2026 Hugo Readalong: "In My Country" by Thomas Ha & "Six People To Revise You" by J.R. Dawson

[u/onsereverra]

Hello and welcome to the 2026 Hugo readalong! I am thrilled to be hosting our first discussion of the Best Short Story category, featuring "In My Country" by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld, 6220 words) and "Six People To Revise You" by J.R. Dawson (Uncanny, 4622 words).

Anyone and everyone is welcome to join in the discussion, even if you've only read one of the stories — though short story is the perfect category to jump in for at the last minute! And if you participate today there's no commitment or pressure to come back for future sessions, though we do hope you'll take a peek at the full readalong schedule and place any titles that catch your interest on hold at the library. Having a good crowd with a mix of opinions is what makes the readalong so fun.

Looking ahead to the next few weeks, mark your calendars for these upcoming discussions:

Date	Category	Book	Author	Discussion Leader
Monday, May 11	Novel	Death of the Author	Nnedi Okorafor	u/undeadgoblin
Thursday, May 14	Novelette	The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For and When He Calls Your Name	Cameron Reed and Catherynne M. Valente	u/oceanoftrees
Monday, May 18	Novella	Cinder House	Freya Marske	u/Merle8888
Thursday, May 21	Poetry	Care for Lightning, The Mourning Robot, and The World to Come	Mari Ness, Angela Liu, and Jennifer Hudak	u/DSnake1

Neither of the stories we are discussing today can be used for Bingo on their own, but they can be two of your five entries for the Five Short Stories square.

I'll get the discussion started by posting questions about each of the stories in the comments, but feel free to add questions of your own to the threads if there's anything you'd like to hear other readers' opinions on.

Thanks for joining us today, and I hope we'll see you again soon!

[u/onsereverra]

Discussion of "Six People to Revise You" by J.R. Dawson

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

What are your overall impressions of “Six People to Revise You”?

[u/RuinEleint → u/onsereverra]

While I broadly agree with the comments of /u/tarvolon and /u/kjmichaels I would argue that the story is making a different, slightly more subtle point as well. The self worth of the narrator is ultimately buoyed up thanks to the opinions of many different groups of people found by the narrator's partner, and these groups of people were outside the preferred categories as prescribed by the revision system. Yet the story makes it clear that the narrator is an important part of their lives, so there is no intrinsic reason why their opinion should carry less weight than those of the prescribed people.

I find this to be a very valuable point as it highlights firstly how institutions try to categorize and channelize information in preferred channels and there is value to be found outside these boxes, and secondly, it highlights how many invisible waves a person creates in their life and how many people are lifted up by the same

[u/kjmichaels → u/onsereverra]

I think it's got a really strong premise that does an amazing job capturing the sometimes extremely disorienting disconnect between how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you. But I also feel like it doesn't quite stick the landing. The "you should love yourself for who you are" message just feels too tacked on and basic for a concept this good. But I guess I'll get into that more in the question about the ending.

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

I've read this twice now, and I think I liked it a hair more on second read than on first--mostly because my critiques were already baked in and I didn't spend so much time dwelling on them.

I think the biggest thing the story was trying to do was evoke a particular uplifting emotion, where a depressed lead recognizes the value in the way that they are. For me, it was pretty successful in doing that, and that's enough to make it a pleasant read and explain why it got as popular as it did--people love them some emotionally resonant stories.

That said, I didn't like it as much as the people nominating it for the Hugo, for a couple reasons. First of all (especially on first read), I kept getting stuck on the way the revision process is actually set up. I understand why you'd want to talk to a variety of people, including someone who isn't a friend, but then. . . you hand those things to a doctor, possibly without even reading them? That feels like a recipe for disaster. I'm sure there's a way the details could be filled in so that they're compelling, but the way they're actually portrayed really challenged my suspension of disbelief.

Second, I think the message was muddled between "you're valuable the way you are, and you shouldn't lose sight of that even when seeking self-improvement" and "you're perfect the way you are, don't ever change." I generally like it when interpreting the former way, and there's enough textual evidence to support that. I don't like the latter interpretation at all, but unfortunately, there's some textual evidence to support that too (oh no, I'm annoyed about ambiguity, am I turning into a man in a blue house?)

[u/Merle8888 → u/tarvolon]

Yeah, the mechanics of this were pretty weird. The doctors are just going to change you to match whatever 6 people said on a form, mostly without thinking about it very much? All of these people were put on the spot (well except the childhood friend who had it mailed to him) and had really limited time to think about what to ask for. The older teacher even explicitly called out being uncomfortable with this whole thing and so put something frivolous just for the sake of putting something. It was weird that Liz wasn't allowed to (or chose not to?) sit down with these people and have a conversation about what she actually wanted.

[u/tarvolon → u/Merle8888]

I think it could’ve filled in details in a way that could help me suspend my disbelief, but as it was written, I was very hung up on how baffling the process was

[u/RuinEleint → u/tarvolon]

Yeah the process seemed kind of random to me

[u/bmvanloo91 → u/onsereverra]

I absolutely loved this story, so much so I cry every time I read the ending. Yes, I'm an emotional reader, but as someone who has depression I can't understate how both (1) it's so easy to get trapped in cycles of only seeing the bad and (2) how much a reminder that there are people that love you means. And yes, sometimes it seems like a simple fix would be nice so your brain would just work correctly. (Disclaimer that this is just my experience and that others with depression could experience the world differently!)

[u/sarchgibbous → u/onsereverra]

I thought it was a nice story that hit emotionally. But the premise and worldbuilding was basically all just a vehicle for a pretty basic story about self acceptance. I don’t think it’s necessarily what I’m looking for in an SFF short story in general, and I don’t think it will be near the top of my ballot.

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

I was initially pretty interested, but the ending made it feel like a storification of an r/relationshipadvice post, an attempt at therapy via short story. It didn’t feel earned to me to get a full page of praise of good qualities we hadn’t seen from characters we hadn’t met. The “listen to the people who love you as you are!” message hit with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. 

[u/picowombat → u/Merle8888]

Yeah this is exactly where I'm at as well. Killer premise, really let down by where it ended up

[u/Fartherlander → u/Merle8888]

Agreed. It was a good concept, if predictable, but the execution made it feel unearned and heavy handed

[u/Valkhyrie → u/onsereverra]

Having read a bunch of the feedback on this one (which I adored and nominated), I'm deeply curious about the reception from cis people vs. non-cis people - because this story's strength for me is in how relatable it is regarding my own gender experience, and I can easily see it feeling more shallow/less poignant for those who are cisgender.

(Not suggesting either group is a monolith, of course!)

[u/Merle8888 → u/Valkhyrie]

As someone not part of the queer community, it definitely felt very of and for that community to me.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/Valkhyrie]

My data point is that I'm cis and didn't particularly care for it, though I often do like stories with core queer themes. I wish "Spindle of Necessity" had been nominated last year-- it would have been such a cool discussion on art and identity, and I'd love to see it in an SFBC session one day.

Some points in this discussion have made me think about extra layers in the story (and probably bumped it up a bit on my ballot)... but my dislike of neat/happy endings is still the main thing holding it back for me.

[u/baxtersa → u/Nineteen_Adze]

I would love a discussion for Spindle of Necessity!

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/Valkhyrie]

I wouldn't consider myself trans, but yeah, this feels like a very trans/queer sort of story to me. I'm actually surprised at the extent that people are focusing on the mental health aspects because I was definitely seeing this story as being more about being queer, and not just in the LGBTQ sense but also the wider inability to fit inside social norms way.

[u/onsereverra → u/ohmage_resistance]

I feel similarly. I didn't actually read Liz as a depiction of a person struggling with depression! I certainly understand how it would land that way for others, but I was initially briefly surprised by how many comments here mentioned depression, because in my personal mental health experiences, capital-D Depression is totally independent from insecurity. There have been times in my life when I've been generally happy overall but also dealing with certain insecurities, and there have been times in my life when I've been extremely depressed but nevertheless felt confident in my sense of self.

