2004 Hugo Review - Short Story

This was another category where I was disappointed by the finalists. Of the five stories, I only felt that two of them were strong, one was middling, and the other two were nothing too special. I can't say what stories should have been nominated instead of these, but I have a feeling I could find some that I felt were more worthy.

How I voted, from favorite to least favorite:

1. Four Short Novels, Joe Haldeman.
2. A Study In Emerald, Neil Gaiman
3. The Tale of the Golden Eagle, David D. Levine
4. Paying it Forward, Michael A Burstein
5. Robots Don't Cry, Mike Resnick

Commentary, in reverse order, containing MAJOR SPOILERS:

5. Robots Don't Cry, Mike Resnick.
Two scavengers find a robot, bring it back to life, and hear its sad tale. The title tells you where this story will end up. I really found nothing special in this, I thought it very workmanlike and with a juvenile feel about it. Asimov already wrote this story, and wrote it better.

4. Paying it Forward, Michael A Burstein
A novice writer communicates with a dead writer through email, using a convenient time-travel mechanism. I found this story a little self-indulgent, and didn't feel like it offered me much beyond revealing how the time-travel email worked. Again, I'm not too sure why this story was nominated.

3. The Tale of the Golden Eagle, David D. Levine
A down-on-his-luck young man finds a ship brain, creates a new ship and then a robot using the brain, then learns about the reality of being a ship's brain, with a suitable twist at the end. An interesting story, one that I enjoyed more than the previous two, but I didn't think of it as very deep and I enjoyed the next two stories more.

2. A Study in Emerald, Neil Gaiman
When I finished reading it, I said "This will win the Hugo. It's Neil Gaiman (who I like a lot), it's got funny bits in it, it's Sherlock Holmes, and it's very well-written. The Hugo has been decided." However, I have to say that when I read this story for the first time, I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what was going on. I have read enough Sherlock Holmes to get that angle, but thought it was a "Sherlock Holmes in an alien-controlled Earth setting". Then, I was confused by the mention of Watson and the end and thought "so, in this Earth, Watson is linked up with someone else." Then, I started thinking "maybe the character that the narrator rooms with isn't Holmes, but Moriarty, and the actor is Holmes". I didn't actually confirm that fact until I looked on a Holmes compendium website and figured out that the initials of the narrator were the initials of a well-known Moriarty confidante. I didn't get the Lovecraft angle until I actually looked the "Shadows Over Baker Street" title up on Amazon and read about the Holmes-Lovecraft purpose of the book.
Folks, that's just too much inside information that a person had to have to get most of the story. Sure it was well-written and funny and entertaining, but I felt this requirement for inside knowledge (and I still don't get the Lovecraft references) diminished from the strength of the story. But, I still liked reading it a lot, so it got second.

1. Four Short Novels, Joe Haldeman.
Short, sweet, and to the point. Four stories, each starting with the same sentence fragment, but going in four different directions. I liked all four stories, liked the concept, and felt the stories were all well-done. The shortness gave them a strength that I felt lacked in the other nominees, so this ends up as my choice for the Hugo.