Hugo nominees 2013

Again! Another year, with the reading and the enjoying and the planet spinning and words coursing through my brain's word-processing centers.

Best Novel:

• Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, John Scalzi
• Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold
• 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson
• Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed
• Blackout, Mira Grant

Best Novella:

• The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson
• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress
• “The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake
• On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard
• San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, Mira Grant

Best Novelette:

• “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi”, Pat Cadigan
• “In Sea-Salt Tears”, Seanan McGuire
• “Fade To White”, Catherynne M. Valente
• “Rat-Catcher”, Seanan McGuire
• “The Boy Who Cast No Shadow”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Best Short Story:

• “Mono no Aware”, Ken Liu
• “Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard
• “Mantis Wives”, Kij Johnson

[Update: the winners, announced.]


This post's theme word is chalcedony, "a milky or greyish transcucent to transparent quartz." My opinions are to the Hugos as chalcedony to diamond.

Scrap octopus Fabrice

One month of Saturdays spent, and --- lo! --- a large collection of worn and stained green shirts (plus one old spherical pillow) is transformed into one fantastic pillowcase octopus. 

Fabrice, my scrap octopus.

I quilted the "skirt" portion for fun, and also as an experiment in quilting t-shirt cotton. It was interesting. I will certainly take the lessons learned here forward in the next sewing project. One main lesson is: don't quilt t-shirt cotton, it's too stretchy. Another is: finishing touches matter. I spent a lot of time considering how to attach the tentacles and make the underskirt, and these things have much less of an impact than the shape of the head and the style of quilting.

The rest of my shabby old clothes have a reprieve now, while I focus on other projects. The other residents of the bedroom should beware, though... Fabrice's octopus head is stretchy, so he is quite capable of consuming other softies.

This post's theme word is celadon, "a pale green color," or "a type of ceramics having a pale green glaze, originally made in China." Fabrice's original habitat offers many mottled celadon backdrops against which he is camouflaged.