I am exceptionally proud and humbled that The Light Brigade made the Hugo shortlist! 2019 was an amazing year for books. I know it must have been difficult for voters to narrow down their list of favorites. I couldn’t keep up with everything I wanted to read (it’s been a rough timeline!).
I do want to take a moment to thank everyone who voted for this book. I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it (as did my agent, Hannah Bowman!). I thought we’d missed the short list, frankly, as I didn’t recieve the first notification that the book was a finalist. It ended up in my spam folder! So I had a whole week where I was like, “Well, we did our best. It was a good year for books.”
Getting the reminder email, then, was a much-needed burst of good news. Especially after so many weeks here in lockdown. Yes, I realize the irony of living in a fucked up timeline and being on lockdown during a global pandemic while this particular book gets some recognition.
I put a lot of myself into this book, my anger at the last four years of incompetent governance, my decades of research into war and revolution, but most of all, I put all my hope into it as well. I absolutely hold dear this quote from Ursula K LeGuin, which Dietz paraphrases in the The Light Brigade:
We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.
-Ursula K. LeGuin, National Book Award Speech
We made this world, and we can change it, too. I absolutely believe that, because small groups of passionate and dedicated human beings are all that ever changed anything. And to paraphrase dear Rose Tico, we don’t always win through violence. We can win, as we are doing now, by protecting what we love. Cooperation and compassion can build a new world. It’s how we’re surviving this one at all.
So while we stumble through this wild timeline, let’s not get overwhelmed in fighting all this darkness.
Let’s remember to also be the light.
Thank you all so much!
As you may notice, I’ve recently updated this website with the excellent help of Clockpunk Studios to put more of a focus on the content I’ve been creating the last few years. Here in lockdown, it’s a great time to level up skills, get inspired, or just be distracted for awhile. So now it’s easier than ever to catch up on the Get to Work Hurley podcast, or check out a selection of Behind-the-Scenes and Real-Time writing videos, which I create monthly for Patrons.
