The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video
Thomas Ha
Well-written vacuity
Thomas Ha's The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video is a finalist for the 2025 Best Novelette Hugo Award. I can see how it got on the list and I enjoyed it, but I was ultimately disappointed.
It was Theodore Sturgeon, if I remember correctly, who said that there are two types of science fiction stories, "What If?" and "If this goes on..." In an "If this goes on..." story the author extrapolates some current trend to imagine where we might end up. This is the kind of science fiction story that sets out to predict the future, sometimes intentionally. "What If?" stories, in contrast, are usually based on an imagined departure from the world as it is (or as we imagine it to be). I think this classification of science fiction is fairly accurate, with the usual caution that any serious person who says "There are two kinds of..." admits the possibility of in-between things or combinations.
The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video is mostly an "If this goes on..." kind of story. It would be a spoiler to give away what current trend Ha is extrapolating here, but I was disappointed. It's one of those "One Big Idea" stories in which the One Big Idea seems sort of small and not, indeed, very new. I have the perception that the New Thing that Ha makes his story about is really a very old thing, and that the story fails to recognize this.
That said, it's a well-written and atmospheric story that I thoroughly enjoyed while reading it, even though I could not shake the perception that the plot was underpowered.
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” in Clarkesworld Issue 212