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What were you expecting?

source: Hugo Awards

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

September 18, 2020 by Zannah 2 Comments

Started: 9/9/20
Finished: 9/18/20

I was really looking forward to this one – it was nominated for a Hugo this year, I loved the short story she was nominated for last year, and I liked the short story she was nominated for this year.  The book didn’t start well for me.  It was interesting, and the premise is interesting, but the writing felt…amateurish.  It got better (I think), but the book within a book thing took too long to pay off.  I did eventually get hooked, but I found myself thinking about giving up on it a couple of times.  If I had read it between the ages of 10 and 18, maybe, I probably would have loved it.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, Hugo nominee, library, source: Hugo Awards, source: Tor.com

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards, 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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards, 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, source: Hugo Awards

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, source: Hugo Awards

City of Lies by Sam Hawke

July 5, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/5/20
Gave up: 7/5/20

First in a new series that could be really good, but again, I had formatting issues I can’t get past.  It’s a PDF with a watermark across every page that says something like “DO NOT REPRODUCE OR WE WILL COME AFTER YOU”.  The watermark is okay, but a PDF on a Kindle is annoying because I have to keep resizing the pages.  I tried to convert it to a readable Kindle format (Amazon tells you how), and that process put the words from the watermark into the text of the book.  But not in one sentence on each page, no.  No, it broke up the watermark sentence and inserted the individual words into the text, making the actual book unreadable because it made no sense.  I would like to read this book, but I’ll get it from the library or something.  I’m not going to get it done in time for Hugo voting.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, gave up, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, magic, Poison War, source: Hugo Awards

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee

July 5, 2020 by Zannah Leave a Comment

Started: 7/5/20
Gave up: 7/5/20

13-year-old goes to space to rescue her older brother, and I am not in the mood.  The writing is good, the premise is good, but the formatting on my Kindle is atrocious (it’s a converted PDF), and the mind of this 13-year-old is not as comfortable to live in as the mind of the 12-year-old wizard was (from my last book).  I’d like to come back to this later, but I’m not going to finish it in time for Hugo voting.

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Posted in: What I've Been Reading Tagged: ebook, fantasy, gave up, Hugo nominee, Hugo packet, magic, SF, source: Hugo Awards, space, YA
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