The Best of Lightspeed 2019

written by David Steffen

Lightspeed Magazine is the award-nominated science fiction magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, and their podcast is  produced by the excellent Skyboat Media.  They publish about half of the stories they publish in text.  They published about 48 stories in the podcast.

The stories eligible for the upcoming award season are marked with an asterisk (*), with novelettes eligible for the season marked with a double asterisk (**).

The List

1. “Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire, narrated by Justine Eyre
Great tech invention that revolves around a translation program that seamlessly translates a person’s language including body language into your native language so that you can’t even tell that they are not doing it (including, i.e., sign language)

2. “Her Appetite, His Heart” by Dominica Phetteplace, narrated by Paul Boehmer*
A man goes on a quest to find the woman he broke up with a year ago after having a revelation. But she is not as easy to find as he would hope.

3. “A Conch Shell’s Notes” by Shweta Adhyam, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki*
Everyone knows that everyone has a voice inside their head that lays out the great options of your life, but we never know what the voice is saying to other people.

4. “The Death of Fire Station 10” by Ray Nayler, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki*
Unlike most other buildings in the era of this story, Fire Station 10 was not born smart, it was only upgraded that way later. She has a special place in all of our hearts.

5. “Between the Dark and the Dark” by Deji Bryce Olukotun, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki**
We monitor our colonies out there for signs of degradation, including signs of cannibalistic tendencies, so that we can end a colony before it becomes a danger to them. Is it always as obvious a choice as it seems?

Honorable Mentions

“A Bad Day in Utopia” by Matthew Baker, narrated by Justine Eyre*

“A Hundred Thousand Arrows” by Ashok K. Banker, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki**

The Best of Lightspeed Magazine Podcast 2018

written by David Steffen

Lightspeed Magazine is the award-nominated science fiction magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, and their podcast is  produced by the excellent Skyboat Media.  They publish about half of the stories they publish in text.  They published about 49stories in 2017.

The stories eligible for the upcoming Hugo award season are marked with an asterisk (*), with novelettes eligible for the season marked with a double asterisk (**).

The List

1.“Under the Sea of Stars” by Seanan McGuire*
The tale of an expedition to find the truth about a family legacy.

2.“The Quiltbag” by Ashok K. Banker*
The sort of story where you’re trying to figure out what’s going on until the end.

3.“The Streets of Babel” by Adam-Troy Castro*
Cities roam the wilderness scooping up outcasts and incorporating them into themselves.

4.“Hapthorn’s Last Case” by Matthew Hughes**
Another in the Kaslo Chronicles series, this one a mystery story.

5.“A Love Story Written on Water” by Ashok K. Banker**
A tale of immortal beings sent to be born into humans bodies in the mortal world.

Honorable Mentions

“From the Root” by Emma Törzs*

“The Last To Matter” by Adam-Troy Castro**

“What is Eve?” by Will McIntosh



REVIEW: Hugo Novella Finalists

written by David Steffen

The Hugo Awards Best Novella category covers stories between 17,500 and 40,000 words.  See here for a full list of the nominees this year.  I enjoyed all of the novellas this year, I’m glad that the Hugos use instant-runoff voting so I can give some kind of vote for them all instead of just having to pick one!

1. “And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017)

A Sarah Pinsker from an alternate reality has discovered how to travel to alternate realities.  One of the first actions this alternate Sarah Pinsker performs is to organize the first SarahCon, attended entirely by Sarah Pinskers of various realities.  This Sarah (an insurance adjuster) grudgingly decides to attend, where she meets hundreds of herselves and is just starting to figure out how to navigate the odd social situation of talking to all these other Sarahs, when a dead body is discovered, apparently a murder, and this Sarah Pinsker is the closest Sarah available to one with detective experience while they wait for the authorities to arrive on the island of the convention.  The victim is Sarah Pinsker.  Pretty much all of the suspects and potential witnesses are Sarah Pinsker.  And Sarah Pinsker is on the case.