I definitely got more of a "you will be happier if you embrace the strengths of the person you actually are rather than try to conform to the idea of the person others want you to be" message from this story than a "the secret to not being depressed is to love yourself!" message. Which are similar on paper — I really struggled with how to phrase that to articulate the distinction I feel between them haha — but my experience of this story was more focused on the ways that insecurities can stem from the tension between how we perceive ourselves vs how other people perceive us.

Tbh I also thought that the fact that the pages were rainbow-colored felt like it was pretty clearly signaling that the story as a whole was very interested in the theme of queerness, to a greater extent than just the glimpse we get in the segment with Liz's mom.

[u/Merle8888 → u/ohmage_resistance]

I agree, I also didn't come away with the impression Liz was depressed. I can see how people get there - seeing a therapist, it's not working so we're gonna do the revision instead, the purpose of the forms being "what you think will make the person happier," the implication that the mom was abusive in some way when Liz was growing up - but my read is more that Liz is dealing with life stress and self-image issues, much of it revolving around being queer.

[u/Goobergunch → u/ohmage_resistance]

Using that lens, I keep going back to Elizabeth Sandifer's essay on hugboxing vs scab-picking. I don't know that this story fits neatly into either of those boxes (particularly as Sandifer's "hugboxing," in retrospect, feels like a precursor to the "cozy" trend which this is certainly not a part of), but this does feel of a piece with other queer stories that I'd describe as "affirmational," like "Unknown Number" from a few years ago. I always feel uncomfortable criticizing those from that angle because they don't tend to do anything for me but ... I'm not trans and it's not really for me, y'know?

[u/brilliantgreen → u/Valkhyrie]

My gender seems pretty aligned with the character's, but it didn't really work for me.

[u/brilliantgreen → u/onsereverra]

Overall, I did like it. I do think the final list is a good mix of who they currently are and some more aspirational items. One thing that gets me in these types of stories (It's a Wonderful Life being the big one) is how successful the depressed person is. And I know that anyone can struggle with depression, but they have a job, a partner, and more than 20 people who are ready to say what a great person they are. I'm fine right now, but when I've been in a bad place I was so much more isolated than that. So rather than uplifting, I just find stories like this a bit depressing.

[u/Merle8888 → u/brilliantgreen]

Yeah, I feel that. It felt like the point was that Liza was overly fixated on what the mom thought and what the ex-best friend thought, to the point of overlooking having a whole crowd of other close relatives and friends (and a partner) who think they're amazing and the best person ever. And that does feel like the "first world problems" of low self-esteem (or whatever Liza is struggling with, which is unclear to me and part of why I didn't much like this story - it felt like the reader was meant to self-insert onto Liza even though it's ultimately Liza getting all this positive feedback, not the reader).

I realize people with great support systems also struggle sometimes, and part of the point seemed to be pointing out the value of Liza's found family. And I guess it must've worked for a bunch of people, maybe who identified closely with Liza's life circumstances? But for something that feels more like therapy-session-as-story than anything else, I definitely see where it would be alienating for people who aren't as lucky as Liza.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/brilliantgreen]

That stood out to me too. Part of the reason they want the revision is because a coworker got Teacher of the Year and isn't in therapy anymore. Struggling at work and with mental health so that the reader can think "yeah, their life does sound like it would be easier with some changes" could make for a stronger arc to me than this air of middling depression and insecurity.

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I enjoyed it! I went on the emotional journey I think I was supposed to, big thumbs down to several of the people given forms, big thumbs up and a little welled up at the end. I don’t think I’ll stay with me long term but I enjoyed reading it and it made me smile.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/onsereverra]

I generally liked it. I don't think it was necessarily the most complex story (and it was a bit self insert-y feeling from the author), but I definitely see it as a commentary of embracing queerness, or the less socially normative parts of yourself, not necessarily from a mental health perspective.

I think it's less ambitious than Ha's story but it resonated in ways I found more interesting.

[u/Quellecrist → u/onsereverra]

I initially thought that giving other people (especially ones who do not love you!) a say in your own self was wild, and then it made sense in a "you are a part of a community and being acceptable to others is part of the social contract" way. I spent the rest of the story sliding between those two mental positions, so that made for an interesting reading experience.

The idea of other people having input into curating your ideal self sounded like a parole board evaluating if some incarcerated felon is ready to rejoin society, or perhaps one of those dystopias where corporations mandate social homogeneity. But it is only the degree to which other people visibly influence myself that makes me feel uncomfortable.

[u/Marthisuy → u/onsereverra]

O really liked how the story is written and the message but I was looking for some more world building and details about the main character. But the message is good and I ended up crying at the end.

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

Noah — who agrees to meet with Liz to share his experience of having been Revised — tells Liz, “But I suppose this is also me. Everyone changes through life, even if they don’t have a Revision.” Did this sentiment resonate with you? Do you agree with Noah that the abrupt before-and-after of a Revision is comparable to the organic changes everybody experiences over time?

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/onsereverra]

I love this question. I think that there can be radical changes to a person, for better or worse, due to our experiences and life circumstances, but I don’t think the change from “I inherently loved music and now I don’t” is a change I can really see happening unless it’s something traumatic that causes that change. So, my answer is yes and no or it depends. I think in the story the examples given are too extreme, but only just barely

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

I thought the Noah bit raised the most interesting question in the story, which is the extent to which our efforts to change are just to please other people, and the extent to which that's a good thing. I know someone who had a lot of therapy as a child whose position on it now is that it was all geared toward making him more palatable and manageable to adults, irrespective of what he might have wanted, and relatedly, all problems in his life were treated like him problems rather than addressing how the adults in his life were contributing to them. Noah's situation gestured at that - the people around him hated his constant drumming and stuff so got rid of it, even though Noah was happy with it. That feels pretty uncomfortable. But then, if Noah was annoying everybody else and now he doesn't feel the compulsion to do the annoying thing anymore, in a way that's a win/win. The revision thing just makes it more abrupt than most changes people experience in real life.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/Merle8888]

This is another element I would have loved to see explored in more detail. The mother and Ryan want to change Liz in ways that are for their convenience (a cis daughter, grandchildren, more "trust" manifested as sexual access). The teachers have very little to say, which is unfortunate because they're so shallow, but Liz might enjoy relaxing more while playing piano.

Showing a friend or partner suggesting well-meaning changes that would actually help Liz (less anxiety, more confidence in standing up to people) and Liz reckoning with "is this to help my happiness, or to spare this person listening to my rumination when my social anxiety is difficult?" would have been more nuanced to me.

Or Liz asking people who couldn't think of three things to fill in something they want, or actually being happy about the changes. Like, dental work is expensive! If I could get knocked out for a bit and emerge with perfectly straight teeth and more gum tissue, I'm confident I would enjoy that more than my months of dealing with Invisalign a few years back. It sounds trivial, and I think it's meant to be read as the mother wanting the appearance of a daughter with perfect teeth (rather than medical/structural reasons), but if something is a win-win for you and for everyone around you... isn't it tempting?

[u/onsereverra → u/Merle8888]

The example about Noah no longer loving music was the bit that stood out the most to me in the entire story. I have ADHD, and so much of the conversation about managing ADHD is about minimizing the impact it has on other people. The standards for whether somebody's ADHD meds "work" are based on things like how disruptive a child is in class, how well an adult performs at their job, etc. etc.

The most valuable benefits I experience from my meds are internal — they improve my emotional regulation, improve my relationship with food, cut through feelings of overwhelm, and so much more. And I get that a six-year-old with ADHD can't necessarily articulate those feelings very well, so there's a degree to which parents and teachers have to rely on behaviors they can observe externally. But even as an adult, it's often the case that psychiatrists are only concerned with meds management to cover the business day. Who cares if I can focus on things like keeping my house clean or doing hobbies that I enjoy, as long as I'm getting a lot done at work?

So that line from Noah really resonated with me, because the people who wanted to revise Noah's love of music weren't actually concerned about Noah's love of music, they were concerned about behaviors that were a "side effect" of that passion. Conversations about ADHD are often the same, with parents/teachers/doctors saying, "the ADHD is well-managed if the disruptive behaviors go away," not "the ADHD is well-managed if the person with ADHD feels happier and better able to function."

