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They were hugely affected by slate voting. Two of the novels and four of the five novellas were slated works.

The only "redeeming" feature this year is that the slaters deliberately included some works which were quite popular, along with their dreck works. Which means that we have a few decent options, but they're not competing against the other popular works they should have been up against. It's a bit of a dog's breakfast, really -- but at least not as bad as last year.

It will be interesting when the nominating totals come out after the ceremony to see which works would have made the ballot if the slaters had not participated.

booky, that's because SFWA calls the Nebula awards that they handed out this year the "2017 Nebulas", but WSFS calls the Hugo awards that they hand out this year the "2018 Hugos". It's down to different practices by the two organizations.

I'm just the opposite. I've loved Jemisin's two other series, but while I can appreciate the craft in The Broken Earth trilogy, I don't love those books, and feel as though they've already been well-rewarded. The Stone Sky does not stand on its own at all, which is part of my criteria for Hugo Best Novel.

I loved Six Wakes, and it was first on my ballot. I really enjoyed The Collapsing Empire, but don't feel it's quite up to what I expect in a Hugo winner. Provenance is not as good as the Ancillary books, but it's still very good, and it does stand alone.

It took me a couple of tries to really get into the Machineries of Empire series, but once I did I really enjoyed it; however, I don't think Raven Strategem works well on its own as a Hugo. And New York 2140 I found to be really tedious with cardboard characters about whom I didn't care a whit, and it went below No Award.

For Novella, I thought Murderbot and below that And Then There Were N-one were levels above the rest.

For Novelette, I thought "The Secret Life of Bots" and "A Series of Steaks" were by far the best.

I had "The Martian Obelisk", "Sun, Moon, Dust", and "Welcome" in the first 3 places and put the others below No Award.

For Series, I thought Divine Cities was the best by leaps and bounds, but Raksura and Lady Trent fought a tight battle for second place. InCryptid I didn't care for at all (although I love October Daye) and Stormlight Archive doesn't even pretend to be a complete story yet, so both those went below No Award.