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 packet
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.
Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree by Nibedita Sen
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:
Leviathan Sings to Me in the Deep by Nibedita Sen
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.
A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde
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.
Blood is Another Word for Hunger by Rivers Solomon
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.
And Now His Lordship Is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas
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.
As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang
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.