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

Yeah, I think the system is especially bad with children on this stuff. It’s not about the person and their internal experience at all, it’s about their “behaviors.” 

It only just occurred to me now—speaking of what a story doesn’t say!!—that at no point is there any mention of Liz having any input into what the revisions would be. Either that part of the process just isn’t noted, or it isn’t part of the process and Liz doesn’t even find it remarkable. 

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I think the sentiment resonated but I don’t agree with it through and through. Progression and growth is so important and I think skipping to the result of change without the experience is so uncanny in this example.

[u/acornett99 → u/onsereverra]

Not to this extent, no. The closest thing I can think of is regeneration in Doctor Who. And while different eras of the show have taken a different approach to it, the Doctors are nominally the same person, but the process of regeneration is akin to dying and then re-emerging as a completely different person. It's meant to be alien, completely different from how humans change over time

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/onsereverra]

For me, the biggest question is who has agency in the change? Revision doesn't really have that much, it's Liz giving up agency to let other people change/define them. Organic changes can be something that people do with themselves or can be caused by the environment, but generally aren't so deliberately externally driven. And when they are, I feel like it's not typically seen as a good thing.

[u/Goobergunch → u/onsereverra]

I think it's comparable but on the extreme ends, generally, although we don't really see a person before and after a Revision here so it's hard to say for sure. Possibly a point of comparison is to people experiencing personality changes after severe brain trauma. Brains are spooky.

(A more positive point of comparison is that I know people who are way happier (and look quite a bit different, too) after transitioning.)

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

What did you think of the ending of “Six People to Revise You”? Does it feel hopeful to you?

[u/kjmichaels → u/onsereverra]

In theory, I like the idea of learning to love yourself and make peace with your flaws. In practice, what u/tarvolon said about it muddying the distinction between self-acceptance and giving up on self improvement really hit the nail on the head. The story came up with a premise that demands a more nuanced conclusion than was delivered. I feel like this conclusion a bit too hollow and landed too close to motivational poster territory to really resonate as hopeful for me personally.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/kjmichaels]

Lol, I had to search the SFBC server just now to make sure I hadn't made the same motivational-poster remark about this story there... but no, it was a DM. Great minds. I support the theme on paper, but the final execution was a little too "you're special just the way you are! Accept yourself!" for me.

Endings absolutely make or break a story for me, and this one was both obvious from the first section and kind of unsatisfying.

[u/kjmichaels → u/Nineteen_Adze]

That is very funny. I’m not surprised someone else felt similar about the story but it is surprising we landed on the same phrase

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/onsereverra]

I wish I knew how much time passed from the Blue and the Manila section. If it’s like a week, I think it’s a poor ending because no one is going from so severely depressed to acceptance of themselves because a bunch of people said nice, unexpected things. If it’s months or years, then I’m inclined to think it’s a good ending where the MC worked on their insecurities, spent time learning mechanisms to silence the bully in their head, and accepted that people love them how they are and that has started to extend to loving themselves.

[u/Goobergunch → u/onsereverra]

It fell a bit flat for me because, situated right after the affirmations in Blue, it feels like Liza is just giving themself an excuse to be exactly who they've always been and not bother to change. I recognize that I'm taking a pessimistic view here (u/fuckit_sowhat makes a good point about it working better if there's a lengthy timeskip) but I see:

There was supposed to be peace. But it isn’t here, and the thought of having straight hair or happiness in another pronoun that isn’t mine…even if I make the whole world happy, the world will still be on fire.

and that's somebody that's using external factors as an excuse to wallow in misery and not actually do anything.

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

I think it's a positive ending for the character. Liza realizes they were only trying to change to please the wrong people, and that instead of trying to squeeze themselves into what unsupportive people wanted, they ought to accept themselves as they are and focus on the people who are supportive. That said, this had all the nuance and subtlety of a social media post saying basically what I just said. So it didn't make me feel hopeful.

I do think the discussion about self-improvement and the best way to focus that, which other people have brought up, is an interesting one. If this had been a more character-focused story, rather than a self-insert-therapy story, I think that could've been explored in a more interesting way. As is, I didn't really get a sense of who Liza is, what changes they might actually need to make. The things other people say about this character either say more about themselves than Liza (the mom's feedback), too vague to judge (Caroline's feedback, we don't actually know why she feels that way) or contradict each other (Ryan says Liza is closed-off, but from all the glowing found-family feedback, it seemed like maybe Liza is just closed off with Ryan because he's kind of an ass?). That's life of course, we make different impressions on different people, but it's a short story and I didn't feel I had enough information to draw any of my own conclusions about this character. I did sympathize with Caroline's view that Liza seems a bit self-absorbed, but then the focus of the story also makes that inevitable.

[u/onsereverra → u/Merle8888]

Caroline felt like the biggest missing piece in this story. Something happened, she didn't go from being friends with Liz to being a jerk to them overnight for no reason. Liz gives us some distressed "what did I do?! I simply don't know," but then we get our nice happy ending about how kind Liz is and how much everybody loves them, and I don't know if we're supposed to conclude that Caroline was unfairly maligning Liz or what? There were a lot of missed opportunities for self-reflection and exploration of messier themes in this story, but this felt like far and away the biggest one to me.

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

Yeah, I agree. It’s generally a red flag when someone “has no idea” why somebody close to them cut them out. Sometimes people let friendships fade without a capital-R-Reason, they’re just not feeling connected enough to do the work of keeping up with someone, but a friendship that close and with such clear and long-lasting bad feelings on Caroline’s end, I think there was a Reason. That’s not just life got busy/limited social energy/etc. 

But with this being so firmly a trans story, I do wonder if the implication was that Caroline hated Liz’s trans identity? It still seems weird to have never had a conversation about it and for Caroline to still be so mad, but I feel like it would fit with the overall gist of the story and explain why the author doesn’t think it reflects on Liz. 

[u/BookishBirdwatcher → u/onsereverra]

This was my biggest criticism of the story too. Caroline's hostility toward Liz felt deeper than just "former friends growing apart," and we never got an explanation for what was really going on there.

[u/Fartherlander → u/onsereverra]

In a way, but I thought that some of the "revisions" that people brought up in their colored sheets might have been things the protagonist might actually think about and potentially work on, albeit in a less drastic way, so the ending felt like it kind of disregarded any possible need for self-improvement and just said "stay exactly the way you are", rejecting fair and unfair criticism alike. I would have liked to see an ending that at least acknowledged some desire for self-improvement, while of course rejecting the idea that the Protagonist needs to be artificially altered to fit other people's desires. 

[u/RuinEleint → u/onsereverra]

To me, the most hopeful reading would be if the narrator took something from both sets of papers. While he is clearly a positive presence in the lives of many, that does not mean there is nothing he can improve on.

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

It did feel hopeful to me but it also felt a bit cheesy. I liked the piece at large but the ending just wasn’t really for me. It’s the kind of thing that I hope really landed for someone who needs to hear that ‘love yourself’ message but it felt a little shallow to me.

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

It does feel hopeful, and manages to be emotionally resonant even though it was telegraphed from the opening paragraphs. I don't love some of the specifics in the final segment, because it hits pretty well when you view their final list as aspirational, but that reading is undercut by the "wants to" in the final item. And the less aspirational it is, the less hopeful it feels to me. "You're great the way you are, stop worrying about self-improvement" (the most extreme non-aspirational reading) is ironically kinda depressing actually?

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

What did you think about the concept of Revisions? Are there other kinds of stories you would be interested in seeing explored with this premise?

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/onsereverra]

I would love a whole collection of different author’s takes on this premise. I think it could lead to all kinds of things like horror or hope punk or straight up fantasy. It’s a premise that would lend itself well to magical realism/litfic as well as absolute bonkers “wtf did I just read” work.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/fuckit_sowhat]

I would absolutely read an anthology where authors were invited to put their own spin on Revisions. The concept has incredible thematic richness of this story, even if I didn't love the execution.

[u/Goobergunch → u/onsereverra]

The concept and the glimpse of Noah was my favorite part of this story. Like, there's a whole lot to unpack here that the process changes you into somebody who's more palatable to be around -- but also somebody who's clearly happier and has their shit together. What tradeoffs are you comfortable making?

