A Hugo Review: Best Fancast - Fangirl Happy Hour

Fangirl Happy Hour, presented by Ana Grilo and Renay Williams, features reviews and commentary on genre media and pop culture.

I really appreciate the team putting together a sampler to give Hugo voters a quicker overview of their work than a full listen to the nearly 40 episodes they dropped in 2016. They picked a discussion on genre starter packs (episode 32), talk about The Core (episode 47), discussion of the original Ghostbusters (episode 49), discussion of the new Ghostbusters (episode 52), a review of The Vision (episode 54) and a review of The Obelisk Gate (episode 64). With the exception of their review of The Vision, which was a cliche-filled boredom fest and they thought it was great, I mostly agreed with their opinions on stuff I am familiar with.

The good: Both presenters have good voices and talk passionately about their subjects. Both aren't afraid to go a little far in their thoughts to reach a satisfying conclusion. They don't delve so deeply that the listener gets bored, but bring up enough good points to make their podcasts worth listening to.

The bad: I will confess that my prude alert went off a bit due to Ana's language, but only a bit. I was also uncomfortable with the talk of 'shipping - I felt it sometimes detracted from the reviews to have the hosts giggling over their own imaginative pairings of characters. A tiny bit of 'shipping talk is fine, but they seemed to make it a central point in some cases. Other than those nits and the fact that they are completely in the wrong about The Vision, not much bad here.

Conclusion: I enjoyed it, but not as much as my top pick. They are in second place on my ballot now.

Best Fancast: I've listened to Tea and Jeopardy, Ditch Diggers, and Fangirl Happy Hour. I still need to listen to The Coode Street Podcast and Galactic Suburbia.

Reviews of 2017 Hugo Finalists