This story was wonderful and fun and delightful and hilarious.  There was plenty of humor inherent in the situation, but the murder mystery is played straight–it has all of the components you expect from a murder mystery, except that the scenario adds a bizarre twist to the situation that both complicates (because it’s hard to even tell the people apart) and simplifies (because Sarah has a better understanding of the suspects than she would if they were entirely separate people) the investigation.  This lends itself to the story taking some turns that would only make sense in this very specific situation.  Highly recommended, I have been recommending this to anyone who has asked me what I’m reading.

2. River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)

This was previously reviewed at greater length here last year.

Usually alternate history is used to explore the consequences of major political or military events turning out differently.  But sometimes, it can just be used as a reason to tell a Western story about hippo-riding cowboys in Louisiana (alt history because there was an early 20th century proposal to import hippos to raise them for meat).

Winslow Houndstooth had been happy as a hippo rancher until his ranch was burned to the ground.  Now Houndstooth is a hired hand, and he’s accepted a job from the government to clear all of the feral hippos out of the Mississippi, and he also has revenge on his mind to get back at the one who destroyed his ranch.

This is so much fun, very much a western style story but with the significant added wrinkle that their mounts/cattle can bite them in half.  The story is told straight, so the hippos aren’t used for comedy, but that just makes it all the more fun.  It has the feel of a heist sort of story, with Winslow as the leader gathering skilled specialists to perform the seemingly impossible mission.

3. Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)

Jacqueline and Jillian are twin sisters, weighed under the heavy burden of parental expectations.  Every aspect of what they do and how they present to the world is defined by their parents who wanted the perfect boy and the perfect girl.  Jacqueline is the perfect princess of a girl, never dirty, never impolite, while Jillian is a tomboy who excels at athletics and never does things that might be considered girlish.  When they’re thirteen the girls discover a portal into another world in their house and they travel through it, to a land protected and contained by a vampire and a mad doctor who can raise corpses from the dead.  Portal visitors are a common occurrence here, and due to a prior arrangement, the girls each go into the custody of one of these powerful men and must make their way in this strange world until they can find a doorway home.

This ties into McGuire’s Wayward Children series, but you don’t need any familiarity with the series to read this–it works just fine as a standalone.  It is built largely on the audience expectations of portal stories, so if (like me) those are a particular favorite, you’ll be well-primed for this.  The characters are both well-portayed as real people as well as larger than life in some ways because they are constantly being pushed into boundaries that generally do not fit them.  It’s a story of what makes each of us different from the others, and how our environments and constraints on our behavior end up defining much of who we are.  It’s also a tale of sisterhood coming from a family that didn’t exactly nurture their relationship, thrown into adversity of a strange world.  Well worth the read.

4. All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)

The security android (SecBot for short) calls itself Murderbot, but only in the privacy of its own head.  It’s part robot part human, property of the Company, on security detail with a group of humans surveying a planet for resources.  Unbeknownst to its crew, it has successfully hacked its governor module that is supposed to keep it safe and limit its behavior to only those things necessary for its security duties.  But, really, it uses most of that freedom to download and watch entertainment vids in every moment of spare time.  Its current crew is disconcertingly friendly, which is bothersome when it really just wants to be left alone to watch its shows.  When a series of things go wrong with the surveying mission, it’s not clear if its due to the Company’s cut-rate equipment or if someone is sabotaging them.  But Murderbot’s vid-watching has (surprisingly) prepared it for unexpected situations more than its actual functional programming, and if it wants to survive it’s going to have to help its crew get out of this.

Murderbot is a fun and charming character in its own way.  While some parts of its personality are far from mine (a casual attitude toward violence, but that’s inherent in its programming) I think its character is particularly appealing for introverts who may find friendliness from others alarming at times.  Murderbot is a very competent character and it’s a solid action story, but the biggest charm of it for me was just enjoying the kind of odd personality traits, different from most human characters in stories but also different from most robot characters in stories.  Fun, and the first of a series.

5. Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)

The original Binti was reviewed here as part of the Hugo Novella Review in 2016.  Binti: Home is the second story in the series.

Binti is the first human from the Himba culture to travel to the stars where she is attending Oomza University, where she is learning to refine her skill for mentally manipulating magical formulas.  The first story told of the tragic happenings of her trip where she was the sole survivor of an attack by the jellyfish-like Meduse and went on to help forge a peace between humans and Meduse, and in the process was physically changed so that her braids became like a Meduse’s tentacles, able to move of their own volition.  Now she is returning home to Earth to her family to go on a pilgrimage during her break in her schooling, and she’s bringing her Meduse friend Okwu with her.  With the truce with the Meduse still fresh and tentative, and with Binti changed dramatically by her new experiences since leaving home, she doesn’t know how her family and culture will receive her.

Solid story, and I like following Binti as much as the first time.  The first book took place mostly off-Earth so you didn’t get to see much of Binti’s home or her culture directly.  This story takes place almost entirely here, we get to know her family and her background better.  This story is the second in what I think will be a trilogy and it does feel like that–it is clearly building FROM something, and clearly building TO something where it will go next, but as itself I wanted to get the rest of the story–I will be excited to read the third story.  I would recommend not starting the series with this book–I don’t think you’ll get everything out of it if you haven’t seen Binti’s path so far, and the previous conflict with the Meduse and the beginning of the truce.

6. The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)

Mokoya and Akeha are the twin children of the Protector, sold to the Monastery at birth.  Mokoya is plagued by visions of the future that can’t be changed, and Akeha is drawn to political revolution.  The Machinist rebellion is growing, the power of technology growing quickly and threatening the iron rule of the Protectorate and their soldiers, and both of the siblings see the terrible things their mother does to maintain her rule.  They must make decisions about where their loyalties lie and where their abilities are best used.

This story ties into the author’s Tensorate series, and was dual-released with another novella in the same universe The Red Threads of Fortune, but it works as a standalone–you don’t need any prior knowledge of the characters or universe to be able to follow the story.  I haven’t read the related novella or the other books in the series, but I enjoyed getting to know the twins and their relationship with each other.  What I found particularly interesting was some of the cultural details, especially how children are not considered a specific gender until they’re old enough to decide their gender for themselves, and how Tensorate magic is used to facilitate this process–although parts of living under Protectorate rule seem oppressive, this particular aspect was positive and interesting.

 

Long List Anthology Volume 3 Kickstarter

written by David Steffen

The Kickstarter for the Long List Anthology Volume 3 is launched as of this morning!  This is the third in a series of anthologies collecting works from the longer list of works that got a lot of Hugo Award nomination votes from the fans.

The art this year is a lovely piece by Amanda Makepeace.

 

The stories lined up are:

Short Stories (base goal)

  • “Lullaby for a Lost World” by Aliette de Bodard
  • “A Salvaging of Ghosts” by Aliette de Bodard
  • “Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands” by Seanan McGuire
  • “Things With Beards” by Sam J. Miller
  • “Red in Tooth and Cog” by Cat Rambo
  • “Terminal” by Lavie Tidhar
  • “Razorback” by Ursula Vernon
  • “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0” by Caroline M. Yoachim

Novelettes (stretch goal)  

  • “A Dead Djinn in Cairo” by P. Djèlí Clark
  • “Red as Blood and White as Bone” by Theodora Goss
  • “The Venus Effect” by Joseph Allen Hill
  • “Foxfire, Foxfire” by Yoon Ha Lee
  • “The Visitor From Taured” by Ian R. MacLeod
  • “Sooner or Later, Everything Falls Into the Sea” by Sarah Pinsker
  • “Blood Grains Speak Through Memories” by Jason Sanford

Novellas (stretch goal) 

  • “Runtime” by S.B. Divya
  • “Chimera” by Gu Shi, translated by S. Qiouyi Lu and Ken Liu
  • “Forest of Memory” by Mary Robinette Kowal

 

I hope you are as excited as I am!  Thank you for your support!