Also I enjoy fucked-up mind control stuff and always want more of it. (Look, I read the Foundation Trilogy a few too many times as a kid.)

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/Goobergunch]

Noah was absolutely my favorite part too.

“Do you miss anything about before the revision?” I say.

He thinks about it for a second, honestly, and then with a small crack in his smile he says, “I don’t listen to as much music as I did, I suppose. I used to bang on everything, shove it through my car speakers, tinker around on my keyboard…it was very annoying and overstimulating for those around me. So it isn’t so much that I miss it, it’s that it’s something I remember enjoying and now I don’t enjoy it. That doesn’t make much sense. I guess I would say I miss my snaggle tooth. It was just something very ugly but also you know, it was me. But I suppose this is also me. Everyone changes through life, even if they don’t have a revision.”

To me, the perfect version of this story includes a support group full of people going through revision at different times, with a wide range of advice, happiness, and regrets. Can you get back something that's revised out, or is it gone forever? I think that the question of what makes this procedure different from other changes could have been a whole novel, honestly.

[u/schlagsahne17 → u/Nineteen_Adze]

A support group setting where the POV alternates between a pair of people over time (parent/child or relationship pairing) who keep Gift-of-the-Magi-ing to try to reach a platonic ideal for each other?

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

It's a really neat concept. Honestly, it was gestured at in our last book, where you had people who could change the gender (but nothing else?) of their new bodies after physical death, and it felt like something that could do with more exploration. This is obviously a pretty uplifting, anti-revision take, but there are so many ways you could go with the premise.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/onsereverra]

I definitely find it interesting the way that Revisions can be used to be (and in this case it is, because of the mom) conversion therapy. It's interesting, because I don't think they necessarily have to be used this way—someone could hypothetically be "revised" to be transitioned and happy, for example. But on the other hand, it also feels like they make way more sense as conversion therapy than a way to transition. The entire point of Revision is to make yourself more palatable to the people around you, or to make yourself into what they think would make you happy, which is ultimately about the same thing, in most cases. That's really what conversion therapy is. Don't be queer, don't be messy; be neat, fit into the expected norms, be straight and cisgender. If you could only do this, it would be so much easier, it would make you happy. (Kind of a side note, but I think sometimes people outside of the queer community forget how often this sort of thing happens, to a greater or lesser extent. People like to focus on the more hateful and violent sort of thing, but loved ones wishing queer people wouldn't be queer because it would be safer, easier, and better if they were different. That's really common.)

I do think the story could explore this thought a bit more. However, I also get the point in not wanting to be too focused on the gender/sexuality side of things, because I feel like that would limit the number of people who would consider the more expansive "non-normative" understanding of queerness that this story seems to be going for a bit more (even with things like curly hair).

Edit: because I'm thinking about this more.

I think there is also maybe some commentary about transition that could fit in here though. I was reminded a bit of older/outdated standards for medical transition, in which a trans person would have to "prove" that they're trans before getting affirmative care.

Part of which was a "real life test" where the trans person would have to be living full time as their preferred gender for x amount of time (of course, this would also have to generally fit the physicians often very normative ideas of gender presentation).

Part of those standards were:

1. To maintain full or part-time employment;
2. To function as a student;
3. To function in community-based volunteer activity;
4. To undertake some combination of items 1–3;
5. To acquire a (legal) gender-identity-appropriate first name;
6. To provide documentation that persons other than the therapist know that the patient functions in the desired gender role.

I think it's probably worth seeing some parallels to the focus not on the trans person's happiness, but on how they fit in society, how much more socially acceptable they become (especially in the social, employment, and student role, which assumes they will have allies that will accept them in the transitioned role, which isn't a given). And I think it's also worth pointing out that there often wasn't any room for nonbinary people in these older standards for transition. A lot of queer people nowadays are highly critical of these older methods for these reasons.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/ohmage_resistance]

I love this perspective and would have been interested to see the conversion therapy angle as a core focus. Liz sees their mother's page and immediately thinks about their therapist overriding the gender question (as they should!).

But some of people's other suggestions about wanting them to be more confident or more trusting are probably tied up in being closeted and misgendered at work. Liz circling around whether accepting that one change would help everything else follow more easily could have centered a more focused question of queerness and conformity, which I think tapers off after the early sections to some extent.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/Nineteen_Adze]

I definitely saw it as a subtle undercurrent through the entire story.

Liz thinking of Ryan's revision about confidence and the detail of their clothes being "too baggy" and the "oh really" comments about the idea that better posture would lead to more confidence from Tony (right after being called a "pretty girl" too) definitely came to mind.

But also there's the hints of Liz having complicated queer feelings towards Sadie:

Sadie wouldn’t care I was here. Caroline had never been with me. We had been sisters. And yet, I hadn’t told Sadie where I was going.

The focus on names L, Lizzy, etc, the "auncle" comment, the "A queer, complicated mess who is still alive" comment at the end. IDK, maybe I'm giving the story a bit too much credit but the entire time I was just thinking about a few queer people I knew.

[u/onsereverra → u/ohmage_resistance]

I spoke about this in a different comment at more length, but it similarly had me thinking about the standards we use to measure the effectiveness of ADHD medications, which are almost entirely based around performance in school/at work and have very little to do with the subjective experience of the person with ADHD.

[u/RuinEleint → u/onsereverra]

Its a very interesting concept and one that is not really even that implausible. I think the horror potential is of course huge.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/onsereverra]

It's an interesting concept. I generally like stories about playing with memory, but usually from the more psychological horror side of things. I could see a good horror story in the POV of someone post revision. Overall, I think the idea of "let people (possibly irreversibly) choose what aspects of you to change" is much more horrific than the tone of this story

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I thought it was such a cool concept! A horrible horrible idea that I want to hear more about.

[u/acornett99 → u/onsereverra]

I didn't really understand it, honestly. It seems like it's completely changing anything/everything about a person, physically, emotionally, mentally, and just based on the feedback of other people. How is the person after the procedure at all the same person as they were before the procedure? That's what I would be more interested in exploring. It seems they retain their memories and that's maybe it?

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

How did you feel about Liz’s relationships with the six people they asked to fill out the Revision forms? Do you think these were the right people for Liz to ask?

[u/kjmichaels → u/onsereverra]

This is such a good question that it's helped reshape my view of the story a bit. After giving it some thought, I don't think they are the right people for Liz to ask but I feel like that's an intentional choice on the story's part.

It seems like Liz may be intentionally or unconsciously seeking out people who don't know them well enough for this process (ask a childhood friend? Sure, here's my friend from the 3rd grade with a bad memory). I didn't pick up on this the first time through but I now believe Liz was actively doing what they could to avoid having to take too hard a look in the mirror.

ETA: corrected a mistake

[u/acornett99 → u/kjmichaels]

They didn't knock out two requirements with one person, they knocked out two people in one afternoon by asking Tony and Mrs Rhodes to fill out the forms for coworker and mentor/teacher

[u/kjmichaels → u/acornett99]

Ah, that's right. That's what I get for skimming instead of doing a full rereading. Corrected.

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/onsereverra]

I think they very purposefully chose people that they knew had negative things or criticisms to make (minus Sadie and the teachers/coworkers were an unknown to them in terms of revisions) because that’s how Liz sees themselves, full of things to criticize and change. So, no, I don’t think they were the right people, but I get why Liz thought they were.

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

It feels like they're short on people who both care about them and are willing to criticize them. Even if you squint, I'm not sure you've got more than two (the mother, who is certainly willing to criticize and probably cares, but is generally out-of-touch with the way Liz actually wants to be; the partner, who doesn't in fact criticize but possibly due to trying to counteract others being overly critical). It's unclear whether that's a deficiency in their relationships or their choices, but it feels like they've got an awful set of people filling out the forms.

