Back in March, a blogger friend advised me to read Sarah Gailey’s STET, which immediately became one of the best short stories I’d ever read. Ever since then, I’ve been looking for an excuse to read more of their work, and while a queerphobic dystopia styled after the Old West probably wouldn’t have been my… Continue reading Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novella Review: Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
Tade Thompson’s first contact novel Rosewater was released by a small press in 2016 and quickly generated enough attention for a Nommo Award and an acquisition by Orbit, who rereleased the book in 2018 in advance of the trilogy continuing with a pair of 2019 installments. Like so many highly-praised novels, it’s been on my… Continue reading Science Fiction Novel Review: Rosewater by Tade Thompson
One of my reading goals this year was to read more short fiction. Way back in January, I set myself a goal of 75 short stories or novelettes in a year, with a stretch goal of 150. In mid-June, I’m at 88, well on my way to exceeding even my stretch goal. And I’ve found… Continue reading Mid-Year Check-in: Best SFF Short Fiction
After reading and loving A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, I resolved to read more of T. Kingfisher (an alias of Ursula Vernon), a remarkably versatile writer with acclaimed children’s books, horror novels, fantasy romances, and fairy tale retellings. The Hollow Places may mark the first time I’ve ever read a novel primarily marketed as… Continue reading Fantasy/Horror Novel Review: The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
The Vanished Birds is another book that I didn’t know much about before award nominations came out, but Simon Jimenez was nominated for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer on the strength of this debut, so I thought it was well worth a shot. Before starting, I had heard that The Vanished Birds was… Continue reading Science Fiction Novel Review: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez
New Murderbot installments are a must-read for me at this point, even if Fugitive Telemetry–the sixth entry in Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries—was a one-off novella that didn’t continue after the events of last year’s novel. And, as usual, I was not disappointed. Fugitive Telemetry, despite being sixth in publication order, takes place between the… Continue reading Science Fiction Novella Review: Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells
Leigh Bardugo may be the most popular author I’ve read in several years, with her hit Shadow and Bone Trilogy garnering a huge fanbase and ultimately resulting in a Netflix adaptation. But for all its popularity, Shadow and Bone is almost universally–at least in my circles–considered inferior to a later work in the same universe:… Continue reading Fantasy Duology Review: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
A new baby this month meant that reading was a bit on the sporadic side (and I think the new baby fatigue may be partially responsible for the dearth of five-star ratings, with apologies to the stories that were on the borderline), but there was still a lot of good in May’s reading, including the… Continue reading May 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus
My journey through the 2021 Hugo Award ballot continues with an evaluation of the finalists for Best Novelette. While the Best Short Story finalists were very engaging but not especially ambitious, the novelettes saw more variation in quality and a pair of finalists with aims far beyond mere entertainment. While I saw a couple finalists… Continue reading 2021 Hugo Ballot: Best Novelette
Nominations for both Hugo and Nebula Awards certainly put Finna on my radar, but I knew next-to nothing about Nino Cipri’s debut novella before reading it—in fact, I mistakenly thought that the title was a reference to the African American slang for “going to” (by way of the Southern US idiom “fixing to”) rather than… Continue reading Sci-fi/Fantasy Novella Review: Finna by Nino Cipri