 

Long List Anthology Vol 2 Kickstarter!

written by David Steffen

long-list-antho-cover-art-color-comp-lg-1The Kickstarter has been launched for the Long List Anthology Volume 2!

Same premise as last year, to put together an anthology of works from the longer Hugo Award nomination list.  This year, Galen Dara has been commissioned for original cover art–the art at the top of the post is not the final version, it is a color proof of the art, but the final version will be shared as soon as possible.

Check out the rewards, besides copies of the books there are critiques from Martin L. Shoemaker, Sunil Patel, Erica Satifka and myself.

Check out the Kickstarter page for additional information, but here’s the list of the stories that will be included if funding levels are reached.

Short Stories and Letters (base goal)

  • “Three Cups of Grief, By Starlight” by Aliette de Bodard
  • “Madeleine” by Amal El-Mohtar
  • “Pockets” by Amal El-Mohtar
  • “Tuesdays With Molakesh the Destroyer” by Megan Grey
  • “The Women You Didn’t See” by Nicola Griffith (a letter from Letters to Tiptree)
  • “Damage” by David D. Levine
  • “Neat Things” by Seanan McGuire (a letter from Letters To Tiptree)
  • “Today I Am Paul” by Martin L. Shoemaker
  • “Pocosin” by Ursula Vernon
  • “Wooden Feathers” by Ursula Vernon
  • “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong

Novelettes (stretch goal at $3900)

  • “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson” by Elizabeth Bear
  • “So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer
  • “Another Word For World” by Ann Leckie
  • “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” by Rose Lemberg
  • “The Deepwater Bride” by Tamsyn Muir
  • “The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild” by Catherynne M. Valente
  • Up to 1 other

Novellas (stretch goal at $5000)

  • “The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn” by Usman T. Malik
  • “The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps” by Kai Ashante Wilson

The Best of Nightmare Podcast

written by David Steffen

Nightmare Magazine is the sister magazine of Hugo-winning Lightspeed Magazine, launched by editor/publisher John Joseph Adams just in time for Halloween 2012. If you don’t know who John Joseph Adams is, you haven’t been paying much attention to short SF in recent years. Besides Lightspeed, he’s probably best known for his themed anthologies.

Nightmare publishes four stories a month–two original stories and two reprints. Half of those stories are published on the podcast. My list here is only taken from the podcast, so if you like what you hear, there’s twice as many stories as I made this list from in text on the website or in ebook format.

Nightmare ran a Women Destroy Horror Month in October 2014, featuring all women staff and all women authors–this was a stretch goal of the supremely popular fundraiser Women Destroy Science Fiction project.

Like its sister magazine, Nightmare is produced by Skyboat Media Company Inc which is spearheaded by the superb voice actors Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Ridnicki

 

The List

1. “Centipede Heartbeat” by Caspian Gray
Woman is certain her wife’s insides are crawling with invading centipedes. But what to do about it?

2. “We Now Pause for Station Identification” by Gary A. Braunbeck
A broadcast from a station after the end of the world, sending out just a little bit of civilization to… probably nobody. One of those episodes where the voice acting turns it from a good story to really incredible, voicework by Stefan Ridnicki.

3. “Spores” by Seanan McGuire
This one could bring out the OCD in anyone.

4. “The Black Window” by Lane Robins
Mysterious opaque attic portal. Nuff said.

5. “Property Condemned” by Jonathan Maberry
Haunted house story linking childhood to adulthood–format kind of familiar, but well done.

6. “It Was Never the Fire” by Martin Cahill
Another one with great voice acting.

