Started: 8/11/22
Finished: 8/11/22
Short story by an author I LOVE, and I LOVED this story. The premise is that the lyrics to a traditional ballad are posted online, and the action happens in the comments. It’s great, and everyone should read it. (Also, it won the Hugo Award for short stories this year.)
Started: 8/2/22
Finished: 8/6/22
I love Suzanne Palmer’s bot stories, and she won a Hugo for this one, too. It’s a sequel to her previous bot short story, The Secret Life of Bots. Links to both!
Secret Life of Bots: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/palmer_09_17/
Bots of the Lost Ark: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/palmer_06_21/
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.
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.
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.
Started: 5/19/20
Finished: 5/23/20
LOVE the author, so excited about this book, and it was good! Young adult, but with realistic teenagers (thank goodness), near-future tech, but not about the tech. It’s a thriller, and a good one.
Started: 2/29/20
Finished: 3/19/20
First book in a new series, and I nominated it for a Hugo before I finished it. Big space empire, with an ambassador from a little space station, who has really neat advanced tech and has to navigate a complex imperial language with cool linguistic details. A lot of stuff was introduced and much of it didn’t get far – I think this is going to be a big series, and I’m super excited. Not so much about the wait, but I’ll live.
Started: 2/7/19
Finished: 2/14/19
I liked the opening framing device more than I liked the rest of the story, although it was interesting. I didn’t love it – I feel like there were so many more stories to tell here, and the one tertiary story the author included basically only had an end. It was missing the beginning and the middle, which took all of the emotion (which I was clearly supposed to feel) out of it.
Started: 7/5/18
Finished: 7/5/18
Cute story (novelette) about robots when people aren’t around.
Started: 7/3/18
Finished: 7/3/18
Sad but really good short story about remaining true to and also exploiting Native American history.
Started: 6/15/18
Finished: 6/16/18
Young adult novella, set in a future with tech that looks like magic. A young woman belongs to an insular African village and leaves it (runs away?) to go to an interstellar university. The first in a trilogy. SO GOOD.
Started: 1/1/18
Finished: 1/2/18
First novella in The Murderbot Diaries series. Grabbed me from the first sentence and kept me interested the whole way through.