DNF × 3

I finished the last audiobook of novels eligible for Hugo Award nominations year. That got me thinking about the other novels I’m currently reading, none of which I’m particularly loving. I think I’m going to drop all three.

Katabasis by R. F. Kuang is eligible for the Hugo this year. I wanted to like it. For some reason, I sympathize with the author for being unfairly disqualified from the 2023 Hugos (see below). However, I can see it’s going to be a long series of depictions of Hell, and I’m just not there for it. (I didn’t finish Dante’s Inferno, either.) It also means I’m reading two novels simultaneously by this author that are alternate history versions of snobby English universities (Cambridge, in this case). There’s also the magic academy trope, though at least these don’t involve tweens. Importantly, I don’t particularly care for the protagonist or the close supporting character, nor do I buy into their motivation. Oh, and it’s quite long.

Babel, also by R. F. Kuang was widely popular and eligible for the Hugo in 2023, but that year the Worldcon was held in Chengdu, China, which scandalously disqualified a bunch of authors preemptively to avoid offending the Chinese government. I told myself I would read it out of solidarity. However, I’m not really loving it. Like Katabasis, it is an alternate history version of a snobby English university (Oxford, in this case) by the same author, and also includes a magic academy trope. I don’t exactly dislike the protagonist, but I don’t identify much with him. It’s also starting to look like it may turn into a homoerotic love story of some sort. This one is also quite long.

I’ve read two other novels by this author. I didn’t really care for The Poppy War, which seemed very juvenile. I enjoyed Yellowface very much. Maybe I’ll return to these later, especially if Katabasis becomes a finalist this year.

If I drop both of those, then that leaves me to consider the third book I’m in the middle of: A Day of Fallen Night, by Samantha Shannon. This is a prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, which I quite liked. However, I’m not really enjoying this prequel so much as the original. And it is also quite long.

So, I think I’m going to drop all three of these from my current reading list. That means I’m done cramming novels that are eligible for the Hugo. I can read something else for a change.