Little Free Library by Naomi Kritzer
Started: 11/18/21
Finished: 11/18/21
If only this were a true story! Link: https://www.tor.com/2020/04/08/little-free-library-naomi-kritzer/
Hugo nominee
Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse by Rae Carson
Started: 11/17/21
Finished: 11/18/21
What do you do when you’re about to have a baby but the zombies are attracted to the smell of blood? Isolate and hope you survive! Link: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/badass-moms-in-the-zombie-apocalypse/
Two Truths and a Lie by Sarah Pinsker
Started: 11/17/21
Finished: 11/17/21
Creepy and interesting, like many of her short stories. Link: https://www.tor.com/2020/06/17/two-truths-and-a-lie-sarah-pinsker/
Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell
Started: 11/17/21
Finished: 11/17/21
Aw, even haunted houses want to be loved. Cute story. Link: https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-64a-open-house-on-haunted-hill-by-john-wiswell/
Metal Like Blood in the Dark by T. Kingfisher
Started: 11/17/21
Finished: 11/17/21
A retelling of Hansel and Gretel where the kids are sentient machines in space, and the witch is a larger sentient machine. Fascinatingly weird, like the author (whose Hugo winner speech was about slime molds).
Helicopter Story by Isabel Fall
Started: 11/16/21
Finished: 11/17/21
A really interesting take on the trans experience, using a meme to start with and providing a nuanced view of it. Not my favorite short story, but still a good one. (The internet exploded on the author, and the internet was wrong, from what I can tell.)
Monster by Naomi Kritzer
Started: 11/16/21
Finished: 11/16/21
Cool, calculating, GOOD. She writes GOOD stories. I haven’t read one of hers yet that I didn’t love. Here’s the link: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_20/
The Pill by Meg Elison
Started: 11/15/21
Finished: 11/16/21
This story knocked me down. It was SO good, about a future where there’s a miracle “cure” for obesity, and it’s dark and real and really good.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Started: 11/14/21
Finished: 11/15/21
I like good stories about someone realizing they had underestimated someone, or completely misunderstood who they were in the first place. Particularly when EVERYONE was wrong. Good stuff.
Finna by Nino Cipri
Started: 11/12/21
Finished: 11/14/21
Maybe I just don’t like stories set in Ikea-like stores. I almost put this one down, but it’s a Hugo-nominated novella, so I powered through. And it was interesting – aftermath of a failed relationship, alternate universes – but something about the fake Ikea setting put me off. I gave up on the only other book I’ve read with a similar setting, too.
Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire
Started: 11/8/21
Finished: 11/12/21
Next in the Wayward Children series, nominated for a Hugo like all the others because, well, it’s good. This wasn’t my favorite, but I’m happy to see the series move forward. I like the installments that serve as backstories to characters we’ve met, too, but knowing there’s a big picture arc is satisfying to me.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Started: 10/28/21
Finished: 11/7/21
First in a series, YA, some of it was predictable, and some of it was very not predictable, and I liked it a lot.
The only thing I wasn’t crazy about it a thing that a lot of YA books do: the characters, teenagers all, never act like teenagers. Or, not never, but even kids faced with a ton of responsibility are still going to act like kids sometimes. I don’t think these kids did. So I was occasionally taken out of the story when I remembered that, hey, this character who said he made a super-serious decision “years ago” is only 18 right now, and then it turns out he made this super-serious decision when he was 12. Uh huh.
That aside, I really liked it, and I LOVED where it took the plot.
The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Started: 10/28/21
Finished: 10/28/21
I read this one several years ago, cried, emailed the author. I read it again, cried, almost emailed the author. Good story, and I love that she was inspired to write the Lady Astronaut series.
A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
Started: 10/27/21
Finished: 10/27/21
Ah, laughs, action, love, all in a short story about robots. I should read short stories other than just the Hugo-nominated ones. I like them.
Ring Shout by P. Djèlà Clark
Started: 10/26/21
Gave up: 10/27/21
I really liked the short story I read of his last year set in Cairo with a possessed tram car, and there’s a whole series there I’m excited to read, so I was bummed when I couldn’t get into this one. Mashing up Jim Crow and Klansmen with Lovecraftian monsters is a brilliant idea, but I’m a little leery of Lovecraft-related stories, and this one didn’t land for me.
Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko
Started: 10/20/21
Finished: 10/24/21
Slow start, but that’s based more on the formatting than the story/writing. It’s not .mobi, so the formatting isn’t perfect. Annoying!
SO EASY to get past the formatting after just a bit. Really good story, totally sucked me in, and I’m looking forward to the sequel.
The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood
Started: 9/30/21
Finished: 10/16/21
New fantasy series! It took me a little bit to get into it, then I was hooked, then I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it, and then I got hooked again. I can’t say whether this was just about my frame of mind or about slow parts in the book. Could be either, but the vast majority of it had my full attention, and I’m still thinking about it, and I’m excited about the next book, which – ugh – isn’t out yet.
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
Started: 9/22/21
Finished: 9/30/21
By the time I started this one, I didn’t remember anything about it except that it was highly recommended by Jo Walton, and I’m hit or miss on her recommendations. I was expecting something literary or dense, but I was pleasantly surprised to find somewhat hard SF with beautiful imagery. Totally literary, totally genre, and really good. The core story, which takes a bit to get to, is emotional and riveting. Good stuff.
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Started: 9/9/21
Finished: 9/19/21
I LOVE Naomi Novik. There’s only one book of hers I haven’t read that’s out right now, and I haven’t read it for the same reason I haven’t read that one last book of Robin McKinley’s: I don’t want to have read everything she has written.
That said, I almost quit on A Deadly Education. Wizard school (yay!) by an author I love (double yay!), but it started out so…unpleasant. So hard to understand. So not your typical wizard school book. I didn’t quit (because Naomi Novik has earned my trust), which is great because this totally weird book turned out to be awfully wonderful and I loved it and I can’t wait for the next one.
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
Started: 9/6/21
Finished: 9/9/21
My biggest complaint about novellas is that I usually want more. I really enjoyed the story, but there is so much hinted at in the rest of the world here, and I want those stories, too.