons that may or may not be immediately obvious, this was a question I asked quite directly of my publisher this year: Could Worldcon sell the voters packet at a token price to members only, thus generating some kind of revenue but keeping the work easily accessible for voters? And basically, the answer is no. The way that contracts are structured--not only publishers' contracts with writers but also their contracts with various booksellers--makes this extremely difficult, if not impossible.

I guess that doesn't entirely surprise me.  Interesting thought, though.  

On the other hand, while Orbit only included excerpts of its nominated novels, they did discount their nominees significantly (for everyone who bought them as ebooks, not just Worldcon members) in the month leading up to Hugo voting closing. Which I did appreciate.

I'm going to predict that as far as novels go, we're going to see a lot more of publishers only including a sample in the packet, and then discounting the book through regular channels, now Orbit has set that precedent.

I hope it doesn't go that way in the future.  I can understand why Orbit chose to do it--four of the five nominees were published by Orbit, so unless Correia's book took the prize Orbit wins.  I like that I can typically pay one reasonable fee to get a package of Hugo-nominated works for the year.  If only some novels are included in the packet then those are going to be the novels I'm least likely to read, and thus least likely to vote for.  If no novels are included, then I'm probably going to stop registering to be a Hugo voter at all because the packet is a major draw for me--if I have to then go buy the novels individually (even if reasonably priced) then what was the point of investing in the Hugo packet?  The shorter fiction is already mostly available outside the Hugo packet.  The excerpts of novels were not interesting to me--I'm either going to read the novel or not read the novel, not just read an excerpt.

This year I actually managed to read some portion of all of the novels (despite the lack of inclusion in the packet), which is a first for me.  But that was due in large part because I'd already completed the Wheel of Time series a year before, and I'd already read Ancillary Justice six months before.  Correia's book was in the packet, I got a review copy of Parasite from Orbit, and I borrowed Neptune's Brood from a friend.


Wow. I'm pretty sure that there was a story here, and not just ramblings about the Hugo process...
(Mods, maybe you can split the thread...?)

On the other hand, if that's all people want to talk about in the story thread, that says something about the story. (And nothing good...)

I don't think it's fair to say that the existence of the Hugo tangent was because there's nothing good to say about the story.  While I personally didn't care for it, hautdesert's post is one of the longest posts in the tangent and she said specifically that she loves this story.  The reason the tangent kicked off is not because of anything about the story itself, but that detracting comment criticized the Hugo committee for its choice, and it seems reasonable at that juncture to point out that it's a fan-voted award and so you have no one to blame but yourself and your peers for Hugo choices.

I'm totally fine with this conversation being split elsewhere, but would also love if there were some way to at least leave some kind of content about how the Hugo awards are actually decided so that the same conversational slant doesn't come up once the conversation is split off.  It's not fair to this story or its author to blame some secret cabal of vote fixers operating behind the scenes in some shadowy conference room.  The story is on the ballot because enough fans liked it and voted for it for it to end up there, period.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2014, 02:13:11 PM by Unblinking »



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Reply #24 on: September 22, 2014, 10:08:20 PM
I often don't really understand why certain stories get on the Hugo ballot while others don't, though there are always exceptions to that. The set this year does seem to have been very relational/introspective/stream of consciousness driven, as opposed to more plot driven stories. Not really my cup of tea.



Tori

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Reply #25 on: September 23, 2014, 11:36:17 AM
Okay. I just wanted to talk about how much I adored this story. The voice of the narrator was strong and interesting. The story was heartbreaking and moving, and gets at the core of adolescent motivation and comprehension. What she sees is a mother who has abandoned her. The narrator is moving to the center of the country, abandoning the temptation of the sea, trying desperately to hold on to love and the one she loves. Yet, seals speak to her in a foreign language and she has some insight into her mother's longing for a different world, which is shown by the way she describes her mother swimming laps at the pool. For me, this story was like a maze, which includes multiple possibilities and spaces in a small area and which continually reveals itself as something new and wonderful and dark with each turn. I couldn't help but be reminded of Borges and Anne Frank. I know that sounds somewhat bizarre and even over-the-top, but so be it. That's where my brain went.



albionmoonlight

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Reply #26 on: September 23, 2014, 02:56:11 PM
I will admit to not knowing what a Selkie was until this story.