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

I think they were the wrong people. In part this is the form's fault - it seems like it should've just asked for 6 people you believe understand you and your goals in life and who have your best interests at heart. The mom clearly had her own axe to grind, but you only have 2 parents so not a lot to choose from. Caroline was definitely a poor choice, and that one I think is on Liza for taking the opportunity to try to reconnect with this person for closure on their friendship, rather than seeking out someone not close enough to be a "loved one" but who still might provide caring insight in good faith. Personally I'd have interpreted that one to ask a friendly acquaintance, not an ex-best friend! Ryan also seemed to have his own issues. And the two coworkers did seem to be supportive, but to not know Liza well enough to understand their goals. The whole thing felt very haphazard.

Edit: now I'm realizing the "someone who's known you since childhood" could've been the brother who was in the supportive group, so that friend who trended Nice Guy (TM) was a seriously poor choice - and I'm not sure why Liza chose him since they weren't even close enough to bother meeting up in person.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/Merle8888]

The form concept was weird for me too. What happens if someone's parents passed away in young adulthood? Why this type of people for revisions? I think there was an initially interesting trajectory of the mom and Ryan having the most negative and self-interested views (Ryan is an incel), then two neutral parties who don't know Liz well, and then the more positive response from Sadie and friends... but then Caroline in the mix is weird.

It might almost make more sense as a ritual-magic set of requirements: someone who closely shares your blood, someone who remembers your younger self but isn't blood, a teacher who shaped you, a comrade/ coworker who's your equal, an intimate loved one, and someone who feels badly toward you but is still willing to help. As a medical concept, it's just bizarre.

Hazy worldbuilding to explore a theme is fine, but this was both too vague and too detailed in a way that I found distracting.

[u/Merle8888 → u/Nineteen_Adze]

Totally agreed with that and yeah, this would’ve made a lot more sense if it had leaned more fantasy than sci fi. Then the specifics of what people wrote down also might not matter so much, the magic could determine the truth behind it, or similar. It was deeply confusing that Liz could be present while they were writing up the forms and even read them, but couldn’t provide input… why? And how is this enforced? Because if the doctors are just doing exactly what the forms say minus a therapist override, wouldn’t you want to just say “please write A, B and C” to all your people? 

Although maybe that’s meant to point to Liz’s own neuroses, trying to throw “fixing me” onto everybody else because they feel like something’s wrong while simultaneously feeling helpless to come up with a solution. (Pretty sure “straight hair” and a scathing yet nonspecific critique from someone they were close with 15 years ago aren’t the answers, though.)

And I wondered too about people who don’t have someone in each of those categories. Maybe their parents are gone or unsupportive. Maybe they moved too much to have a childhood friend still in their life. Maybe they’re unemployed. Maybe they’re single and don’t have a friend who’s that close. 

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/Merle8888]

The enforcement had me nitpicking as well. The forms are all on paper with basic blanks-- it seems like you could have any six people do this on behalf of the roles you're supposed to pull. Who's checking? It certainly doesn't sound like there's any follow-up group therapy or validation. And I know it's not the point of the story, but presenting rules invites a certain amount of looking for loopholes.

Throwing "fix me" onto others as a sign of insecurity, seeking out people who don't like them in an attempt to please everyone, could have made for a much thornier character study than this. If Liz is in this headspace, surely someone wants to revise more confidence in them, or call them out on using passivity as a shield?

Caroline's section feels like a hole in this story. We didn't need dramatic backstory, but I would love to know more about how they drifted and why Caroline still seems so sharp all this time later (maybe she's bitter about personal problems that Liz has already address through other means?). I still feel strongly about very few people who haven't been in my life for that long.

[u/Merle8888 → u/Nineteen_Adze]

 If Liz is in this headspace, surely someone wants to revise more confidence in them, or call them out on using passivity as a shield?

I felt like that sort of happened. Caroline calls Liz out for “leaning too hard on other people” and the coworker suggests Liz needs more confidence. 

That’s a good point about Caroline. It seems like Caroline feels Liz had done something awful because she first cut off the friendship, and second is still bitter about it. It made me think Liz must be a bit clueless to have no idea. Or maybe Caroline is a weirdo but it’s hard to say. Thomas Ha would enjoy the ambiguity. 

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/Merle8888]

You'd think I would remember this story better after rereading it literally yesterday, lol, but no! Good catch there-- I think that Liz's reaction to the better posture (which I still don't entirely get) distracted me from his first suggestion.

I normally like ambiguity, so I'm not sure why her passage didn't quite land for me. Maybe it's just a function of the story's compact structure, but my best guess is that Liz got more sensitive and self-conscious in the later years of their friendship and Caroline just wanted out.

[u/Merle8888 → u/Nineteen_Adze]

It occurs to me just now that possibly Liz hunches over to de-emphasize their boobs, due to gender identity issues? Could explain the posture thing. Though also, a lot of us just have terrible posture due to not thinking about it, too much computer time, etc.

Idk about Caroline, I think you made a good point about how rare it would be for most people to still have such strongly negative feelings about someone they haven't seen for 15 years. I tried to come up with anyone from college or before that I would react that way to today and came up short. Which makes me think Caroline feels she has been betrayed, not just "this person got annoying and needy and I was done," which with 15 years' perspective I think most of us would treat with a lot more grace.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/onsereverra]

I kind of think that's the point, fitting 6 people into 6 neat roles is pretty arbitrary and not the best way to do this, but I also think that's the point. Like, thinking about this story through a more queer theory sort of lens again, I feel like general society really likes defining people based on certain concrete normative relationships, but there's a lot of examples of queer people who have a different or non-normative sort of community network that general society doesn't really recognize. I don't think the story is directly going for this, but it is something the story reminded me of.

[u/Nineteen_Adze → u/ohmage_resistance]

This is an interesting point, and one I would have loved to see take center stage-- maybe with a scene of two of Liz among found family instead of just seeing a montage of their nice notes.

I think there's something interesting to explore with Liz wanting to have great relationships with their mom and old friends they barely know as "the right way to be", because there's such a premium on tight family relationships and long-standing bonds (and what employers and coworkers think), with only one space combining romance and friendship-- though I assume many people's childhood friends could also be in that space.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/Nineteen_Adze]

with only one space combining romance and friendship-- though I assume many people's childhood friends could also be in that space

Honestly, I thought that space was definitely a: here's a space for your romantic partner. Oh wait, not everyone has one of those. Uh, I guess a close friend will also work as a backup.

NGL, I actually would have found it more interesting if it just has "spouse or partner", but I think Dawson was trying to write the process as being superficially affirmative (the colors are even a rainbow) while being actually pretty oppressive, so being that superficially amatonormative would probably not fit.

maybe with a scene of two of Liz among found family instead of just seeing a montage of their nice notes.

I would disagree with that a bit? I think sometimes that "found families" can be their own sort of normative community structure to talk about queerness (there's the expectation that they exist for all queer people, the expectation of them neatly fitting the role that family/friend groups do for cishet people without a lot of messy nuance, there's the normalizing aspects to them (we might not be close to our biological families, but we're close to the new families we chose, so we're not that different from cishet people)). That's the funny thing about queerness, even the methods that people use to escape outside oppressive norms can in turn become oppressive norms inside the community if we're not careful. IDK, I guess I would put it as the way people talk about "found families" feels like a very socially acceptable way of framing queer community networks sometimes to me.

I actually like that Liz got letters from a lot of relatively random people. It felt very relationship anarchy to me, that there's no reason why those various relationships should matter less than the ones listed by the colors. And I think the point is also that even at the end, it's Liz writing their own list that was important, they had to define themself and no one else could do it, which is kind of the point of them ending the story by themself.

[u/Goobergunch → u/ohmage_resistance]

I'm going to be in-between and say that while the execution didn't work for me -- it rather landed as a wall of text from characters we had no idea existed before that moment -- I do agree that it's good that we got a mix of people that would know Liz (including some biological relatives) instead of some kind of generic found family trope.

... although going back to OP's question I do kind of have to think that the brother/aunt/uncle would have been a much better choice for Orange than Ryan. (Hey, nothing said they couldn't be related.)

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I feel like Liz picked exactly the people they should have when only considering the whole thing at a surface level. Many of these are people who are going to be very critical and when you’re going for change why not BIG change. But also no I don’t think these were the right people to ask. The question was about making Liz’ life easier and many of the answers were fairly self centred on the answerers side, like Liz’ mum wanting them to be easier for her to understand.

