SHORTS is our regular short fiction review column (previously SFM or Short Fiction Monday). In today’s column we review several more of the 2019 Locus award nominees in the short fiction categories.
No Flight Without the Shatter by Brooke Bolander (2018, free at Tor.com; 99c Kindle version). 2019 Locus award nominee (novelette).
No Flight Without the Shatter brings together Linnea and her Aunties Ben, Dora, and Martha at the end of the world. Linnea is recognizably human,
May 24th, 2019. Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere | Brooke Bolander, Jeffrey Ford, Ken Liu, N.K. Jemisin, Theodora Goss, Ursula K. Le-Guin | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
SHORTS: Our exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few Hugo-nominated stories we’ve read recently. (Due to Mother’s Day and other life events, SHORTS appears on a Wednesday this week.)
“The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat” by Brooke Bolander (2018, free at Uncanny Magazine, $3.03 Kindle magazine issue). 2019 Hugo award nominee (short story).
I was intrigued by the title of “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters,
May 15th, 2019. Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones and Sandy Ferber | Brooke Bolander, C.L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Naomi Kritzer | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are two more reviews of recent Hugo and Nebula award-nominated stories.
“The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society” by T. Kingfisher (2018, free at Uncanny magazine, $3.03 Kindle magazine issue). 2019 Hugo award nominee (short story).
“The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society” is a charming little diversion, among a steadily-growing list of charming short works, by T. Kingfisher. This one also happens to be a 2019 Hugo Award nominee!
April 22nd, 2019. Jana Nyman and Tadiana Jones | T. Kingfisher | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few excellent stories, including two of the recently announced Hugo nominees, that we wanted you to know about.
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho (2018, free to read online or download at Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog). 2019 Hugo award winner (novelette).
If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again, by Zen Cho, is a Hugo-nominated novelette about an imugi,
April 15th, 2019. Jana Nyman, Marion Deeds and Tadiana Jones | Suzanne Palmer, T. Kingfisher, Zen Cho | Hugo Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here we review a couple of Nebula-nominated stories (one older; one newer), with a wide array of opinions from our group of reviewers on the newer story (actually, three identical ratings and one outlier). Read on!
With Unclean Hands by Adam-Troy Castro (2011, originally published in Analog magazine, $2.99 Kindle version). 2011 Nebula award nominee (novella).
Andrea Cort is a cold, damaged human being. One would think this would make her wholly unsuitable for a career in the diplomatic corps that represents humans in a universe filled with sentient species.
April 1st, 2019. Terry Weyna, Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Bill and Tadiana both weigh in on a few more of this year’s Nebula nominees (and one other excellent short story that Tadiana thinks should have been nominated), and Tadiana comments on the 20Booksto50K Nebula controversy.
“STET” by Sarah Gailey (2018, free at Fireside magazine)
“STET” is in the form of a draft of a scholarly article by a woman named Anna, in which she and her editor exchange increasingly agitated (at least on Anna’s side) written comments about the article’s references and footnotes.
March 25th, 2019. Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere | Rhett C. Bruno, Sarah Gailey, Sarah Pinsker | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. This week’s column features more of the 2018 Nebula award-nominated novelettes and short stories.
“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington” by P. Djeli Clark (Feb 2018, free at Fireside magazine). 2018 NEBULA AWARD WINNER, 2019 LOCUS AWARD WINNER (short story)
P. Djeli Clark takes the historical idea of George Washington’s teeth (not wooden, as lore has it) and creates around them a series of vignettes detailing, as the title tells us,
March 18th, 2019. Bill Capossere, Tadiana Jones and Skye Walker | Alix E. Harrow, P. Djèlí Clark | Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about, including three 2018 Nebula nominees.
“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” by Alix E. Harrow (2018, free at Apex magazine, $2.99 Kindle magazine issue). 2018 Nebula nominee (short story).
Our narrator is both a librarian and a witch (all good librarians are, she claims), and one of her joys is giving library patrons the book they “need most.” So when the black teenager with the red backpack comes into the Maysville Public Library,
March 4th, 2019. Tadiana Jones, Skye Walker and Bill Capossere | Alix E. Harrow, Lawrence M. Schoen | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
“Do Not Look Back, My Lion” by Alix E. Harrow (2019, free in Beyond Ceaseless Skies, Issue #270, Jan. 31, 2019; 99c Kindle magazine issue)
“Do Not Look Back, My Lion,” begins and ends with Eefa leaving home — she cannot bear to see her daughters and wife march to war any longer, is tired of her wife’s promises that this child (and this child and that child) will be the last marked at birth for service in the Emperor’s endless armies, is tired of being the only worshipper in the lonely Temple of Life while the Temple of Death’s “floor is gummed with the blood of hens and calves and the air is heavy with char.” Eefa,
February 18th, 2019. Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones and Bill Capossere | Alix E. Harrow, Mary Robinette Kowal | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Our weekly exploration of free and inexpensive short fiction available on the internet. Here are a few stories we’ve read that we wanted you to know about.
“Double or Nothing” by Alter S. Reiss (free at Daily Science Fiction, March 27, 2018)
A man has an android made that is an exact copy of himself, so the android can do all his work and tedious chores while the man enjoys his newfound free time. He’s actually not surprised when the android gets deeply annoyed with the system,
February 11th, 2019. Bill Capossere and Tadiana Jones | Martha Wells, Terry Bisson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Pretty challenging book. Cut by half, speed up the cadence. Trying to figure out the plot, the main point of…
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…