Overall, I liked it.  I can see how the author's very conscious meta use of the Selkie metaphor could come off as too heavy-handed.  But it did not for me.  I thought that it was a bold choice, and it worked.  Though the story was certainly not plot-driven, I did not get the sense that it lacked action.  The narrator's mother, Mona's mother, the relationship between Mona and the narrator.  They all had enough "action" to them that, even though they were told as reflection, I felt engaged.

As for the Hugos this year, in my opinion, The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere was my clear favorite by a couple of touchdowns.  But this story was my clear second choice.



Springaldjack

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Reply #27 on: September 23, 2014, 07:05:04 PM
I really really love this story. It makes me so happy.

However every time it bothers me that seals (and thus presumably Selkies) breathe air, not water.



Unblinking

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Reply #28 on: September 23, 2014, 07:09:22 PM
However every time it bothers me that seals (and thus presumably Selkies) breathe air, not water.

Good point.  Why did that not occur to me?

I think it's never meant to be taken entirely literally anyway, more along the general concept of taking a creature out of its element--making a snow leopard live in the tropics or a hippo live on a mountain.       



Springaldjack

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Reply #29 on: September 23, 2014, 07:19:37 PM
However every time it bothers me that seals (and thus presumably Selkies) breathe air, not water.

Good point.  Why did that not occur to me?

I think it's never meant to be taken entirely literally anyway, more along the general concept of taking a creature out of its element--making a snow leopard live in the tropics or a hippo live on a mountain.       

Oh for sure. But that is basically the one element of the story that pulls me out, because I love everything else about it so much.



bounceswoosh

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Reply #30 on: September 24, 2014, 02:40:05 AM
Just posting to say, yes, I did like this story. I like character studies.



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Reply #31 on: September 24, 2014, 10:49:30 PM
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


TrishEM

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Reply #32 on: September 28, 2014, 11:03:28 AM
The two Hugo nominees that were most obviously SFF stories (The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere and The Ink Readers of Doi Saket) did nothing for me (and I'd argue that TWTFOYFN could be almost the same story without the fantasy/absurdist element), whereas the two that some people claim aren't really SFF at all (Selkie Stories are for Losers and If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love) seem far superior to me.

Over on the IYWADML thread, I asserted vehemently that it was speculative fiction. The same goes for SSAFL.
It's true that the poem says IF this speculative thing were so, rather than IT IS, and it's true that Selkie Stories' protagonist never actually saw her mom change into a seal and swim away, so technically she could just be constructing an illusory worldview that lets her transform the inexplicability of loss and heartache into the inexplicability of magic. However, isn't the element of uncertainty integral to speculative fiction? Maybe even the uncertainty of our definitions, and where we draw the lines? So, even if a protagonist KNOWS that she's just building castles in the air, I'm enchanted to be invited to lend a figurative hand with my suspension of disbelief, especially when the writing is beautiful and/or the character is well drawn.

What's the opposite of speculative -- mundane? As far as I'm concerned, these two stories are not the least bit mundane, in either sense of the word -- neither too worldly and un-speculative for inclusion here, nor too dull or lacking in interest and excitement. The conflicts may be internal, and the speculative elements may be primarily in the protagonists' heads, but in my opinion, that makes them no less worthy of our attention and discussion.



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Reply #33 on: October 02, 2014, 04:03:50 PM
Quote from: Varda
My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner".  ;)

I'm not gonna lie, that is very nearly the most fun ever.

 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D


eytanz

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Reply #34 on: October 02, 2014, 04:24:19 PM
Moderator's note:

The discussion of EP's editorial policies regardling genre and Hugo nominees has been moved to its own thread. Please keep discussion in episode threads to be about the content of the stories; if you want to discuss how EP chooses its stories, that belongs in the "About EP" forum.



UnfulredJohnson

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Reply #35 on: October 12, 2014, 10:41:14 PM
This story was all about voice. And it had it in spades. Really like this one.



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Reply #36 on: October 23, 2014, 09:05:16 AM
Yes, I liked this one a lot as well, as a character piece and a meditation on loss, freedom and heritage it was excellent and written in a beautiful way. If I would have voted, it would be for this one.