 

 

Honorable Mentions

“Bones” by Bones
There are some self-referential in-jokes in this one that you might only get if you’re a submitting writer or at least know some submitting writers–it probably wouldn’t be on my list if I weren’t one.

“10/31: Bloody Mary” by Norman Partridge

“Blackbirds” by Norman Partridge

Interview: Mur Lafferty

Mur_lafferty_headshotMur Lafferty is one of the pioneers of podcasting – founder, producer, host, voice, editor, author. She has won the Parsec Award several times. Her Shambling Guide comedy-horror series is available from Orbit.

MUR’S RAP SHEET:
Member of the Podcast Pickle Hall of Fame
One of the Top Ten Savvy Women in Podcasting, 2006
Tricks of the Podcasting Masters was named one of the top reference books for 2006 by Amazon.com.
2007 Parsec Nomination for Best Speculative Fiction Story (Short Form): I Look Forward To Remembering You
2007 Parsec Award for Best Writing Related Podcast: I Should Be Writing
2008 Parsec Award for Best Speculative Fiction Story (Novella Form): Heaven – Season Four: Wasteland
2008 Parsec Award for Best Speculative Fiction Story (Long Form): Playing for Keeps
2010 Parsec Nomination for Best Speculative Fiction Story (Novella Form): Heaven – Season Five: War
2011 Parsec Nomination for Best Speculative Fiction Story (Novella Form): Marco and the Red Granny
2012 Nomination for John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
2013 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

 

Lafferty_ShamblingGuide2F8-1-200x300CARL SLAUGHTER: You’re one of the pioneers of podcasting. Geek Fu Action Grip, Wingin’ It, I Should Be Writing, Mad Science with the Princess Scientist, Angry Robot Books, Pseudopod, Escape Pod. Did I miss any?

MUR LAFFERTY: Almost! I did the Lulu Podcast and This Day in Alternate History back in 2007.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: How did you get involved in each of these projects and what significant happened while you were there?

MUR LAFFERTY: I’m not sure what significant things happened- I was simply interested in podcasting and I became part of the podcasting community where I met Michael and Evo of Dragon Page, and Steve Eley of Escape Pod. My communications with them had me working on Wingin’ It and the Pseudopod and Escape Pod, and editor Lee Harris was a listener of mine for I Should Be Writing and he asked me to do the Angry Robot show.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: You recently returned to Escape Pod. In what capacity?

MUR LAFFERTY: I’m Editor at Large for Escape Artists, which means I am co-editing Escape Pod with Norm Sherman, but I have some other duties that will be apparent in future months.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: I Should Be Writing is your longest running podcast. How many episodes have there been? What topics have you discussed? Who have you interviewed?

MUR LAFFERTY: Probably around 400 to 500 total. I have video, special eps, and some premium content for people who have supported me for years. I talk mainly about the anxieties that can stop new writers, and how to work past them. I’ve interviewed Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, NK Jemisin, and, coming up, Seanan McGuire and Charlaine Harris.

 

Mur_lafferty-300x198CARL SLAUGHTER: Who is the Princess Scientist, what are the science topics, and how mad is the science?

MUR LAFFERTY: She’s my 11 year old daughter, we do science experiments around a theme via video. We’ve done sun science and baking soda science.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: Whose idea was it to launch the Parsec Award? Who was involved?

MUR LAFFERTY: I thought SF podcasting needed an award, since podcasting awards started coming on the scene in 2005, but no one was recognizing the geeky section of shows. I got together with Michael R. Menenga and Tracy Hickman and we launched the award.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: You carved out a fiction career for yourself in podcasting before you broke into print. How does an author get podcasted without getting published first? Is it easier to get a story published after it’s been podcasted? Is it easier to break into print after you’ve been podcasted?