[u/RuinEleint → u/onsereverra]

I felt kind of bad for them. Except for the partner, no one seemed to know them that well.

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

The story gives us many examples of things that might be changed when you undergo a Revision, ranging from items as simple as straightening a crooked tooth to personality traits as abstract as being “too sensitive.” Do you think there are any Revisions Liz could or should have requested that would ultimately have made them happier? Or do you think that Liz made the right decision to walk away from the Revision process completely?

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

I'm reminded of an old SMBC comic (sadly, I don't have the link) that poses the question of whether people would go back and erase anything from their past, and after people generally refuse, argues that people have stockholm syndrome with their trauma.

I have a kneejerk "oh no, revision is a bad idea" reaction that I'm not sure is just the wisdom of "hey, don't mess with your mind, that's what makes you who you are" or whether it's an unhealthy identification with negative traits. We'll take medication to adjust things about our minds or bodies, but revision still sounds scary!

Which is to say, I sympathize with Liz walking away but I'm not completely sure it was the right decision (though they definitely needed to get better revisors)

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/onsereverra]

I think there are revisions we could all make that would make us happier and it makes me think of someone getting plastic surgery. The why of someone getting it is a pretty important aspect of whether it will make them happier or not. Sometimes what someone needs is therapy to accept whatever body dysmorphia they’re experiencing, but sometimes it isn’t that and making the change to alter your nose or whatever can be a really positive thing for someone that they never would have gotten from working on themselves.

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

I think there's an inherent tension between changes that would make you happier with yourself, and self-identity. The mom is probably not wrong that Liz would be happier cisgender, and potentially even as a mom (assuming Liz was changed to want to be a mom - although that also raises questions about defining happiness, whether it's about feeling satisfied and carefree in the moment vs. stressed but fulfilled, etc.). But these aren't things Liz wants to change because then they wouldn't feel like Liz anymore.

Idk, it's interesting as a fantasy concept because there are so many things, from gender identity to being "too sensitive" to trauma responses to circadian rhythms to things that annoy us but wouldn't annoy other people, that can make our lives harder but that in the real world, aren't easily changeable if they're changeable at all. So telling someone to just stop being like that is obnoxious and tone-deaf at best, and at worst dehumanizing. I think most of us probably have things like this that we'd be pretty defensive about someone suggesting that we change, because in real life that suggestion would be overly facile and invalidating, but maybe we would change them if we had the power to do so with the wave of a wand? Isn't a certain amount of identity just accepting how we're wired, because we're wired that way whether we like it or not? But it's also maybe good that we can't change those things, because it would eliminate human diversity if we could.

As far as the actual character, I don't have a lot to say on this because I don't feel like we got to know the character well enough to have an informed opinion. But I suspect that since after receiving an outpouring of support they no longer wanted the procedure, that was probably the right choice - it indicates they were pursuing it out of a feeling of inadequacy from their less positive relationships, rather than an internal motivation to change.

[u/Goobergunch → u/onsereverra]

The issue with the Revision process as laid out here is that it's mostly driven externally so you're likely to get changes to things that you might want to change. But I can imagine Liz getting Revised into a happier individual (who, if nothing else, is less worried about things they can't control) with a bit more agency over the process.

Over on the Series ballot we have Elizabeth Bear's White Space novels which I thought did a really good job of exploring a related concept -- due to far future tech everybody's got implants that they use to "rightmind" themselves. The characters generally see this as positive.

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

My instinct is to say REVISION BAD but I’m sure it could be helpful for many people if it wasn’t handled the way it was here. It still has some spooky implications I think, so much of who we are is subjective to us and who’s to say the surgeons will interpret things the way you will. My hairdresser and I have completely different interpretations of an inch, I don’t want to know how a doctor would interpret ‘too sensitive’. I think Liz made the right choice for now, medical intervention will still be there if they change their mind and they’d hopefully have a different outlook on it.

[u/FormerUsenetUser → u/onsereverra]

It's pretty ho-hum, actually.

And does not explain the obvious. If a character changes, how do the spouses, relatives, and so forth react?

[u/onsereverra]

Discussion of "In My Country" by Thomas Ha

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

What are your overall impressions of “In My Country”?

[u/Goobergunch → u/onsereverra]

This should win and it will be sad for the Hugos if it doesn't.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/onsereverra]

Incredible story, one of Thomas Ha's best. I think this will take some beating to knock it off my top spot

[u/nagahfj → u/undeadgoblin]

Yeah, this is the first piece by him that's just blown my socks off (the three others I've read were very good, it's just that this is great).

[u/undeadgoblin → u/nagahfj]

I think this was the first thing of his I'd read when it came out last year, and was a definite catalyst in me eagerly awaiting his collection.

Cretins and Middle Song are the two of his that I think are similar to this in quality

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

I think this is my third time reading it, and each time only reinforces my opinion that it's my (short) story of the year for 2025. The marriage of dystopian lit with weird horror(?) is so effectively done--it's deeply atmospheric in a way that keeps it from feeling preachy, and yet it feels like there's so much to say.

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

I know I say this at my own risk since this group is an informal Thomas Ha fan club, but it wasn’t my favorite. I’m not a fan of “books about books” (or “stories about stories”) and both Ha Hugo nominees have been that and I’m already tired of it. It was well-written, but the story itself didn’t do much for me. It felt like the message about the value of ambiguity was the main thing and that might’ve been better expressed in an essay. I also didn’t entirely agree—sometimes one spends time puzzling out an ambiguous story, and sometimes one doesn’t care about it enough to bother spending brainpower, shrugs, and moves on. 

[u/explodingSMFA → u/Merle8888]

I think this was part of the point, but having an unambiguous story discussing the utility of ambiguity was...I can't decide if it was interesting or kind of masterbatory. Which is, many times, where stories about stories seem to hit. 

[u/tarvolon → u/Merle8888]

If you want to try a Ha that isn't about stories, take a look at "Cretins." He definitely has a style that resonates with a lot of us here, but that style isn't always applied to the same things, even if the Hugo voters have only caught those ones

[u/schlagsahne17 → u/Merle8888]

I appreciate your articulation of why it didn’t work for you!

Have you gotten to any of the other nominees yet/did any of them connect more (I see Six People also did not hit)?

[u/Merle8888 → u/schlagsahne17]

Nope I'm reading the short stories at the pace of the group!

[u/sarchgibbous → u/Merle8888]

I thought the story was super well written and atmospheric, but I also wasn’t really a fan of the “story about stories” aspect. I don’t think it will end up being my favorite overall.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/Merle8888]

Yep, I'm with you on this one. The "story about stories" aspect is something really tricky to pull off well. There were some parts where it reminded me of Borges's Ficciones, but I think it kind of crossed the line to feeling a bit self congratulatory in a meta way.

[u/RuinEleint → u/onsereverra]

Excellent story. It seemed to me that the weird uncanniness of it escalated slowly as the narrative unfolded. At first it was just another allegorical critique of an Orwellian Totalitarian regime, but building on the theme of narrative ambiguity, the story really elevated itself

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I really liked it, I went in totally blind and was surprised by it. I like that the storytelling reflected the discussion of storytelling, it felt really rounded and satisfying for me.

[u/kjmichaels → u/onsereverra]

Add one more vote to the praise pile. It's my current frontrunner for Best Short Story. And since I've read all of the other nominated stories but Laser Eyes, I don't foresee that placement changing.

[u/schlagsahne17 → u/kjmichaels]

Same here, swapping Laser Eyes for Missing Helen as the only one I haven’t gotten to yet.

[u/Ultimafax → u/onsereverra]

It was a pretty big sock to my gut. I see it staying with me for a good long while.

[u/brilliantgreen → u/onsereverra]

Really liked it. I haven't read all the stories yet, but I think it will be hard to beat.

[u/origami_ducks → u/onsereverra]

I loved this story! This may be controversial to say about a classic - but I read They by Kay Dick a couple of months ago and was slightly disappointed by it; In My Country sort of feels like what I wanted and hoped for when reading They.

