Hugo Awards discussion post: short fiction categories

It's my first year as a voter in the Hugo Awards, and the voter packet was just released this weekend, containing pretty much every nominated work of fiction, representative samples of fiction edited by those in the Best Editor and publication categories, selections of writing/art by the Best Fanwriter, Fan Artist and Professional Artist nominees, and books by the Campbell Award nominees.

I know there are a fair few of my friends here on Dreamwidth who are also voting, and I thought it might be nice to do a series of posts where people could discuss the nominated works/individuals. 'Discuss' could be that you actually talk about how you're planning to vote in the applicable categories and explain your reasoning, or it could be just pulling out elements you like or dislike about any of the nominated works. People who have read/watched the work(s) in question but are not Hugos voters are of course also welcome to join in -- many of them are freely available online so you wouldn't necessarily have to buy your own copy if you wanted to participate.

I've designed the post so that there is a dedicated thread for comments on each award category, so can you try to keep your comments in the relevant thread if possible?

Today's post is about the nominees in the short fiction categories: Best Novella, Best Novelette, and Best Short Story. These are as follows:

Best Novella

Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells (Tor.com publishing)
Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com publishing)
Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com publishing)
The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com publishing)
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson (Tor.com publishing)
The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press / JABberwocky Literary Agency)

Best Novelette

'If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,' by Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog, 29 November 2018)
'The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections,' by Tina Connolly (Tor.com, 11 July 2018)
'Nine Last Days on Planet Earth,' by Daryl Gregory (Tor.com, 19 September 2018)
'The Only Harmless Great Thing,' by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com publishing)
'The Thing About Ghost Stories,' by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)
'When We Were Starless,' by Simone Heller (Clarkesworld 145, October 2018)

Best Short Story

'The Court Magician,' by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, January 2018)
'The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society,' by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)
'The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington,' by P. Djèlí Clark (Fireside Magazine, February 2018)
'STET,' by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)
'The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat,' by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine 23, July-August 2018)
'A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,' by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, February 2018)

You can see the nominees in all the Hugo Award categories here. I'll make other posts for other categories on a staggered basis, so look out for those over the course of the time leading up to Worldcon.