MUR LAFFERTY: Publishing fiction via podcast is a DIY endeavor – an author doesn’t “get” podcasted, she does it herself. As for easier, I don’t think so. Like all self publishing, if something is a huge hit, publishers may take notice, but if it’s not, then publishers will consider it already published and not worth their time. One thing podcasting will give you is an audience which can make you more attractive to publishers, but ultimately you have to have a good book.

 

Lafferty_GhostTraintoNOLA-TP-200x300CARL SLAUGHTER: Suppose someone wanted to launch a podcast. How much money would they need to raise? What would they need in the way of recording equipment and web resources? What would they need in terms of personnel?

MUR LAFFERTY: I think you’re thinking bigger than I’ve ever been! You can launch a podcast with a $20 mic and some web space, which can be $120 a year. You don’t need a group to do it, the biggest thing is make sure you have a host with plenty of bandwidth so, if you get popular, you don’t get hit with a huge server bill.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: Anything else an aspiring podcaster needs to know?

MUR LAFFERTY: You will hate your voice and your first few shows will likely suck. It happens to everyone. Don’t let it stop you.

 

Carl_eagleCarl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

Hugo Novel Review: Parasite by Mira Grant

written by David Steffen

In the near future, The American medical corporation Symbogen releases a product that dramatically changes the medical industry–the Intestinal Bodyguard, a a genetically engineered tapeworm that manages most of your medical needs, including suppressing allergic reactions, and producing insulin for diabetics. Within a few years, the tapeworm implants are so ubiquitous, you would be hard pressed to find an American who doesn’t have one, and cheaper models have even become popular in third world countries where they help keep people healthy who have never known good health. They are the universal cure-all elixir. There can be no doubt that they have all the marvelous effects that are claimed–these are well documented. What may not be so well documented are the side effects that may come with that little traveling companion in your gut.

Sally Mitchell owes her life to the parasite, even more than most. She was involved in a terrible car accident, after which the doctors pronounced her permenantly braindead and urged her parents to remove her from life support. During that very discussion, she wakes up. She suffered from complete memory loss, to such an extent she had to relearn how to speak from scratch and had no memory of her previous life. Lacking memories of her old life, she became a completely different person but one who has learned to be completely functional within a few years, even holding down a job. She has to live with her parents and must make regular visits to Symbogen for them to study her condition further.

Symbogen’s interest in her has only increased with the recent increase in reports of the “sleeping sickness” which seems to be related to the parasites. Those afflicted with the sleeping sickness take on a state like sleepwalking without warning, even when they hadn’t been sleeping. And, sometimes, these sleepwalkers can be dangerous.

I’ve been looking forward to this novel, the first in the Parasitology trilogy, since I saw it on the Hugo list–the complete novel didn’t end up being in the Hugo packet, but I was able to get a review copy. I haven’t been familiar with Mira Grant’s (aka Seanan McGuire’s) for very long, but she’s gotten several award nominations these past few years that I’ve been following the award closely and her work has been good enough that I was very interested in reading a novel by her.

I thought that this was a solid novel, good through and through. I found Sal Mitchell a very relatable and interesting character, in a very interesting situation. She has learned enough language to be able to communicate fluently, but the youngness of her mind is clear in her spotty education on expressions and colloquialisms, and when she is lacking in some of the social norms that we generally take for granted. Her relationship with her boyfriend (Nathan Kim) is certainly not the point of the book, but was probably the part I enjoyed the most–a great example of a mutually supported relationship tuned to the individual people in it. All of the characters in the book were completely believable, even the ones with less savory aspects. I could believe everything in this book could really happen. Some of the characters gave me a strong enough impression that I had Hollywood actors picked out for their movie portrayals–for those reading along, I pictured Andy Serkis as Sherman and Ben Kingsley as Colonel Mitchell (Sally’s father).

Although this book has been billed as horror, I didn’t find it terribly horrific. Of course with tapeworm implants being a major factor there is potential that some might get grossed out by those parts, but I didn’t think anything was going for a squick factor in that. I think it would do just as well with a general SF audience, unless you’re particularly sensitive to the idea of the tapeworms, in which case you probably haven’t read this far anyway.