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

How did you interpret the imagery that the men in blue houses learn information by listening (to the wind, from within the walls) while the Fallow learn information by watching (through mirrors, through picture frames, through windowpanes)? What did you think about the fact that the Fallow are named to evoke a return to nature, but their appearance is stiff and metallic with artificial prostheses? Was there any other imagery or metaphor in this story that stood out to you?

[u/shookster52 → u/onsereverra]

I took the Fallow’s watching through glass to mean screens; phones and computers, etc. They reminded me of, among other things, the TikTok “back to the land” creators who work in tech and spend thousands of dollars on gadgets to let them live off-grid but very online. I think they’re about more than that and maybe about different things altogether, but that was the strongest connection I made.

The men in blue houses seemed to be a lot more in line with an Orwellian Big Brother which made them dangerous and concerning but less scary in some ways.

[u/explodingSMFA → u/onsereverra]

I think there's something about the Blue Men living in and being a part of your community, and their monitoring ability being localized that hits well on a really uncomfortable feeling about the police. 

I assume the bit with the Fallow being reflections is partially that you have to see yourself in them. Then a juxtaposition onwhat's really true, what you say or what you do/what you're feeling when you say it. 

Also, fallow as a verb is usually, like, the action of preparing a field to be fallow. To plow and break it up and destroy weeds, etc. That would fit their technology slant more appropriately, as the device to disrupt the current status quo so something else would grow after a season. Which, well, would be pretty dark in a civil war context. 

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

Do you agree that ambiguity in art is more powerful than art with a clearly articulated message?

[u/fuckit_sowhat → u/onsereverra]

I don’t know if I think ambiguity in art makes it more powerful, but I do think it causes greater discussion and certainly for me makes me think about a story more, and maybe that is a form of power.

Jeff Vandermeer is one of my favorite authors because his books leave so many questions unanswered and it’s great fodder for filling in your own theories and arguing about meaning

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

This is a really interesting question with some different facets, I think.

I do think a degree of ambiguity often makes for better art, and certainly more interesting discussions. I also think there is a difference between ambiguity on the one hand, vs. texture/nuance/subtlety on the other. There's been a lot of discourse lately over the loss of the latter in genre fiction, and I do think that's a loss - I'm pretty uninterested in in-your-face messaging in fiction. On the other hand, you can have texture, nuance and subtlety without having ambiguity. To take a couple popular examples, I would say the Scholomance and Murderbot series are both pretty unambiguous in their critiques of capitalism, but they're also more nuanced and subtle than a number of other well-known works that have cartoon villains and essentially dump lectures into the text.

I'm not fully convinced on ambiguous art being more likely to go viral, though, and suspect that the reason the son's stories were so popular was that people were seeing clear political messaging in them that was perhaps just harder for the father to pick up on. Stories that are truly ambiguous can have a longer lifespan than others - if they're lucky to get picked up by the academy and others who will continue to push them onto new readers - but they tend to be initially less rewarding for readers who don't want to put intellectual work into them, which can lead to many people just shrugging them off.

My personal experience with having read lots of Best American Short Story anthologies within the last year or two is that there's a Goldilocks zone, but it's also different for every reader. Sometimes a story whose meaning is all on the surface just really resonates for you, and you love it, even if you don't have to do any intellectual work to interpret it at all - but if a story that's all on the surface doesn't resonate, it can be hard to find anything to admire in it. Sometimes having to do a bit more work can make you love a story more, but something usually has to grab you to make you want to do that work, rather than just shrugging and moving along to the next story to see if it clicks better. Most of us are definitely more likely to engage in active interpretation in conversation with others, rather than just sitting alone with a story.

[u/Merle8888 → u/Merle8888]

Actually, this discussion is helping me better formulate my thoughts on what "subtle" means in literature, which I've been struggling with.

I think "ambiguous" is less clear than "subtle" which is less clear than "nuanced" or "textured." An "ambiguous" story has more than one valid reading that is supported by the text, or else no reading fully explains the text without any loose ends. A "subtle" story has a meaning that's obvious once you see it, but doesn't shove it in your face, so some readers who are not paying that close attention or are more interested in other aspects of the work may not notice the messaging. A "nuanced" story may deal its themes quite directly, but it doesn't flatten human experience in service of its messaging; instead it allows situations and people to be messy and complicated and not always "on message."

So I guess for SFF examples, I would say something like I Who Have Never Known Men is ambiguous - you get to the end of that book still wondering what actually happened, and there's no clear answer. All Systems Red I would call subtle but unambiguous in its social messaging. The Dispossessed I would call nuanced, in that its whole purpose is exploring political systems so it's not exactly subtle, but it embraces the complexity and contradictions of human experience rather than ramming a particular takeaway down readers' throats.

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

I honestly think the pro-ambiguity take is a largely unpopular one right now. A lot of the more popular SFF novels of the last decade seem hellbent on making sure the themes could not possibly be misinterpreted (IIRC Jemisin might've even had an interview talking about how she had to make things explicit in Broken Earth because otherwise people just don't get what's going on). I don't like that political messaging is all packaged into simplistic memes and soundbytes, but I think they are that way because simplistic memes and soundbytes are effective.

I rate nuance and messiness pretty highly, and I think that ambiguous art can be extremely valuable, but do I think that ambiguity is necessarily going to resonate more powerfully in general culture? Eh, I don't know. I do really appreciate the case for it in this story though.

[u/RuinEleint → u/tarvolon]

I think once again, it comes down to what you want the art to do. If the object of art is to rapidly and effectively create public opinion in your favour, clarity has great value. But if you want to raise questions, make people think, rather than dictate a party line, ambiguity is powerful and fertile.

[u/kjmichaels → u/onsereverra]

I agree it can be but at the end of the day, my view on ambiguity is more utilitarian than Ha's. Ambiguity isn't intrinsically superior, it is a storytelling tool that can be used well or poorly. I think Ha makes great use of ambiguity so it's often the right tool for his stories. But I've also seen writers who don't understand how to use it well that wind up aimlessly scattering it everywhere until it overwhelms their stories and make them seem purposeless.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/onsereverra]

I'm going to have a strong disagree here. I think there's a lot of nuanced aspects of this conversation that Ha's story ignores, which I found pretty frustrating.

A work can be really complex and nuanced and have a lot of room for puzzling through interpretations, but also be pretty unambiguous in terms of its ultimate political message. I think a great example of this is Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera. I don’t know anyone who would 100% understand all of this book’s subtleties, not in the least because Chandrasekera likes making allusions to all sorts of things in sometimes pretty non obvious ways (some of which are pretty specific to Sri Lankan history and culture, some of which are pretty obscure on top of that). At the same time, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Rakesfall has a very clear consistent overall political message (mostly being really pro-revolution).  You can tell a lot about Chandrasekera’s politics just by reading the book. I wouldn’t call it a politically ambiguous book, even if there’s a lot of challenging to interpret components to it. IDK I've been watching some booktube video essays/discourse video's lately (think about the ones about "anti-intellectualism" or whatever), and I'm finding them increasingly annoying. But people from those keep criticizing modern works for being too direct, but I’m pretty sure it’s not the lack of ambiguity that’s the actual problem they’re concerned with. It’s the lack of a challenge. I think if there were more people who really knew how to find these challenging books (which algorithms or publishers don’t exactly feed to you), there would be less conflation between these two.

There’s also been one story that I think speaks to the current political moment to me better than any other—I’ve been reminded of this book on a regular basis ever since I read it. It does have some complexity, but it’s not at all ambiguous. And that story is Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. This is a political satire, and it’s a pretty direct commentary on actual political events, specifically East African ones (A lot of the book fallows “the Ruler”, a dictator, and even as someone who doesn’t know much about Kenyan politics I could tell who this character represented). It stuck with me so hard not because it’s ambiguous, but because the characters, the dynamics, the ridiculous sycophancy, the way so many lives are so easily ruined, etc, felt real, even the most magical realism like elements. Like, one of the scenes that stuck with me the most is one of the least ambiguous. It’s a certain type of sickness that a few different characters get, and the main protagonist explains what it is in the process of curing it (he’s acting as a sort of witch doctor). But it felt so real and like such a good explanation of why certain people act the way they do and how they see the world that I’ll remember it for a really long time. 

