Started: 7/28/19
Finished: 7/28/19
This was the very last Hugo-eligible story I read, and it took a serious run at the top of my novelette list (I landed on #2 for it, but it was close). It’s a refreshingly NICE story, and I am moving the author’s novels higher up my to-read list.
Started: 7/28/19
Finished: 7/28/19
Super short, and very moving, but it’s mostly in the footnotes and the editing comments, so it takes a little maneuvering to get at it.
Started: 7/28/19
Finished: 7/28/19
I LOVE THIS STORY SO MUCH. I am not ashamed to admit I cried at the end. I was reading it out loud to Jack and he wasn’t sure what to do with me.
Started: 7/28/19
Finished: 7/28/19
The style of this short story was interesting – like encyclopedia entries – and I appreciate how each of the “donors” affected George Washington, but this was both a little too weird for me (I’m shuddering at the whole teeth thing) and a little not enough.
Started: 7/27/19
Finished: 7/28/19
For a novelette, it took too long to reel me in. I considered not finishing it, and come on, it’s a novelette. I did finish it, and it did get good, but there’s too much left to the imagination after the end. And I’m not sure I care enough to imagine it.
Started: 7/27/19
Finished: 7/27/19
LOVED this novelette – the style, the voice, the story. It’s about a woman who has just returned to her academic research after losing her mother (who she took care of for years). It rocketed to the top of my voting list for novelette this year.
Started: 7/27/19
Finished: 7/27/19
SHORT short story, with a cute twist on the sly faerie folk genre.
Started: 7/26/19
Finished: 7/27/19
In contrast to the previous novelette, I felt like this one needed more. As a family story, I think it had enough (and it was really good). As a science fiction story, it felt a little empty.
Started: 7/26/19
Finished: 7/26/19
Oh, how I liked this novelette. A bad leader, a long-term revenge, pain and suffering. Really good stuff in a very small package. And food! Delicious food!
Started: 7/25/19
Finished: 7/25/19
An eerie short story by the author of that portal fantasy with clones from last year that I liked so much. This one was pretty good. Learn the rules before you use magic!
Started: 7/24/19
Finished: 7/25/19
I loved the voice of the narrator in this short story. Same author as the sad elephant novella, but I would never have guessed that. I feel like the plot is given away in the title, and I’m okay with that.
Started: 7/18/19
Finished: 7/24/19
This is the second novella in the Murderbot Diaries series, and it’s so great! Poor Murderbot.
Started: 7/14/19
Finished: 7/18/19
I had heard such wonderful things about this story, but at its start, all I can think of is how SAD it is. Update: at its end, all I can think of how sad it is. It’s an alternate history that combines two true events tragedies: Topsy the Elephant and the Radium Girls. It’s very good, but very hard to read. I suppose it’s a good thing it’s a novelette…
Started: 7/8/19
Finished: 7/14/19
I was just getting into the swing of things when it ended! That’s the problem with novellas, I suppose. Good story, but there’s a lot about the world and their mission that I didn’t completely follow. I care enough to wish I could find out more, but that also means I’m a little disappointed in it.
Started: 6/22/19
Finished: 7/1/19
Book 3 in the Wayfarers series. This was a NICE story, but I had a hard time getting into it at first. I enjoyed it, and I wholeheartedly recommend it (the whole series), but I don’t think it’s Hugo-worthy (this book is nominated, as is the series).
Started: 6/1/19
Finished: 6/7/19
I’ve been meaning to read this one for a year, and then it got nominated for a Hugo and I got it in the voter’s packet, so yay for me! It’s a story about monsters and monsterslayers in a post-apocalyptic US, set on a Navajo reservation, and it’s pretty great.
Started: 8/16/18
Gave up: 8/17/18
Interesting premise: Victorian missionaries travel to the lands of the Fae to try to convert them to Christianity. Our protagonist’s brother never returned, so she heads there to try to find him. And then nothing happens. For a long time. So I gave up.
Started: 7/17/18
Finished: 7/21/18
I’m really not sure if I liked this. It was interesting, and there’s an open question about the abilities the kid had (Did he actually have them? Did those things really happen?), but aside from that, it’s about a teenager, his relationships, and his eating disorder.
Started: 7/12/18
Finished: 7/17/18
Entertaining, but not great. Superheroes are a thing, but the main character is the assistant to one of the heroes because she’s afraid of her own powers and blah blah blah. It wasn’t exactly gripping.
Started: 7/6/18
Finished: 7/12/18
It’s a Baba Yaga story, it’s an Alice in Wonderland story, and of course it’s neither of those, but it was really good, and I really enjoyed the characters.