My first complaint is that there was a twist reveal late in the book that perplexed me a bit because I thought the knowledge given in the reveal had been a foregone conclusion since page 1 of the book. Understandably, that is from my perspective as a lifetime SF fan looking in from the outside of the situation, so it’s understandable if people in the actual story wouldn’t see it right away, but I thought there was enough evidence even within the story itself that some of them should’ve figured this reveal out long before it was handed to them–that was the one area where the characters didn’t behave as I thought they would.

My second complaint, admittedly a minor one, is that this doesn’t stand alone as a single book. My favorite series are those where each book is its own complete arc while also being part of the larger arc of the series. That’s not the case here–rather than resolving anything at the end, several more cans of worms are opened and then the book is over. Of course, wanting a full arc per book is a personal preference and certainly not a requirement of a writer.

I would highly recommend this book, and I eagerly await reading the second and third books in the series.

Review: Hugo Novelette Nominees 2013

written by David Steffen

And on to the Novelette, the awkward older sibling of the Short Story category. Stories from 7,500-17,500 and voted by fans. A decent batch of stories here! And unlike the Short Story category this year, we got a nice round 5 of them (which means it might’ve been less contested than that category, no doubt in part due to the difficulty of getting longer short stories published).

 

Hugo Award for Best Novelette

1. In Sea-Salt Tears by Seanan McGuire (Self-published)
Selkies live a life that is both blessed and cursed. They love the ocean, but each Selkie is born without the Selkie skin that allows them to turn to seals. This is their blessing, for with a skin they can swim in the ocean as naturally as if they were born there, and be one with the tide and the current. This is their curse, because there are a limited number of Selkie-skins, much more than there are Selkies. You can only have a skin if you are given one by someone else who wishes to give it up. So Selkies are doomed to live a life of longing, wishing for something which they can’t have unless they are given it. This is the story of a Selkie named Liz who has been passed over for Skin inheritance time and time again, and who falls in love with the sea witch.

As the writers of 500 Days of Summer so aptly put it “This is not a love story. This is a story about love.” Which is to say, this is no rom-com where happiness is inevitable after some madcap hijinx involving a last-minute reunion at an airport. This feels like the real thing, because it is not idealized or idolized, it is what it is.

Well done, Seanan McGuire.

 

2. The Boy Who Cast No Shadow by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts: Unfit For Eden, PS Publications)
“Look” is the titular boy who casts no shadow. He does not even cast shadows upon himself, so he lacks the shading that gives our face their visual depth. He also does not appear in reflections or video recordings, and he’s become a celebrity due to unphotogenic nature. But overall he’s still just a normal teenager. He makes friends with Splinter, a boy who’s made of glass who is nothing but reflection where Look has no reflection. Splinter’s parents, understandably, are very protective of their boy, because he is so fragile.

It took me a little while to get into the story, while Look monologues about the nature of his condition. But it hooked me a little while later when the focus becomes his bond with Splinter. Really, I thought Splinter the much more interesting character and I thought he should’ve been the one the story was named after. Splinter wants so badly to experience life fully but his parents don’t allow it. Together with Look, he tries to expand his horizons. In a way this reminded me of the type of movie/book (and I’ve seen a few) where a person discovers they have terminal cancer and try to live their life to fullest because they know they don’t have long. This was a little different in that Splinter could live a long life if he’s careful, but he wants to really experience things. This story is about him making that choice for himself.

 

3. Rat-Catcher by Seanan McGuire (A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean)
The year is 1666 and Rand is a prince of the Cait Sidhe (a type of Fae who can shift into cats) who does his best to avoid confrontation with his father and others. But when he hears a prophecy of the simultaneous destruction of London and Londinium (the Fae counterpart to the English city), he must leave his comfort zone and do everything he can to save his family and his people.