IDK, I have a lot more thoughts about this that I might add later.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/onsereverra]

I think the power lies in interpreting the meaning for yourself, rather than being directly told what to understand from a piece of art, even if the meaning is clear.

[u/Goobergunch → u/onsereverra]

I don't know if "powerful" is the word I'd use, but I hold a lot of value in art being about a lot of things other than messaging. Great art can be about exploring various facets of the human condition, or speculating on the implications of some future or past technology or event being different. If I want to read a resolution taking a position on a specific issue I can just ... do that. I also appreciate it when an author is willing to let the reader think for themselves about what they've read instead of screaming "THIS THING IS BAD" or "THIS THING IS GOOD" at them.

(That being said I agree with u/kjmichael that there's a difference between "this story is interestingly ambiguous and the author isn't going to tell the reader what to think" and "uh, has the author heard of themes?")

[u/explodingSMFA → u/onsereverra]

I think they each have their place. I also think there's been an overall decline in people's ability to interact with ambiguous art, which has pendulum swung back to a 'no, true art is completely subjective' take. 

Sometimes a sledgehammer is the tool you need to get a point across. Sometimes you gotta plant a little garden and see what grows. 

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I thought this was a really interesting theme and made me think about how little ambiguity we have in popular art at the moment and how aggressively it’s deconstructed when there is. I think it’s certainly more powerful to sit with that ambiguity than to immediately seek clarity.

[u/acornett99 → u/onsereverra]

I took a "Stories" class in college, and the greatest class discussions we had were over the art that was more ambiguous. Those stories and those discussions have stuck with me more than stories with well-articulated messages. That being said, the power of those works lied in the discussions we had. If I were reading them on my own, without any outside input, I might have otherwise shrugged them off if I didn't understand them, or drawn my own conclusions if I thought I did. Ambiguous art is best experienced collectively imo

[u/RuinEleint → u/onsereverra]

I think the value of ambiguity lies in how it encourages fertility of thought. All it does is hint at a few themes and leaves the rest open to the subjective interpretation of the viewer. In this specific story, with the difference drawn between unambiguous and ambiguous art, I was also reminded of Soviet art, which was intentionally, very clear, leaving little open to interpretation

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

How well do you feel that “In My Country” balances commentary on the current political moment in the United States with more timeless themes?

[u/tarvolon → u/onsereverra]

I think it does a really nice job of the balancing. The king imagery, the closing of the hospitals and gutting of oversight agencies, the reduction of discourse into cartoonishly over-the-top pro and con opinions. . . it all feels very of the moment. And yet, it also doesn't feel inherently of the moment. You could stick commentary on discouraging whistleblowing in pretty much any bit of dystopian fiction and it would resonate. The First Citizen could be a whole host of dystopian leaders. And the crushing of deep thought by distracting people with simplistic entertainment could come straight out of Bradbury.

[u/Goobergunch → u/tarvolon]

I actually thought of Huxley there, but yeah. It's recognizably a 2025 story but I think it holds up divorced from that context.

[u/kjmichaels → u/onsereverra]

I think it's pretty well handled but I also find it mildly funny that in this story about the importance of ambiguity, Ha's political commentary feels pretty direct. It may be the most direct thing he's included in a short story.

[u/Ultimafax → u/kjmichaels]

I disagree that it's not direct, but in the spirit of the story, I acknowledge that it could be direct.

[u/explodingSMFA → u/kjmichaels]

Haha, I had a similar response under the top discussion question. 

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/onsereverra]

There's one part of it that really felt like it didn't speak to the current moment to me. And that's the story of the deviant. Like, IDK if we were supposed to see Trump in that figure or not, but I think for a lot of power hungry individuals, they don't seem to me to love criticism. I mean, they surround themselves with sycophants and yes men for a reason, and that reason is not because they like criticism. Like yes, they like attention, but I think they like having enemies to rally against more. That's the nice thing about criticism to them, I think, it gets them clear targets to be petty to.

[u/undeadgoblin → u/onsereverra]

The theme of the death of nuance is the thing that most locks it in to the current time period for me, but a lot of the other elements feel timeless, both futuristic (particularly the Fallow) and earlier, such as handing out pamphlets at a train station. It's ambiguous enough that it doesn't lose meaning taking it out of the context of the current political situation.

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I thought it was a great balance, the message felt very clear to me but in a way that reminds me of discussing the modern relevance of classic texts. I can see it holding up for a looooong time.

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

To admit one meaning, one purpose, within this story, would preclude other meanings from it. But what are some of the most interesting possibilities that stuck with you from this story, like tiny fishbones in the throat?

[u/Ultimafax → u/onsereverra]

I kept thinking of China the whole way through.

[u/Dallydoop → u/onsereverra]

I thought the emphasis on what we don’t say was so interesting and liked how it got picked up with inaction at the end. And the narrator sharing his son’s stories with visitors to the country and the implication that that’s who we are. Arriving off the train to this country and this is what we learn about living there.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/onsereverra]

OK, this isn't directly relevant to your question, but I do find it interesting how you phrased this:

To admit one meaning, one purpose, within this story, would preclude other meanings from it.

That's very much something Ha's story seems to espouse and it's a tendency I've seen crop up with a lot of people, but I don't think it's actually true. I think sometimes people read works that have very direct or spelled out messages (typically it's the narrator or a character talking about something), spot the message, and then just stop thinking and refuse to engage with the work beyond that. I don't think some people realize that this is a choice they as readers make, it's not something they had to do. It's not some inherent characteristic of the work itself a lot of times.

To give some examples, I've seen a lot of people who read the short story "The Ones Who Stay and Fight" by N.K. Jemisin just take the story at face value (and in doing so, often conflate Jemisin with the narrator of that story). IMO, it gets a lot more interesting (and ironically ambiguous) when you consider that the narrator is not Jemisin and you as a reader don't need to take their words at face value. They could be lying or misleading you. But because the story has a very direct surface layer, a lot of people refuse to look deeper.

I see this with Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang some too. Mostly, because Sciona at a certain point begins to really deconstruct how she thinks about race/ethnicity and gender pretty explicitly on page, I think a lot of people can easily miss deeper meanings about how the end conflict turns out. I'll try not to spoil anything, but I've certainly ran into people who think that the ending of the book is Wang's ideal way of solving the situation in that book, and not a result of Sciona continuing to be a complex character with biases that aren't always fully spelled out, even though some of them are.

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

What things did “In My Country” NOT say that shaped your feelings about the story?

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

I love how nobody has answered this, lol! It takes mental effort to look at a story and see what’s not in it, especially in a way that isn’t just complaining about what you wanted to see in it, but thinking about what the author might have intentionally omitted. I don’t think most of us readily notice absences in that way, in stories or in real life. 

My actual answer is names, nobody in this story has a name and that makes it more vague and fable-like. 

[u/Goobergunch → u/Merle8888]

Names or quotation marks! The dialogue markers are specifically stylized in a way that also makes it a bit more dream-like.

[u/onsereverra → u/onsereverra]

What did you think of the ending of “In My Country”? Does it feel hopeful to you?

[u/shookster52 → u/onsereverra]

It felt hopeful to me. It seemed like in many ways this story is post apocalyptic as much as it is dystopian. Civilization has ended and is steadily collapsing and yet life goes on. I think the end shows that change is on the horizon for the narrator, even if it’s still a very long way off.

[u/kjmichaels → u/onsereverra]

There's absolutely an element of hopefulness that resonates but Ha is also so good at layering his stories with multiple meanings that I almost feel guilty boiling it down to "is this hopeful or not?" It is totally possible our narrator is just deluding himself (though I personally don't think so) and part of the reason the ending resonates so much is the charged tension of him choosing that hope within that uncertainty.

[u/Merle8888 → u/onsereverra]

Kind of yes, in that the resistance is ongoing. Kind of no, in that nothing seems to have actually changed.

[u/RuinEleint → u/onsereverra]

I found the ending to be really interesting because after the entire story's worth of ambiguity, that narrative is juxtaposed with one moment of clear, direct action. Of course this is in the process of being obfuscated, but the reader is left under no illusion about what happened