quadong | 1943 Retro-Hugo novella rankings (Reply)

"Nerves". It's gripping, and it does its best to be good SF (or should I say StF) with plenty of science. Now, it's pretty much all wrong, and in places I'm pretty sure it is intentionally just technobabble, but thinking about it from a 1942 perspective, it's great stuff. The science isn't all physics either. There's a good deal of medical speculation as well.
"The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag". Very well done. I hadn't read this since I was a teenager, and it was perhaps a mistake to read it in the middle of the night. Seriously creepy. Now, it's fundamentally a fantasy story, which I tend strongly to push down the rankings, but it doesn't read like one to me, so I have left it high. Also, the rest of the competition is all fantasy anyway.
"Waldo". Good solid SF up until it goes all to pieces at the end. Why does it do that?
"The Compleat Werewolf". An entertaining story. Competently executed. It's light fantasy. No complaints with it, but it's not great either.
"Asylum". Well, it is very van Vogt. It jumps around, doesn't quite make sense, seems like it's about to make sense, but then just abruptly ends in the middle of the action. His writing is a lot like Doc Smith's, except makes less sense.
No award
"Hell is Forever". Execrable. I forced myself to read to the end of the first section and found nothing redeeming about it. Why would this get nominated?

Matthew Strait. Wait, too clear, I mean — Aaaahhh!