Clarkesworld Magazine has been nominated for a Hugo award in the category of “Best Semiprozine,” a fact prominently displayed on the website.

Is that a reasonable proposition?

Does it merit your Hugo vote?

Yes, and—well, read the stories and decide for yourself—but read more than just a single issue, as the style and themes vary wildly from month to month.

This year’s fourth issue offers well-composed stories by writers of note whose level of craft is above average. Having said that, neither piece resonated with me.

“Rolling Steel: A Pre-Apocalyptic Love Story” by Jay Lake and Shannon Page recounts the action-driven exploits of Topper, pilot of the tank Rough Beast, and his romantic love interest Grace, in an alternate history, pre/post–(can’t make up my mind)—apocalyptic world. There’s a lot going on in terms of worldbuilding, with just enough exposition to follow along. The story is tonally strong; the voices of the characters emerge clearly and distinctly, and their turns of phrase are fun and surprising, way beyond sarcasm. The alternating point-of-view from scene to scene creates momentum and adds a kind of objective overlay to a subjective framework. Despite these points in the story’s favor, I never felt like I connected with the characters. I found it especially hard to grasp what Grace saw in Topper; mea culpa. The writing stylizations and digressions ended up distracting me (but from what? the rambunctiousness is surely part of the fun). This co-authored effort seemed at once to be action-packed and slow-moving.

The podcast by Shaun Farrell and Mur Lafferty is clever; the readers alternate scenes and therefore represent the two main characters in the Lake and Pages story through different voices. Farrell’s reading was a little breathless for me, but the podcast improved my experience of the printed version.

“The Dying World” by Lavie Tidhar tells of a far future rivalry between an old man and a spy, with nothing less than the fate of at least one world literally hanging in the balance. Tidhar beautifully evokes the power of technology in a realm where beings can change into all configurations and, for instance, meme-washers can comb through one’s mind to erase memes that may have unwittingly become lodged in place. The science-as-magic works, and the eight idea-rich scenes move along swiftly, almost feeling like self-contained stories in themselves. Again, I struggled with the character motivations. A story that gets better upon rereading.

“From Dead Gods to Guys in Lizard Costumes: Six Questions for James Morrow” by Jason S. Ridler provides some good insight into the inspiration for and creative process behind Morrow’s Shambling Towards Hiroshima. Not having read any of Morrow’s work, I felt a little like someone who’d walked into the middle of a conversation with the host of a sophisticated party. Ridler’s questions, however, kept me interested, and Morrow’s answers have piqued my curiosity. It’s a get-together I intend to revisit.

Well, where is my flying car? Asking oneself that question, as Joyce Frohn does in the informative and engaging “Where’s My Flying Car? The Future of Personal Aviation,” could well be used as a measure of one’s geek factor. But it’s a reasonable question: as he points out, flying cars are definitely something “science fiction promised us.” I was surprised and delighted to learn how much real-world aviation there is out (and up) there, and the use of video clips was excellent.