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1939 Retro-Hugos, Thoughts
Jul. 11th, 2014 10:12 amNovelette
“Hollywood on the Moon” by Henry Kuttner is badly dated. It postulates a deep crater on the Moon's far side with a breathable atmosphere. I found the story hard to get into. "Werewoman” by C. L. Moore was even worse in that regard. I'm still working my way through this category.
Novella
Ayn Rand's offering, Anthem, is actually quite good. Her politics are a bit heavy-handed, but not nearly as bad as they would be at novel length. Now, don't get me wrong - "Who Goes There" is definitely a better story - but Anthem is not bad.
Short Story
"Helen O'Loy" is the story of two geeks who create a female robot and fall in love with it. It feels derivative because we've seen a lot of stories like that. It's not derivative; rather it's the base text the other stories were derived from!
“Hollywood on the Moon” by Henry Kuttner is badly dated. It postulates a deep crater on the Moon's far side with a breathable atmosphere. I found the story hard to get into. "Werewoman” by C. L. Moore was even worse in that regard. I'm still working my way through this category.
Novella
Ayn Rand's offering, Anthem, is actually quite good. Her politics are a bit heavy-handed, but not nearly as bad as they would be at novel length. Now, don't get me wrong - "Who Goes There" is definitely a better story - but Anthem is not bad.
Short Story
"Helen O'Loy" is the story of two geeks who create a female robot and fall in love with it. It feels derivative because we've seen a lot of stories like that. It's not derivative; rather it's the base text the other stories were derived from!