This story was entertaining enough, with plot and character and stakes that I could root for. The details of the Fae in this particular universe were interesting and made me want to know more. It seemed like this story was barely get started when everything resolved very quickly in the end. I would like to read a longer story about this character and this place. It’s a good sign when a story leaves me wanting more, but I would’ve like if this story had been a little meaty as well.

 

4. The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi by Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity, Solaris)
Humankind is spread across the solar system, but it doesn’t all look like it used to. The natural human form is not well-suited to long occupancy in space or other planets, so we have developed the technology to make drastic and irreversible body modifications to bodies better suited to the environment. The story takes place around Jupiter. The “Girl-Thing” of the title is an old-fashioned human working among the “sushi” that are body-modded people. She has made the decision to “go out for sushi” meaning that she has decided that she will go through the body mods.

This one definitely kept me paying attention from the beginning because it dives right into future lingo head first. It doesn’t ease you into it, but neither does it go at a pace so fast that it’s incomprehensible. As a linguistic puzzle, it’s very entertaining. By the end I could understand the lingo for the most part.

But, perhaps due to the careful pacing chosen to allow the lingo to be understood, when I think back on the story the events themselves aren’t all that compelling to me. Things happened, for sure, but those things seemed to happen in a rush at the end as if Cadigan were running out of space and just tried to cram them in. I think this one could’ve used a little more room to expand so that there would still be space for the lingo to be explored, but then could go through the events themselves at a pace that let them have more impact. So, while it wasn’t a bad story, it wasn’t spectacular either. Fair-to-middlin’, I’d say.

 

5. Fade to White by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld, August 2012)
Joseph McCarthy has become President of the United States and life is good for everyone. Yes it is good, as defined by the goodness measures laid down by President McCarthy, everything from the war effort to the structure of the family unit. Never mind the radiation and the widespread impotence or the government choosing your occupation. The story is told as alternating propoganda videos by the McCarthy administration and two children who are trying to find their place in this world.

I felt like I should like this story. For those who may not know, Joseph McCarthy was the US Senator who singlehandedly started the Red Scare, lying his ass off to convince people that Communists were infiltrating us, thousands of spies acting as normal American families. Anyone could be a Communist spy, and you had to keep vigilant and report the slightest odd behavior. But McCarthy never showed any evidence of this in our world, and eventually was disgraced because everyone came to the conclusion he was lying.

McCarthy as President is a great premise for a dystopian future. Even I (who generally doesn’t have interest in politics) can’t help but extrapolate from that basic premise to something really terrible.

I generally liked the sections of this story that were told as editing notes on propoganda tapes. I’ve always liked stories that felt like “found” documents, and this had that feel. The propoganda feel gives an uneasy overpatriotic ring to this part of the story, very creepy.

But the “honestly” told parts of the story bothered me. I mean, bothered me in a way that meant I didn’t like it rather than the seat-squirming involvement in the propoganda sections. I’m having trouble putting my finger on exactly why, but it meant that I didn’t like the story in the end. The closest I’m able to put it to words at this moment is that the “honestly” told parts of the story felt somehow even less genuine than the things that were clearly meant as propoganda. The over-the-top propoganda videos seemed to have been meant as a cautionary tale, and these other sections were meant to show the real life behind the propoganda, a life that isn’t so great. But to me these other sections didn’t ring true, to the point that they feel like propoganda directed at me and authored by Valente, using the obvious propoganda to try to drive me toward believing the other part is authentic when it really just felt like a more subtle propoganda to me. And, I mean, the main message I can detect there isn’t a bad one, that McCarthyism is a scary thing and that it’s a good thing that it didn’t sweep the American mindset and stay there. But the way that it’s told makes me want to distrust every part of the story as more propoganda, and that means that everything is so disingenuous to my gut feelings that there’s nothing of meaning here to me. In the end, this story just ended up just leaving me irritated.