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Hugo packet

Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree by Nibedita Sen

July 23, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/23/20
Finished: 7/23/20

I LOVED this story.  I had just read several heavier stories, some horror, and then I found this, and it’s funny, it’s light, and it’s lovely.  Here’s a link:

Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: fantasy, ghost, Hugo packet, short story

Leviathan Sings to Me in the Deep by Nibedita Sen

July 23, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/22/20
Finished: 7/23/20

I don’t think I can say I liked this story (about a whaling ship and its crew), but I keep remembering parts of it randomly.  It won’t leave me alone.

Leviathan Sings to Me in the Deep

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, historical, Hugo packet, short story

A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde

July 22, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/22/20
Gave Up: 7/22/20

I tried to read this one, and it had an interesting premise, but the writing style got to me.  I stopped reading Fran Wilde’s second book – maybe I finished it, and I don’t care to the third? – and this short story had a similar style.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, gave up, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, short story

Blood is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon

July 22, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/22/20
Finished: 7/22/20

Weird and disturbing and think-y, like all three pieces I have read by Rivers Solomon now, so at least they have a pattern.  🙂  Available online, link below.  Worth reading.

Blood Is Another Word for Hunger

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, short story

And Now His Lordship Is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas

July 22, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/22/20
Finished: 7/22/20

SO GOOD.  It’s fantasy, it’s horror (even though I heard on a horror panel that the author doesn’t think of it as horror, so maybe I should just say it has an element that depending on what you’re afraid of, you could absoLUTEly think it’s scary), it’s historical fiction, and it’s emotional (I cried).  SO.  GOOD.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, historical, horror, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, short story

As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang

July 22, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/22/20
Finished: 7/22/20

I read this one on Tor.com a few months ago and just re-read it this morning.  It’s so good.  And it made me cry, too, more sad horrified tears, but better ones than the last story.

As the Last I May Know

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, Hugo winner, SF, short story

Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix E. Harrow

July 22, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/21/20
Finished: 7/22/20

I was not enjoying this story, and then it made me cry (sad horrified tears, not happy tears), so it had clearly gotten to me, but I’m still not sure I liked it.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, short story

Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island by Nibedita Sen

July 21, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/21/20
Finished: 7/21/20

I like experimental short story formats.  This one is fun, but also now I want to read the (fake) source material.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: alternate history, ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, short story

Away With The Wolves by Sarah Gailey

July 21, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/20/20
Finished: 7/21/20

Good story, like a YA werewolf story but without the usual trappings, and I’d really like to find out more.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, novelette

For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll

July 20, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/20/20

If you like cats, you will like this story.  I do, and I did.

For He Can Creep

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, novelette

Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin

July 20, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/20/20
Finished: 7/20/20

She’s writing in the second person POV again, and it’s SO effective.  I love how this played out.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, Hugo winner, novelette, SF

The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye by Sarah Pinsker

July 19, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20

Sarah Pinsker can do no wrong.  This story was a roller coaster, speeding downhill, all fun and great, and then BAM we ran into a wall and fell into pieces and then what?  And no.  No!  Oh god no!  It’s fantastic and you should read it.  Except not you, Mom.  Or Margaret.

The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, horror, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, mystery, novelette, SF

The Archronology of Love by Caroline M. Yoachim

July 19, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20

I don’t think I fully understood this story.  I mean, I get the overall plot and everything, I understand what happened and what the characters learned, but the details of the big tech thing and how (or why) things get erased…I spent too much time (for a novelette I finished in less than an hour) puzzling over it.  Don’t dazzle me – just tell the story.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: aliens, ebook, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, novelette, SF, time travel

Omphalos by Ted Chiang

July 19, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20

I liked the style of this story more than the content, I think.  It’s about an archaeologist who reads about an astronomical discovery that upends her views on everything.  The setting is an alternate reality where the science really does uphold the beliefs of the young-earth creationists, so that’s the accepted view of the world and physics and everything.  The story is told from her perspective as she relates her days and thoughts to God, via prayers that feel like letters or diary entries.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: alternate history, ebook, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, novelette, SF

Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom by Ted Chiang

July 19, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20

Fascinating near-future story with tech that allows you to communicate with yourself in a parallel universe, which is really cool, but it’s about free will and how people use that tech to make decisions, to justify their actions.  The tech is just the next thing (but it’s a very cool next thing to consider).

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, novella, SF, tech

The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes

July 19, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/18/20
Finished: 7/19/20

This novella was inspired by the song The Deep (by clipping.), which I haven’t listened to yet.  The premise is that the pregnant and going-into-labor slaves who were thrown overboard midocean (true) gave birth to mer-people (probably not true) who built a whole civilization and society around a historian who remembers everything so that the rest of them don’t have to.  The story is mostly about the current historian who is having difficulties with this burden, but it also goes back into the memories.  It’s very good.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, mer-people, novella

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark

July 18, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/16/20
Finished: 7/18/20

Supernatural detectives in a supernatural version of 1912 Cairo with sky trams and djinn and women’s suffrage as a backdrop.  I would read a whole series about this.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, magic, novella, period

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

July 15, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/12/20
Finished: 7/15/20

I had heard nothing but wonderful things about this one, but the one time I tried a Max Gladstone book, I couldn’t get into it.  That turned out to apply to this novella, too, even though he had a co-author.  The premise is really cool, but I seriously considered just putting it down and walking away.  The writing was not working for me.  I got involved eventually, and I think I liked it…?   Interesting, but not really my speed.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, Hugo winner, novella, SF, time travel

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

July 12, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/8/20
Finished: 7/12/20

Astronauts doing science!  Science fiction, but heavy on the science, and oh so optimistic.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, novella, SF, space

In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

July 8, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/5/20
Finished: 7/8/20

Fourth in the Wayward Children series, this one takes one of our characters back in time to when she found her door.  It’s so good, and the ending is so sad.  It felt sadder than the others, but I’m not sure why – they’re all sad stories because they can’t find their way back to where they feel they belong.  I should re-read the first one, at least.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fairy, fantasy, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, novella, Wayward Children
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