Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Becky Chambers’ first novella in the MONK AND ROBOT series, A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021), is a lovely and optimistic tale of a tea monk who, while seeking an answer to the question of “What am I looking for?” meets a robot looking for an answer to the question of “What do you need, and how can I help?” More generally, the robot is trying to answer the question of what all people need,
July 15th, 2021. Jana Nyman´s rating: 5 | Becky Chambers | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Rock Eaters by Brenda Peynado
It has been quite a while since I’ve read a collection of short stories that so completely and consistently won me over. I’m typically satisfied if roughly half the stories in a collection work for me and thrilled if three-quarters do. But Brenda Peynado hit it out of the ballpark with The Rock Eaters, with stories that range almost entirely from good (a few) to excellent (most) to wonderfully, lingeringly strange and powerful (many). It’s easily the best story collection I’ve read in years,
July 6th, 2021. Bill Capossere´s rating: 5 | Brenda Peynado | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
Seven of Infinities by Aliette de Bodard
Vân opens the front door to her room to see that the avatar for the mindship The Wild Orchid in Sunless Woods is in the common access area used by Vân and her student, Uyên. Sunless Woods is there to tell Vân that the poetry club in which they are both members is considering ousting Vân on the grounds that she is “commonplace” and “vulgar,” limited by her birth into poverty rather than as a privileged member of the scholarly and wealthy class.
June 18th, 2021. Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | Aliette De_Bodard | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
In this week’s SHORTS column we wrap up our reviews of most of the 2021 Locus and Hugo award finalists in the novelette and short story categories.
“50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know” by Ken Liu (2020, free at Uncanny magazine)
One eventually gets the list the titles implies, but first the story opens with an obituary of the list’s author — “WHEEP-3 (‘Dr. Weep’), probably the most renowned AI AI-critic of the last two decades.” The obit explains how WHEEP was created/trained by Dr.
June 17th, 2021. Bill Capossere, Kat Hooper, Kelly Lasiter, Tadiana Jones and Terry Weyna | Aliette De_Bodard, Alix E. Harrow, Catherynne M. Valente, JY Yang, Ken Liu, Sofia Samatar | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
A couple of years ago I read Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife (2018) which was a finalist for the Locus Award in 2019. Set in a wealthy suburb, the story was a promoted as a “modern retelling of Beowulf” and told from the perspectives of the mothers. I admired this novel and was therefore eager to read Headley’s new translation of Beowulf which also happens to be a Locus Award finalist in the Horror category this year.
June 16th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Maria Dahvana Headley | Audio, Horror, Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
This week’s SHORTS column features some of the 2021 Locus and Hugo award finalists in the novelette and short story categories.
“Wait for Night” by Stephen Graham Jones (2020, free at Tor.com)
Chessup is a day laborer working as part of a crew outside of Boulder, Colorado, helping to clean up a creek that was filled with trash in the aftermath of a flood. At the end of the day, looking to borrow a battery from the crew’s bulldozer to jumpstart his old car, Chessup finds something very old tangled up in the roots of a tree that the bulldozer had pulled down.
June 10th, 2021. Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper | Ken Liu, Naomi Kritzer, Stephen Graham Jones, Yoon Ha Lee | Audio, Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
After being betrothed to a man she doesn’t love and watching her secret lover, Beatriz, get hanged for aberrant behavior and possession of unapproved reading materials, Esther decides to run away. So she hides herself in the wagon of the traveling Librarians, the distributors of all approved reading materials, who are passing through her town.
When the stowaway is discovered, Esther attempts to convince the librarians that she always wanted to be one of them but, in reality, she is hoping their good morals and upright behavior will rub off on her so she will no longer feel deviant.
May 28th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Sarah Gailey | Audio, Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 10 comments |
Tochi Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby (2020), a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo Awards for Best Novella, is a mind-expanding story about growing up Black in America. Kevin, the titular “riot baby,” was born in South Central Los Angeles during the riots of 1992 which were sparked by the acquittal of the LAPD officers who beat Rodney King after a traffic stop turned into a high-speed chase.
Before Kevin is born, Onyebuchi sets the scene by introducing Ella,
May 24th, 2021. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Tochi Onyebuchi | Audio, Short Fiction, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
This week’s SHORTS column features some of the 2020 Nebula and 2021 Locus and Hugo award finalists in the novella, novelette, and short story categories.
“A Guide for Working Breeds” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (2020, free at Tor.com, originally published in Made to Order: Robots and Revolution)
This is an absolutely delightful story! A grumpy robot, Constant Killer, who makes a living by engaging in robot deathmatch and assassination games, is obliged to mentor a chirpy, innocent new robot who is having problems with its life,
May 20th, 2021. Tadiana Jones, Kat Hooper, Kelly Lasiter, Bill Capossere and Terry Weyna | Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Sarah Pinsker | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 7 comments |
If you’ve ever gotten frustrated wandering through the endless maze of rooms that is IKEA, it’s not hard to imagine that there are hidden passages that lead, not to a secret shortcut to an exit, but to another world entirely. Nino Cipri’s Nebula Award-nominated novella Finna (2020) takes that concept and adds to it a timely set of social concerns, ranging from gender identity to the evils of capitalism generally and low-wage retail jobs in particular.
Ava is a sales associate at LitenVärld (Swedish for “small world”),
April 20th, 2021. Tadiana Jones and Jana Nyman´s rating: 3, 4 | Nino Cipri | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
COMMENT Book #3 of this trilogy is very much a heist story, and I quite enjoyed it!
Pirate stories and heist stories... Do we ever get enough of them?
Very interesting, Ulrich! Thanks for clueing me in!
So happy to hear that you enjoyed this article, Spacewaves! It was something of a labor of love for me,…
I absolutely loved this exploration of Edwige Fenech's contributions to the giallo genre! Her unique blend of charm and thriller…