We decided to write up our thoughts on each of the short stories nominated for the 2022 Hugo awards. Of course, here be spoilers, spoilers galore. If you don’t want these stories spoiled, go read them, and then come back here.
This is the same concept as Jimmy’s review of the 2021 nominees, and so we shall adapt the explanation from that post:
As an exercise, we read each of these stories and told each other what we thought the themes were, and I reference that throughout these reflections. Themes, as we define them, are thematic statements: the point the story is trying to make. Themes are distinct from thematic concepts, in that they are complete sentences rather than just nouns. They are distinct from premises, in that they are the take-away for the real-world, not a statement about the world of the story. And, to be clear, there can be more than one completely valid answer. Both of us would posit what we thought the theme was, answering independently without consulting each other, and then we would discuss the story in greater detail.